The Floating Body (15 page)

Keeping a safe distance, I followed.

Now I must admit there is nothing particularly mysterious about walking down the high street of a town in the evening hours in the general direction of the nearest pub. However, I wanted this to be a moment when I uncovered some startling new fact about this pair of—well, the only proper expression was ‘suspicious characters’.

I think I was under the influence at the time of a book I had confiscated from a schoolboy a week earlier. It was called
The Purple Gang
, and it involved the hero, a tough detective type, doing a lot of following of suspects down dark streets. I hadn’t meant to read the wretched book, of course, but it lay on my desk and tempted me from doing more serious things. Now it came back to haunt my imagination like a ghost that refused to be exorcised, keeping me hot on the heels of the pair ahead of me.

By now the McKells had reached
The Pelican
, where they paused for a moment. Then, to my surprise, they continued just a little further up the high street. One shop on, and well out of reach of even the feeblest of street lamps, they stopped again. And this time they stayed stopped.

As a precaution I crossed to the other side of the street and kept moving silently forward, keeping well within the shadows, until I was directly opposite where they stood. There was no sign of movement on the McKell side of the street, and just as I was trying to make up my mind as to what my next move should be, the town taxi (Geo. Weekes, prop.) trundled slowly past.

In the brief yellow glow of the taxi’s headlights I now saw that huddled opposite was not a group of two people but of three. The McKells had been joined by someone. Whoever it was, they were now in whispered conversation with this third party.

This activity I was engaged in was called ‘shadowing’ suspects in the
Purple Gang
book, and over the next fifteen minutes or so I discovered how chilly and boring this ‘shadowing’ lark could be.

In fact, I was close to giving up and going back to my nice warm room at the school when there was movement on the footpath opposite. The little group started walking, fairly briskly, up the high street—still moving away from the cathedral.

I followed them on my side of the street until they reached the Nesfield railway station. Here I caught my first glimpse of the third man in the group—and a glimpse was all it was. He was tall and thin, wore a dark overcoat and had a fedora pulled firmly down on his head, the broad brim covering his face with shadow.

At the entrance to the railway station Gareth McKell shook the man’s hand. The stranger entered the station while the McKells turned around and retraced their steps back up the street.

I waited until they were gone, then I began to cross the street just as a train pulled in with a wheezing hiss of steam and a clang of steel wheels.

By the time I had crossed the railway footbridge to reach the platform, the guard was raising his flag and the train was about to pull out. The McKells’ mysterious friend was clearly already on board, so I failed in my attempt to get a better look at him.

The guard’s flag dropped, and with a heavy chuff-chuff-chuffing sound the huge wheels slowly began to turn. As the train pulled out of the platform, I turned and looked at the destination board: the train was headed for London.

I turned around and slowly made my way back up the high street to Nesfield Cathedral School. Had I, as I wanted to think, seen the McKells engaged in something suspicious—some part of their nefarious activities, whatever they might be? Or was this entirely innocent? Had the McKells merely been seeing a friend off on the train?

In the end I decided that reading confiscated books such as
The Purple Gang
was not good for me and went to bed.

The next afternoon the Head Master and the Dean jointly hosted a high tea to officially introduce the school community to the man who was to be their guest speaker that night.

‘Mr Lewis is a distinguished Oxford scholar,’ the Head was saying as I slipped into the room a little late.

The room in question was the Head Master’s large drawing room, and it was filled with staff and members of the board of governors. Also present were Brenda Rogers, the Head Master’s wife, young Julia Carleton, Ryan Carleton’s wife, and the sour-faced Muriel McKell.

A maid was carefully negotiating her way around the crowded room balancing a tray of sherry glasses, rather like a small pushbike weaving through the traffic in Regent Street. I whipped a glass of sherry off her tray as she passed.

‘A very distinguished scholar indeed,’ Dr Rogers was rumbling on, addressing himself to a small group of town worthies gathered around him, all of them governors of the school. ‘He lectures chiefly on Mediaeval and Renaissance Literature, and he tells me he’s been commissioned by the Oxford University Press to write a book on late mediaeval allegory. Oh yes, a most distinguished man—we were very fortunate to get him.’

‘And what will he be speaking on?’ asked one of the town dignitaries.

‘Ah, well, yes, he did tell me, and to be perfectly honest, my dear fellow, I simply cannot recall,’ responded the Head with a disarming smile. ‘So you’ll just have to be here tonight to make the discovery for yourself. Ah, there you are, Sir Edgar—so good to see you again . . .’

With these last words the Head detached himself from his group and sailed through the crowd to greet a middle-aged, military-looking gentleman who was just arriving.

I turned around to find myself part of a small group that included both Jack and Warnie. The latter had seized upon one of our town visitors, also an ex-army man, and the two of them were sharing memories of bad army food.

‘The only thing you need to remember,’ said Warnie with a chuckle, ‘is that the standard army nickname for the base cook was “The Poisoner”. That tells you everything you need to know.’

His interlocutor hooted in appreciation of this reminder just as Henry Beard cruised into the orbit of our little group, a sherry in his hand and a grumpy expression in his face.

‘I just wish this whole charade would end,’ he grumbled, ‘so I could get back to my work.’

Knowing I could make no contribution to easing his additional workload, I changed the subject.

‘Pity your wife couldn’t be here, Beard,’ I said. ‘I only met her once or twice myself but she struck me as a delightful young woman.’

‘She’s very shy,’ muttered Beard. ‘She wouldn’t like this sort of bun fight.’

Jack chimed in to ask Beard where his wife was, and he gave the same answer he’d given to me the day before—visiting her sick mother up in Whitby.

‘How long has she been gone?’ Jack asked.

‘A couple of weeks,’ mumbled Beard indistinctly. ‘She left as soon as news came through that her mother was ill.’

‘Nothing serious, I hope,’ I said, making polite conversation.

‘I don’t know,’ Beard replied. ‘I haven’t heard from Samantha since she left.’

We were interrupted by the Head Master, who introduced some local worthies to Jack.

He politely shook hands with them and then turned to the Head and asked if the absent Dave Fowler had been a helpful sort of man on special occasions such as this—in social situations, and helping out with events such as Speech Night.

‘Ah, there you touch upon a sore point, Mr Lewis,’ replied Dr Rogers, shaking his distinguished grey head sadly. ‘Young Fowler was not what one could call a very helpful young man. Your friend Morris here is much more useful.’

‘So,’ Jack persisted, ‘despite the unhappy and dramatic way in which Mr Fowler shuffled off this mortal coil, you will not really miss him?’

Dr Rogers leaned in closer and quietly confided that he found ‘young Mr Fowler’ to be something of a ‘disruptive influence’.

Jack asked in what way, and the Head replied, ‘Now that you ask me directly, I can’t exactly put my finger on it. But things were never quite settled from the moment Mr Fowler joined the staff. Somehow he seemed to set people’s nerves on edge. No one was quite themselves when Fowler was around. To tell the truth, I would have dispensed with his services quite soon after his arrival if that had been a practical step. Of course, what held my hand was the difficulty of finding a replacement quickly.’

The Head then surged off towards another group, to make his presence felt and to ensure the social wheels were all turning smoothly. I also wandered away and became engaged in desultory conversation with my fellow schoolmasters, who were inclined to grumble at being made to attend these events. Except, as always, for the relaxed Geoffrey Douglas, who seemed to find it all rather amusing, in a detached and remote sort of way.

Shortly after this I saw Jack using the general hubbub to slip way unnoticed and make his escape. I followed, and caught up with him on the steps of the Head Master’s house.

‘I had done my duty,’ said Jack, by way of excuse, ‘and I don’t really engage in small talk. Hence my quick escape.’

I fell into step beside him, striding quickly across the cathedral close, before we could be spotted and called back, and out through the main gate. There on the road we slowed down and turned towards the river.

‘When Warnie was coaching that boy yesterday, I took a walk across the bridge and up that far hill,’ Jack said. ‘Delightful countryside, and a most enjoyable walk. But that hilltop opposite us is not the peak it appears to be. When you reach the crown, you discover another and higher peak beyond it, and another beyond that.’

I asked him if he’d gone far, and he said he’d walked for an hour and then retraced his steps.

‘Talking about retracing steps,’ I said, ‘can I retrace our steps to our “great debate” on human nature?’

‘With pleasure, young Morris, with pleasure,’ said Jack as we walked down from the road towards the towpath that ran along the river bank.

‘You keep telling me that human nature is not basically good but basically corrupt. Is that correct?’

Jack nodded.

‘But where could that come from? It’s altruism—caring for each other—that builds communities and therefore that has survival value. How could corruption go on being passed on from one human generation to the next?’

‘The Christian answer, of course, is what is called the doctrine of the Fall. It’s a good name for a difficult concept. It conveys the notion of starting on a higher level and falling to a lower one.’

‘But is there any evidence for what you call the Fall?’

‘The evidence can be found in any day’s newspaper or any book of human history. You’ll recall Chesterton’s line—I mentioned it earlier—that the one Christian doctrine that never needs arguing for, because it’s so obviously true, is the doctrine of the Fall.’

‘But what bit of us is actually corrupted by the Fall—whatever it is?’

‘I would think every bit. St Paul talks about the flesh being corrupt, and we all know the experience of what should be normal, healthy appetites being corrupted in unhealthy directions—towards gluttony or adultery or whatever. And we know that our minds can easily be corrupted towards accepting specious arguments for that which we wish to believe. And above all—the heart.’

‘What do you mean by the heart?’

‘Clearly not the blood pump but rather that inner self that contains out deepest longings.’

‘So you say the corruption of human nature functions at that deepest of all levels?’ I asked.

‘Not just me,’ replied Jack . ‘Do you trust Jesus as one of the greatest teachers of history? Yes, I know you do, for you’ve told me so before. Well, Jesus says: “Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.” That, young Morris, is why you, and I, and all of us struggle to do what we know we ought to do.’

Here Jack paused while I took in these words, then he added, ‘And why we so often do what our conscience, in its best moments, tells us not to do.’

When we returned from our walk, we found the shadows lengthening and the cathedral close deserted—except for four boys: Hamilton, Clifford, Redway and Cardew. This was the group known around the school as ‘The Famous Four’. They were huddled together like a rugby scrum. They were deep in conversation, and there were worried expressions on all four faces.

When the boys saw us enter the close, they turned and began walking towards us.

As they drew closer, Jack took his leave to go in search of Warnie.

‘If I know my dear brother,’ he said, ‘he’ll stay until the last guest is ejected. I had better relieve Dr and Mrs Rogers of his presence so they can get ready for tonight.’

With those words he left, and I turned to the schoolboys who were approaching me.

‘Excuse me, sir,’ said Hamilton, the leader of the group. ‘May we have a minute of your time, please?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘It’s about young Stanhope.’

‘What about him?’

‘We think Conway and Wynyard might be planning more trouble for him.’

‘They’re absolute bounders, both of them,’ Redway contributed.

‘We’ve had trouble with them before,’ said Clifford.

‘When I first arrived they tried to make my life a misery,’ Cardew explained. ‘Until these other chaps told them where to get off, that is.’

I couldn’t disagree with anything Hamilton and Co. were telling me. I had taken classes in which Conway and Wynyard had sat at the back of the room, not paying attention to the beauties of Wordsworth but trying to flick inked darts at other boys when they thought I wasn’t looking.

In any class that contained Conway and Wynyard there was an inherent danger in turning to write on the blackboard, because that meant having one’s back to the class. And the moment the teacher’s back was turned, those two seemed to think they had a licence to indulge their baser instincts.

In fact, in my ‘great debate’ with Jack about human nature, if Jack had known of the pattern of behaviour displayed by Conway and Wynyard, he would probably have trotted them out labelled ‘Exhibit A for the prosecution’. It certainly appeared to be the case that ‘the corruption of human nature’ of which Jack spoke was paraded—with trumpets and drums and all flags flying—in their conduct.