Finding Again the World Read online

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll remember that.”

  “Right, then . . .” said Uncle Arthur.

  I glanced at my timetable.

  “Gardening?”

  “Oh, everyone takes a hand at gardening,” said Uncle Arthur. “Very keen on gardening, the Old Man is. Doesn’t know you’re here, does he? The Old Man? You didn’t phone from the station?”

  “No,” I said. “Was I supposed to?”

  “Probably wiser,” said Uncle Arthur, “yes, to wait till morning.”

  I nodded.

  “Mid-morning,” he added.

  I looked at him.

  “A nod’s as good as a wink,” he said, “if you get my drift.”

  “Oh, right,” I said. “Of course.”

  “That’s the ticket!” said Uncle Arthur. “Well, you come along with me, then, do the evening rounds, get the hang of things.”

  I followed him along the disinfectant- and polish-smelling corridor, down the echoing steel stairs, out into the warmth of the summer evening.

  Pallid faces, cropped hair, army boots. I was the centre of much obvious speculation. I kept close to Uncle Arthur and endeavoured to look bored. I nodded as casually as I could at the faces which stared most openly.

  We mounted the steps of the North Building. Uncle Arthur blew one long blast on his whistle and all motion froze. His glance darted about the silent playground.

  “Nothing like a routine,” he murmured, “to settle a lad down.”

  Two blasts: four boys ran to stand beneath us, spacing themselves about ten feet apart.

  “House Captains,” explained Uncle Arthur.

  Three blasts: the motionless boys churned into a mob and then shuffled themselves out into four lines. He allowed a few seconds to elapse as they dressed ranks and then blew one long blast.

  Silence was rigid.

  As each boy, House by House, called out Present, Uncle Arthur! in response to his surname, Uncle Arthur ticked the mimeographed sheet. When numbers were tallied and initialled, Churchill House and Hanover moved off first to the showers.

  “Never initial anything,” said Uncle Arthur, “until you’ve double-checked personally. Best advice I can give you. I learned that in the Service and it’s stood me in good stead ever since.” Stripped of their grey overalls, the boys looked even more horribly anonymous, buttocks, pubic hair, feet. I glanced down the line of naked bodies trying not to show my embarrassment and distaste. I looked down at Uncle Arthur’s mauve socks in the brown openwork sandals. At the further end of the line, a mutter of conversation was rising. Uncle Arthur’s whistle burbled, a sound almost meditative.

  “Careful you don’t lose your pea, Uncle Arthur,” said one of the tallest boys.

  All the boys laughed.

  “It won’t be me, lad,” said Uncle Arthur, nodding slowly, ponderous work with his eyebrows, “it won’t be me as’ll be losing my pea.”

  I recognized this as ritual joke.

  The laughter grew louder, wilder, ragged at the edges.

  Order was restored by a single blast.

  He advanced to a position facing the middle of the line.

  Into the silence, he said,

  “Cleanliness, Mr. Cresswell, as the Good Book says, is next to Godliness. So at Eastmill here it’s three showers a day every day. We get lads in here that come from home conditions you wouldn’t credit. Never had contact with soap and water, some of them. Last time some of this lot touched water was when they was christened. If they was christened. Sewed into their underclothes, some of them are. And dental decay? Horrible! Turns the stomach, Mr. Cresswell. Athlete’s foot. Lice. Scabies and scales. Crabs of all variety. Crabs, Mr. Cresswell, of every stripe and hue.”

  He surveyed the silent line.

  “Start with little things, you see, Mr. Cresswell, because little things lead to big things. That’s something that in the Service you quickly learn. And talking of little things,” he bellowed suddenly, his face flushing, “what are you trying to hide, lad? Stand up STRAIGHT!”

  Half turning to me, he said from the side of his mouth,

  “A rotten apple if ever I saw one. Attempted rape was the charge. Got off with interference.”

  I nodded and avoided looking at the boy.

  In spite of all the showering, there was a close smell of sweat, feet, sourness.

  While Uncle Arthur raked the naked rank with his flushed glare, I made a pretence of reading the mimeographed names on the clipboard. I found myself thinking of the strange civil service gentleman, somehow connected with the Home Office, who’d interviewed me a month earlier.

  We like our chaps to have rubbed along a bit with other chaps.

  Boxing, eh? The Noble Art, hmm?

  Excellent. Excellent.

  My role, he had informed me, would be both educational and diagnostic.

  Uncle Arthur’s keys clinked in the awful silence. He selected one, and the captain of Churchill stepped out of line to receive it. The boy unlocked a metal cupboard and took out a square ten-pound tin and an aluminum dessert spoon.

  Upon command, the boys began to file past holding out a cupped hand and Uncle Arthur spooned in grey tooth-powder.

  “Better than paste,” he confided. “What’s paste but powder with the water added?”

  The boys were crowding round the racks of tagged toothbrushes, bunching round the six long sinks, dribbling water onto the powder, working it up in their palms with the brushes.

  “What about the others?” I said. “The other boys?”

  “They’ll be at their exercises in the yard with Mr. Austyn. In the quadrangle. Stuart House and Windsor tonight. Anyone who goes on report, you see, the whole House suffers. Ginger them all up. Doesn’t make the offenders popular. Discourages them as likes to think of themselves as hard cases.”

  A scuffle was starting around the last sink. The sounds of hawking, gobbing, gargling, were becoming melodramatic.

  “Right! Let’s have you!” bellowed Uncle Arthur. “Lather yourselves all over paying special attention to all crevices—and no skylarking!”

  He turned on the showers and the dank room filled with steam. The pale figures slowly became ghostly, indistinct. Conversation was difficult above the roar of the water.

  When the showers were turned off, the boys dried themselves, fixed the soggy towels round their waists, and formed a single line facing the far door. Uncle Arthur unlocked the door and the line advanced. The first boy stopped in front of us, stuck his head forward, contorted his features into a mocking grimace. I stared at him in amazement, fearing for him. Uncle Arthur inspected the exposed teeth and then nodded. Face after snarling face, eyes narrowed or staring, flesh-stretched masks, until the last white towel was starting up the stairs.

  “Here’s a tip for you just in passing,” said Uncle Arthur as he double-locked the door and we followed them up, “a wrinkle, as you might say, that they wouldn’t have taught you in the university. Tomorrow, in the morning showers, keep your eyes skinned for any lad as has a tattoo. Right? Then you have a read of his file. Right? Any young offender, as they’re now called, any young offender that’s got a tattoo, you be on the qui vive because sure as the sun shines you’ve got trouble on your hands. Right?”

  I nodded.

  “Most particularly,” said Uncle Arthur, stopping, puffed by the stairs, “if it says ‘Mother.’”

  There were forty beds in the dormitory, twenty on each side of the room. On each bed was a single grey blanket. Hanging from the end of each iron-frame bed was a grey cloth drawstring bag. The boys, now in pyjamas, stood at attention at the foot of the beds.

  Uncle Arthur surveyed them.

  Then nodded.

  The boys opened the cloth bags, taking out rolled bundles of Beano and Dandy, Hotspur, Champion, and The Wizard.

 
“Providing there’s no undue noise,” said Uncle Arthur, “comics till nine.”

  I followed him down the sounding stairs and along another blank corridor until he stopped and said,

  “Here we are, then—our home away from home.”

  The Common Room contained six shabby Parker-Knoll armchairs, two coffee tables, and a low bookcase stacked and heaped with pamphlets and old newspapers. In one of the armchairs sat a morose middle-aged man whose spectacles were wrapped at the bridge with a Band-Aid. By the side of his chair stood a wooden crate of beer. He was wearing slippers, his feet stretched out towards the electric fire where imitation flames flickered.

  “Mr. Grendle,” said Uncle Arthur, “our metal-work teacher. Our new English teacher, Mr. Cresswell.”

  “How do you do?” I said.

  Mr. Grendle did not look up and did not reply.

  “Well . . .” said Uncle Arthur.

  The yellowing muslin curtains stirred in the breeze.

  “Coffee,” said Uncle Arthur, “tea,” pointing to an electric kettle and some unwashed cups and spoons. “Ale you’ll have to organize for yourself.”

  Mr. Grendle tapped out his pipe on the arm of the chair, swept the ash and dottle onto the floor, wiped his palm on his cardigan.

  “Perhaps,” said Uncle Arthur, “you’d better come along and see your room, get yourself settled in.”

  “A scriber!” said Mr. Grendle, staring at the imitation flames. “A scriber in the back. Or battered with a ball-peen hammer. That’s how I’ll end.”

  As we went out into the fading light of the summer evening, Uncle Arthur said, “Get’s a bit low, sometimes, does Henry. Since his accident.”

  “Accident?”

  “Yes,” said Uncle Arthur. “That’s right. Now this is a view I’ve always been partial to.”

  We stood looking at the screen of trees, at the long gravel drive which turned down through tended lawns and shrubs to the Porter’s Lodge, a single-storey brick building beside the gate in the tall mesh fence which was topped by angled barbed-wire.

  Far below us, a man was wandering over the lawns spiking up scraps of paper.

  “Often comes out for a constitutional around this time,” said Uncle Arthur.

  “Pardon?”

  “The Old Man.”

  The figure disappeared behind a clump of rhododendrons.

  “Well,” said Uncle Arthur, consulting his watch, “no rest for the wicked, as they say. Time for me to relieve Mr. Austyn. Now over here’s where you are, in the West Building.”

  My room was featureless. A red printed notice on the inside of the door said: Please Keep This Door Locked At All Times. On the iron-frame bed were two grey blankets. I hung up clothes in the small varnished wardrobe, stacked shirts and underwear in the varnished chest of drawers, stowed the suitcase under the bed. I set my small alarm-clock for six-thirty.

  The toilet paper was harsh and stamped with the words: Not For Retail Distribution.

  Lying in bed under the tight sheets, I found myself thinking of the boys in the dormitory, found myself wondering if the serials I’d read as a boy were still running in the comics, the adventures of Rockfist Rogan, the exploits of Wilson the Amazing Athlete. Was it Hotspur or The Wizard? I could feel the rough paper, smell the smell of the paper and print. I found myself wondering if the Wolf of Kabul with his lethal cricket-bat bound in brass wire was still haunting the Frontier.

  And as I drifted into sleep, I remembered the name of the cricketbat. The Wolf of Kabul. He’d called it “Clickee-baa.”

  Tick-tock of the clock.

  Clickee-baa.

  * * *

  When I entered the Staff Dining Room next morning with my tray, one of the two men at the long table called, “Do come and join us! Austyn. With a ‘Y.’ Sports and Geography.”

  He was tall and boyish, dressed in a white shirt and cricket flannels.

  “My name’s Cresswell,” I said, shaking his hand, “and I’m supposed to be teaching English.”

  “And my surly colleague,” he said, “is Mr. Brotherton. Woodwork.”

  I nodded.

  “You’re a university man, I understand?” said Mr. Austyn as I unloaded my tray. “Something of a rara avis in Approved School circles.”

  “Oh, I’m just a novice,” I said.

  “I, myself,” he said, “attended Training College. Dewhurst. In Surrey.”

  Mr. Brotherton belched.

  “Well, look,” said Mr. Austyn, rising, draining his cup, consulting his watch in a military manner, “time marches on. I’d better be getting my lads organized. I’ll look forward to talking to you later.”

  I watched him as he walked out. He was wearing white plimsolls. He walked on his toes and seemed almost to bounce.

  Mr. Brotherton explored his nose with a grimy handkerchief and then started to split a matchstick with his horny thumbnail.

  I drank coffee.

  He picked his teeth.

  ‘“I attended Training College!’” he said suddenly.

  “Pardon?”

  “I’ve ‘attended’ a symphony concert at the Albert Hall but it doesn’t mean I played first sodding violin.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “You wouldn’t likely think it,” he said, getting to his feet and tossing a crumpled paper napkin onto the table, “but I was once a sodding cabinet-maker.”

  In the quadrangle, the boys, lined up House by House, were standing silent but at ease facing the steps of the North Building. It was five minutes to eight. Uncle Arthur and Mr. Austyn were supervising two House Captains who were positioning on the top step a record-player and two unhoused speakers. Uncle Arthur adjusted the height of the microphone stand. Not knowing what exactly to do, I sat on the low wall by the side of the East Building.

  The microphone boomed and whined. One of the House Captains touched the needle of the record-player and a rasp sounded through the speakers. Mr. Grendle hurried out of the East Building bearing large plywood shields. He propped them against the low wall beside me and hurried back into the building. The outer shield said: STUART. A man I hadn’t seen before strode up and down the lines rearranging a boy or two here and there to establish an absolute descending order of height.

  Uncle Arthur looked at his watch.

  He blew a single blast.

  In a long shuffle of movement, the boys dressed ranks.

  Mr. Austyn said something urgently to Uncle Arthur and Uncle Arthur turned to one of the House Captains, jabbing his finger in my direction.

  The boy sprinted towards me.

  “Is it these you want?” I said, fumbling together the awkward sliding shields.

  “Oh, fucking hell!” said the boy, grabbing them from me, nearly dropping them, bumping me in his urgency.

  “Sssssst!” said a voice behind me.

  Turning, I saw Mr. Grendle on top of the East Building steps urging me in clenched pantomime to stand at attention.

  Mr. Brotherton, his face expressionless, stood sentry on the top step of the South Building.

  The whistle shrilled again; the boys stiffened; the shields, HANOVER, STUART, WINDSOR, and CHURCHILL, were steadied by the captains. Mr. Austyn lowered his outstretched arm as though applying a slow-match to a touch-hole. At this signal, the crouching boy lowered the needle onto the record. There was a loud preliminary hissing before the music rolled forth. The awful volume and quality of sound brought to mind fairgrounds and gymkhanas. Uncle Arthur held wide the North Building’s heavy door. The brass and massed choir worked their way through “Land of Hope and Glory.”

  Nothing happened.

  The crouching boy put on another record.

  The National Anthem blared.

  At

  Long to reign over us

  the shadowed doorway d
arkened and a large man in a brown suit walked out past Uncle Arthur and stood before the microphone. His chest was massive. He seemed almost without a neck. He was wearing mirrored sunglasses. Stuck at the angle of his jaw was what looked like a small piece of toilet-paper. What could be seen of his face was red and purple.

  As the Anthem concluded, the boy lifted off the hissing needle.

  Our Father Which Art in Heaven

  Hallowed Be Thy Name

  said the Headmaster.

  And stopped.

  The silence extended.

  And extended.

  Mr. Austyn was quivering at attention.

  The Headmaster cleared his throat. The head moved, the mirrored lenses scanning the four ranks.

  “If I find a boy,” he said slowly, his voice heavy with menace, “not pulling together, I’m going to be very sorry for that boy. Very sorry indeed. But not half as sorry as that boy is going to be.”

  There was another long silence.

  He brought out a packet of cigarettes and a box of matches and looked down at them and then put them back in his jacket pocket.

  He then buttoned the jacket.

  Uncle Arthur moved to his side and the microphone picked up the murmured prompting.

  Thy Kingdom Come . . .

  “What do you say, Arthur?” boomed the microphone.

  The head and torso turned ponderously to the left; he seemed to be staring at the shield that said WINDSOR.

  For ever he suddenly said and ever. Amen and his brown bulk broke from the microphone and strode past the taut white figure of Mr. Austyn into the shadows of the doorway and disappeared.

  Roll-call followed.

  Followed by morning showers.

  My classroom was less than a quarter the size of a normal classroom and the twenty boys were jammed along the benches. There was somewhere, Uncle Arthur believed, a set of readers. I issued each boy with a sheet of paper and a pencil, and, as I had been instructed by Uncle Arthur, wrote on the blackboard: