The Floating Body (4 page)

‘I’ll write and tell Jack so at once.’

‘Jack?’

‘Lewis’s friends all call him Jack.’

‘But you said his initials are . . .’

‘C. S.—for Clive Staples. But it seems as a boy he decided he disliked the name Clive and insisted on being Jack instead. So he’s been Jack to his friends ever since.’

‘I see, I see. Well, you’ve done very well, young Morris, very well indeed.’

Leaving the Head’s study I made my way towards the Senior Common Room for morning tea. This entailed walking down one of the dorm corridors, where I encountered a small group clustered outside one of the rooms. Standing in the doorway of study number five was young Stanhope, blinking furiously through his large spectacles at the crowd facing him.

This unpleasantly noisy and sneering group appeared to be led by Conway and Wynyard.

‘Here you are, young Toffee Nose,’ bawled Conway. ‘We have a complete cricket kit for you—so you have no excuse for squibbing out of the cricket trials.’

‘But I say, you fellows—’ Stanhope began to complain. He didn’t get to complete his objection as he was quickly howled down.

‘I thought you were supposed to be descended from some great Norman knight,’ sneered Wynyard. ‘I thought you were supposed to have battling blood running through your noble veins.’

‘Perhaps we should open a vein and see just how blue his blood is!’ bellowed a voice from the back of the group.

At this point I intervened.

‘All right, what’s going on here then?’ I demanded, striding up to the group. As I approached the uproar ceased and an uncomfortable silence descended upon the dorm corridor. ‘Come along,’ I said, ‘one of you tell me what’s happening here. You, Conway—you can explain what’s afoot.’

‘Well, sir,’ he said, looking a little uneasy—a little, but not much. ‘Since Stanhope’s name is on the board to try out for the cricket team, and since Stanhope is a squib who says he’s no good at games, Wynyard and I have put together a cricket kit for him, sir’—with these words he held up a canvas cricket bag—‘so that he’d have no excuse, sir.’

‘There’s more to it than that, isn’t there?’ I asked suspiciously. ‘Stanhope, if your name was added to the list for the cricket trials by other hands, and not by yourself, you are not obliged to go to the nets and try out.’

To my surprise young Stanhope said, ‘It’s all right, sir—if these wotters want to have a chance to bowl at me in the nets I’ll give it to them. I’ll turn up on the day of the trial, sir, and let them do their worst.’

The response to this announcement was a cheer from the small group assembled in the corridor.

‘See you on the day, squirt,’ sneered Conway.

‘We’ll keep this cricket kit for you in our room,’ added Wynyard, ‘so that you don’t accidentally “lose” it before the trials.’

With those words the older boys departed, chuckling among themselves.

I was left facing Stanhope, to whom I said, ‘Why did you agree? If you’d said no I would have backed you up.’

‘Very kind of you, sir,’ replied Stanhope rather glumly, ‘but it was a case of noblesse oblige. Sometimes the squire simply has to keep the peasants happy.’

With those words he stuck his nose in the air, turned back into study number five and closed the door.

Now it’s true I had only been a schoolmaster for a month—and I was already determined to keep the schoolmastering part of my life as short as possible—but this latest incident drove home to me how little I understood the mentality of the schoolboy. Which was puzzling, since it wasn’t all that many years since I’d been a schoolboy myself.

I descended the stairs towards the Senior Common Room.

At the foot of the stairs I saw the Deputy Head, Gareth McKell, speaking to his sister Muriel. Well, ‘speaking’ isn’t quite the right word. It would be more accurate to say that their heads were very close together and they were whispering in hushed tones.

At the sound of my boots clumping on the stone stairs they pulled apart hastily and stopped talking. They both glanced at me and gave each other a significant look—although signifying exactly what it was impossible to guess—then turned and walked in opposite directions.

For all the world it looked like the behaviour of people who shared a guilty secret. Although what guilty secret a middle-aged schoolmaster and his spinster sister could possible share had me puzzled.

A week later Jack and Warnie arrived. They were carried up from the Nesfield railway station by the town taxi (Geo. Weekes, prop.), and I was there to greet them at the school gate.

‘This is very good of you, Jack,’ I said, shaking him warmly by the hand. ‘And it’s delightful to see you again too, Warnie.’

Jack was dressed in the same baggy grey flannel trousers and battered old tweed jacket as always. Warnie, as befitted an ex-military man, looked rather neater in his blue serge suit.

Following Jack’s example, Warnie seized my hand and pumped it energetically.

‘I must say you’re looking well, young Morris. Schoolmastering must agree with you,’ he said, his moustache flapping enthusiastically with each word.

‘What you can see, Warnie,’ I replied, ‘is a level of fitness induced by trying to keep up with a wild mob of schoolboys, especially on the playing field.’

‘So you’re a games master as well as English Master?’ Jack asked.

‘Acting,’ I stressed, ‘only acting. I’m here for two terms—after which I look around in other directions.’

‘Oh, I see,’ puffed Warnie, ‘like that is it? I take it that means you’re not one of nature’s schoolmasters?’

I laughed and agreed that you could put it that way if you wished. Then Jack asked for the guided tour, so I began by picking up their bags and leading them across the cobblestones of the quad to the Dean’s house.

My knock on the door was answered by a maid, who showed us into the front sitting room, where we were joined a moment later by the Dean of the cathedral, Richard Cowper—who always insisted that his name be pronounced ‘Cooper’ (‘I am not the least bovine,’ he was fond of saying. ‘There is nothing of the “cow” about me.’)

‘Ah, these are our guests, I take it,’ said Cowper as he bustled into the room followed by his wife, Ellen. ‘We have two spare bedrooms. Not very big, I’m afraid, but comfortable and both with a view of the river.’

Perhaps oddly for a churchman, the Dean was a shy man. Crisp and clear in the pulpit, he could be awkward and hesitant with strangers.

I made the introductions and handed over the suitcases to the maid to take upstairs.

Ellen Cowper ushered us all into armchairs and insisted on ordering tea.

‘I’ve read your book, Mr Lewis,’ said Cowper as we settled into our chairs and waited for the tea tray to appear. ‘
The Pilgrim’s Regress
—most interesting, most interesting indeed.’

Jack chuckled and said, ‘Since it first appeared I have discovered what a swampland I entered when I attempted allegory. It’s always a balancing act. If the symbols of the allegory—the symbolic places, people and actions—are transparently simple then why write allegory at all? Why not a simple, straight-forward exposition? But if, on the other hand, the symbols are rich and complex, one runs the risk of obscurity. And my readers tell me it’s that latter difficulty I’ve given them.’

‘I quite see the problem,’ said Cowper, nodding thoughtfully. ‘And it makes one appreciate Bunyan’s genius even more.’

‘Precisely,’ said Jack with a loud guffaw, seizing the point with pleasure. ‘I can now see that the tinker of Bedford had an imaginative gift of exactly the right sort. And a very rare gift it is too.’

‘Mind you,’ said the Dean, ‘I could make out the shape of the journey you wanted the reader to follow—from atheism, to a kind of pantheism, through theism, to Christianity.’

At this Jack laughed out loud—a laugh of sheer delight.

‘Then you’ve done better than most of my readers,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid my mistake was describing my spiritual pathway, and the scenes along the way, while making the assumption that my readers would find the journey as familiar as the railway line from Oxford to London.’

After we had all indulged in cups of tea and slices of Madeira cake, I took Jack and Warnie up on their request for a guided tour.

It being a Saturday, and hence a half day, we found most of the masters in their studies. We began in the adjoining terrace houses where we found History Master Geoffrey Douglas also in the midst of his afternoon tea, surrounded by books and open atlases. But he was welcoming and friendly. He offered us a sherry, which Warnie accepted but Jack and I declined.

Much less friendly was Henry Beard next door. He did his duty out of politeness but made it quite clear that it was a duty reluctantly embraced. His study, where we spoke to him, was cluttered by his fishing gear, his golf bag and all kinds of odd pieces of sporting equipment.

Noting the absence of a feminine hand, I said, ‘Your wife not around at the moment, Beard?’

‘Visiting her family,’ he growled in his closed-mouth, unfriendly fashion.

‘They live on the coast somewhere, I think you told me? Up north, I think you said?’

‘Not far from Whitby they are. That’s where she is. Well, I hope you gentlemen enjoy your stay among us.’ As he uttered these words he rose and walked to the door. Clearly we were being ushered out.

We went upstairs to the flat occupied by Ryan Carleton, Choir Master and Music Master, and his wife, Julia. They were both out, so we went next door to the terrace house divided into three smaller flats for the single men: myself, Mathematics Master Dave Fowler, and David Evans, the cathedral organist.

Evans was out and Dave Fowler was just leaving as we arrived. He had a folded deckchair under one arm and a book and a straw hat in the other hand.

‘Just off to sun myself,’ he snapped, ‘seeing the weather has turned so warm for spring.’

I asked him where he could possibly find a quiet spot in the sun, and he replied, ‘Up on the leads—on the roof of the Old School—well away from all noisy schoolboys. There I shall read a book, and, in all probability, fall asleep.’

With those words he left us and walked across the quad in the direction of the narrow old servants’ staircase that opened out onto the flat roof of the Old School.

‘Hmmf—not all that friendly, is he?’ snorted Warnie.

‘He’s always that way,’ I said. ‘Dave Fowler seems to be preoccupied with Dave Fowler and no one else gets a look in.’

I explained that there was just one more staff member to meet, Deputy Head and House Master Gareth McKell, and we’d find him out where the school’s playing fields were, at the nets supervising the cricket trials.

‘In fact, I’m supposed to be there helping pick the A-grade team for the coming summer season,’ I added.

‘Well, we’ll come with you,’ said Warnie with real enthusiasm. ‘I might even be able to help a little. I have a good eye for cricketing talent.’

We walked through the archway under the Old School and let ourselves out onto the playing fields. And there to our right were the cricket nets.

As we arrived at the nets Clifford was bowling his medium pace swing balls at Hamilton—who was looking like a first-class batsman at the crease. Despite Clifford’s ingenuity, which was considerable, Hamilton was getting hold of each delivery and putting it away. Ball after ball swung through the air and skidded off the crease, only to be picked up neatly by the willow wielded by Hamilton and slogged firmly into the netting.

‘Ah, there you are at last, Morris,’ growled McKell without taking his eyes off the action in the nets. ‘It’s about time. I expected you here an hour ago.’

‘Sorry I’m late,’ I said, ‘but I had to look after our guests.’

McKell looked briefly over his shoulder, and then turned back to the cricket action.

‘So I take it one of these gentlemen is our last-minute, short-notice guest speaker for the School Speech Night?’

McKell, I could see, was bent on being his usual charming, engaging self.

But Jack was not the least put off by the House Master’s abrupt manner.

‘I’m your man,’ he said heartily. ‘And I hope I won’t let you down on the night.’

A grunt was the only reply he got from McKell, so he continued, ‘And this is my brother, Major Lewis.’

McKell continued to watch the action in the nets as Warnie said, ‘Any promising players here today?’

‘Quite a few,’ said McKell over his shoulder without turning around. ‘Hamilton, Clifford, Redway and Cardew are all first class. We just need to find seven players strong enough to support them.’

At that point Wynyard sidled up to the House Master and said, ‘Time to give Stanhope a go, sir?’

McKell grumbled, but said, ‘All right—let’s get him out of the way, and then we can look at some real players.’

Wynyard called over to the group of assembled schoolboys on the sidelines, ‘Come on, Stanhope, it’s your turn.’

Conway then appeared at Wynyard’s side carrying a canvas cricket bag, which he opened. A sly look passed between them as the latter pulled a cricket bat out of the kit bag.

Stanhope approached wearing cricket creams and looking paler than ever, his flaxen hair tousled and his eyes wide with dread. From the kit bag he selected and put on pads and batting gloves, then Wynyard handed him the bat.

‘To the crease, Stanhope,’ ordered McKell. ‘Clifford, send him down a few easy ones—let’s see if he can even connect with the ball.’

Clifford did as he was ordered, sending down medium pace deliveries, straight as an arrow, on a line and length, with no swing, turn or deviation.

For the first ball Stanhope swung and missed—the leather missile, whistling through the air, missed the blade by an inch. This brought loud catcalls from the crowd of Conway and Wynyard’s friends who were watching the action. Stanhope just shrugged his shoulders and took his stance again.

Knowing how uncomfortable he was, I admired the boy’s spirit in taking on this unpleasant challenge which he saw as his duty to tackle.

As Stanhope took his stance again, and Clifford paced back to his mark, I told Jack in a few hurried, whispered words about the schoolboy drama that had led up to this moment.