Lunch was plain wholesome food suitable for the grand jeu players of tomorrow, as per, but at least it was copious. Most of the class were already down there, swapping the usual Long Vacation stories. Emile had been in France for most of it (naturally, my dears!) and was regaling the others with tales of the conquests he’d made chaperoning his cousins round Paris – whereupon Matthieu tried to outdo him by announcing that he had met an obliging dairymaid (or was it a shepherdess? I forget) in the Alps and had actually lain hands on the most perfect pair of … etc. etc. Jacob (who has never quite mastered the idiom) was boasting that he’d been invited to Oxford to study. He was telling Felix about the Abacus Collection – his uncle’s the curator, he was invited to the grand jeu soirées with the best players in England, blah blah – until I said, ‘Jacob, the Abacus Collection is in Cambridge,’ and he choked a bit and went quiet. Sometimes I wonder whether any of us tells the truth about anything.
After I’d picked up my timetable – we have fewer lessons this year, to give us time to work on our games – I came back up here. As I turned the corner I caught sight of Felix outside Carfax’s room, pinning something up on the door. I paused and looked over his shoulder, and he turned and grinned at me. ‘Like it?’ he said.
It was an advert for fire extinguishers, with a picture of a burning house and two wide-eyed children loitering on the lawn, hand in hand. Why take the risk? it said.
‘Are they meant to be the survivors, or the culprits?’
‘They’ve definitely got the de Courcy look, haven’t they?’ Felix pushed in the last drawing pin, and stood back to appraise his work. ‘Slightly manic … guilty expressions … ash-smeared hands …’ He looked round and grabbed my arm, but it was too late. Carfax was coming down the corridor towards us. He must have been in the lavatory, because his hair was wet and he was carrying a damp towel. He paused in front of us and read the poster. His face went tight. For a second I thought he was going to go inside without saying anything, but then Felix giggled.
‘Hilarious,’ Carfax said. ‘Did you spend the whole vacation planning that?’
‘No,’ Felix said, ‘I just saw it and thought of you.’
‘Maybe if you thought less about me and more about the grand jeu you wouldn’t be in line for a Third.’
Felix’s grin slid off his face. ‘You really can’t take a joke, can you?’
Carfax turned so suddenly I thought he was going to hit one of us. ‘For pity’s sake, will you leave me alone?’
‘Or what? Will you burn us in our beds?’
‘I’m sorely tempted.’ He looked past Felix, at me.
‘What have I done?’ I said. ‘I simply happened to be walking past—’
‘I hope one day you realise what a bastard you are, Martin. That’s all.’ He pushed the door open, and then paused, as if something else had occurred to him. ‘Oh, and by the way – congratulations on coming second. Your family must be very proud.’
The door shut behind him. Felix grunted, and peeled the poster off the door. ‘He is such a sanctimonious prig.’ He caught my eye. ‘Shall we catch him off guard somewhere and scrag him?’
I shook my head. For Felix it really is a joke. He likes teasing Carfax because he gets a reaction. He doesn’t realise how much I loathe him. How much I would like to see him – all right, maybe not hurt, not badly, but humiliated. No one knows that; except possibly Carfax himself. In some ways we see each other more clearly than anyone else does, I think.
Felix said, ‘Reckon you can knock him off his perch this year?’
I took a deep breath and tried to sound casual. ‘If I get the right partner for the joint game. I’m thinking of asking Paul.’
‘It should be a walkover. It’s not like anyone’s going to want to work with Carfax, even if he’s the best player. He’ll get stuck with one of the no-hopers at the bottom of the list.’ He paused. ‘I hope it’s not me.’
‘Find someone else, quickly, and it won’t be.’
‘Right. Yes.’
It shouldn’t have bothered me, that Felix called him the best. I mean, he is the best, at the moment. But it galls me even to write the words. Damn him. I am going to be top of the class this year. I swear it. Whatever it takes.
And one day, I promise, I am going to see Carfax de Courcy cry.
Third day of Serotine Term
First grand jeu lesson today, but we didn’t do much. Magister Holt told us about our joint games, which are due in at the end of this term. I caught Paul’s eye as Magister Holt was speaking, and he gave me a look to ask if I was up for partnering him, and I gave him a thumbs-up, so hopefully that’s that sorted out.
Afterwards, as I was picking my exercise book off the floor (Felix had sent it flying in his eagerness to sprint downstairs for lunch), Magister Holt said, ‘Mr Martin, I’d like to speak to you, if I may.’ Everyone else was already pushing out of the classroom door, and the Magister waited for them to leave before he shut it and gestured to me to sit down. For a moment I thought he was going to stand on the dais and address me from there, but he stood staring at the diagrams of notation on the wall and didn’t say anything.
‘Yes, Magister?’ I said, in the end.
‘Well done,’ he said. ‘On your coming second in the class. No doubt you’re pleased.’
I said, ‘Yes, I am. Naturally.’ There was such a long silence that I had time to wonder why, if congratulations were in order, he hadn’t kept Carfax behind, to congratulate him; but then, of course, they’d be surprised if a de Courcy wasn’t at the top of the class.
‘How would you say you were getting on, Mr Martin?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘At Montverre. You are the first of your family to come here, I believe.’
I thought about making some crack about having crawled to the top of the rubbish heap, but I didn’t. ‘That’s right, Magister.’ I was hoping I could leave it at that, but he was giving me the Magister Ludi look, which makes you squirm until you’ve come up with a better answer. ‘I’m – all right, I suppose. Glad to be doing OK.’
‘Do you feel at home here?’
‘Does anyone?’
That got a smile out of him, but only for a second. ‘Please, Mr Martin,’ he said, ‘don’t imagine that I am trying to make you feel uncomfortable. But I …’ He sighed and went back to looking at the notation charts. I dug my hands into my armpits to stop myself fidgeting. ‘When we marked the games, at the end of last term, I must say I was very impressed with your progress.’
I said, ‘Thank you,’ but he hadn’t finished.
‘You have certainly developed a great vocabulary, a sophisticated grasp of the grand jeu, a facility with the idiom,’ he said, with a glance at me to acknowledge my interruption. ‘But I don’t think I would have awarded you quite those marks, if the rest of the masters hadn’t insisted.’
I said, ‘Oh.’
‘Not that your game was in any way deficient. Not at all. But there is … how shall I put this? I worry that there is something … inauthentic. That what you produce is a very clever imitation of what you think the grand jeu should be, rather than a true game. Do you understand what I mean?’