The Rotters' Club (42 page)

‘So, Culpepper and Steve start having the most incredible argument. Then the rest of us join in. It’s five against one. Me and Doug and Procter and Gidney and Steve are all for grabbing the paper and throwing it back out of the window. But Culpepper won’t let go. We start chasing him around the room with it. Steve does a rugby tackle on him and brings him to the floor. They’re on the floor, fighting each other for this bloody stupid bit of paper. The only one who doesn’t join in is Harding. He’s still sitting there, sipping his tea like he couldn’t give a toss. And then he says something. He looks down at these two clowns rolling around on the floor and he says, “What’s the date?” And Culpepper can’t believe what he’s hearing. He says,
“What?”,
as if this is the daftest question in the world. Which it does seem to be, I must say, to the rest of us. But then Harding says, “What–s the date on the exam paper?”, and they look at it, and…’

‘And?’ said Benjamin, although he thought he could anticipate the answer.

‘1972. June the 20th, 1972.’

Benjamin threw back his head, and began to laugh, but it was the laughter of admiration rather than genuine amusement. ‘Yes, of course. He’d just got an old one out of the library. And he’s always getting Ives to run errands for him.’

Doug was gazing into the distance, his eyes narrowed. ‘God, I can still see the look on his face, too. He’s sitting there, and he’s just tapping away on the edge of his teacup with that bloody signet ring of his. Clink, clink, clink, he’s going, and you’ve never seen any one look so smug or inscrutable. That crazy pleasure he gets from winding people up. He’d reduced the whole room to chaos. Mayhem. Just for the hell of it.’ Drinking down what was left of his warm beer, he added, ‘Hell’s the right word, too, where he’s concerned. That man –’ (Doug chose the phrase carefully) ‘– is the spawn of Satan. Reluctantly, that’s the conclusion I’ve come to.’ He flopped back on to the grass and groaned, rubbing his eyes. ‘Shit, what a day it’s been. What a bloody school this is. I don’t wonder that Steve cracked in the end. Nobody sane could survive a place like this. It’s nothing but a breeding ground for freaks and weirdos.’ He glanced at Benjamin and smiled, half-teasingly. ‘Look at you, with your prefect’s badge and your desk drawer full of unfinished masterpieces. What’s the matter with you?’

He struggled to his feet, and the other two followed. It was time to go home.

‘I can’t wait to get out of here,’ Doug said, as they headed for the gates, for their last-ever journey together on the number 62 bus. ‘I tell you, London’s the only place for me.’

26

(N.B. Lois’s diary from this period is sometimes hard to decipher. The letters and numbers at the top of each entry – for instance, 3 + 260 A.M. – refer to the number of years and days after Malcolm’s death. The asterisks at the bottom of each page, usually ranging from one to five, seem to be an assessment of her mood on that particular day.)

4th August, 1978
3 +256 A.M.

A long and uncomfortable journey to Wales, with the three of us squashed into the back of the car. Gorgeous weather, though, as we drove out of Penybontfawr and up through the Tanat valley. Let’s hope it stays this way for once, hey Lois? Paul of course says that it won’t. He spent most of the drive with his transistor radio stuck to his ear listening to the forecasts. Every time they got worse he sounded happier and happier. ‘Rain!’ he kept saying. ‘Rain, and lots of it! Thunderstorms! Strong winds later in the week! They’re going to issue a gale warning!’ On and on like that, he went, for three hours. Little creep.

(No no no. See the good in everyone, Lois. Negative Lois. Old Lois.)

Ben sat and listened to his tape recorder. He’s found some way of plugging Dad’s headphones into the back and now we don’t get a word out of him. I wouldn’t mind but all he ever seems to listen to is his own music. Is my lovely little brother becoming just a tiny bit egocentric? I don’t think so. These tunes make him think of Cicely, I expect, and that is why he likes listening to them so much. And perhaps they make him think of Malcolm, too. I can hear echoes, faint echoes in the things that Ben writes of the music Malcolm liked to share with him.

You see, Lois, people don’t die. In many ways they don’t die.

I will watch Ben closely on this holiday. Why has he come with us, anyway? He is too old.

We arrived at the caravan site at 7 p.m. You cannot call it a site, though. It is just a field, a farmer’s field, on Cilan Head. I have not been here for four years. Malcolm never came here with me, that is a pity. I had forgotten how beautiful it is. Beautiful and restful. The sky is blue, I am no good at describing things.

We pitched our caravan and put up the awning. Mum and Dad and I are to sleep in the caravan, Ben will be in the awning and Paul has put up a little tent all of his own. I hope it gets blown away in these supposed gales of his.

Bad, Lois, naughty Lois! No no no!

* * *

5th August, 1978
3 + 257 A.M.

Was awoken at 7.30 by the sound of rain hammering on the roof. It always sounds twice as loud on the roof of the caravan, I remember that now. So Paul was right after all, I’m afraid that he usually is.

Lay awake for a while. Mum and Dad were awake as well. They were also listening to the rain. Mum said it sounded pretty settled. Dad looked out of the curtain and said he had seen rain like this before and it wouldn’t last. It carried on solidly for the next sixteen hours.

Finished reading ‘The Mirror Crack’d’ and started ‘4.50 From Paddington’. One Agatha Christie is much like another, I must say.

Paul stayed in his tent all day. I am afraid he is at that age when young boys spend most of the time playing with themselves, I popped my head through the flap at one point and said, ‘What are you trying to do, make yourself another tent pole?’ but he just gave me a rude sign. He doesn’t like it when I’m funny, none of them expect it from me.

Laughter is a great healer, Lois, as Doctor Saunders used to say to me. Mind you he was a miserable old sod if ever I met one.

In the evening Ben and I braved the downpour to walk to the phone box. He said he wanted to phone Jennifer. I stood outside while he spoke to her and as is the way with these boxes I could hear every word he said, not that there were many words to hear. I don’t think it is possible to conceive of a couple who are less suited to each other. At one point he said ‘Do you miss me?’ and then there was a little pause, and he said, ‘Well yes, I know it’s only been two days,’ so obviously she had said she wasn’t missing him very much at all. Well, it was a stupid question anyway.

Lois, Lois, be kind to your little brother. He was always kind to you.

On the walk back the weather got even worse and our umbrella blew inside out and flew away in the wind, and just after that I broached the subject of Jennifer. I reminded him that he said he was going to finish with her about six months ago. He said he was just waiting for the right moment. I said, ‘When do you think that will be, then, your golden wedding anniversary?’ He said, ‘Well, it’s all good experience, I’m putting it in my novel,’ and I said: ‘What’s it going to be called, then, The Cowardly Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe?’

Holy Baloney, Lois, but you’re getting sharp! Not that Jennifer is a witch, of course, it’s just that she is not the best he could do and only the best is good enough for my Benjamin. But I think he knows that and what’s more I think he will do something about her, in his own good time and perhaps sooner than we expect.

* * *

6th August, 1978
3 + 258 A.M.

It rained all night and the wind did nearly blow Paul’s tent away so perhaps there is a God after all. I would love to see the wind just whip the tent away and leave him lying there in the middle of a field surrounded by sheep with his pyjamas on and one hand clasped firmly round his Little John Thomas. Oh! It makes me laugh just thinking about it. While we were having breakfast I said to him, ‘Paul, you’re not being unfaithful, are you?’ and he said, ‘What do you mean?’, and I said, ‘Well, I’m sure I saw you doing it with your left hand this morning.’ Mum and Dad were shocked to hear me saying such a thing but Oh! it was worth it just to see him looking so cross.

In fact despite the rain I’m feeling in a more and more cheerful mood and might even give myself five stars at the end of the day. Besides the rain is easing off I think. It really is lovely being here even though there’s not much to do. Benjamin has still got his headphones on and I have finished ‘4.50 from Paddington’. I started ‘The Murder of Roger Ackroyd’ but I had only got about fifteen pages in when Paul poked his head round and said, ‘I suppose you know the narrator did it?’ He really is the pits. Anyway I started ‘Ten Little Niggers’ instead although I see it is called ‘Ten Little Indians’ these days and quite right too.

An hour later and the sun is definitely shining now. Dad has got the barbecue out and he’s frying sausages on it, gorgeous, my favourite smell. We can eat outside for a change which will be nice as we have been rather squashed around that dinner table with all the windows steamed up. Mum is working hard in the kitchen getting everything ready. Go on, Lois, get up and help her, she would appreciate that. Oh, all right then, I will, if you insist.

7th August, 1978

five thousand years is a long time
in anybody’s book
to be dead, and buried,
in a grassy cromlech,
the muttering rain
scalds me as I walk
the dead paths
in darkness
among these quick and breathing
souls
their bones like
powder to my touch

8th August, 1978
3 + 260 A.M.

Ooh, that knocked me for six! A whole day and I can remember almost nothing about it. I certainly don’t remember writing the above. It is horrid of Paul to talk about things like that over dinner when he knows how much it upsets me. Horrid horrid horrid.

I remember going for my walk but apparently I was gone four and a half hours. That must have been when the rain started again because Mum says I came back soaking. Now it is coming down in torrents, much worse than before, it feels like we shall be swept away.

What is a cromlech when it’s at home?

Ben says it is a neolithic burial chamber. (He knows everything.) That rings a bell, too, because I read the other day in a guidebook in Abersoch that they have some of those round here. I must have tucked the word away at the back of my mind. Weird though, not to remember where I went or anything.

I’m feeling better, anyway. Nowadays these feelings always pass and that is a blessing, count your blessings, Lois.

But I have not been keeping my promise! I said that I was going to watch Ben closely and I’ve been doing nothing of the sort, and I can see now that he is really upset and not enjoying this holiday at all. I wonder if it is something in particular or just waiting for his exam results and being cooped up in here with the four of us and this wretched, wretched rain which is getting worse by the minute as I write this.

Oh, why do I worry about Benjamin so? Perhaps it is just what Dr Saunders used to call displacement activity. But I know what the problem is, he has not been tested like I have, he has not seen the worst that life can do to you, he hasn’t had to climb out of the depths. He has seen it happen to other people and heard about it but that is not the same. I know, Lois, I know that he is lucky in that respect, nobody should have to

Whoosh! There goes Paul’s tent. I’d better stop.

Thirty minutes later, and well, we are all going to have to sleep in here tonight, the tent is down and the awning is leaking and two of the other caravans in the field have packed up and gone home. Mum nearly got blown off her feet when she went to throw the washing-up water in the bracken and just now Dad was trying to bail the awning out and hold the flapping canvas down and Paul started singing out of the window, ‘We’re all going on a – summer holiday’ and you should have heard Dad’s language! You learn all sorts of new things about your family on holidays like this. Now where was I? Yes, I was saying that Benjamin is lucky, in a way, nobody should have to go through those things, and of course he has his religion, he has his Miracle, but I somehow don’t believe in that. It’s not that I don’t believe it ever happened, I just don’t think it has any substance, or any weight or something – oh dear, I’m not putting this very well, and now I’m going to have to carry over on to the next page, so what do you think, Lois, three stars or four? I just worry that

* * *½

9th August, 1978
3 +261 A.M.

if he wants to write, if he wants to compose, all of those dreams that he carries about with him so transparently every day, there will be something missing, something he will never be able to, oh, goodness, I don’t know, I can’t find the words tonight, and that was hardly worth going on to a new page for, was it?

And now (4.20 p.m., next afternoon) two more things have happened, one of them funny and one of them not. Well, actually Mum and I seem to be the only people who think either of them is funny. Are we the only ones around here who still have a sense of humour?

The weather is unbelievable. Dad was up at 6.30 this morning, trying to put the awning back up and tighten the guy-ropes in the freezing wind and rain. So he was in a dreadful mood even before Paul and Ben had their latest stonking argument. This one was about Doug Anderton. Doug’s on holiday in Portugal at the moment with some lucky girl or other, and Ben was hoping to get a letter from him before he left, but it never came. For some reason Paul brought this up again today and said he wasn’t surprised. He said he always knew Doug would drop Benjamin like a stone as soon as they left school. He thinks Doug is ruthless and calculating. (But I know he only thinks that because Doug embarrassed him once by printing one of his private letters in the magazine. And a very silly letter it was too.) Then he carried on twisting the knife by saying that Ben was kidding himself if he thought any of his friends were going to stay in touch. No one really stays in touch after school, he said. And he even mentioned Cicely and said Ben would probably never see her again either.