Halton knew strange forces were afoot. First Flight and now the latest, Not Far to Castle Noire. The day after Michaelmas, Audsley had pinned an announcement to the study door, and the page had quickly filled with names of hopefuls. There wasn’t room for his, but Audsley had summoned him at break, as if everything had been long ago decided and he, Halton, were only pretending not to know it. His part would be larger than before, with more lines to learn. Master Shadow was a conjurer, an acrobat, a thief without peer. He wasn’t sure about the acrobatics, but Audsley promised to teach him. Audsley himself would play the lead role, a knight called Valarious. The plot concerned the quest of said Valarious to rescue his brother, the Elf Rider (played by Riding), from the evil clutches of Perspicacious (Crighton). The Turtle would be playing a girl (ha), Kahrid of Langstephen, while Moss would portray a rival magician called Flash. Everyone else on the list was given brief roles or else thinking parts, Audsley’s term for people who walked on and said nothing. The main rehearsals continued as before in study number six, and every morning before breakfast, Audsley took him through exercises in the gym. Already he could walk on his hands and turn three kinds of cartwheel.
The new play was more dramatic, and rehearsals had teeth. When, in his long speech (two pages!) he denounced Moss’s character—Who was this Flash? This magician soi-disant (that meant so-called), this fraud who trafficked in electricity? He stole sparks from their fire. He was vulgar, his name too short. Master Shadow had never heard of him!—when he recited this tirade, Moss colored with true emotion. It was better than eating a whole cake. Everything in the study made him hungry, the decoration, the smell, the pink glow when Audsley put the lantern over the bulb, and even though something scratched his throat and made him sneeze—perhaps dust from the great number of books Audsley and Riding had borrowed from the library—still he craved it. Even as he languished in extra-tu Monday afternoon, laboring hopelessly under Burton-Lee’s hand, his true self was turning somersaults, fingers restless for the next lock to pick.
—If you don’t apply yourself, Halton, you’ll become a regular fixture here.
—Laubadamar, sir?
Clip round the ear.
—Lau … lau … ba … I mean da … ba … mur?
Gibberish, surely?
—Continue.
Deep in the uncharted passages of Castle Noire, the party confronted traps and guards. Swordplay, backflips, spells sung and chanted, they worked their way through the servants of Perspicacious, the most intelligent and evil man in the land.
—What are we going to do with you, Halton?
If only the letters would keep to their place. If only Flash could stick them still.
—Do you think you’re the only one?
—Sir?
—To find things difficult the way you do?
If only time would skip to the evening, to rehearsal, that hardening, mouthwatering—
—Empty your pockets.
—Sir?
—You heard me.
Nothing contraband, thank God, just the usual stores and supplies. The Flea sifted through it, pausing only over the tin of Nigroids for Throat and Voice, which he opened and sniffed.
—How many of these vile confections have you eaten today, boy?
—Today, sir?
The glare.
—Not more than half a tin, sir.
The Flea poured them into the bin.
—Oh, sir …
—Since your Housemaster appears to have strayed from the hearth, young Halton, it appears that a docket issued this evening would benefit no one.
—Yes, sir. I mean …
He wasn’t sure he could stand another earnest jaw from Grieves.
—It appears, then, that we have no choice. You shall have to pop by my study instead of his, this evening after tea, and we shall have to see if we can find a way to enhance your concentration, one way or another.
—Yes, sir.
—Fewer sweets, more sleep, I think.
They were developing terrible habits during their Housemaster’s absence. Moss knew it couldn’t continue, but if for the moment rehearsals happened to stretch past lights-out, and if they afterwards lingered over Audsley’s game of Definitions, and if Mac slept like death, well, where was the harm?
—Thou detestable maw! Audsley groaned as Riding swept the round for the fourth time running. Thou womb of death!
There might be little hope of getting into Audsley’s trousers, but the Billingsgate that flowed from his mouth was consolation enough.
—Riding’s almost as infernal as Grieves, Audsley said, but he shan’t prevail.
Moss announced bed, but Audsley brandished his pencil at Riding:
—Draw thy tool. My naked weapon is out!
Crighton snuffed the candle, and Moss retreated to their study for a fortifying nip, enough to calm seas and the ships upon them.
—Leave some for me, Crighton said, closing the door.
Moss surrendered the flask and sighed.
—Everyone’s turnable, Crighton said. Eventually.
He meant it consolingly, but it only stirred the embers. They’d been discussing it for weeks, could Audsley be turned? In Moss’s experience most boys could, but Audsley met temptation as one who never hungered.
—I don’t think he even wanks.
—Bollocks, Crighton said. Everyone wanks.
Audsley broke so many laws of nature, why not this? He seemed to care for nothing truly beyond his enormous ideas. Ordinary things—washing, eating, even sleeping—he seemed to perform with only a fraction of himself until he could return to rehearsal, a term Audsley used to encompass anything that served the play. Even now, back in the dormitory, Audsley sprang from bed:
—You won’t forget to talk to Grieves tomorrow?
—Please.
—You’re sure he won’t say no?
—Go to bed.
—It’s the only place that will hold everyone and—
—If you’re not in bed in ten seconds, you’re getting a docket.
The only thing better than hearing Audsley swear was pulling rank and then watching his reaction:
—You are a fishmonger.
John tore through the exercise books as the night express churned north. He hadn’t taken any drops since the club. He didn’t need them. Perhaps he’d never need them again. He was learning something surprising enough to change the color of air: mercy hurt, and the breaking didn’t stop with the chains. It was real between them, unmistakably and radically; everything else would change without his help.
A calm had come upon him, and a deep vitality. Here he was charging through the countryside at speeds unknown, and with him this procession of humanity and their luggage. And the mail. The blessed night mail! In what other country could one post a letter on the Monday and have it delivered a hundred miles away the next morning? The world was awash with sensational activity. He could spare a thought for it because the other thing was taking care of itself. Here was The Times, left on the seat by the previous passenger. It simply teemed with activity: marriages, deaths, situations wanted, bungalows for rent, automobiles of 1932; cycling results, boxing results, rugby football club and school (Dulwich beat Merchant Taylors’ by a goal and a try to nothing); cinema news, literature news, opera news, theater news (Salome at the Savoy, The Good Companions at His Majesty’s, Jane Eyre at the Kingsway); airmail schedules, shipping schedules, national radio schedules; Ovaltine Builds-up Brain, Nerve, and Body; and Sanatogen. Sanatogen! Three months ago I started taking Sanatogen on the advice of my doctor. My system had been undermined by years of neurotic strain and mental debility and I could not expect miracles to happen. But a miracle did happen, and in a few short weeks I found myself acquiring a new sense of well-being. Now after three months of regular treatment of Sanatogen I am reborn. Sanatogen has instilled new life into me. It is amazing. Where, God, could Sanatogen be found? And Jaeger, not for his eyes, surely, but nevertheless printed here beside discussions of MacDonald’s Cabinet. The new line is touchingly dependent on the lingerie beneath. The little more and one is a bundle; the little less and one is a void. Jaeger, with superhuman cunning, contrives to blend firmness and flexibility in the most diplomatic way in these austere little two-piece sets. The most sustaining and secretive vest that will not gatecrash the frankest décolletage. The underscoring made the paragraph a gem. Tiny panties that furl the hips and waist in the most etherealising sheaf, yet remain utterly plastic and benevolent. Seriously, though, how could they print such things in a family newspaper? But here was Selby, and so to Driffield and then Sledmere and Fimber, where he’d find Fardley, who would convey him to the gates of his home, where he had his own rooms and space enough besides; where he could bring her; where no one, not even Jamie, could make him deny what he knew. He was needed there and wanted, and now as the light came into the sky, his boys would be rising, intent on the day, eager, hungry, waiting for him to show them the way through this godforsaken mess of living to the future that waited, just beyond the crest, for them to seize, to mold, to possess.
Mr. Grieves had been back a day already without giving them his answer on Castle Noire. Now the unnerving message from Crighton:
—Grievous wants you, start of Prep.
—Us? Gill asked.
—You, Crighton said to Gray.
—But why?
—Buggered if I know.
Gray scoured his memory. He hadn’t received a single docket that term, not even the threat of one. If Grieves wanted to discuss the play, he would have included Gill; likewise if he’d found out about late rehearsals. By seven o’clock he’d checked his uniform so many times that Gill threw him out of the study. He went to wait outside Grieves’s door.
The pigeonholes mocked him. They brought post to other people, but not to him, unless you counted his mother’s turgid reports. His godfather neglected him, despite the week they’d spent cheek by jowl in Boggle Hole at the end of the holidays, and despite the fact that Gray had written Peter three times with news of Guilford Audsley and Flight. He used to check his pigeonhole twice a day, but now he avoided it. The other pigeonholes had been ransacked already, though Mac’s still contained a letter, as did Halton’s, and Audsley’s a parcel, likely delivered late and containing, he could tell by the size, a shipment of Nigroids, now all the rage amongst the cast. His mother would not approve. She ought to send him something, though, anything to fill this void that reached back into the deepest—wait … He scraped something forward. Not blue, but—the hair stood up on his scalp—her script across an English envelope, no return address but a postmark—Ely!—torn, shaking— 3 October—four days ago!—If you are honorable …
His breath was stuck in a pipe at the right side of his chest, pressing like a boil about to burst, but as he read, he grew more vital, more defiant. When he came to the end, his answer was sure: Like hell I will. Burn them yourself!
—Ah, Thomas, sorry to startle.
Grieves, books in arm, escorted him through the door. Light, dust, carpet.
—Hope I haven’t kept you waiting.
Her letter bulged in his jacket.
—Sit.
He pressed it as flat as he could.
—I expect you’re wondering why you’re here.
There was no reason on the earth to make him empty his pockets.
—I wanted to speak with you alone.
About the letter? Pull yourself together.
—Please, Riding, sit.
Let him not have gone there. Let him not have made her write—
—You needn’t look so stricken. Unless you’ve something to confess?
Pull yourself together! Grieves was joking about the confession. How did a person with a clear conscience look?
—I wanted to speak to you about this.
Grieves slid an exercise book across the desk. It was Guilford’s. Results of the Punic Wars, 3/20. That wasn’t good. Gray didn’t remember the composition. If Grieves was going to put Gill in extra-tu, why not tell him directly?
The man leafed through another book and, after finding the desired page, placed it beside the first. Also Guilford’s. Causes of the Punic Wars, 18/20. Better. It ought to have been since Gray himself had written the draft, a draft that appeared little changed, to judge by the first page. Why had it earned only eighteen marks?
—So you see, Grieves was saying. It’s one thing to offer friendly advice, but to actually write the composition for him …
Surely this wasn’t all about that? Everyone cribbed. Who was Grieves suddenly to take offense?
—You can wipe that expression off your face. Don’t bother denying it.
What expression?
—You’re a terrible liar, and at any rate it’s obvious when you compare this essay written in class with these others, submitted as prep.
He’d have to be more circumspect in his assistance, but how on earth did Grieves imagine Gill would avoid academic ruin if someone didn’t do his prep for him?
—And you can drop that expression as well. Do you think we masters don’t know everything that goes on here?
Of course, they didn’t.
—Of course, we do. Just because we choose not to remark upon a thing does not mean it goes unnoticed.
Madness.
—For example, Audsley’s last four assignments were written by you. Of course, he copied them over, corrected a few of your spelling errors, sadly not all, fudged a date the wrong way, and put his name to it.
What spelling errors?
—And from the look of his English and Latin preps …
Here Grieves produced more exercise books, bearing the unlikely remarks of the Eagle and the Flea.
—Oh, yes, we do speak to one another. It seems the same is true everywhere, with the conspicuous exception—
He riffled backwards through one of them.
—of the two nights you were in the Tower with a throat infection.
Laryngitis.
—Let me see if I have this straight: Audsley under threat of extra-tu. Rehearsals jeopardized. You assist, which on top of your own work keeps you awake until Heaven knows what hour—
The pipe in his chest!
—Of course, Moss knew nothing about it—leaving you exhausted, hence the throat infection, and today falling asleep in Lockett-Egan’s Chaucer lecture. Am I wrong?
Wherever Grieves had gone, it had transformed him into a freak of nature. There was absolutely nothing to say to the man, which was just as well since he’d launched into the Earnest Rebuke and showed no sign of stopping.
It was unfair, and cruel besides, to terrify him halfway into the grave with invitations to the study and then proceed to jaw him about something as inconsequential as Guilford Audsley’s prep. Obviously, Gill was destined to be one of those boys who languished his entire career at the bottom of the form, a reliable measure of rock bottom. Every school needed such people, surely, and where was the harm so long as Gill offered something else, which he so plainly did, like Halton with the choir or any number of boys with Games? Take Mac, for instance: he hadn’t made it beyond the Fifth and probably never would.
—Are you listening to me, Riding?
—Yes, sir.
The only difference between them was that Halton and Mac actually did their prep, whereas Gill would have turned up empty-handed any number of times if Gray hadn’t intervened. They’d have to discuss that. Guilford had to be seen to try.
—Now, before you go—
It was coming to an end, though not soon enough. He had a hundred things to do before bed.
—I’m hoping you can convey a message to your studymate.
Do your own prep. He could write the script. He could write any script!
—I’ve spoken with Dr. Sebastian—
About this? Was he cracked?
—about your newest play, and I’m afraid he isn’t amenable to your performing it in the chapel.
Ah … that. Gray hadn’t thought he would be, but Gill had insisted.
—However, I’ve managed to secure the gymnasium for the upcoming Sunday. It isn’t as spacious, but I’m sure you can sort something out.
—Thank you, sir. The eighteenth?
—The eleventh, after the Sedbergh match.
Four days away? Impossible! Worse than impossible. Disaster!
—And, Grieves continued, it might interest you to know that I shall be making a tour of the dorms tonight, and in future whenever it seems necessary. I shall expect to find the entire House asleep, and I shall look unkindly upon any somnambulists I encounter.
Nail in the godforsaken coffin!
—Do I make myself clear?
As death. How had this interview gone so wrong?
A clear success, as interviews with Riding were wont to go. John knew he shouldn’t have favorites, or their opposite, but Riding he had to class one of the latter—keen mind, a way with words, but outside the classroom, deliberately infuriating. What was it Morgan used to say? Anxious and pleasing, or sullen and resentful. Now the boy had got his categories crossed, anxious and resentful, of what even? And the lying! Not that he’d actually said anything untrue this time, but his expression screamed untruth. For a boy with little need, he lied often and unconvincingly. He had to be the world’s worst liar, which, John supposed, might be a kind of achievement.
Gill called the news a minor snag and started twirling pencils in and out of his fingers, his usual technique for solving problems. They’d only rehearsed the first two scenes. They could shorten the others, but how much? And they hadn’t even begun with the costumes or the setting or—
Gill stopped twirling:
—A serial!
—What?
—Like Tarzan the Tiger, but live and talking!
Objections were already clogging the pipe.
—We’ll give the first two scenes Sunday, then one or two more each Sunday after that!
What was the point in objecting? He knew they’d do it. They always did it. He even wanted to do it. Why should his be the voice of reason? If saffron-haired girls could emerge from the void to write such arrant trash …