The Impressionist (40 page)

‘If you’re father’s rich, why are you a Communist?’

‘Might as well ask, why am I alive? I believe everyone should be equal. Money shouldn’t come into it. It does, but it shouldn’t. How’s that for a surprise?’

‘Surprise?’

‘Coming from a Jew, I mean.’

He doesn’t understand. Gertler sneers at him.

‘Don’t you believe in something?’

‘No,’ says Jonathan.

Gertler snorts, and goes back to his guitar.

And so a routine begins. Jonathan’s year at Chopham Hall is governed by two things: numbers and lists. The school is a machine for producing belonging, and accordingly everything is done in groups, from showering in the morning to the composition of essays in evening prep. Every gesture of Jonathan’s day is honed to its functional minimum by two hundred years of institutional evolution, like some upper-class version of Mr Taylor’s factory system. Accustomed to total freedom, he often wonders how long he will be able to stand it. In his notebook he writes:
Englishness is sameness,
and
the comfort of repetition.

Numbers and lists: lists of school rules, masters’ names, prefects’ names, names of the first eleven and fifteen, lists of school colours, lists of areas out of bounds, lists of the dates of battles of the English Civil War and lists of its causes. All of these Jonathan is expected to be able to recite when called upon. Sometimes he can. Sometimes he cannot. His punishment for failure is more lenient than that handed out to first-year new boys, who are often flogged for believing that the middle-school rugby colours contain a narrow gold stripe, or placing Mr Russell above Mr Hoggart in order of staff seniority.

Mr Hoggart is the red-faced shouting man, and his first impression of Jonathan does not improve. Since Mr Hoggart is Master of School House, this is a problem.

‘Bridgeman! What,
pray
are
those?

‘These, sir? Shoes, sir.’

‘Shoes, sir? Shoes! No! They are an offence! An infringement!’

‘They’re patent leather, sir. I bought them in London.’

‘School regulations! Clothing! All eccentricities in dress are
forbidden.
They shall disappear, Bridgeman.
Disappear.’

Jonathan is saved from serious trouble by the fact that, however poor his record, Gertler’s is always worse. Though he may have problems with uniform, attitude, commitment, spirit and other important qualities which help School House in its battle with the barbarian hordes besieging the citadel, Gertler is actively plotting to let the barbarians in. He reads Marx in prep, refuses to train with the cadet corps and, although he is excused chapel, still pronounces loudly and frequently on the death of God and the spectre haunting Europe. As a result he is hated by Fender-Greene, and (with the tacit approval of Hoggart) generally persecuted by the rest of the house. Ink is poured on to his books, and his food is spat on before it is served to him in the dining hall. He is tripped up in the corridor, and every so often Fender-Greene finds an excuse to cane him, only to be infuriated beyond reason by Gertler’s habit of laughing as the birch whooshes through the air.

Jonathan notes all this down:
nobility of discipline, respect for religion important but belief optional, check your plate first.
His notes spread out into all areas of school life, from the rules of rugby football to the construction of a jam sandwich. Week by week his understanding of this world improves, the white spaces on his map filling up with trails and landmarks.

His place in the history sixth could have been useful, allowing him to add a diachronic understanding of his subject (Englishness) to the synchronic. But in the sleepy classroom of Mr Fox, pipe-smoker and Sunday painter, history is not so much about change as eternal recurrence. The boys are taught to trace the destiny of their island through a series of devotional tableaux, jewel-like moments which reveal essences, principles, axioms drawn out of race and blood. From Drake kneeling before Elizabeth to the gathering in the meadow at Runnymede, from Wolfe at Quebec to Victoria’s coronation as Empress of India, the past is depicted as a blur of large and uninteresting forces which only achieves clarity at certain points, when it instantaneously freezes into still compositions of shining faces and rich drapery. In Mr Fox’s model of history, even recent events, such as the war which overtook his pupils’ uncles and older brothers, have faded into this artificial duality: long misty stretches of vaguely sportsmanlike activity – striving and muddy endurance – throwing up nuggets of transubstantiation. Flesh hardening into oil-and-varnish greatness. Poppies out of Flanders fields.

Like prize day, history is meant to be a spur to future action, for
success in the world after school.
Such success is the birthright of Old Chophamites, who have found it in fields as diverse as merchant banking and ranching in the Argentine. However, the grand tradition of the school, insofar as it has such a thing, lies in preparing young men for the Colonial Service. In his morning addresses, Hoggart likes to list the places where former house members are currently serving.
The Gold Coast. Hong Kong. Bengal. Burma. Cape Town. Bermuda.
There, under foreign stars, the virtues of scholarship, forbearance and prowess at team sports are helping to maintain Britain’s pre-eminence in the world. It is for the Empire that one should applaud the new prefects, and do one’s best to thrash the boys of Frobisher and Hawkins in the interhouse sevens.

Like Gertler, Bridgeman is a notable absentee on the touchline. As someone who is only at Chopham Hall to prepare for university, he has something of a special status, but neither Hoggart nor Fender-Greene is prepared to let this go to his head. There is, they feel, something dubious about him. His only saving grace is his ability to study, and that in itself is suspect, having something Semitic about it, something try-hard and grasping.

By the start of the winter holidays, a storm is brewing.

Jonathan himself is unaware of this. As he returns to London to spend a cold and boring Christmas under the eye of Mr Spavin, he feels the anxieties of the first few months are behind him. He no longer lives in constant fear of discovery. He is becoming what he pretends to be, realizing that the truth is so unlikely that, despite his occasional oddities and lapses, no one would ever divine it. He is starting to coincide with his shadow.

Spring term starts quietly enough, and for a few weeks Jonathan is pleased, even exhilarated by his progress. Oxford entrance proceeds smoothly. Papers are assigned, written and sent off to Dr Noble’s good friend, the admissions tutor of Barabbas College.
Discuss the mistakes, if any, in the handling of the American crisis of the 1770s. Assess the following. ‘Bullion, rather than martial prowess, was the foundation of Spanish power in the sixteenth century.’
The matter of Greek (lack of) is raised, discussed and discarded. A short hiatus, then word returns that several of the Doctor’s pupils, among them Jonathan Bridgeman, will be expected at Barabbas for the Michaelmas term. The customary case of claret changes hands, and Dr Noble sits down to write congratulatory letters to parents and guardians.

Jonathan’s life is lighter than air, his upward trajectory an assured and perfect arc. Then one afternoon a breathless fag knocks on the door of his set.

‘Hello, Bridgeman. I’ve got a message.’

Jonathan, in the role of imperious upper-form boy, puts down his book and sighs with infinite boredom.

‘What is it?’

‘Headmaster says to say your great-aunt has come to see you and she’s waiting in his study.’

He thinks he must have misheard.

‘My what?’

‘Your great-aunt, Bridgeman. Sorry, did I do something wrong?’ Gertler thrums his balalaika dramatically. ‘Anything the matter, Johnny?’

‘No.’

‘I didn’t know you had an aunt.’

Nor did Jonathan. Mr Spavin has never mentioned one. There were, he thought, no living relatives. What was it the other Bridgeman said?
Last of the line, old man.
He emits a low moan. He should have known something like this might happen. He should have been prepared. Fighting to think clearly, he drags the fag out of his set and walks him in the direction of the Headmaster’s Lodgings, telling him to repeat exactly what the Headmaster said. Exact words. Exactly. He keeps forgetting to breathe. The fag whimpers nothing Bridgeman nothing honestly, and is more or less getting dragged along, tripping over his shiny black school shoes. Bridgeman I didn’t, says the fag; Bridgeman he didn’t say anything ow Bridgeman you’re hurting me, and so on all the way to the Headmaster’s door, where Jonathan finally accepts he really does know nothing and is moreover terrified, perhaps even about to wet himself, so he lets go and the fag pelts off, rubbing his arm and saying ow Bridgeman.

He knocks and immediately wishes he had not, because the Headmaster’s housekeeper opens the door and shows him straight into the drawing room, straight away, no waiting at all, and his entire brain and body scream too soon, but there she is, an old lady swathed in pre-war crepe, a mildewed floral hat on top of her potato-shaped head. It is a head which sports the mulch of features and the tiny shallow eyes that are the unmistakable genetic marks of a Bridgeman. A real one.

‘Good afternoon, young Jonathan,’ says the aunt.

It has been a long time since the previous Jonathan Bridgeman was clearly present in his mind. It often seems to him that Bridgeman and he have always been the same person. The aunt’s presence instantly drains this pretence of all reality and, with it, drains him of personality, anima, of the power of speech and action. He stands at the door, unable to take another pace into the room, opening and closing his mouth in a stillborn attempt at charm. The eyes fasten on him like two black buttons.

‘Good afternoon.’ he manages eventually. ‘Aunt.’

‘Aunt Bermuda,’ the aunt grunts at him unappealingly. You won’t remember me. Come and give me a kiss.’

As he bends towards her powdery cheek, he is hit by a sharp musty smell rising up from her clothes. Involuntarily he imagines that she has been gradually mummified in them, a new layer of papery green stuff pasted over the old each time it wears thin.

‘Jonathan,’ she says wonderingly. ‘Well, I have to say you don’t take after our side of the family. Strong faces we Bridgemans have, Headmaster. Saxon faces.’

‘How fascinating,’ says Dr Noble. ‘Would you like some tea?’

‘Tea? How could you possibly – that’s what did for his father. A tragedy. Tea indeed!’

‘Absolutely. I do apologize.’

Dr Noble is finding the aunt’s visit almost as trying as Jonathan. Apart from the smell, there are her undisciplined vowels, which slide around her palate entirely uncurbed, and her weird habit of making her crusty skirts rustle and crack beneath her haunches by shifting around on her chair. Though female, she is hardly floral, let alone orchidaceous. She is actually rather disturbing.

‘You don’t take after your mother either,’ she says, squinting at the boy in the doorway. ‘Sorry little thing she was, judging by the photographs.’

‘Photographs?’ says Jonathan weakly.

‘Yes. There’s one of you here.’ She starts to rummage in her capacious handbag, removing handkerchiefs, pill bottles, a vicious-looking pair of dressmaker’s scissors and various other personal items, and stacking them in an unsavoury pile on Dr Noble’s occasional table.

‘Ah, here it is.’

She produces a battered family portrait. A chubby potato-faced baby is being dandled on the knee of a sallow young woman, while a potato-faced young man leans unsteadily on the back of her chair. The baby’s button eyes stare accusingly out of the frame.

‘You were a bonny wee thing,’ says Aunt Berthilda.

‘Yes,’ whispers Jonathan hoarsely.

‘You know, I practically brought up your father. His favourite relative – I suppose he told you some of the stories?’ When Jonathan does not reply, she tells one herself, recounting how Bridgeman senior would sit on Nana’s knee and Nana would give him little nips of her gin, like a big man.

‘How charming to see the two of you together,’ says Dr Noble. ‘A family reunion. I must say, Miss Bridgeman, it is a surprise to me to find that Jonathan has a family. His affairs are administered by a solicitor.’

Aunt Berthilda looks slightly shifty. ‘Yes,’ she says.

Noble adopts an expression which, were there a Gentleman’s Guide to Correct Facial Expressions, would illustrate the entry for ‘Askance’. Her skirts crackling significantly, Aunt Berthilda slides back and forth on her chair.

‘Do you think there is somewhere young Jonathan and I could speak?’

With visible relief, Dr Noble suggests the two of them take a walk round the grounds. The old lady grips Jonathan’s arm, enveloping him in her fug, which seems to persist even outdoors. When they are some distance away from the Hall, and the sound of the housekeeper opening all the windows is barely audible, she reveals the purpose of her visit.

‘Your father was very fond of me, Jonathan. So naturally I feel affectionately towards you, even though we’ve never met. I almost think of you as my own. Blood is thicker than water, eh?’