The Rotters' Club (29 page)

‘We don’t know how many men that slut of a sister of yours might have been sleeping with,’ he had said. ‘She might have been servicing the whole factory, for all that we know.’

Claire had wept when he threw these words at her, and tears sprang to her eyes now, when she remembered them again. She hated her father: a terrible thing to admit, but it was true, and she had lived with the dull knowledge of it for so long now that it didn’t surprise or appal her any more. She hated his smoothness, his hypocrisy, his subtle but complete domination of her mother and above all she hated the atmosphere of rank, overheated religiosity that pervaded their house at all times; the same atmosphere that had driven Miriam away, first of all, and was now driving Claire herself out of doors most weekends, to the forlorn refuge of public spaces like this café.

Claire wanted to stop thinking about all this and to concentrate instead on her pile of back issues, which she was intending to scour for sparks of editorial inspiration. But there was something else she had to decide first. Something about Doug.

Doug fancied her; she was in no doubt about that. And under normal circumstances, she might have been flattered and interested: he was good-looking, and funny, if a little too sure of himself. But the circumstances were not normal. She knew that she was unfriendly towards him, sometimes unforgivably so, and she knew that Doug had no idea why she behaved in this way: he was ignorant, she believed, quite ignorant of the story of Miriam and his father. This would have made her relationship with him difficult in any case, but the thing that made it worse, much worse, was that she could never quite stop herself from wondering whether Bill Anderton might, in some way or another, have been implicated in Miriam’s disappearance.

To put it more bluntly: how could you possibly go out with a boy, when you suspected that his father may have murdered your sister?

It wasn’t quite as nasty or as simple as that. But she was beginning to think that there were two measures she must take: first, that she should stop being so unpleasant to Doug, and making him suffer for her family problems, with which he had no direct connection; and second, that she should attempt to meet his father. She knew, actually, that she would have no peace of mind until she
had
met him, and she had asked him, straight out, to give his own account of the end of his affair with Miriam.

Today it occurred to her, for the first time, that these two resolutions might be connected.

Claire sighed and drank the last bitter dregs of her cold coffee. These reflections had plunged her into a terrible depression, and the thought of snooping after Mr Plumb and Mrs Chase suddenly seemed to have lost all its air of fun. Effortfully she began to sift through her pile of old copies of
The Bill Board
and soon turned, with weary inevitability, to the issue of Thursday, 28th November, 1974: the week of Miriam’s disappearance.

It did not make for cheery reading.

KING WILLIAM’S PUPIL A VICTIM OF PUB BOMBING

ran the main headline, and underneath it was a picture of Lois Trotter, Ben’s older sister. Claire scanned the article quickly, since she knew most of the story already. It was amazing that Lois had emerged almost unscathed, physically, given that her boyfriend Malcolm had been sitting right next to her and had been killed in the blast. There was no explanation here of how that might have happened. Claire laughed bleakly when the article ended, ‘Lois is currently in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, being treated for severe shock.’ So severe, she thought, that she still hasn’t recovered more than two years later. She had given up asking Benjamin about her; the subject was too painful. Although somebody had mentioned to her that Lois was back at home now, living with the family again.

The next issue, for 5th December, 1974, was particularly dull. It must have been a quiet news week, because the leading story concerned a persistent leak in the Girls’ School swimming pool. But in the corner of
page 5
there was something that caught her eye: a short column headed ‘LONGBRIDGE NEWS’.

Questions are again being raised [it said] about safety at Longbridge after a fatal accident on the shop floor. Jim Corrigan, an Irish maintenance worker aged only twenty-three years, was attempting to shift machinery weighing 2000 lb from one shop to another, using a purpose-built wheeled trolley. One of the trolley wheels became stuck in a joint on the concrete floor, and it is believed that Corrigan then used a trolley jack to raise the load, which overbalanced and crushed him to death. There was an almost identical incident in the same workplace less than three months ago, which resulted (thankfully) in only minor injuries for another worker. A Longbridge health and safety spokesman said that the coincidence was ‘freakish’, but admitted that the offending joint in the floor had not been repaired following the earlier accident. Mr Corrigan leaves behind a wife and one small daughter.

This story, upsetting enough in itself, also reminded Claire of something: that the paper had had a tradition, not so long ago, of running regular stories about the Longbridge plant, on the basis that pupils should be encouraged to take an interest in the affairs of a factory which gave so much employment to the surrounding area. The series had been dropped, presumably, because it was so unpopular – she could remember giving scant attention to these items herself– but why shouldn’t it now be revived? Not because it was such a great idea, of course, but because it might give her the perfect excuse for having a long and private conversation with Bill Anderton: a full-length interview, a profile of one of the key figures in so many of the factory’s recent labour disputes.

Yes, that might work…

Poor Jim Corrigan, she thought, pushing the stacks of paper aside and rubbing a tired knuckle into her eyes. Twenty-three years old; picked cruelly at random, the life crushed out of him one Tuesday afternoon, an ordinary working day. Poor Malcolm. Blown to oblivion, one ordinary Thursday evening; sentenced to death for wanting to take his girlfriend out for a drink in a city-centre pub. And poor Miriam, wherever she was…

Three deaths?

Please God (the invocation came unbidden, before she could stop it), let that not be the truth of it. Let Miriam not be dead.

Three curtailed narratives, then. Three stories, with no connection between them except that they had been truncated, savagely, when their opening chapters had barely been written. All in the same few days. The same fatal few days. What days those had been, for unfinished stories.

13

THE BILL BOARD

Thursday, 17 March, 1977

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

From R. J. Culpepper, lower science sixth

Dear Sir,

I write in response to the article by S. Richards which you published in your last number, entitled – with stunning originality – ‘end of an era’. It is some time since you favoured your readers with quite such an outpouring of sentimental claptrap.

Mr Richards appoints himself spokesman for all that he considers decent and honourable in British sporting life, and laments the fact that this year’s Oxford v. Cambridge Boat Race is being funded, for the first time in its history, by a commercial sponsor, viz. Ladbrokes the bookmaker. He points out that the victors’ trophy has even been re-named – horror of horrors! – the ‘Ladbroke Cup’.

If Mr Richards could just raise his head for a few moments from the sandy depths in which he has buried it, he might pause to reflect on the advantages of this arrangement.

There are few more inspiring events in the sporting calendar than the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race. The spectacle of two crack racing eights speeding along the Thames, once seen, can never be forgotten. (I write as someone who has witnessed the race at first-hand, which Mr Richards hasn’t, to the best of my knowledge.) Furthermore, this splendid entertainment is enjoyed every year by thousands of Londoners and millions of television viewers – all, I might add, without paying a penny for the privilege.

Does Mr Richards believe that crews can undergo months of rigorous training without incurring any expenses, or even that racing boats themselves grow on trees? It might interest him to learn, on the contrary, that they cost #3000 each: a sum which can now be met out of private sponsorship, so that the survival of this great British institution remains assured for the forseeable future.

The sixteen members of The Closed Circle, a ‘think-tank’ composed of the finest minds in King William’s (to which Mr Richards has not, I believe, been elected) last week held a fascinating discussion on the subject of ‘continuity and change’. A most telling point was made, on this occasion, by the newest of our members, P. D. Trotter, who has recently secured election at the unprecedentedly young age of thirteen. Trotter made the observation that only people with a deep love and
knowledge
of tradition understand it well enough to realize that radical, sometimes brutal measures can be needed to keep it alive. Modernize – modernize or die, was his rallying-call: a slogan that should be pondered long and hard by Mr Richards and all those like him – including the members of the present government – whose complacent, backward-looking attitude has led this country into its present state of social and economic inertia.

In conclusion, I would suggest to Mr Richards that the safeguarding of British traditions is best left to those whose familiarity with them goes back more than one generation.

   Yours faithfully,

   R. J. Culpepper.

14

There were many different theories concerning Culpepper’s hatred of Richards. Some people put it down to racism; others observed, rightly enough, that Richards had matured into the finer athlete, and his rival was chewed up with envy.

Doug had another explanation. ‘I reckon it’s all because he never managed to have it off with Cicely, and Steve did.’

Benjamin, who still hated to think about what had happened at the cast party, went suddenly very quiet. But Claire was intrigued. She had never heard the whole story of Cicely and Culpepper’s failed romance.

‘It was all because of Sean, of course,’ Doug began, and for a moment Benjamin was sidetracked into thinking how strange it sounded, even now, to hear Harding being called by his first name. It was one of the great moments of transition at King William’s, that crossing of the Rubicon from surname to first name, and with Harding, no doubt because of the wariness or even fear with which he was regarded by some of his classmates, it had happened later than most. Benjamin himself still called him ‘Harding’, nine times out of ten. Not that they spoke to each other much any more.

‘Culpepper fancied Cicely,’ Doug explained. ‘He was obsessed with her.’

Claire said: ‘Of course he was. Like all of you.’ She glanced at Benjamin, who said nothing.

‘And last summer, he thought he’d cracked it. He was playing tennis one day, and then she turns up with a friend to play on the next court, and before you know it they’ve hooked up and they’re playing mixed doubles. Now she’s crap at tennis, unfortunately, but he doesn’t tell her this. He gets her thinking that she’s just playing with the wrong sort of racket. So he says to her, If you like, next time you’re playing, you can borrow my racket. Of course, he’s got the most expensive bloody racket in the world, the sort that Björn Borg and Ilie Nastase play with, or something. So she says, Thanks very much, you’re my hero and what have you, flutters the old eyelashes, the usual Cicely sort of thing.

‘OK, so next week, she’s ready to borrow his racket. It’s in his locker, and the locker’s got a combination padlock on it. So – big show of generosity towards Cicely, he tells her the combination. Just go and help yourself, he says. The trouble is – Sean knows the combination too. Don’t ask me how. It’s just the kind of thing he knows. And he gets there half an hour before Cicely, and does his business.’

‘What did he do?’ asked Claire.

‘Well, if there’s one thing Culpepper’s famous for, apart from being a prize dickhead, it’s his porn collection. He’s addicted to the stuff. Can’t get enough of it. Not that he keeps it in his locker, of course. That’d be asking for trouble. But that must have been what gave Harding the idea. Because Cicely gets to the locker, opens it up, and this is what she sees. Every square inch of that locker is
covered,
covered from top to bottom, with pictures from wank mags. And not just your regular porn, but the weirdest, sickest kind of things. Women doing it with dogs, and guys sticking vacuum cleaners up each other’s bums, and all kinds of incredible stuff. And standing there in the middle of it is Culpepper’s lovely new tennis racket, but I don’t suppose she took much notice of that.’

Claire laughed delightedly, and even Benjamin had to join in, although he’d heard the story many times before. It was one of Harding’s finer moments, he had to admit.

‘What did she say to him?’ Claire wanted to know.

‘I don’t think she said anything.’ Doug stood up and collected their empty glasses. ‘Anyway, here she is now – you can ask her yourself.’

He went to the bar for another round of drinks just as Cicely entered the pub and made her way towards their table. Spear-heading the fashion for
Annie Hall
-inspired clothing, she was wearing a man’s tweed jacket, green baggy corduroys, a collarless shirt and a wide-brimmed hat. Benjamin thought that she looked extraordinarily elegant and heart-stoppingly beautiful. Claire thought that she looked ludicrous.

‘Hi, Ciss,’ she said, rising to her feet. ‘Fabulous clothes.’

The rift created by Claire’s interview had been healed some time ago; on the surface, at least. But there was still something brittle and mannered about the way they now kissed each other on the cheek. As for Benjamin, she didn’t kiss him at all; simply said: ‘Shall we go and sit by ourselves for a while?’

‘Did that seem terribly rude?’ she asked, as they found themselves a seat by the window. (The nice thing about The Grapevine was that it had big picture windows. The not so nice thing was that they overlooked a busy underpass known, inappropriately, as Paradise Circus.)