Pilcrow (49 page)

I wasn’t sure the others in the dorm would remember about the chemistry-set project, but on the first day of the next term we all had our sets laid out on the beds to compare well before lights out. There were a number of different makes. Julian had a Lotts Chemistry Set and I had ‘Fun with Gilbert Chemistry’. The picture on the box made Julian’s set look very grown-up. My picture wasn’t too bad but the word ‘Fun’ on the box made my set seem childish, and ‘Gilbert’ was hopeless. I could see Julian brightening up when he saw Fun with Gilbert, and my heart was glad.

Once you had the boxes open, the situation wasn’t so clear. Julian took the lid off his set, and showed off its range of little cardboard cylinders with plastic insert lids. Perhaps he didn’t know that the
little
barrels containing his chemicals were made of cardboard, but I did. I knew, but I was biding my time.

My set opened up properly, on hinges – it didn’t have anything as make-shift as a lift-off lid. The hinged lid on ‘Fun with Gilbert Chemistry’ doubled as a protective cover, and there were two sturdy drawers beneath. The right-hand drawer held twenty-one glass
bottles
of a decent size, labelled and stoppered with metal screw caps. The left drawer was divided into two tiers, the top one holding
slender
test tubes full of chemicals. They too were labelled, and stopped with cork bungs. Not wanting to waste space, Gilbert (whoever he was) had thoughtfully put two grades of litmus paper behind them. The bottom half of the set had a shelf with holes in it to hold test tubes. With a lavish hand Gilbert had thrown in eye droppers, filter papers, instructions and tweezers. There were also some strips of
magnesium
ribbon.

I just about managed not to crow, ‘Mine’s better than yours!’ I decided that Gilbert and his Chemistry Set were quite able to speak for themselves. I just watched Julian give a miserable gulp. For a moment I even felt a little sorry for him. I said, ‘I expect yours is much better than mine really.’

I wasn’t being at all frank with my school-mates. What no one at Vulcan knew was that during the holidays Dad and I had already gone through all the experiments in Lotts. Dad was highly enthusiastic about chemistry. It gave him the chance to play under cover of
supervising
his son. When Mum said, ‘John’s going to do chemistry this afternoon,’ it really meant that Dad was going to do all the
experiments
, and John was going to watch. ‘Gives him a real chance to learn, m’dear,’ he said. ‘Too damn dangerous for him to attempt on his own!’ When he was in his playful vein, he tended to monopolise toys.

I didn’t mind too much being made to watch him playing with my chemistry set. Mum said, ‘I’ve told him he’s got to clear up all the mess and put it away afterwards,’ talking out of the side of her mouth the way she did when she was feeling subversive. ‘And don’t worry, I’ve kept next Tuesday afternoon clear for us. When Dad’s at work, you and me are going to do chemistry. I’ll have to do the experiments, but as I don’t understand the first thing about it you don’t need to worry. I’ll do exactly what you say.’ I was already fairly excited by doing chemistry with Dad, even if it meant just watching, so the idea of doing it with Mum as well, in secret on a Tuesday afternoon, was heavenly.

Dad did seven Lotts experiments that Saturday afternoon, with me watching, and we weren’t any too impressed by the results. We decided to be more adventurous the next Saturday. It had been raining all week, and when Saturday came the sky was very dark. There was a tremendous rainstorm, which created ideal conditions for doing chemistry – but even compared to the previous Saturday, our
experiments
gave poor results. Because of the raised atmospheric humidity the strontium nitrate had caked like lumpy sugar. The copper
sulphate
was distinctly gooey and the Congo Red was not only gooey but had turned anæmic. ‘This company cheats,’ said Dad with a thrilling sternness. ‘It’s only our second time using the set, and look what a tiny pinch of powder is left!’

He didn’t know about the intervening Tuesday, when Mum was my lab assistant, but the point held good. The quantities were measly. There was an element of triumph and point-scoring in Dad’s
denunciation
of Lotts. When we had been shopping for chemistry sets Dad had wanted to buy ‘Gilbert’, but Mum had put her foot down. She said we couldn’t afford it – ‘Not with you on forty cigarettes a day, Dennis! We shall have to settle for Lotts. That’s what Renee Utterson has bought for her boy Tim. I understand it’s very good.’ And that was why it had been Lotts.

Now, though, he had Mum just where he wanted her, thoroughly on the defensive. Dad made her squirm by saying, ‘What is it you’re always saying, m’dear? “You get what you pay for”?’ She had to admit that Lotts had been a bad bargain. The price of the better set was still high, but now that Dad was involved the resources could somehow be found. Gilbert had won, in a fair fight.

Dad’s interest waned as we had known it would, and Peter started to join in. Over time we became rather adventurous. When a standard experiment seemed uninteresting we added chemicals according to intuition. How could it be a proper experiment, we argued, if
someone
had done it already? We would end up with our adding a bit of everything we had to the crucible, and marvelling at the frothy
bubbling
mass that resulted. I always overdid it with the Flowers of Sulphur. I would be in ecstasies sniffing the little whiffs of acrid vapour being puffed into the air as the little blue flame began to spread over the powder like a mould on cheese. ‘What’s happening here’, I would explain with great joy, ‘is essentially what goes on inside a volcano.’

I wasn’t far wrong. After one experiment got out of hand and left a scorched crater in our wooden table, Dad banned the use of the meths Bunsen burner. Then the emphasis shifted to chemical gardening. We spent weeks watching rusty nails, copper sulphate crystals and shards of ammonium dichromate growing horns and feathers in a solution of isinglass.

So when it came to a show-down between Lotts and Gilbert in a duel of stinks and bangs, I already knew the winner. I was being a proper little schemer.

Back in the Blue Dorm we fixed a chemistry session for Saturday afternoon. Willis, Raeburn and the rest of the teaching staff seemed unconcerned. I dare say they didn’t know much about chemistry and didn’t want to be shown up. The authorities gave us permission,
saying
that as long as we had an AB with us, they supposed it would be all right.

It rained heavily on Friday and again on Saturday. There was a damp smell in the air and there seemed to be moisture oozing out of the walls. Even before we started on the duel there were several abrupt flashes and bangs from the wiring, then a brief power cut
accompanied
by a subliminally acrid smell. God was doing some experiments of his own, helping the Gothic setting along.

‘I think we should do Julian’s experiments first,’ I said. Pure wickedness on my part. ‘His set has the most grown-up picture.’ So the Lotts Chemistry Set went on trial first. And guess what? The strontium nitrate had caked like lumpy sugar, the copper sulphate was so gooey it had started seeping into the cardboard tube – you could see the bluey-green stain even from the outside – and the Congo Red had lost much of its colour. It seemed to be in need of a transfusion. ‘Oh dear,’ I said, all helpfulness and dismay. ‘That’s not at all how it’s supposed to look, is it? I expect there’s a bit of cochineal in the kitchens. Perhaps we could try asking Grace if she’d let us add some of that …?’ Tireless Roger Stott, the AB in charge, offered to find out, but we soon decided that the best thing was just to get on with it.

We were in the big dining room. Before the adventure Biggie had said it was extremely chilly for May, and had given instructions for a big log fire to be made in the huge grate. In theory we boys were unsupervised and on our own, but Biggie kept popping in and out to see if everything was all right. In fact she couldn’t stay away. She seemed to have a fascination with our chemistry. Now she surged in, as if she had detected Julian’s distress from the other end of the
premises
, and brought the level of wickedness in the dining room right down. ‘Julian, perhaps we could pop your set nearer to the fire? Then while it’s drying you boys can try some of John’s experiments.’ Julian was sniffling quietly. I had kicked him where it hurt, right in the chemistry set. Biggie went to give him a cuddle, and the sniffling turned to full crying.

I was beginning to feel sorry for Julian myself, but the situation I had set up wasn’t entirely within my control. A boy called Norman Spencer saw his chance to be spiteful, and said sneeringly, ‘Nah! “Lotts” means “Tiny Tots”! Chemistry sets that don’t work specially made for boys who cry!’

‘Now that’s Quite Enough!’ snapped Biggie. Single-handedly she was keeping alive the knack of capitalising the spoken word. ‘I’ve told you boys not to Tell Tales, not ever! And that rule also covers
chemistry
sets. Specifically!! Come on Julian, darling … Come over with Biggie and we’ll sit by the hearth near all those damp chemicals – not
too
near, mind you! Why, I’m sure that after half an hour everything will be as right as rain …’

I had the stage to myself and got busy. My experiments worked wonderfully. Biggie went
Oooh!
and
Aaah!
along with the others as my flash paper disappeared into thin air, my invisible ink glowed brown when we warmed up the paper, my hydrogen popped and my violet iodine solution cleared in an instant when I gave the magic command. At the moment when my magnesium ribbon ignited in eye-searing fashion, the hope on Julian’s face finally died.

His set had dried out by now, all the same, and Biggie encouraged him to put on his own performance. She had become thoroughly involved and did her best to make his display a success. She even told boys that they should pay as much attention to Julian’s experiments as they had to mine, which I thought was taking fair-mindedness rather too far. In any case our audience had had enough of chemistry by now. Boys started drifting off into other parts of the building, and I left too. It’s not in my power (in this body) to slip out unobtrusively, but I didn’t see why I should stay out of politeness when the contest had so clearly been won. The last words I spoke to Julian that day, under my breath but quite loud enough for him to hear, were, ‘Enjoy your Tiny Tots.’ It pains me now to think that I had been as spiteful as anyone. If I had put as much effort into treating Julian nicely as I did into stage-managing his public humiliation, I could have shrunk my ego down to manageable dimensions and transformed my own experience of the school.

At this point I was equally drawn to making myself popular and unpopular. If there were sausages for supper, in which case we had two per person, I would eat one and slip the other into a pocket, with a slice of bread wrapped round it to catch the grease. O sausage both holy and debased! Corrupt cylinder of nameless flesh and bland padding, but undeniably modular. Easy to transport.

Then in the dorm I’d stow it under the pillow and once the lights were out, slyly retrieve it. I’d croon ‘Nar-nar-na-nar-nar’ under my breath, that jeer of triumph which must be one of the oldest things in language.
I’ve got something you don’t have
. I’d make sure to eat the sausage as loudly as possible, with the maximum possible chomping and slurping.

Outrage and uproar. Physical mobility being in short supply in the dorm the other boys had little chance of grabbing a bite (though Roger Stott would have been in with a chance), but they could
certainly
vent their frustration in scream and song. Matrons came
thudding
, and I had an appointment the next morning to explain myself and the mayhem I had caused.

I didn’t cringe. I explained that this was something that was
supposed
to happen. ‘It’s called a midnight feast,’ I said. ‘It’s in all the books.’ I made my case. The dorm feast might not be in the calendar, but it was every bit as necessary as Hallowe’en. The snack of misrule was an indispensable part of life in a proper school.

I managed to turn something which started as a piece of selfish swank into a community crusade. Of course there had to be confab at every level before the justice of my assertion could be confirmed and something less ramshackle arranged. Midnight feast was schoolboy anarchy, but these schoolboys couldn’t be anarchic without help from the authorities to be defied. It wouldn’t have been possible for anyone but an AB to raid the kitchens, for instance. Raeburn, Willis, the matrons – everybody must have been in on the planning stages.

So one night there was salad for supper. Everyone complained about rabbit food, and nobody really ate a great deal. Then an hour after lights-out matrons came in with torches and bowls of crisps and slices of cake. Biggie was queen of the feast, but still somehow invisible.

There are puppet shows where the operators are in full view. It’s only convention that makes them disappear. That was how it worked in the dormitory, after the first moment of stunned surprise. We understood perfectly that the staff were not socially present. They were the conjurors of the treat, but they were not part of the event. It would have been wrong to thank them. They weren’t really there, but the food really was.

It was a magic feast, like something out of the Arabian Nights, even if the genies weren’t very light on their feet and blocked the light of the torches they brought. And genies as they return to their bottles don’t normally murmur, ‘We’ll be back with flannels and toothbrushes in half an hour.’

When I had come back to Vulcan after the appendix, once I finally had a scar I could be proud of and show off to selected fellow pupils, the Tan-Sad had stayed put in Bourne End. The reclining position it enforced had made it impossible for me to come close enough to a desk for lessons.

Waiting for me at Farley Castle was an Everest & Jennings
wheelchair
. Despite the classy name it was the standard National Health Service issue at the time. It wasn’t electric, but it could be converted. What this meant in plain language that an E&J motor (on order, rather a waiting list I’m afraid, John) could be bolted in place on the silver-chrome chassis to power the chair, the bulky battery tucked in at the back. Of course the NHS supplied the chair but not the motor.

With so little mobility in my hips I had never really been able to sit, though I learned to impersonate sitting well enough to put others at ease. On visits with Mum to friends of hers in Bourne End I would be able to settle myself in most chairs. I would perch my bum on the edge of the seat and lean back, keeping balance with my feet.

The Everest & Jennings was hardly more practicable. For longer trips around the Castle I could be pushed by Roger Stott my pet AB, the George-Harrison-in-waiting, his features soon to be plastered on most of the bedroom walls in the world, but he wasn’t my servant, or even designated as my helper except by his good nature. I needed to be able to move the chair myself, even if only to adjust its position
relative
to the desk once Roger had delivered me to a lesson. I learned to do this by leaning over and pushing against the tyre minimally with my hand, but my leverage was small and the required position precarious.

There weren’t seat belts for cars yet, so there were hardly going to be seat belts for wheelchairs. My guardian angel must have been working overtime during this period, which was perhaps why she (if mine was Mary Finch) didn’t have energy to spare to deal with human threats to my well-being. With Judy Brisby.

One thing that always annoyed me when I was finally settled at my desk was the paper. Foolscap. Why did the school insist on dishing out that particular size? It was so tall that if I tried to write anywhere near the top of the sheet I would inevitably crease and crumple the bottom half. On the other hand, it was both wasteful and odd-looking if I started writing half-way down. Out of the question, of course, to cut it in half for my benefit. The only concession offered was that I could use a typewriter. Although I was thrilled when Raeburn praised my competence on the machine (saying I was ‘quite the touch-typist’), I was stubborn enough to persist in writing by hand. I preferred the typewriter, but in my perverse way thought it made things too easy for other people. It was only fair that the teachers should struggle to decipher my markings. I had struggled to make them.

After CRX, the standard of the teaching at Vulcan was thrillingly high. Of course there was the odd journeyman duffer, whose idea of teaching was to read things to us out of text-books, but there were also bright sparks on the staff, and teachers who weren’t threatened by having bright sparks in front of them as pupils.

At CRX the school had been an after-thought, here it was a real priority. One boy, Cyril, would turn up to lessons pushed on his bed, lying on his stomach, the only position he could manage. But turn up he did. Later he was adopted by a husband and wife on the staff.

There was sincere encouragement for good work and jocular threats for bad. One threat I can remember came from more than one teacher in that first year at Vulcan: ‘If you can’t do better than that, you’ll have to go to Lord Mayor Treloar!’ I had no idea what Lord Mayor Treloar was – not any sort of hell-hole or bedlam, I don’t think, but simply a hospital with tuition (at Alton in Hampshire) rather than a real school like the one I was privileged to attend. The threat was effective despite its lack of clear meaning. I put my head down and I worked.

When it got around that I knew a little German and my accent was good, I was told I was just the right age to start learning in earnest. Learning German was never quite as effortless as it had been while Gisela Schmidt’s hands were working their wonders, but I made a good start. The knotty aspects of the language were like clenched muscles in themselves, tense nodes which had to be pummelled into relaxation. The drowned cactus of CRX flowered and fruited in its own sweet time. One thing I liked, with a love of definiteness which I’ve well and truly got out of my system since, was the way it was pronounced just the way it looked on the page. With French it seemed that you had to say what you didn’t see and you couldn’t say what you saw.