An Awkward Lie by Michael Innes Page B

him. At present he was just a detective, as his father had been.
    ‘I suppose,’ Bobby said, ‘that Overcombe has changed a great deal since my time.’
    ‘Oh, really? I can’t see why it should.’ Rather unexpectedly, it was Walcot who took the initiative in offering this reply. ‘It’s a conservative place, to which conservative parents send us. It won’t really change until the whole Establishment changes.’
    ‘Perhaps that’s so.’ Bobby was so disconcerted by this sophistication of idiom that he managed only the most feeble rejoinder to it. But this passed unremarked, because of an instant and vigorous reaction from Beadon.
    ‘Absolute rot!’ Beadon said. ‘Change has to begin in the day-rooms and the dorms. My brother says you have to start revolutions on the factory floor.’ He turned to Bobby. ‘I have two brothers,’ he explained politely. ‘One’s in Chartered Accounting, and the other’s in Student Power.’
    ‘I see. Are you in favour of some Student Power at Overcombe?’
    ‘Of course. In all sorts of ways, we’re treated like kids in a nursery. Pocket-money shouldn’t have to be handed in at the beginning of term.’
    ‘And the books you bring back,’ Walcot said, ‘shouldn’t be censored. Smoking should be legalized.’
    ‘So should beer. English schoolboys used to be brought up on beer. It’s in all the old stories, isn’t it?’ Beadon had appealed to Bobby. ‘I think “Legalize Beer” would be a jolly good slogan.’
    ‘It certainly sounds well,’ Bobby agreed. ‘But do you actually like beer?’
    ‘I haven’t tried it, as a matter of fact. In my family, we get a glass of wine on Sundays from the time of our first hols from boarding school.’
    ‘That’s terribly civilized.’ Bobby felt hopefully that the showing off had begun. ‘Do you think it’s a good idea,’ he asked, ‘having those young women in the school, and calling them house-mothers? We just had an old matron.’
    ‘Oh, that!’ Beadon was tolerant. ‘I don’t mind them at all. In fact it’s rather jolly having a few birds around.’
    ‘It keeps things normal.’ Walcot seemed determined to cap this mature response in his companion. ‘There’s a man called Freud – have you heard of him? – who says that not mixing up the sexes always is all wrong. Of course, we don’t want those girls to play nanny to us. Pulling your ears to see if you’ve washed behind them, and brushing your hair and tugging your shorts straight.’
    ‘They certainly oughtn’t to be allowed in the dorms,’ Beadon said.
    ‘Or not in senior dorm.’ Walcot offered this by way of judicious qualification. ‘It mayn’t be too bad an idea for the new bugs. But when you’re soon going on to a public school, and get to telling each other what you’ve heard from your older brothers and so on, it’s just not decent having those women snooping around.’
    ‘A man’s world,’ Beadon said, ‘contains a lot that no pure woman should know.’
    ‘For instance, that old Gullible makes you drop your pants for a licking,’ Walcot amplified. ‘You couldn’t tell your mother a thing like that. She might think you wanted to know whether it happened that way in girls’ schools too. Which would be absolutely frightful.’
    ‘Yes,’ Bobby said – and dimly recalled much speculation of this order. ‘But do you mean that the house-mothers get you out of bed in the morning – that sort of thing?’
    ‘They always do that.’ Beadon, who appeared to have a cautious streak, was carefully burying the end of his cigarette. ‘One oughtn’t to complain, I suppose. There may be worse ahead. A prefect with a dog-whip or something.’
    ‘It mayn’t quite come to that.’ Bobby in his time had been ruthlessly fed with horror-stories by his elder brothers. ‘Have you one particular house-mother?’
    ‘Walcot and I have Miss Danbury. She makes us call her Susan. I don’t suppose you’ve seen her, because she wasn’t at lunch.