R. Delderfield & R. F. Delderfield (50 page)

That made her laugh and she kissed him again, switched on and drove off down the hill. They said little until she had bought her platform ticket, and accompanied him over the bridge to the down line. Then, as he found a seat in the little train, 'Would I be welcome if I ran myself over to Bamfylde as soon as I get myself a car? I've got my eye on a third-hand sports.'

'Why don't you pick up some of your separation money and buy yourself a new one?'

'You know better than to ask that. Well?'

'You know better than to ask if you'd be welcome.'

The guard, slamming doors with the flourish obligatory to all official door-slammers at small stations in the shires, blew his whistle. She lifted her hand and, as the train pulled away, he had an even more vivid memory of Beth, standing where he was standing now, framed in the window of a third-class compartment, with himself where Christine stood. It was the moment prior to surrendering to that impulse on Colwyn Bay Station, nearly twelve years ago, followed by the leap on to a moving train that had had such bitter sweet consequences.

The comparison was so poignant that he almost cried out to her to hurry but then, as the train gathered speed, she disappeared behind a cloud of smoke.

1

H
E WAS TAKING LOWER THIRD HISTORY WHEN CHRISTOPHERSON Major arrived. Beguiling thirteen-year-olds with Owen Tudor's dalliance with the widowed Queen Catherine, a favourite of theirs and his, for somehow, the way David told the story, the knowing impudence of the philanderer reached out to them over more than five centuries.

Christopherson Major, duty monitor of the headmaster, arrived on the crest of a ripple of laughter, David having quoted Tudor as saying, 'Madame, since you can't understand a word of my spoken Welsh, I will sing everything I say, in the hope of conveying my regards for you in music.' He often clowned his way through a Lower School period in this way, improvising dialogue and dialect to match it. His justification, had he been asked for one, would have been that it was the only way to capture the laggards' attention for the red meat of history later on.

The appointment of headmaster's monitors was another of Alcock's innovations. Each week a trainee prefect was employed as his errand boy and the job was popular in the Upper Fifth, for it meant, among other minor privileges, a week of sanctioned idleness and plenty of fresh air. Christopherson, however, was a studious boy, who took his duties seriously.

'The headmaster's compliments, sir. Would you please step across for a word with him?'

The laugh died, killed, no doubt, by the expression of irritation that crossed David's face. It was not unknown for members of the staff to be summoned to the presence in the middle of a period, but it was unusual. He said, 'Right, Christopherson, take over here, while I'm gone, I won't be more than a jiffy, page one-o-six in the textbook, the minority of Henry VI,' and
dusting chalk from his gown he went out across the quad, entering the head's house through Big School passage.

Alcock, as he expected, was seated behind his rampart, frowning down at a neat, taped file, the kind of file, David thought, one might associate with an old-fashioned solicitor or a civil servant in the Ministry of Agriculture. He knew enough of Alcock, however, to be certain it was a file with his name on it, possibly in private code.

'You wanted me, Headmaster?'

'Yes, please be seated. This may occupy us some little time. You were taking the Lower Third, I believe.'

'He knows damn well I was,' David reflected, 'since he memorises the timetable every new term…' but said, briefly, 'I left Christopherson in charge. You won't want him while I'm here, will you?'

'Er… no,' murmured Alcock vaguely, and his rare uncertainty alerted David at once. It was not often that Alcock showed vagueness in the presence of anyone he summoned.

'Well?'

'It's about this. I thought it only fair to ask for an explanation at once, for there may well be some unfortunate misunderstanding. The press is notoriously inaccurate in these matters.'

He passed over a news-clipping, a single column report, cut from a provincial paper, and dealing with Christine Forster's adoption meeting. David was surprised to see it, and even more surprised to notice that the introduction, set in heavy type, concerned his own contribution to the evening's speeches. It was headed 'SCHOOL MASTER SUPPORTS LABOUR candidate', and below, in smaller type,
'Reference to Local Hangings – “Martyrs to Freedom's Cause” Claim'.
A few lines of the introduction were linked to a summarised version of his speech on the Monmouth weavers, executed in Bilhampton Market Place, in 1685, and the closing section of the speech itself was given verbatim. He said, carefully, 'I don't think there's any misunderstanding. This is a pretty fair report of what I said.'

'You actually appeared at the meeting, and spoke from the platform?'

'Of course I did. It says I did. What's unusual about that?'

'It doesn't strike you, not even on reflection, as a very impulsive act on your part?'

'No, it doesn't. I know the candidate. She's related to a boy who was head prefect of Havelock's, before your time. She asked me to speak and I did.
Members of the staff aren't banned from making political speeches, are they? For if they are it's the first I've heard about it. Mr Herries once presided over a Liberal rally at Challacombe to my certain knowledge, and Mr Carter signed the Conservative candidate's nomination papers last election. I had no idea the speech would be reported, and I'm surprised that it was, but I'm not going to apologise for it. Did you expect me to?'

'No,' Alcock said, 'knowing your headstrong character, I didn't, Powlett-Jones. But I would anticipate a certain reluctance on your part to appear on a public platform at a political meeting of that kind. You note that the name of the school is quoted.'

David glanced at the cutting again and saw that this was true. He had no recollection of having mentioned the school to anyone save Christine and could only assume the reporter had got the information from the local secretary, who might have had his address. It still did not seem important, however, and despite his knowledge of Alcock, he remained puzzled by the man's obvious concern. 'Would you like to elaborate your own views, Headmaster?'

'I need to do that?'

'I think you do. You summon me in the middle of a period, and put a newspaper cutting into my hand, implying that I have overstepped the mark in some way. I should like to know what way. We live in a democracy, and the Labour Party is at present in office. Are you suggesting schoolmasters don't enjoy the same political liberty as other people – doctors, clergymen and so on?'

'In a sense I am. How a schoolmaster casts his vote is, of course, his own concern. How he conducts himself in public is not. It never has been. Do you take my point?'

'No, and to make it you'll have to do better than that, Headmaster. If I had been drunk, and caused a public disturbance, or appeared before magistrates on a charge of bothering women in cinemas, you would have every justification for summoning me here, and even asking for my resignation. You could hardly do that on the strength of an innocuous speech I made at a public meeting in another county. Or in this county, for that matter.' He got up. 'Is that all?'

For the second time he noticed that Alcock was fidgeting, his fingers unlocking and the knuckles gleaming as his right hand closed and unclosed on an ivory paper-knife, shaped like a scimitar. Then, as though catching himself giving ground, he pushed the knife out of reach and made a 'steeple' with his hands.

'It can't be all, can it? As a matter of fact, I think it essential, Powlett-Jones,
that we… er… er come to some kind of understanding, here and now. I see that newspaper cutting as important. You don't. No matter, let us shelve that for the moment, and concentrate on your attitude towards me ever since I was installed. You have made it manifestly plain that you dislike me, and dislike my methods even more. I am not interested in knowing why. Within certain limits any member of the staff is free to exercise personal preferences, providing they do not affect his loyalty to a colleague. But I think even you will admit that our relationship has reached something of an impasse, that it can no longer be subjected to strain without rupture of the discipline I try and maintain here. I did not mention resignation but you did. Perhaps it
is
something you would like to think on for the remainder of the term.'

David sat down again. He was red in the face but not from embarrassment. Alcock was no longer capable of embarrassing him but he could still make him almost incoherent with rage. Knowing this, he gave himself a full half-minute before saying, 'You're
asking
me to resign? On account of that newspaper report?'

'I'm asking you to think about making a change. And not on account of that newspaper report. Rather on the impossibility of us arriving at, shall we say, a working compromise. Carter and Gibbs reached the same conclusion, I imagine, but they… er… acted on it.'

He had himself in hand now. The rage in him cooled and in its place came a sense of release, of having suddenly seen a rift in the wall Alcock and Alcock's methods had raised between them, brick by brick, over the last few terms. He braced himself, leaning forward and staring the man down in a way that anyone but Alcock would have found embarrassing. Instead he only looked mildly astonished as David said, emphatically, 'I'll be damned if you're going to bully me into resigning. And I wouldn't advise you to try on this issue. It could land you, rather than me, in a very embarrassing situation. Do I have to explain what I mean by that?'

'Not necessarily,' Alcock hedged, 'and I can only repeat I'm
not
asking you to resign. Only to ask yourself if a change wouldn't be the wisest course in what remains of the term. We could come to some arrangements about the usual notice.'

David got up again. Suddenly, and to a degree that astonished him, he was composed, almost jaunty. Declaration of open war came as a relief.

'Well,' he said, 'suppose we leave it like this. Here's your clipping. Show it to whom you like. And show them the contents of that file too, providing you
send me a duplicate of any allegations it contains. If it came to a show-down I could demand that. Or my solicitor could. But it need not go as far as that. I only want to make two things clear. Resignation on my part – the dignified version you're seeking – is out of the question. And I reserve the right to appear on any public platform I choose, so long as I am convinced, in my own mind, that such appearances don't reflect on the school's reputation. You can try and force me to resign, but if you do I'll fight. I'll fight every inch of the way, inside and outside Bamfylde. I've disagreed with you, yes, in all manner of things, but I've never been disloyal to you in the way you imply and I never would be. I'm far too attached to the school to act the fool in that respect. My… er… compliments, Headmaster. I'd best get back to the class now.'

He went out, shutting the door carefully behind him, and was relieved, as he crossed the quad and started up the steps to the Lower Third, to hear the bell announce the end of afternoon school. Before he reached the landing the Third Form had erupted and Christopherson slipped out, descending the stairs quickly and pretending not to notice him. He thought, grimly, 'Is that because he has a pretty good idea the Stoic and I have just had a God Almighty row? Or is it because the class was out of hand before the bell?'

He turned left and cut through the Rogues Gallery to the linen room, thence to his own quarters, glancing sideways at a cherubic Algy Herries, beaming down from the panelling. 'I won that round on points, Algy,' he said aloud, and little Burnett-Jones, emerging from the linen room with a newly darned pair of socks, scuttled off to tell the Second Form that Pow-Wow was beginning to talk to himself, a certain sign of onrushing lunacy. He was a little crestfallen when this piece of intelligence caused no stir at all. Venn, from the lofty peak of a third-termer, hardly looked up from a count of grimed cigarette cards as he said, 'Queen Anne's dead. They all do that. You'll get used to it in a term or two, new kid.'

2

He had won on points, he claimed, but Howarth wasn't so sure, and neither, it seemed, was Barnaby, usually so sanguine.

'He'll carry it farther,' Howarth said, glumly. 'Don't you see that he has to? His position here is untenable if he doesn't.'

'You could say it's untenable if he does,' said Barnaby. 'For one or the other of them, that is.'

'You think he'll be stupid enough to lay that cutting before the Governors?'

'A careful selection of the Governors. And not the cutting alone, you can be sure of that. It will be a door opener and inside will be a long-winded report embracing your stand on that smoking incident, and your fight to save Hislop.'

'If he confines himself to those issues the Governors can't do a thing,' Barnaby said, perking up a little, 'Any housemaster worth his salt would fight for one of his boys, and that's all Carter and P.J. did. No, it's the cutting that bothers me. How many Socialists occupy seats on that board, P.J.? Frankly, I can't see why you're so cocksure, can you, Howarth?'

'Knowing our boy, I can,' Howarth said, lighting one Gold Flake from another, 'but I don't expect him to unmask his batteries for our edification. Watch and wait, Barnaby!'

'I will,' said Barnaby, 'and I won't forget to pray while I'm at it.'