it grabs you and shakes you breathless – I almost remember how that felt, in the days when I was fourteen. That feeling of something wound up tight, like a clockwork animal, springing into action somewhere within the region of the solar plexus and coming out as laughter. Nowadays that mechanism has become old and rusty. I rarely laugh aloud any more. And when I do, it sounds like the call of a lonely bird, ungainly and harsh.
What is it with me nowadays? I never used to be so sentimental. Perhaps it’s this Harrington business, coming back to haunt me. Damn it, why did he have to come here ? There must be a hundred ‘failing schools’ in need of the touch of a Super-Head. Why here? Why St Oswald’s? Even allowing for the peculiar nostalgia of a man approaching middle age, his memories of the dear old place can hardly be the sweetest.
The bell rang, marking the start of the first lesson. The boys all left for their classes, some more efficiently than others. Anderton-Pullitt was the last to go, still rummaging in his desk even after most of my group (a first-form class) had already found their places.
I bit back a sharp reprimand. Anderton-Pullitt is always late, due to his inability to stop rearranging his schoolbooks. According to his personal file, this is an obsessive-compulsive disorder connected with his new syndrome, and must be treated with sympathy. I have my own opinions on this. But in the current climate, it’s best to keep those opinions to myself. Besides, the ghosts of pupils past were whispering to me today – and to such a degree that, turning to the blackboard again, for the first time in twenty-four years, I almost wrote merda, merdam instead of the usual mensa .
The knock at the door, when it came, took me completely by surprise. As a rule, St Oswald’s staff do not wander from form to form during lessons, nor does the Headmaster inflict surprise visits on his colleagues when they are attempting to teach the First Declension to twenty-four fidgety first-years.
‘ Quid agis, Medice? ’ I said, making a joke of my surprise.
Harrington came in, his smile like a rack of headlights. ‘I hope you don’t mind, Mr Straitley,’ he said, ‘but I’m going to be sitting in on some classes over the next few weeks. I’m just a New Boy here, you know. I have to learn the ropes, and fast!’ This was addressed to my first-years, who obligingly shuffled and grinned.
Harrington found himself a seat – the left-hand corner, at the back. Knight’s old place. Of course. I should have expected it. But thirty-four years of St Oswald’s have given me a poker face. I managed a smile at Harrington.
‘Very well, young man,’ I said. ‘The subject is first-year Latin. Don’t think you’re getting an easy ride. Let’s see what you remember.’
2
Michaelmas Term, 1981
Dear Mousey,
Remember, remember, the Fifth of November. Gunpowder, treason and plot . Funny, how we celebrate death. Even in Church, the pictures all seem to be about some kind of torture. Do you know what they did to Guy Fawkes? He jumped off the scaffold and broke his neck, cheating the audience of their show. They hanged and quartered him anyway, and put his severed head on a spike, as if he could never be dead enough. My dad says it’s barbaric. And yet, he’s fine with us going to Church, seeing Jesus nailed to a cross and St Stephen all full of arrows. I mean, what’s the difference? Dead is dead, and martyrdom is in the eye of the beholder. Jesus died so we might live. That sounds better than it is. Like paying for a new sofa in monthly instalments, only to find that by the time you’ve paid, the thing’s already worn out.
I once asked Miss McDonald why people had to die. She said: ‘To make room for babies who haven’t been born.’
Well, Mousey, I wasn’t convinced. Why did we need more babies? And if there were no more babies, then would I live forever?
Tonight was the bonfire in Malbry Park. They’d been building
What is it with me nowadays? I never used to be so sentimental. Perhaps it’s this Harrington business, coming back to haunt me. Damn it, why did he have to come here ? There must be a hundred ‘failing schools’ in need of the touch of a Super-Head. Why here? Why St Oswald’s? Even allowing for the peculiar nostalgia of a man approaching middle age, his memories of the dear old place can hardly be the sweetest.
The bell rang, marking the start of the first lesson. The boys all left for their classes, some more efficiently than others. Anderton-Pullitt was the last to go, still rummaging in his desk even after most of my group (a first-form class) had already found their places.
I bit back a sharp reprimand. Anderton-Pullitt is always late, due to his inability to stop rearranging his schoolbooks. According to his personal file, this is an obsessive-compulsive disorder connected with his new syndrome, and must be treated with sympathy. I have my own opinions on this. But in the current climate, it’s best to keep those opinions to myself. Besides, the ghosts of pupils past were whispering to me today – and to such a degree that, turning to the blackboard again, for the first time in twenty-four years, I almost wrote merda, merdam instead of the usual mensa .
The knock at the door, when it came, took me completely by surprise. As a rule, St Oswald’s staff do not wander from form to form during lessons, nor does the Headmaster inflict surprise visits on his colleagues when they are attempting to teach the First Declension to twenty-four fidgety first-years.
‘ Quid agis, Medice? ’ I said, making a joke of my surprise.
Harrington came in, his smile like a rack of headlights. ‘I hope you don’t mind, Mr Straitley,’ he said, ‘but I’m going to be sitting in on some classes over the next few weeks. I’m just a New Boy here, you know. I have to learn the ropes, and fast!’ This was addressed to my first-years, who obligingly shuffled and grinned.
Harrington found himself a seat – the left-hand corner, at the back. Knight’s old place. Of course. I should have expected it. But thirty-four years of St Oswald’s have given me a poker face. I managed a smile at Harrington.
‘Very well, young man,’ I said. ‘The subject is first-year Latin. Don’t think you’re getting an easy ride. Let’s see what you remember.’
2
Michaelmas Term, 1981
Dear Mousey,
Remember, remember, the Fifth of November. Gunpowder, treason and plot . Funny, how we celebrate death. Even in Church, the pictures all seem to be about some kind of torture. Do you know what they did to Guy Fawkes? He jumped off the scaffold and broke his neck, cheating the audience of their show. They hanged and quartered him anyway, and put his severed head on a spike, as if he could never be dead enough. My dad says it’s barbaric. And yet, he’s fine with us going to Church, seeing Jesus nailed to a cross and St Stephen all full of arrows. I mean, what’s the difference? Dead is dead, and martyrdom is in the eye of the beholder. Jesus died so we might live. That sounds better than it is. Like paying for a new sofa in monthly instalments, only to find that by the time you’ve paid, the thing’s already worn out.
I once asked Miss McDonald why people had to die. She said: ‘To make room for babies who haven’t been born.’
Well, Mousey, I wasn’t convinced. Why did we need more babies? And if there were no more babies, then would I live forever?
Tonight was the bonfire in Malbry Park. They’d been building
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