SIXTEEN

The light from the fire illuminated the low-ceilinged room and Mrs Spencer, who had been dozing by the flames, got up, yawning, then looking about her in some confusion. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said to Margaret, glancing at her as she took off her boots, and adding, ‘Look at his shoes,’ as Bryan stooped in the porch and scraped off, on a metal grill, the mud around his heels. ‘I thought you’d walk on the roads at least.’

A cloth was already set on the table; bread stood on a board and, beside it, a dish of butter and a bowl of jam. Several scones, recently baked, stood on a wire-mesh tray: a smell of baking filled the kitchen.

‘If God doesn’t exist, and there is no ultimate purpose, what’s the point of living?’

Margaret stood at the sink, washing her hands, and directed this inquiry to the mirror hanging on the wall before her.

‘That’s not a problem to solve on a day like this,’ Mrs Spencer said. A kettle was simmering on the fire and, as she poured the water into a teapot and the steam rose in a cloud about her head, she added, ‘Certainly not at tea-time, either.’

‘Why not?’ Having washed her hands and dried them, Margaret added, ‘When the light is fading, and the fire dying down, and the cows come in for milking.’

The lowing of the cattle came from the yard outside.

Bryan washed his hands at the sink; beneath his raincoat he was wearing his light-blue blazer and light-grey trousers: a uniform neither Margaret nor her mother had seen him in before. After cleaning his shoes he had taken them off at the door and now stood on the stone paving of the kitchen floor in his stocking feet.

Perhaps it was this transformation in his appearance that distracted Mrs Spencer, for she was gazing across at him as if, having expected one person to come in the door, someone entirely different had entered. ‘Who’s this?’ her look inquired while, wearily, she asked, ‘What’s so special about this time of the day that questions like that have got to be answered?’

Margaret sat at the table; having taken off her coat she was wearing a roll-necked jumper: it made her look older, as if she, and not the mother, were running the house. ‘Don’t you remember when you and Daddy first moved here?’ She glanced round her at the room. ‘You were told there’d been a farm on this site for a thousand years and, previous to that, in Ten Acre bank, they’d found arrow-heads from when the fields by the river were still a lake and neolithic men, after the last Ice Age, hunted along its shore.’ She glanced at Bryan. ‘Beneath this kitchen, men with only hair for protection sat, like we are, and had a meal.’

The bread was being cut: the impression created by Bryan’s light-grey shirt, his blue-striped tie, his blue blazer with its yellow beading, by the badge with the one word ‘Independence’ embroidered underneath, was reflected in the bright-eyed gaze of Margaret; her cheeks flushed from the walk, her forehead, with her drawn-back hair, more boldly marked than ever, her blue eyes, so much like her father’s, gleaming in the light from the fire, she examined him for a while in silence: ‘Who is this?’ her look inquired.

Mrs Spencer’s eyes were animated not only by a look of curiosity but, he thought, by apprehension; the pot of tea trembled as she filled the cups, Margaret taking over the task of slicing the bread. ‘How many?’ she asked, and passed them on the knife, adding, ‘So not only is it the time for speculation, but also the place.’ She pointed the knife first at the stone-paved floor and then at the ceiling.

Mrs Spencer sat down at the table. ‘Mr Spencer’s out, Bryan,’ she said. ‘There’s just the three of us at present.’

‘No one comes back from the dead to tell us there’s a life hereafter,’ Margaret said. ‘Since the last war anyone can see that the whole of human life could be wiped out without God, if there is one, intervening; so what value do we put on anything and, if there is a value, why do we go to the trouble of doing anything about it?’

‘Self-interest,’ Mrs Spencer said.

Margaret bit her lip: ‘I don’t see why, if we’re here like animals, we shouldn’t do anything which expands our lives in whatever way we choose,’ she said.

‘With the proviso,’ Mrs Spencer said, ‘that it does no harm to others.’

‘Irrespective of whether it causes harm.’

‘You can’t murder someone,’ Mrs Spencer said.

‘Why not?’

‘The law wouldn’t allow it. Nor,’ she added, ‘would your conscience. It would tell you you were wrong.’

‘What if your conscience says you should?’

‘Common sense,’ Mrs Spencer said, ‘would intervene.’

‘Common sense,’ Margaret said, ‘is only a substitute for a lack of courage.’

The fire crackled in the grate: the lowing of the cattle in the yard had faded. Two dogs, lying by the hearth, got up, stretched, then, after glancing at the table, lay down again.

‘If you abandon law, then there’s nothing to stop anyone doing anything.’ Mrs Spencer, gazing at her plate, drew several crumbs together.

‘Not everyone would abandon law, and most people would struggle to uphold it,’ Margaret said. ‘But there must be people in every age who question what their lives are for. With people like that,’ she concluded, ‘anything is possible.’

‘What do you think, Bryan?’ Mrs Spencer asked.

‘I don’t know what she means,’ he said.

‘Of course he understands,’ Margaret said. ‘It’s him I’m talking about,’ she added.

Mrs Spencer smiled. ‘The scones are for tea,’ she said, moving the metal tray towards him.

‘He’s ideally placed.’

Mrs Spencer smiled again.

‘He has ambition, he has ability when he wishes to use it, as you have pointed out yourself.’

‘Bryan has everything to gain by upholding values which people rely on,’ Mrs Spencer said and, reaching across, placed a smaller bowl in front of his plate. ‘There’s cream to go on the scones as well.’

‘Bryan has everything to lose by upholding accepted values,’ Margaret said. ‘It’s people like us who gain by behaving in the same old way. After all,’ she concluded, ‘he doesn’t wish to end up like us.’

‘Why not?’

‘He wants to be someone special.’ She glanced at Bryan.

Mrs Spencer took a scone herself. ‘Aunt Fay is doing her best by Bryan, very largely for reasons you despise,’ she said.

Margaret laughed. ‘Whatever the motives of Aunt Fay, the fact remains that Bryan has the means as well as the ambition to do anything he likes.’

‘Within reason.’

‘Excluding reason.’ Margaret clattered her knife against her plate as, suddenly, rising in the hearth, the dogs began to bark.

‘There’s your father,’ Mrs Spencer said, yet a moment later only a knock came on the kitchen door and when Mrs Spencer went to open it the figure of a labourer was standing there, a cap in his hand, his jacket open, a torn pullover and a collarless shirt visible underneath.

‘We’ll be off now, Mrs Spencer,’ the man said, calling inside and glancing in, as he did so, at the table.

‘Right, Finnegan,’ Mrs Spencer said.

‘Good night,’ the man called.

‘Good night, Finnegan,’ Mrs Spencer said. ‘I’ll make a note of the time.’

The man nodded into the open door then turned and walked back across the yard.

A draught of cold air and the smell of the cowsheds came in before the door was closed.

For a moment Bryan had thought it might have been his father.

‘You’re making too much of Bryan,’ Mrs Spencer said, glancing at the clock then taking her place once more at the table.

‘Only because others make too little of him,’ Margaret said. ‘Your instinct is to protect him, whereas mine is to encourage him all I can.’

‘This comes from watching too many films,’ Mrs Spencer said. ‘Was she like this on your walk?’

‘We were talking about Mrs Corrigan,’ Bryan said.

‘She and her aunt have never seen eye to eye,’ Mrs Spencer said.

‘We get on handsomely,’ Margaret said. ‘Each of us sees,’ she added, ‘what the other is about.’

Mrs Spencer got up from the table. ‘You won’t mind if I sit by the fire?’ she said. ‘The two of you go on without me.’

Margaret, too, got up; she began to collect the plates.

‘There’s so much I ought to do,’ Mrs Spencer said, ‘yet I’ve scarcely energy to do anything today.’

‘What has the doctor said?’ her daughter asked, splashing water at the sink.

‘To rest. But how can you rest,’ she added, ‘in a place like this?’

‘I’m surprised you have so much sympathy for Aunt Fay when she has nothing to do with her time but waste it.’ Margaret held out a tea-towel and called, ‘Will you dry these, Bryan?’

The dogs stirred by the fire and, a short while later, from the bowing of her head, Bryan assumed that her mother was asleep.

‘She isn’t well but no one does anything about it,’ Margaret said. ‘Least of all my father.’

‘Am I disturbing you?’ came Mrs Spencer’s voice, dreamily, and Margaret called, ‘You rest, Mother. Bryan and I are only talking.’

The table was cleared and the pots put away.

‘I’ll walk with you to the stop,’ Margaret said. ‘She’ll be all right on her own.’ She got their coats; outside, the yard had darkened.

‘Are you going, Bryan?’ Mrs Spencer called.

‘I’ll walk with him to the bus, Mother,’ Margaret said.

‘I hope tea wasn’t disappointing, Bryan,’ Mrs Spencer said, without raising her head. ‘Come again, won’t you, whenever you like. We’re always glad to see you.’

In the yard, with a yellowish glow from the opaque glass panes in the cowsheds illuminating the mud and the pools, Margaret said, ‘She takes medicine which makes her sleepy but I think, although she doesn’t say so, she suffers a lot of pain.’

As they got to the road a car pulled up. ‘That you, Bryan?’ the farmer called. ‘Don’t see much of you these days.’

‘He’s just leaving, Father,’ Margaret said.

‘Stay and have some tea,’ the farmer said.

‘We’ve had some.’

‘Is your mother in?’

‘She’s fallen asleep.’

The balding head gazed out at Bryan.

‘You’re looking smart.’

‘He is smart, Father,’ Margaret called, already several strides away. ‘Come on,’ she added. ‘You’ll miss the bus.’

‘Come down sooner,’ the farmer called. ‘Give Aunt Fay our love.’

‘I shall.’ He nodded.

The car turned into the drive and disappeared.

‘Why do you argue with your mother?’ Bryan said as they walked up the lane to the road beyond the farm.

‘I don’t do it to upset her,’ Margaret said. ‘But I believe in what I told her.’

‘That certain people,’ Bryan said, ‘can do anything they like.’

She looked away; the lane rose circuitously up the slope to the castle: something of the outline of the lake was visible below, like a misty imprint across which, in a thicker band of mist, coiled the broadening strand of the river.

‘Ruthlessness,’ Margaret said, ‘doesn’t exist, except for people like my mother.’

‘There’s such a thing as love,’ Bryan said.

‘What love?’

‘The love of another person that stops you from acting in the way that you describe.’

‘You wouldn’t let love stop you from doing what you wanted?’

The lights of the main road appeared. A bus, in the far distance, was rattling down the slope towards them.

‘Not someone who wants to do something which he knows no one else can do.’

He began to run.

‘You’re not going back on what you said?’

‘When?’

‘Ages ago.’

He reached the stop.

‘This special destiny you have, which licenses everything that happens.’

‘I haven’t given it up,’ he said.

‘Well?’

She was panting; the light from the street lamp illuminated not only her features but the vapour from her breath.

‘I have to do it my way,’ Bryan said.

‘Oh, your way,’ she said. ‘Well, there’s only the one way. I might have known you’d cover it up. Though why with me,’ she added, ‘I’ve no idea. With me especially, Bryan.’

The bus drew up, its lights amplifying the glow from the overhead lamp: she frowned, then said, ‘Give my love to my aunt. Tell her,’ she added, ‘I think of her,’ and as he mounted the bus she called, ‘As for you, I’m not sure what you’re really up to,’ standing there as the bus drew off so that, glancing back, he could still see her in the pool of light, gazing after him, and then – as he raised his arm – reminded, raising her hand and waving.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it,’ Miss Lightowler said. ‘Have you modelled with clay before?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

She turned the block of wood on the table before him to an angle at which the figure modelled on it might catch the light.

Above the chest the shoulders rose to the curve of the elongated neck, above which, in turn, was suspended the minutely featured head, surmounted by a froth of sculpted curls, the face animated by what, even from a distance, could be identified as a smile – slight, unmistakable and – framed between two dimpled cheeks – beguiling.

‘Have you modelled a figure before?’

‘No.’

‘It’s a considerable achievement.’ Miss Lightowler’s hand extended itself above the figure. ‘I like the features.’

‘Yes.’

‘And the smile.’

Chairs creaked.

‘Is anything the matter, Gordon?’

‘No, Miss,’ Parkinson said.

‘Don’t you think it good?’

‘Yes, Miss.’

His blue eyes gazed out, blankly, from beneath his freckled brow.

‘Has anyone any comment?’

‘It’s naked, Miss.’

‘Any objection?’

‘No, Miss.’

The faces were turned in her direction but the eyes in each face were cast towards the figure reclining on its wooden block.

‘The angle of the hips I like,’ Miss Lightowler added, ‘and the way,’ she continued, ‘the one shoulder is subtended from the other. The whole depiction,’ she extended her hand, ‘is true to art as well as life.’

She raised her head.

‘We can cast it.’

‘How?’ he said.

‘We can make a mould. Meanwhile,’ she added, ‘we must keep it damp.’ She glanced at Bryan and smiled. ‘What do you usually do with your figures in order to preserve them?’

‘I throw them away.’

‘We won’t throw this away,’ Miss Lightowler said. ‘And once you’ve cast it,’ she continued, glancing at the boys, ‘you can regale us with some other evidence of your skill. Perhaps an animal,’ she concluded.

Only on the way down did Parkinson say, ‘That was a close shave, Mocky. I thought it was footer, from now on, on Thursdays.’

‘Why?’ he said.

‘I didn’t think she would wear it.’

‘I don’t see why.’

‘Clothes, or no clothes?’ a voice called out and, as they descended the stairs to the floor below and, from there, to the hall, his mind went back to the amorphous mound of clay and, with the same detachment with which he had watched the shape manifest itself beneath his hands, he speculated on whether he might have made it larger or, if not larger, standing up. Running down the last steps, he called, ‘Shall we go to Reggie’s?’ and was already in the street by the time his friend appeared, standing at the door before, finally, gazing down at Bryan and laughing.

‘If you find the line that marks the furthest outward projection,’ Miss Lightowler said, indicating with her finger the contour of the hip, ‘you can insert each strip to form a continuous edge,’ inserting the film of tin herself, then handing him the rest and adding, ‘You do it now. You have to learn.’

Disinclined to damage the figure, he nevertheless constructed across the profile of the hip, the arm, the shoulder and the head, a barricade of tin which divided the front half of the body from the back: a filament of tin he inserted in the orifice between the legs.

At the central table the boys leaned on their boards, the tins of paint set out beside them.

Miss Lightowler’s arm, its sleeve rolled to the elbow, was inserted in a bowl of plaster; a handful having been lifted out and held in such a position that not only Bryan but the boys might see it, it was dropped, with a downward extension of her fingers, on to the figure: its thighs and then its abdomen disappeared. Engulfed, the further extremities of the feet and head succumbed to the repeated dabbing, the scraping inside the bowl and the irregular flicking out.

Soon, only a mound of plaster remained, its two halves separated by the projecting layer of tin. The horror that she might have destroyed the figure, obliterating the clay for good, was displaced in Bryan by a curious sensation which came from watching the figure disappear, the thighs, the hips, the waist, the breasts, until, finally, only the smiling head remained, tilted back: then that too was enclosed by the dome of white and, for good measure, one or two lumps more were flicked across the surface, touched in here and there by Miss Lightowler’s whitened fingers. Turning to the tap to wash her hands, she said, ‘Next week we can remove the clay and clean it. I can’t wait to see the final result.’ Her back to the room, her hands in the sink, picking at the drops of hardening plaster which had coagulated around her wrist, her smock – flower-patterned and buttoned down the front – flecked with plaster, too, Miss Lightowler glanced at Bryan and then at the tin-divided plaster and, smiling, added, ‘You’ll have to think of a title, Bryan. It could be a name.’ Having washed out the bowl she turned it upside-down. ‘Anything in mind?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘Not a goddess?’

He shook his head.

‘It could be both real, as well as mythological. Like Helen.’

He shook his head.

‘Or Diane.’

Miss Lightowler smiled a second time.

‘My name is Diane, as a matter of fact. I’m not sure, in the circumstances, I would welcome its use. How about Penelope?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘We’ll have to think.’ Miss Lightowler glanced round the room. ‘Anything the matter, Gordon?’

‘No, Miss.’ Parkinson’s guffaw, aroused by the revelation of Miss Lightowler’s name, had been followed by a snort.

‘Remember the motto of the art-room.’

‘Yes, Miss.’

‘Concrete and specific.’ She indicated the words written on a notice which hung on the wall above what was the only permanent fixture in the room: a sealed-off fireplace. ‘C and S.’ She indicated that Bryan might return to the table.

‘Diane,’ a voice interceded from the end of the room, followed by a snigger.

‘It must be cold on the sports field this time of the year.’ Miss Lightowler moved around the table, glancing over the backs at the wooden boards, each mounted centrally by a piece of tinted paper. ‘I’m sure it must be preferable, however, to those who have no intention of understanding the disciplines of art.’ Passing by Parkinson’s back, she added, ‘What are the disciplines of art?’

‘I don’t know, Miss.’

‘I’ve read them on the notice, Gordon.’

‘Concrete and specific.’ Parkinson raised his head.

‘To be specific and to be concrete. To the point,’ she concluded, glancing at Bryan, ‘and to be exact.’

‘First,’ she said, ‘we’ll detach it from its base,’ and handed the heavily-weighted board along the bench, together with a piece of wire, to either end of which was attached a wooden peg. ‘Slice it like a piece of cheese,’ she added.

He slid the wire towards him, felt it grate against the plaster and, towards the middle, against the softness of the clay beneath.

‘Turn it over.’

He lifted the plaster from the board.

‘We’ll scrape it out.’

‘Won’t it spoil it?’ Bryan asked.

‘This is the easiest part,’ she said and, taking the spatula, began to dig out the clay herself.

Nothing of the model now remained, its surface only distinguishable as the inner cavity of the plaster was suddenly revealed. An inverted image of the figure appeared, the abdomen, the legs, the arms and, finally – its features echoed in the recess of the mould – the head.

‘We’ll wash it out.’ Miss Lightowler parted the piece of plaster, along the line of the metal foil, into two uneven sections.

She rinsed each section beneath the tap; within the wedges of plaster he could discern more clearly the lineaments of the figure, the abdomen cut along its length, the features of the face on one side, the back of the head on the other.

‘We’ll cast it this afternoon,’ she said, and laid the pieces to dry, face upwards, by the sink. ‘We’ll paint the inside of the mould with clay, to make sure the plaster doesn’t stick.’

He gazed at Miss Lightowler’s hands as she took the spatula to mix the plaster, and said, ‘Shall I paint the mould myself?’

‘Oh, I’ll do that. It has to be light. Merely a smear.’ She turned to the sink, extracted clay from the bin beneath it, mixing it with water. She painted the inside of the separated halves: the inverse of the figure showed more clearly, the details of the eyes, the lips and, below the shoulders, the configuration of the chest. ‘The consistency has to be right. Not too thick. Nor must it be too thin,’ taking a length of coloured ribbon after painting the inside of the mould and adding, ‘We’ll join the halves together.’

She arranged the mould with its base upturned, its two halves coated along their adjacent edges with a layer of clay and fastened by the ribbon. ‘Into the mould it goes,’ she called finally, the head and the upper extremities disappearing first, the whiteness expanding upwards from the neck, across the shoulders, around the abdomen and into the crevices that formed the toes.

Into the central cavity of the body Miss Lightowler inserted a length of wire.

‘Stiffening.’ She inserted the wire more firmly, inserted a second, shaped the plaster into a rectangular base and added, ‘We’ll put it on the shelf to dry.’

‘We’ll chip it first,’ she said, ‘to see if it’ll take the pressure,’ holding the chisel against the joint and, with a wooden mallet, tapping the handle, a thin crack appearing in the mould, where-upon she raised her head, glancing down at him, and added, ‘It’s coming,’ running her finger along its edge. She tapped the crack again.

The boys glanced up; some leant forward, the drawing-boards propped up before them: with the tapping of the mallet the table shook.

The mould split; she prised the halves apart, loosening one side and then the other.

‘If we can get it off in two pieces we can use it again. Even if it cracks into three or four, we might still patch it up,’ she added.

She tapped at either end with the chisel, tapped again, and laid the mallet down.

Stooping, she drew one half of the mould away.

Loosening the other half, she drew it off: the head, white-dusted, was revealed inside, its features intact, the abdomen curved to the line of the hip, the toes extended at the end of either foot, the knees subtended, one from the other, drawn apart, the pelvis turned upwards from the angle of the hips, the supporting arm running up to the flexed white shoulder.

No one spoke.

‘The mould hasn’t cracked,’ Miss Lightowler said.

The clay-lined interior of each half lay on either side of the figure.

‘We can smooth the mould-line off,’ she added, running her hand along the roughened edge.

She produced a piece of sandpaper and, stooping, removed the rim of protruding plaster which crescented the head.

‘Your job.’ She handed him the paper. ‘Take it off gently without damaging the rest.’

The boys got up from the table; they ran the tips of their fingers along the legs, over the hips and, in Parkinson’s case, across the shoulders so that, in drawing it aside, Bryan said, ‘I haven’t finished,’ removing the protruding rim of plaster so that finally, no longer blemished, the figure reclined beneath him on its plaster mount.

‘Shall we give it a bronze colour, like metal, or ebony, like wood?’ Miss Lightowler said, having inverted the moulds on the table to dry.

The boys went back to their places: the murmur of voices resumed, the rattle of paint-tins, the scraping of chairs.

‘How do we colour it?’ Bryan said.

‘Polish is best,’ Miss Lightowler said, running her finger along the figure.

‘What kind of polish?’

‘Boot.’ Miss Lightowler laughed. ‘Paint will merely be absorbed, whereas polish,’ she added, raising her head, ‘can always be polished, and always,’ she concluded, opening a drawer and getting out a tin, together with a rag, and addressing the room in general, ‘comes up with a shine!’

A large crowd had collected around the table; at first, approaching it, he was unable to see between the bodies: only when he had completed a circuit of the room did he catch a glimpse, not of any shape, but merely of a colour, and realized that the cause of all the pushing and jostling, the shouting and the laughter, was his brown-polished figure, lying on a box or plinth set on a table in the centre of the floor.

Typed on a sheet of paper beside it was the cryptic message, ‘RECUMBENT FORM. EXECUTED BY BRYAN MORLEY’.

The table on which the figure was arranged was one which was used to display objects of an archaeological nature: one week a key had lain there, found in the garden of an adjoining house; on another occasion a collection of fossils had been exhibited inside a showcase and, previous to that, Bryan recalled, a number of artefacts from the local museum. On the wall opposite the table it was customary to display the latest composition from the attic art-room.

The room was the province of Doctor Beckerman; here he held classes in religious studies, in Greek and Latin, and here, too, he marked his books away from the distractions of the staff-room on the floor above.

A second piece of paper caught Bryan’s eye: it was fastened by pins to the corner of the table and, jostled to and fro by the figures behind, he could only decipher the words, ‘form’ and ‘content’ and, finally, ‘content being synonymous with form, and form synonymous with content’, underlined.

The voices behind him quietened: he turned to find a figure wearing a Homburg hat, a black raincoat and carrying a half-rolled umbrella standing in the door.

The umbrella was shaken, the Homburg was removed: specks of rain were visible on the figure’s shoulders.

‘Is anything the matter, Parkinson?’ Doctor Beckerman inquired. He raised the umbrella in the direction of the nearest boy.

‘No, sir,’ Parkinson’s brother said.

‘Why is everyone in here?’

‘I don’t know, sir.’

‘Why are you in here?’

‘I came to look at the statue, sir.’

Parkinson’s brother pointed at the table.

‘What statue?’

‘The one on exhibition.’

‘What exhibition?’

‘On the table.’

Several tables, standing in bays, and each enclosed by chairs, occupied the room. The table in question stood adjacent to the one normally occupied by Doctor Beckerman himself.

His gaze settled on the statue; only after an interval of several seconds did it move to the piece of paper pinned beside it: after perusing the name inscribed beneath the title he read the second sheet pinned to the corner of the table itself.

‘Who put it here?’

‘Miss Lightowler, sir.’

‘Could you take everyone’s name? I’ve made a mental note of everybody present. If any name is missing I’ll need to know the reason why.’

He glanced at Bryan.

‘Your name is Morley.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Bryan said.

‘Did you have permission to come inside?’

‘No, sir,’ Bryan said.

His arms and his legs had begun to tremble.

‘Go back to your room until I call you.’

A figure scampered off along the landing; names began to be called in the room behind.

Downstairs, in the classroom, he sat at his desk for several seconds conscious of the faces in the desks behind turned in his direction.

Mr Waterhouse appeared; he mounted his stool.

‘I hear,’ he called, ‘there’s been a commotion.’

‘Yes, sir,’ several voices said.

‘Doctor Beckerman is taking names.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘No one’s name in here, I trust?’

Bryan, after glancing round, put up his hand.

‘Your name was taken, Morley?’

A burst of laughter was followed, at the back of the room, by the banging of a desk.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I saw your figure in the library.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘By your figure I don’t mean your figure per se but your representation of the female form.’

‘Yes, sir.’

The room was silent.

‘Commendable.’

‘Thank you.’ Bryan nodded.

‘I relished in particular,’ he got down from his stool, ‘the modelling of its features.’

A murmur of laughter passed across the room.

‘Also the feet.’

Bryan nodded.

‘Not to mention,’ he continued, ‘several of the toes.’

The laughter, no longer suppressed, burst out at the back.

‘Also the hair.’

The laughter spread to the front.

‘No other part I missed?’ He waited. ‘One would have thought, from the expression, that there was someone in particular you had in mind. The whole figure,’ he continued, ‘is so specific.’

The tapping of desks increased.

‘Though whether it is appropriate to mention it I’ve no idea. Art is inimical to this building. At least,’ he concluded, ‘it has been in the past.’

The door opened: a figure came inside: his tie dishevelled, his remaining tufts of hair pushed back, his suit rumpled, Mr Berresford called, ‘Could I see you outside, Mr Waterhouse?’, the master adding, ‘Carry on from where we were. I’ll be with you in a minute, boys,’ crossing to the door, peering out before, with a backward glance, he closed the door behind.

The ceiling shook.

‘What’s happened?’ someone asked.

The door opened as one of the boys went out; another followed.

Feet ran past. The windows rattled.

‘He’s had a fit.’

A figure in a dishevelled uniform appeared at the classroom door.

‘Berry’s called a doctor.’

‘Who for?’

‘Becky.’

‘What’s the matter with him?’

‘He’s jumping up and down.’

A weight was drawn across the ceiling.

A voice called out.

‘Who’s with him?’

‘Heppy and Watty.’

A crowd of boys moved out to the door; other figures appeared from the opposite classroom.

Voices called from the top of the stairs.

Feet ran down from the floors above.

The ceiling shook.

‘Not in here,’ a voice called out.

A door slammed.

‘Not in here,’ the same voice called again. ‘Not in this room. Ever.’

‘Did he dislike it because it had been placed in the room without his permission?’ Mrs Corrigan said, sewing more quickly.

‘On principle,’ Bryan said.

‘I take it the figure’s nude?’ Mr Corrigan leant back.

‘I haven’t seen it,’ Mrs Corrigan said.

‘I was asking Bryan,’ Mr Corrigan said, folding his evening newspaper on the arm of his chair.

‘It’s lying on its side,’ Bryan said. ‘Its head propped up on its hand.’

‘It was the point I made to Max,’ Mrs Corrigan said. ‘If there is someone in the school who can lead,’ she glanced at Bryan, ‘he should seek to support and not discourage.’

She pulled out a thread, snipped it with a pair of scissors – the handles ringed neatly on her thumb and finger – and, taking up another skein, selected a length, drew it out, and, licking one end, held it to the needle. With one eye closed, she threaded it.

‘When did you talk to Berresford?’

‘This afternoon.’

‘How?’

‘On the telephone.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He has ambition, Harold, like everyone else.’

‘Ambition to do what?’

‘To please me, for one thing,’ Mrs Corrigan said.

‘Did Miss Lightowler suggest the subject?’ Mr Corrigan asked Bryan.

‘No,’ he said.

‘What did she say when you modelled it?’

‘She offered to help.’

‘I’m surprised Berresford has come to agree with her,’ Mr Corrigan said. ‘He’s got the Governors to think of.’

‘Are we to discourage someone with a gift,’ Mrs Corrigan said, ‘because of the prejudices of a religious bigot?’

‘Propriety is one thing, bigotry is another,’ Mr Corrigan said. ‘Whether Bryan’s figure should have been done in the first place, and whether, once done, it should have been exhibited in the manner in which it was, comes under Max’s province, not ours.’

‘Have you seen the figure, Harold?’ Mrs Corrigan said.

‘Have you?’ Mr Corrigan said.

‘I’ve spoken to Mr Waterhouse who described it as a remarkable work of art which he was proud to have had produced by someone in his class.’

Mr Corrigan stood up.

‘You didn’t mention that before.’

‘I wondered how far you would go in supporting Beckerman,’ Mrs Corrigan responded.

‘I don’t support him,’ Mr Corrigan said. ‘I’m merely anticipating his point of view.’

‘His point of view,’ Mrs Corrigan said, ‘is one your friend Max is anxious to get rid of. If Peterson’s remains embalmed in moral attitudes that have no relevance to the world as it is at present then Max, your old friend, Harold, has no future there at all.’

Bryan didn’t hear Mrs Corrigan’s voice: his gaze was fixed on her figure, on the downward curve of her cheek with its tint of rouge and its layer of powder, on the outward curve of her lashes as she blinked over her sewing and, beneath this attenuated profile, on the projection of her hips, the bunching of her thigh, the extension of her ankle, and the insertion of her foot inside her heelless slipper.

‘Doctor Beckerman isn’t married. He lives in Church House and has a housekeeper who looks after him.’ She glanced at Bryan and smiled.

‘We ought to call up Church House and inquire how he is,’ Mr Corrigan said.

‘It was a lunatic asylum he was taken to,’ Mrs Corrigan said.

‘Find out which one, in that case. He bought his furniture at the shop,’ Mr Corrigan said and, reaching to the mantelpiece, took down his pipe, lighting it slowly, glancing from the flame to Mrs Corrigan, then to Bryan, then – with a look Bryan had never seen before – back to Mrs Corrigan again. ‘In addition to which,’ he concluded, ‘he’s a member of my club.’