Forty-seven

Day 19

St Nicholas College

8.00 p.m. Thursday, 12th November 1965

The boy felt the blanket before he saw it. It cut across his back like a scimitar. It was the slash of it that woke him up. It was evening; he was lying on a bed in sick bay. His body didn’t want to move. His eyes and ears travelled to the door, he could hear voices, then Mr Abbott entered and called back through the door, ‘His eyes are open.’

The nurse pushed past him. She didn’t do it on purpose, she pushed everyone. She was round like a bowling ball and was known as Four Stars because she travelled to the four points of the compass as she walked. She’d been called that for generations, every boy’s father could tell stories about Four Stars. When walking on the quadrangle paths the little kids stood to the side because you didn’t know from which star of the compass she would attack as she walked past. For a while, the tough kids banged into her so she would swing a beefy arm at them and they would duck away laughing. Some boys she would chase for several steps swinging her arms. Everyone loved it when she clobbered another kid by mistake. It got so bad that a boy was suspended and a teacher had to walk with her. The boys, and even Four Stars it was said, missed the fun. It was whispered she had accidentally killed a boy.

Four Stars pushed her face at the boy. It filled his vision, bright blue eyes surrounded by florid, puffy cheeks, thick lips around a mouth that never closed. Never closed on a barely contained tongue that seemed to breathe for her. To tell a boy he’d been kissing Four Stars was enough to cause a fight. She was so close the boy thought she might kiss him.

‘Where are you hurting?’ Four Stars demanded, feeling the boy’s head. My head, thought the boy as Four Stars bounced her knuckles off it as if sounding a watermelon.

‘Nowhere,’ he answered. He knew Four Stars’ cures were more harmful than all the ailments the second formers could think of.

‘Rubbish,’ she splattered. Each spittle had been equipped with a pick and shovel and they started about their task on the boy’s face.

‘Where did he punch you, Harper?’

The boy looked back totally mystified.

‘How stupid is this boy?’ Four Stars asked as if vital to her diagnosis.

‘Smart enough,’ Abbott said.

‘Concussion,’ Four Stars announced and moved a finger back and forth across the boy’s eyes. The boy followed it.

‘Did he bang your head against the wall?’ Abbott asked.

The boy stopped following the finger and looked back at Abbott and wondered if he should say they had the wrong student.

‘Concussion. I’ll undress him and put him into bed.’ The boy tried to sit up. One of the stories told was you must never let Four Stars undress you, no matter how many limbs are missing.

‘That won’t be necessary, just leave him with me for a few minutes,’ Mr Abbott said quickly.

‘Don’t let him go to sleep,’ Four Stars said and started tacking from the room, the boy watched her negotiate the doorway perfectly. If he had anyone to tell, they would’ve been interested in that sighting.

‘Can you sit up, Harper?’

‘Yes, sir,’ the boy replied before he knew if it was a fact. He managed to swing his legs over the side of the bed. The room moved for a little while before looking normal again.

‘What happened?’

‘I don’t know,’ the boy replied.

Abbott raised his voice, ‘Harper, no one can help you if you don’t tell us what’s going on.’

‘I had a pain and then …’ the boy said and thought, a black river, so black it pushed at me like a big invisible pillow, pushed at me until nothing was left of me.

‘“And then”, what?’ Abbott asked.

‘I don’t remember.’

‘Where did he hit you?’

‘I don’t remember being hit.’

‘Platmore said Darnley punched you in the stomach.’

Platmore was the sixth former who’d spoken to Darnley and the boy. The boy wondered why Darnley had hit him. But Darnley had been known to hit boys out of the blue and neither the boy nor Darnley would say why it happened. The boy thought Darnley had hit him for being . . . he started to cry.

‘Why did he hit you, Harper?’ Abbott asked.

‘I don’t know,’ the boy sobbed. Fat tears dropped and spread dark patches on his trousers.

‘Why are you crying?’

‘The blanket hurt my back,’ the boy lied, twisting. Tears fell with a plop on the blanket.

‘Darnley will be expelled this time, you can be sure of that. Hitting a boy your size.’ Abbott shook his head in disgust as he said the final sentence. This started a new flood of tears and the boy rubbed his back, pretending pain.

‘Darnley’s in detention. Don’t you go anywhere near there. Can you walk?’

‘Yes, sir.’ And the boy was surprised he could. He took a step forward and backward to show Mr Abbott.

‘You don’t have to go back to the sixth form common room. I’ll speak to Carmody. He told you to stand there, right?’

The boy nodded.

‘Why did he want you to stand there?’ Abbott asked.

‘I don’t know,’ the boy replied. ‘I don’t mind standing there.’