Bang (25 page)

‘Yes, Deputy,’ said Cagee, ‘if necessary, do that,’
and dismissed him with a wave of a feather-duster glove.

‘However, I believe I’ve already detected a match
between this note and another.’

‘Really – how interesting. Now, we must be
getting on. Janitor.’ He shifted his deformed feet impatiently.

‘Does this hand not look familiar, Headmaster?’ The
Whipping Boy again fluttered the note, along with another note that began
,
Deputy, it is with pleasure that I offer you the position of
 … under
Cagee’s face, which began to show signs of distress.

‘Not familiar so as I could name the author.’

‘
Your
hand, Headmaster.’

‘Very well,’ said Cagee. ‘You may let the defacement
go, on this particular occasion. It was me, yes. I copied the lines for
comparison. Now, please forget the matter.’

In the matter-of-fact manner of discipline, the Whipping
Boy stated, ‘You will be punished.’

‘No, no, I am the Headmaster as I keep telling you,
not that I believe you have forgotten, more to remind you of the significance
of our relative positions, as I just had to with my janitor, and to make the
statement itself, and because I am the Headmaster, and it’s important that you
remember so.’

Looking up at Cagee, for at 11 he was a good foot
shorter, the Whipping Boy said, ‘If the Headmaster makes rules for which the
Headmaster threatens punishment, yet the Headmaster breaks those rules, how can
the pupils be expected to learn?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous! I am the Headmaster, I can do
what I want. How dare you.’

‘How dare I? How dare
I
?’ The Whipping Boy
withdrew the cane from the
Voltaire’s
holster and arched it over his
knee, letting it go with a sharp cut of the air, and commanded in a voice that
chose this exact moment to break, and in doing so made him seem taller too,
‘BEND OVER!’ Delilah noticed his tongue was also very orange, as were his eyes.

‘Deputy,’ said Cagee, this has gone far enough. It is
very well to administer the cane upon my backside in the private confines of my
study for the sake of practice, but in front of the Janitor it is quite
another, she is a worthless and meaningless employee of the school, beneath
even the pupils, whose vomit she must clean up, and is by that fact assumed
stupidest of the stupid. Now go and find a slot in the timetable where calculus
will sit uncomfortably close to the accent and diction lessons and street-talk
lessons and insert it there. I insist. That is the end of the matter.’

‘Headmaster,’ boomed the Whipping Boy, ‘You have
forced upon me, with narcotic cajolery, the tenure of Deputy Headmaster and
with it comes the responsibility of punishment within the school. Were I to let
the headmaster off scot-free with defacement of a note, I would be forced to
let the whole school off whenever the question of administering the cane came
to my attention. A dereliction of my duties, you most certainly will agree.
Now, sir, bend over.’

Cagee stammered, ‘Deputy, Deputy, it is not that I do
not appreciate your application to your duties – I do – nor that I do
not enjoy your application of the cane upon my buttocks – I do too, in
practice, as I have mentioned – but I really must insist that if I am to
maintain authority as Headmaster you must kowtow to me, not the reverse. Do I
make myself clear? And what in the name of education has happened to your eyes?
They are orange.’

‘My eyes? It’s
your
eyes you should be worried
about. Would you like me to fetch my
Voltaire
? I will be right back.’

Cagee looked at Delilah, gulped immediately, and bent
over, lowering his trousers as he did so.

‘Perhaps the janitor would prefer to avert his gaze,’
suggested the Whipping Boy. Delilah did so and further evaluated the
surroundings, much changed since her last stay, and tried to drift into the
promise of release, to be with her soon – all being well.

‘Ow!’ said Cagee as the cane hit flesh, reporting like
a gunshot.

Delilah’s thoughts jarred on that phrase,
all being
well
. It didn’t sit comfortably down here in the System.

‘Ow-wow!’ said Cagee,

Delilah crossed her fingers.

‘Oh,’ said Cagee.

The action of
crossing one’s fingers
didn’t
bring much hope either.

‘Ooh,’ said Cagee.

That was the thing about the System, Delilah realised,
there just never came a moment, not one half-second, when you could feel okay.

‘Arrrh,’ said Cagee.

And life, surely, wasn’t about
not
feeling
okay.

‘Arrh-goo,’ said Cagee.

What was the point of life, if you spent it locked up?

‘Uh,’ said Cagee, sort of, and snuckered once, and
then again.

‘Why is he snoring, Janitor? Is he attempting to make
a fool out of me?’

‘He is asleep,’ said Delilah, speaking through her
hand.

‘Tell him to wake up. Oh forget it. I’m bored of this
flimsy thing.’ The Whipping Boy threw down the cane with a clatter and stalked
off. ‘Gentle, oh Gentle,’ he cried, suddenly in tears, and in a voice that
found in itself new obstructions now it was freshly broken, ‘where are-ARE you?
Where have you G-gone? Oh, Jonathon, I m-hiss you, miss you-Hoo!’ He turned a
corner crying still, and bellowed at some as-yet unseen person or persons, who
by the sounds of it got in his way resulting in a loud crash, then his laments
moved off again, fading out, like hiccups.

‘Wake up, Cagee,’ said Delilah, coaxing the
semi-naked, bent, disfigured, dozy Headmaster back into life.

Waking, he said, ‘What happened? Who pulled my pants
down? You? Why did you do that? You dirty whore. Is it my scrotum you’re after?
Why? To see the join? I should put you over my knee and, and spank you.’ He
wielded his stumps at her. ‘I don’t know why they have a join making them look
like they’ve been moulded in a factory, so don’t try asking. Got it? Hello?’

‘You fell asleep again.’

‘With my pants down? I don’t think so. Hoh no.’

‘Yes, with your pants down, you fell asleep. And
that’s how you caused the escalator accident that lost Officer JJ Jeffrey his
eyes – which I bet were cruel eyes. You have a medical condition. Didn’t
you see anyone about it?’

‘I don’t see what business it is of yours. Don’t look
at me like that. Stop it. I can’t bear it. Oh, oh
all
right
,
Janitor, I will tell you. After a long wait, a very long wait, I went to the
Public Body of Health. I had a special appointment. I went with my friend, a
lady. She had long legs and an argumentative nature. There was a consultation
with the medical experts, then they asked her in, the lady, for her opinion as
someone who knew me and had seen me nod off. She said she thought it was all in
my mind. Never heard again from the experts after that. Then, a few months
later, after buying the lady a pacifier, I was on my way home, going up the
escalator. There was a bang. The next thing I know I was here, in the System,
in a Remand 111 cage. I was very frightened. I was tricked into the cage, I had
my hands broken off when they closed the doors on me. The whole of Remand 111
was very cruel to me. They said they hated me. Why? It was horrible. One day suddenly
they all died, food poisoning, dodgy chicken. I was kidnapped by the Center of
Disinformation and forced to lecture in a language I could not understand. But
saddest of all is I’ve not spoken to my friend up there since. I miss her. Why
does my bottom hurt, Janitor?’

The four workmen came along carrying a different
shaped load this time with its blanket bunched on top where presumably it had
been placed after its collision with the Whipping Boy. Under this bundle in a
clear, and by the looks of it tightly sealed, casket lay a skeleton. The
skeleton had an uncertain smile. Delilah didn’t know why the skeleton looked at
her with this familiar look. Maybe all skeletons looked not like you knew them
but like they knew you.

‘Easy as you go,’ said the foreman, balancing his
corner of the casket on a knee and reaching for the door handle.

‘Fantastic,’ exclaimed Cagee. ‘Every school needs a
good skeleton for anatomy lessons. What a surprise. Somebody somewhere’s
looking after us. This is to be a school of scholastic excellence, for sure.
It’ll rocket to the top of the Authority’s School League tables in no time.’

‘Mind yourself, squire, coming through. Nice gloves.’
Sniggering, the workmen entered the room extending no invitation this time to
Delilah nor to Cagee to follow. Cagee tried the door after them but found it
locked and said, ‘They want it to be just right for us. They don’t want to
disappoint the new headmaster. They are probably quite intimidated by me, which
is why they would not address me directly. We’ll come back later, when it’s
ready. I’m so excited. Are you? Hungry? This way.’ He pulled his trousers up,
with difficulty, but, recomposed now, led Delilah away with a beckon of
shoulder. ‘In here,’ he said some minutes later. ‘I’m sure it’s round here
somewhere.’

‘What is?’

‘Let’s try these doors. I hope they’re right. They’ve
painted over all the lilac arrows, so you can’t find your way around anymore.
I’d never noticed them before. Not till someone pointed out they’d gone, then I
remembered blemishes on the walls and realised they must have been the arrows.
I also remember when I was on a stretcher once and … but that is another
story.’

They entered through two sets of doors that gave the
impression they should have been locked: Cagee suggested that there was an air
of lawlessness today in the System, what with it being the first day of school.

‘Coor,’ said Delilah when they got inside, and let out
a low whistle.

‘This isn’t the café,’ complained Cagee. ‘Come on out.
We shouldn’t be here.’

But Delilah had already sat down on a bench, her chin
hanging off her mouth as she looked around. To all intents and purposes she was
now ‘outside’. Not outside as in beyond System but outside as in beyond the
roofed world up there, in an outside that once had existed and according to
various rumours still did in certain places (explorers rarely returned). It was
fake, of course, down here. But what fake. Here were blue skies, views of
rolling countryside, mown grass soft underfoot, water tinkling into a pond,
tiled paths, neat flowerbeds, flashing in the air that could have been
dragonflies, and a smell – a smell she’d never smelt before: nature
(reconstituted nature, maybe, but overwhelming nonetheless). ‘Come on,’
repeated Cagee, urgently, ‘we must get out of here quick. Look.’ He pointed at
a brass plaque in the flowerbed in which dewy flowers sparkled in the
Authority’s sunlight. Bees buzzed in the background. Delilah read the plaque
but wouldn’t budge, or couldn’t. These were named the
Gentle Memorial Gardens
.
Now they heard echoes, gardeny echoes, and then a male group, in stripy
uniforms and matching caps, appeared through a flowering wisteria pergola,
sipping light golden liquid that spat fine spray from tall glasses, holding
their heads back high as they drank.

‘Somebody must have thought this up in the middle of
the night,’ hissed Delilah, under a spell she didn’t want to shift. ‘This is
just too good to be true. I could stay here forever.’

‘Those must be the prefects I ordered,’ said Cagee,
suddenly ecstatic, and was about to call them over when Delilah tugged his arm,
nearly pulling off a feather glove: she’d spotted the Whipping Boy, sat
muscularly blubbing on a bench next to a figure with his back to them. They
agreed then to leave. They took the long way back to the new school, upon
Delilah’s suggestion. Something had changed for her now. She had to get out of
here, get back her life. She had to go free, it had become imperative. After
experiencing the Gentle Memorial Gardens she couldn’t let the Authority keep
her locked up. The flower scents remaining in her nose confirmed this, and
showed her what she was missing. She tried snorting their torment out. But just
sneezed and made her eyes itch and water.

16
–
A Moment
Before School

The pair arrived back at the new school a couple of
minutes early before the school opened at noon. ‘See how many have turned up,’
said Cagee proudly.

One shuffled towards them and nervously asked Delilah,
‘Is it ready yet, can we go in?’

‘Any minute now,’ she said, ‘be patient.’

‘I’m nervous,’ he said. ‘Aren’t you nervous?’

‘Don’t worry,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘It’ll be
fine.’

Apparently surprised by this, he shuffled away, a
doubtful look on his face.

‘There must be hundreds of them,’ whispered Cagee,
standing with his stumps in his trousers’ four pockets, his upper lip upturned
in satisfaction.

‘Hello, petal,’ said Poy Yack pushing through,
knocking people flying. ‘Quite a day for you, eh. Want to huddle for a couple
of minutes and talk the case over? Or later?’

Attempting to convey its seriousness, Delilah said,
‘More important is that you Life the money man my court date. Have you had a
chance to do that yet? Please tell me you have.’