The Red Road (9 page)

“What did you think of the film?”
Marvin asked of the first and second years.
I forgot their names. They were both in Enfield
House, though. I could tell by the colour of their ties.

“It was good,” they nodded,
though they didn’t add anything else. I got the impression that
they came to the club both to watch the film, enjoy a few snacks, and
listen to us talk about things going on in the school.

“Hey, did you hear about Will
Preston?” Rory said, moving to the video to start rewinding the
tape.

“No,” I said, detecting
immediately from the tone that this was a piece of derogatory gossip.

“He’s gone to Cambridge
University and joined the gay society.”

“No way!” I said. “Seriously?”

“Yep.” Rory grinned. “Within
the first couple of days, apparently. A lot of people do that because
it’s a new place and a new start and very few people know them.”

“Yeah, but what’s-his-name’s
gone there, too.” I clicked my fingers as I tried to remember his
name, failed, and gave up. “The head of Enfield House. They know
each other.”

“Sure, but university’s not like
here – there are thousands of people there. If they’re not in the
same college and not doing the same classes, then they might bump
into each other randomly, but no one would ever know.”

“Well, we found out,” I said,
looking at what remained of the tube of Pringles. A few at the
bottom, mostly broken. “So, it’s not entirely secretive.”

Rory then began laughing. “Marvin’s
not saying anything, because Preston was his dorm prefect when he was
a first year.”

I chuckled and looked at Marvin, who
just waved away the attention. “Whatever,” he said, crunching on
a mint. “I don’t care either way.”

“Has anyone ever told anyone
they’re gay while they’ve still been here?” the second year boy
then asked.

“Don’t be stupid, Turner,”
Rory said. “You’d get the shit kicked out of you.”

“I don’t think so,” Marvin
frowned. “It wouldn’t be a very bright thing to do, but I
wouldn’t be surprised if someone’s told a teacher sometime. But,
no, I don’t think anyone’s ever said so.”

“Do you think maybe that’s what
happened to Scott Parker?” Turner asked. “That he found out
someone was gay?”

“Scott Parker?” Rory and Marvin
looked at one another.

“The junior school boy,” I said.
“No, I don’t think so. He’d have only been here for, what, four
weeks?”

“Does anyone know how it happened
yet?” Rory wanted to know, looking to the four of us. We all
shrugged.

“Who do you think it was?”
Marvin asked. “Someone local?”

“I bet it was Quasimodo,” Rory
said. “That’s the hunchbacked gardener you sometimes see around
the place, with the monks,” he explained to the first year, who
nodded but said nothing.

“Rob Walker thought the same
thing,” I said. “I doubt it. Quasimodo seems pretty harmless to
me. A bit weird, but harmless.”

“No, he’s weird,” Marvin said.
“I remember when I was in my first year, and he was always trying
to talk to us and stuff. There was one time when he was helping me
fix my bike, and he kept touching me. Not in an obvious way, but he
always liked making physical contact. It made me feel really
uncomfortable.”

“Cambridge is nice, you know,” I said,
changing the subject and not wishing to talk about the murder.

“You thinking of going?” Marvin
asked.

“No,” I chuckled. “I don’t
think I’d ever be able to get in there, but it’s a nice place to
visit. My parents took me once.”

“It is a nice place, yes,” Rory
nodded.

“Have you been to Oxford?”

“No, but Cambridge as a whole is
still nicer from what I’ve heard. Have you decided where you want
to go to university yet?” he asked openly.

“Give us a chance to do our
A-Levels first, Rory,” Marvin said.

There was a knock at the door, a
teacher stepping into the television room directly after. It was Mr
Finn, one of the history teachers and my assigned personal tutor. He
was the acting duty master at the school for the evening. I liked Mr
Finn. He was very easygoing and tolerant.

“Is everything okay?” he asked.

“Yes,” Marvin said. “The
film’s just finished, actually.”

“Ah, good,” Mr Finn said. “Could
you pack everything up, lock the VCR away, and put all your rubbish
in the bin before you go? Oh, and return the keys to the staff room.

“Joe, have you got ten minutes? We were meant to have our one-to-one
sometime this week, but we might as well do it now, since it won’t
take long.”

“Sure,” I said. “Are you guys
okay with everything?” I said to Rory and Marvin.

“No problem,” they replied,
leaving me to depart with Mr Finn.

~ ~ ~

We walked back to the classroom
block, Mr Finn taking me to the staff room and offering me a seat at
a table, where he had been marking pupils’ work.

“Would you like some water?” he
asked, refilling his own glass from a jug. I told him I would, and so
he poured me some. “How’s everything going, Joe?” he asked,
pleasant and cheery as always.

“All okay,” I said. “Nothing
major.”

“None of your classes giving you
any trouble?”

“No.”

“Good. Your grades don’t seem to
suggest so, either. Your housemaster hasn’t told me that you’re
struggling anywhere, so I guess everything is all good.”

“Cool,” was all I said. There
wasn’t much more that really needed adding.

“And you’re all recovered from
the incident on the Road?”

“Yes,” I nodded, keen to move
the conversation on from that particular subject as quickly as
possible.

“Good. I won’t talk to you any
more about that, then. Now, I know it’s early, but have you given
any thought to what subjects you’d like to take at A-Level?”

“I’ve ... not really thought
that hard about it,” I said. It seemed that some were a little
ahead of me in that regard. Both Rory and Marvin had an idea of what
they wanted to do, and Rob had pretty much decided on his subjects
for next year already.

“Probably want to get your GCSEs
out of the way first, I imagine,” Mr Finn smiled. “But you might
find it easier after you’ve done your mocks and can see what
subjects you’re excelling in.”

“The mocks are still next term?”
I thought I would check.

“Still next term. Starting within
the first three weeks, which unfortunately means you’ll have to
revise over Christmas.”

“At least we never have to revise
over the summer,” I said.

“Yes, that wouldn’t be fair to
anyone,” Mr Finn chuckled. “Okay, so you don’t know about
A-Level subjects yet, but have you thought about what you would like
to do as a career?”

“No,” I said, chuckling. “I’ve
got absolutely no idea.”

“Fair enough. I thought maybe if
you had an idea of that, I could suggest appropriate A-Levels and
degree courses. What do your parents do?”

“They work in the pharmaceutical
industry,” I said.

“Oh, really?” Mr Finn’s face
brightened. “That sounds interesting. Do they work where you live?
Or in London, or..?”

“All over,” I said. “They work
abroad a lot, too, which is why they sent me here.”

No, it’s because they don’t
want you at home, getting in their way
, Craig Priest’s slimy
voice suddenly crept into my head. I ignored it.

“That sounds exciting,” Mr Finn
said. “You would get to travel a lot, meet lots of different
people, work in different places, and see a lot of the world. Have
you thought about perhaps doing that as well?”

“No way,” I said automatically.

“Why not?”

“Because my parents are
workaholics,” I blurted out. “They hardly have time for me and
mostly just focus on their careers. They were a little annoyed about
me having to be home for two weeks if I’m being honest, since one
of them always had to be keeping an eye on what I was doing.”

I realised as I said it how it
sounded extremely bitter. It was true, however; my mother and father
had never had that much time for me in recent years.

“Is everything okay back home?”
Mr Finn asked. His face had fallen a little, and he was starting to
look somewhat concerned.

“Oh, it’s fine,” I reassured
him. “Nothing bad happening.”

“I can understand what’s happening with your parents,” Mr Finn said.
“Some people
put an exceptional amount of effort in with their schooling and
training, and work hard to get where they what to be. It can then be
hard for them when they have to put their lives on hold on a time for
other things. It’s nothing personal, it’s just that they feel
that they aren’t making the most of all their skills, and that they
might have worked hard for nothing. Do you see what I mean?”

“I guess so,” I said. I
understood what he meant. It must be frustrating when you had worked
hard towards something, to become a great success, and needed the
validation that all the time and effort had been worth it. Even so, I
didn’t really get the live-to-work mentality that some maintained.
I was certain I was a work-to-live kind of person.

“My parents have always been like
that,” I told Mr Finn. “I’m not sure how they’ll feel about
me being back at home when I’m doing my A-Levels, but it’s
something they’ll just have to get used to ... oh.” My ears
caught up with what my mouth was saying well after I had let Mr Finn
in on my little secret.

“Ah, you’re not planning to stay
here after you’ve done your GCSEs?” he asked, putting everything
together admirably quickly.

“I haven’t told anyone yet, but
no,” I said, after gulping down a good mouthful of water to prevent
my mouth from drying out completely. I felt as though I had just
confessed to a murder.

“No one at all?” Mr Finn asked.

“No, not even my parents. You’re
the first ... well, second person I’ve told.”

“Any particular reason you want to
leave?”

“I’m worried that I’ve been in
this environment for too long, and it won’t prepare me for real
life,” I said, after pausing for a short time to consider how to
consolidate all my rights-of-passage desires into one semi-diplomatic
sentence.

“I see. How long have you been
here?”

“Since I was nine,” I said.
“This is my seventh year at St Christopher’s.”

“So, you were in the junior school
for four years, rather than the usual three?”

“Yes. I repeated the first year.”

“That is indeed a long time,”
Mr Finn nodded in understanding. “Okay, well you can trust me not
to say anything to anyone. But I’d suggest you talk to your parents
about it sooner rather than later, so they can inform the school. The
headmaster would also appreciate knowing closer to the time.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Anything else you wish to talk
about? Are you taking a dorm this year? Everything okay there?” he
asked as I nodded.

“No problems. First years, so easy
to deal with. For now,” I grinned.

“Yes, for now. They’ll probably
gain some confidence after Christmas,” Mr Finn laughed. “Okay,
Joe, thank you. It’s nearly time for evening prayers, so you had
probably better get back to your house.”

Chapter Seven

A
s
well as inter-house competitions (mainly sports, but occasionally
music and singing!) we would also engage in inter-school sports
matches. These would involve us either hosting or guesting at other
schools, the matches taking place on Wednesday or Saturday
afternoons.

When hosting, we would await the
arrival of the rival schools’ teams outside the main school. On
some occasions, two or three coaches would arrive, the fixture
calendar meaning that one school would uproot over half of its pupils
to face us that day. We would greet them as they arrived, not only to
be courteous to those we were to be playing against that afternoon,
showing them to the changing rooms and seeing to any needs they might
have, but also to size up the competition. Back when I had still been
ten years old, this never made too much of a difference to the match.
At that age, some boys might be an inch taller and maybe a little
fatter. They certainly weren’t built like brick shithouses or
possess thighs like tree trunks, as one might see on televised
matches. Approaching your mid-teens, however, it became a whole other
ball game.

I was a little over average height
and in good shape for my age, the other boys in my year varying as
much as one might expect. Some were shorter, but a lot more nimble on
their feet when on the field. In games of rugby, they would form a
part of the backs. Others were taller, stockier and overall more
beefy. They, of course, would play as the forwards and involve
themselves in the scrum. I, myself, played in the backs, usually the
inside-centre. I sometimes swapped with the outside-centre, depending
on who the fly-half was. Though I was tall enough to play in the
forwards, I hadn’t done so since my first year, mainly because I
had never gotten on very well with the scrum and often caused it to
collapse. For this, I was glad. The sight of the opposition that
sometimes departed the coaches of the opposing schools would often
make me wonder what on earth those boys were being fed. Such a thing
was quite typical of schools’ ‘A teams’, where only the highest
calibre players would do.

“Christ, those guys are huge,” I
would hear my team-mates mutter after we’d shown the visitors where
to go to change and prepare for the game.

“Fucking hell, that guy is going
to flatten you,” another would say to our captain, whose opposite
number may as well have been a foot taller and wider than he. The
captain often lost his nerve a little at that and began snapping at
the rest of us, suggesting that if anyone was going to having any
bones broken that afternoon, it wouldn’t be him.

Thankfully, only a few bones were
ever broken during the matches, and these were very rare occurrences
indeed. Not to say that some players didn’t actually try. One of
the problems with approaching your mid-teens, effectively locked away
in a single-sex school without any significant female company to
speak of, would be that testosterone would be running hot all the
time. These hormones would fuel pent-up frustrations, resulting in
them being released on the rugby field. I had learned in general
studies how this had been a technique favoured by some ancient
civilisations to make their warriors fight harder on the field,
seeking a release. The same pretty much rang true here, and some went
out of their way to start a fight if they could, punching and kicking
others in the scrum, where it would be too difficult for the referee
to notice.