The Black Halo (51 page)

‘I suggest,’ said Watt, ‘that you take him along with your other class – the third year – and find room for him in that way.’

But then Anderson was a real find. He had a feeling for poetry and, for his age, an unsurpassed knowledge of the classical world. He was a quiet well-behaved boy who absorbed with a relentless
omnivorousness everything that Mr Trill could say to him. It was he for instance who in mathematics had learned about algebraic symbolism on his own and was reading Bertrand Russell at the age of
fifteen.

Could he, Mr Trill, teach him while in his room there were thirty other pupils who had no feeling for Latin at all?

I must not let my dislike for the headmaster influence me in any way thought Mr Trill. His own ambition had never been excessive. In fact it was others who had made him apply for the post of
Principal Teacher.

One day he had arrived in a room where there were about ten people, some men, some women, who glanced down at papers as he entered dressed in his best brown suit and brown tie. One woman had
looked up at last and said,

‘Do you think an unmarried man can have any knowledge of children?’

Mr Trill stared at her and then spoke the immortal words which had been part of his legend ever since.

‘Madam, Vergil never married as far as we know, and he wrote the greatest poetry in the Latin language.’

He heard someone – a man – snigger, and from that point there was no doubt that he would get the post.

‘I’ll take him with the third year,’ he said.

‘Thank you very much, Mr Trill,’ said the headmaster and walked away whistling.

Later, in the staff-room, the young English master who made his pupils write poems about gangsters and cowboys remarked,

‘I hear that our friend the headmaster is thinking of introducing our children to the industrial world. Princes of finance and bureaucrats from the town will talk to them once a
week.’

By this time Mr Trill was taking Anderson for Greek during the lunch periods in a little room up a poky little stair.

At the beginning of the following session, when he examined the brochure that the school published every year he noticed that Greek was no longer available.

‘Why,’ he asked the headmaster, ‘is there no Greek this year?’

‘It’s quite simple, Mr Trill, there was only one pupil last year and I feel that it is not right to spend so much time on one pupil. Do you not agree with that yourself? Would it not
be better for you to spend your undoubted talent on the less classical elements of the school? I have decided that the junior classes will be given classical studies instead. I suggest you
introduce them to Rome and Greece, perhaps tell them something about the kinds of clothes they wore, cookery for the girls and sports for the boys. And so on.’

He waved a vague hand and at that moment the telephone rang and Mr Watt, leaning back in his chair, spoke into it with great confidence while Mr Trill looked on.

Well, wasn’t that right, thought Mr Trill to himself. Wasn’t it right that as many as possible should be told something about the Roman and Greek world? It would mean however that he
wouldn’t be able to teach the poetry that he loved. Still, wasn’t he being elitist and selfish in demanding that his own desires should be satisfied? On the other hand he couldn’t
understand what these lessons would be like. Was it simply a matter of filling in blank periods for those who did not wish to have anything to do with the classics in the first place?

Should he not really make a stand? But on the other hand how undignified that would be. After all he despised Mr Watt and the latter knew that. The question of the superiority of the classics
was not in doubt. And what were his arguments anyway? Was he not simply admitting that he did not want the ‘masses’ to be educated in them. Mr Trill looked into Watt’s small eyes
and at the centre of them he detected a little gleam of hatred. Why was Mr Watt trying to destroy him? Was that what lay behind his manoeuvrings? Why should Mr Watt hate him? He had done nothing to
him, in fact he had been very accommodating. Did the headmaster despise his subject then? Did he think that in the present day the classics were of no value? The words flowed into the telephone.
How smooth this Watt appeared. Perhaps he, Mr Trill, should not have shown him any sympathy at the beginning when he came to school first. The walls were breaking, the barbarian was in charge.

‘I . . . ’ he began, but Watt was waving him away, his hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone, as if all had been settled. Had it been settled then? Should he not return and
debate every inch of lost ground? From now on there would be no Greek in the school and this meant that if any bright boy wished to study Greek he would only be able to do it if Mr Trill tutored
him in his own time. Well, he could do that. Matters hadn’t reached such a pitch of greed and laziness that he couldn’t do that. He wasn’t so interested in money that he would
refuse a plea for help. Mr Trill stood on the landing indecisively. Had he lost another battle? Of course he had and he knew it. But on the other hand those battles in the ditches were so
undignified, so impure. He didn’t want to be another rat in the wainscoting.

Still . . . and he almost turned back, but he didn’t.

How had Mr Watt become what he had now become, a virtual dictator? And all the time, at least at the beginning, Mr Trill had felt sorry for him, thinking that surely he must feel his own
inadequacy. But in fact he had been wrong. Mr Watt hadn’t felt any inadequacy at all. He hadn’t, in comparing himself with his predecessors, felt in any way inferior. How could that be,
Mr Trill asked himself? It was so obvious that he was inferior, and yet he hadn’t felt it. Was that because he was thick-skinned or because he actually was superior in some way?

I don’t understand what is happening, thought Mr Trill. The liberal classical world is collapsing around us, and
nobody notices
. What an extraordinary situation.

He stared at the wall on which someone had written
GOEBBELS EATS HAGGIS
. The light poured through the glass roof on to him. Where am I, he thought, what is this place
supposed to be?

And yet . . . and yet . . . perhaps it is right that I should try and teach the ‘masses’. And if I don’t what can I say? Others, he knew, would be cunning enough to find a
purely objective way of defending personal territory, but he wasn’t clever enough to do that. His honesty was his weakness. He knew nothing about people. It was quite clear that he
hadn’t understood Mr Watt at any rate. It was obvious that the two of them belonged to two very different worlds. The small cunning eyes bored into his again.

I should really be defending my own territory, thought Mr Trill, and yet there is a certain amount of truth in what he is saying. It is perhaps wrong to give Anderson seven periods of Greek a
week.

That had a truth in it but on the other hand was that the real reason why Mr Watt had stopped Greek? Mr Trill took another step down the stair and stopped again. Perhaps he should still go back.
But what was he to say? No, it was no longer important that one should love one’s subject, that was romantic idealism. What was important was to fight for everything you could get, find a
quarrel in a straw. He took another step downstairs.

‘You have been very accommodating,’ said Mr Watt later, ‘in fact I would say that you have been the most accommodating and most civilised of all the teachers that I have dealt
with. So therefore it is with a certain amount of trepidation that’ – he rested for a moment on the Latin word – ‘I approach you again.’ Was it Mr Trill’s
imagination or did Mr Watt use longer words usually derived from the Latin than he had done in the past? Why, once or twice recently, he had come to his room to ask him about the derivation of a
word like ‘curriculum’ and Mr Trill had been glad to expatiate, despising himself at the same time for basking in the warm glow of power.

‘Well then,’ said Mr Watt, ‘you will have heard of my plans for talks to be given by professional local people on selected topics, for example the law, medicine and so on. The
question arises about a room for them.’ And he glanced round Mr Trill’s large and airy room and at his small class.

‘I was wondering whether you would be willing that they use this room during these periods. This would only occur once or twice a week. And you could have Mr Blake’s room at that
time. Mr Blake is free. He has a small chemistry room as you will know.’

I know what he is doing, thought Mr Trill. Eventually he will get this room entirely for Mr Blake, or entirely for these industrial and professional conferences and I will be teaching in Mr
Blake’s poky room till the end of my days. I know that this is exactly what he is doing. But what shall I say? Shall I say that he can find another room for his conferences, in which case he
will tell me that there is no other room more suitable. Or shall I say that I am against these conferences in the first place? But how can you be? he will say. After all, these poor children cannot
go out into the world blind and deaf.

And in any case, thought Mr Trill, does it matter where I teach Latin? Do I need a sunny room such as this one is and which I have inhabited for twenty years and which I love? Is this not
selfishness on my part? Why, is my comfort to be more important than the future lives of the children as they set out on their journey through life?

‘I don’t mind,’ he said. And again the small sharp eyes glittered with their lights of sharp hate, if that was what it was.

Who are you, thought Mr Trill, who are you really? My scholarship after all is no use to me in this world. All this time you weren’t weak at all, all this time when I felt pity for you you
knew exactly what you were doing. All this time when I wept for you because you were such a pigmy you thought of yourself as a giant. And perhaps you have gone home and discussed me with your wife
and she has helped you to find my weakest spot, just like Achilles. How can I stand out against you, against these ratlike movements, with my shaken armour?

And so without argument Mr Trill surrendered more and more, till finally he had hardly anything at all left. Dressed in his dignity he found that dignity didn’t count at all. The past was
forever gone and only the present remained and the present was fashioned by these devious manoeuvrings.

Perhaps then he should have fought from the very beginning for every piece of chalk in his room, for every jotter, every desk. Perhaps that was what fighting and honour really meant.

And his father, by retreating into his study, had been wrong, and his mother by intuition had been right all along.

Hail to the Bingo Caesar, he shouted among the shades. And he raised an imaginary glass.

From a deep shade behind him he thought he heard the sound of weeping and there under a tree he saw a woman who was dressed in black. Above her flowed the dark distraught
leaves.

‘Who are you?’ he asked.

‘Andromache,’ she replied.

‘The wife of Hector?’ he asked.

‘The same,’ she said.

‘Why then are you weeping?’

‘It is because of my fear,’ she said.

‘Fear of what?’ asked Mr Trill.

‘Not fear of death,’ she replied. ‘Not fear of death but another fear. A greater fear than that.’

‘What fear is that?’

‘Fear of loss,’ said the woman as she shivered uncontrollably under the shadow of the leaves.

‘Everyone knows,’ she began, ‘what happened to my husband Hector. Everyone knows that he had to go out to fight Achilles. I remember it very well. I helped him put on his
armour on that never-to-be-forgotten day. He was trembling with fear but when I asked him whether he should still go out, he said, “I must, I must,” over and over. I asked him why he
should go out when he was frightened but he kept saying, “I must, I must,” like a little child. That day was a day of sorrows. It was a beautiful calm blue day and the soldiers were
gathered together to watch the fight for they themselves wouldn’t have to take part. And my husband Hector put on his armour on that calm blue day with the mist in the air and I said to him,
“Why do you have to go out and fight?” and he kept saying, “I must, I must.” His mother Hecuba was there and his father Priam and to them he returned the same answer.

‘And you know what happened to him. In spite of the fact that he ran round the walls of Troy to escape the terrible Achilles and finally had to turn and fight he was still carried about
the dust of the plain tied to the victor’s chariot wheels.’ And she began to weep uncontrollably. ‘And you know how Priam had to beg for my husband’s body in order that it
might be buried. And Achilles threw the bodies of many Trojans on to the same pyre as that of Patroclus. But that was not it. That was not what I was talking about. For there was much else that no
one knows about.’

There was a long silence and it seemed to Mr Trill that she would not speak again but at last she said very slowly and quietly.

‘Men do not know what women suffer. None of them knows that. For if they must go out and fight we must stay where we are. We must look after the children and we must knit and tidy and
clean. The house or the castle must be kept, whether we know or not that the war will soon be lost and we ourselves will be taken prisoner or raped. Thus it was that while Hector fought I must keep
the house together, and Priam and Hecuba were old.

‘But it was not even that. It was worse than that, much worse. All day Helen went about the castle, young and beautiful, gazing into her mirror as if she were a girl. She was the centre of
the world’s attention, men fought over her. How could she not be happy? How could she not look on herself as valuable and important? Every day she would wake up in the morning and how could
she not say to herself, “I am the centre of the whole world. Great armies are dying and fighting all the time because of me.” On the other hand, I worried about my husband continually
while I must give orders to the servants to keep the affairs of the palace running smoothly. And who was to say to me that the two great armies were fighting over me? No one was to say that, no
one. Every woman must be encouraged and told that she is beautiful. But how could Hector do that when he was out fighting every day? When he was taking the responsibility for a whole kingdom? And
all the time Helen was singing and dancing and happy in the house, for she knew that if the Trojans lost Menelaus would take her back again. All she had to do was keep herself beautiful for any
eventuality, while I on the other hand lost my beauty every day because of the responsibility I was enduring. No one can know the anger and the rancour that I felt. Because of her my husband was
going out to die, because of her my father and mother were trembling with fear, because of her Trojans were dying every day, and all she could do was sing and keep herself beautiful.