The Rye Man (15 page)

He threatened them all with double homework for a year but as the group set off again upstream Jacqueline's head was down and she trudged through water rather than stretch to stones. He tried to raise her spirits by making a joke of his own failure but she did not respond as they engaged in a further sequence of activities and instead crouched like a mollusc on the rocks, watching but not participating, hugging a shiver of misery. He let her be – there were other children who needed his attention. He couldn't give himself exclusively to her. They reached the final activity before lunch and it was the simplest but the most intimidating – clambering a great egg-shaped rock and then jumping off into the deep pool some few metres below. From a distance it didn't seem a particularly great height but when standing on the rock itself with the noise of the white-tipped water tumbling into the pool from upstream, the black sharpness of the rocks on either side gave it a feeling of danger which only the most confident children were able to overcome. The instructor left it entirely without persuasion to the children themselves and only a handful attempted it. Despite his own fears there was no escape for him and the group urged him to the top of the rock. He stood looking over what had suddenly taken on the characteristics of a precipice above a maelstrom of angry water, and he felt distinctly uneasy. He didn't like heights and despite the chorused urging from the children couldn't bring himself to jump. He tried to talk himself into it, knew he would regret
it
later if he didn't complete it, but each time he drew closer to the edge something stronger pulled him back. He listened to himself make a joke about his age, then waved the white flag, and as they gathered up the group in readiness for the trek back to the bus he was aware of the little ripple of disappointment in him.

‘Sir, Sir, look!'

They all turned round to stare at Jacqueline standing on top of the rock. Some of the poppers had opened on her coat and the bottom of it flapped open like the folded corner of a page. She wasn't looking at them but staring down into the water as if looking into a mirror, held motionless by her own reflection. One of the boys beside him started to shout something but he stopped him and they stood silently looking up at her. The instructor started to move back on to the rocks but he clutched the sleeve of his jacket and pulled him back. She was shuffling forward to the edge, taking tiny stiff steps like some automaton. His mouth could taste again his own fear as he had stood there and he was frightened for her, but something else made him hold on to the instructor's coat. She was right at the edge now and in the silence they could hear the pitch and plunge of the rushing water as it spilled over the rocks and lathered into the pool. And then she was jumping, her orange coat opening like wings on an insect as she disappeared below the surface of the water before bobbing up again like a blue topped cork. Now everyone was rushing to the pool's edge and the instructor was wading through the water and pulling her out like a minnow on the end of a line. Kids were patting her on the back as water dripped out of her and she was shivering a little, but her face betrayed no emotion or elation, and as they made their way down the narrow path she trailed a rivulet of water in her wake.

Hennessy was already finishing a bowl of stew when they
arrived
back at the centre. Mrs Craig and the rest of the children sat in the canteen eating their packed lunches but he had obviously inveigled a hot meal from the kitchen. He had a shower and joined them. The canoeing had gone well with plenty of games and capsizing to keep everyone entertained. The children were obviously having a good time and already friendships were being formed between children in the two schools.

‘Well, we got a good day for it,' Hennessy said as he took his first puff from his pipe. ‘This girl here's an Olympian rower!'

‘Get away with you, Liam – you must've missed me falling out of the canoe.'

‘Aye, well, it was nippy enough standing about so I took a bit of a stroll round the lake to get the blood circulating.'

It struck him that Hennessy's walk had probably led directly to the canteen and the morning paper but it didn't really matter when the instructors were so experienced and in such tight control of the situation. Still puffing his pipe, he excused himself and went off to find one of his pupils who still owed the money for the trip.

‘He's a bit of a character, Fiona.'

‘He certainly is, but I don't think there's any harm in him, though I have to say the wink he keeps giving me suggests he'd be open for another form of mutual understanding.'

‘I wouldn't worry yourself too much – I think Liam's just a bit of a talker. You wink back and he'll probably run a mile.'

They both laughed and chatted about how the different children were getting on and he told her about Jacqueline's jump and described his own failure. Then she took one more sip of her coffee and left for a moment to hurry the girls in the changing room. A morning spent in mountain water and the hot shower he'd just enjoyed had left him feeling clean
and
relaxed. It seemed a pity to have to spoil it by getting changed again and then mess about in some canoe which would probably be too small for his legs and he decided to take a leaf out of Hennessy's book and supervise from the shore. Anyway, he'd brought a camera with him and it would be a good chance to take some photographs. He was loading a new film when she returned and sat down again.

‘Girls all right?' he asked, threading the film.

‘They're fine, each regaling the other with tales of daring and disaster. True to form of course, Kelly Truesdale has lost her towel. Jacqueline's jump is also getting a fair old re-telling and the height is growing by the minute.' She sipped her coffee and looked across at him. ‘Did she bang her arm this morning?'

He stopped working with the camera and looked up. ‘No, I don't think so, has she hurt it?'

‘She hasn't said anything but she's a lot of bruising on her upper arm. I noticed it when she was getting changed.'

‘Kids get bruises, Fiona.'

‘I know that – it just caught my eye. Thinking about it now though, it hasn't been done today.'

‘Did you ask her about it?'

‘I didn't get much sense out of her. I think she said something about falling off a gate. I don't think she wanted to talk about it.'

‘Do you think I should look at it, ask her about it?'

‘I don't know, I suppose it'd do no harm. She's still in her swimsuit. If you wait outside the changing rooms I'll send her out with a message – a safety helmet or something.'

They crossed the path to the changing facilities where the group going bouldering were already queuing up to get into the mini-bus. A few seconds later Jacqueline came out in her swimsuit and bare feet. She was wearing the Celtic cross round
her
neck. She handed him a blue helmet without speaking or looking into his face then turned away. He called after her.

‘Jacqueline, that was a very brave jump this morning – I couldn't do it.'

A yellow and blue flecked patina curled like a bracelet round her upper arm.

‘My goodness that's a right bruise you have on your arm. How did you get it?'

She fingered the cross around her neck and placed one of her feet on top of the other. He smoothed flat a strand of her hair. ‘I fell off a gate.'

He wished she would look him in the eye.

‘A gate on the farm at home?'

She nodded her head and then before he could think of what to say she turned away again and re-entered the changing rooms. He stood for a second, staring at the wet prints of her feet.

*

It was the wife of the local doctor on the phone. He had been warned about her but this was his first encounter. It wasn't going well. She was querying the value of a day spent in outdoor pursuits at a time when she felt preparing for the transfer tests would have been the priority. Despite his best efforts to reassure her she persisted in her entrenched position and it was soon apparent that she had conferred with Vance – it was even possible that he had put her up to the call as she spoke of the good job he did within the existing constraints on his time and how she was sure the fewer interruptions he had, the better the results would be in June. He let her ramble on as gradually he gave up any hope of a rational discussion. Outside his window he could see the trees smouldering into
autumn
colour. Eventually she ran out of steam and he thanked her for her call and said how useful it was to get feedback from parents, and then in a moment of impulsive malice, said that if she was so concerned her son would be excused any future school outings and could stay in school to receive personal attention from Mr Vance. As she struggled for a reply he excused himself to deal with an imaginary emergency and put the receiver down.

He opened the mail, scanned three or four circulars from the Department then filed them in the bin. He went down to the office where Mrs Patterson was running off the half-term news-sheet he was sending home. It was an idea new to the school and he'd included some children's descriptions of their outdoor pursuits day. In the foyer he paused and looked at the bare notice-boards which stretched round the walls. They made him nervous – they could so easily turn out to be a permanent and inescapable monument to a failed idea. He decided that if the worst came to the worst he would beg or bribe Emma to paint murals on them, but he wasn't quite prepared to concede defeat so quickly, and getting a felt-tip pen from the office and some paper, he made an arbitrary division of space and pinned up the respective class names at intervals. At least now if they remained blank the responsibility would be clearly allocated. Mrs Patterson read his thoughts and smiled.

‘I don't think you need worry. By the amount of coloured paper and glue I've dispatched from this office there must be something going on. It was very devious of you because no one wants to get shown up by anyone else – a bit like going to church and everyone wanting to have the best rig-out on display.'

He pleaded a wide-eyed innocence but hoped she was right.

It turned into a day for parental complaints. He took another
phone
call from a mother who claimed her daughter was being teased by two other girls about her appearance, a call from a father who wondered if Miss Fulton was setting enough homework and at the end of school a Mr Watson arrived carrying a copy of
The Ghost of Johnny Franklin,
a class reader used by Mrs Haslett. It was obvious that he considered that he had come to school on a matter of urgency, explaining that he had been compelled to close his funeral parlour early and switch on his answering machine. It seemed there was no time to lose in his desire to confront the Satanic threat the book represented to any child who read it. His daughter had brought it home, he had discovered it by accident and been horrified by what he had read. He had brought a little bit of paper and he displayed the page references where offending words occurred, reading them in a rising tone: – ‘poltergeist, spirits, exorcism' – building up to a crescendo in a manner which suggested he was presenting a damning indictment in a court room. When he had finished he launched into a homily on the damages to young minds from the occult, citing lurid and improbable examples of demonic possession.

He didn't know the book but even a cursory glance through it told him that it was nothing more malevolent than a children's ghost story and the possibilites of it leading to devil worship and ritual sacrifice seemed extremely remote. However, he resisted the urge to be facetious, realising only too clearly that for the man opposite it was a matter of considerable importance. He made some calculating, conciliatory remarks about how many potentially negative influences were affecting children's development, using examples of videos and anything else which came into his head and when Mr Watson was nodding he suggested that as he hadn't read the book himself he was not in the best position to pronounce
judgement
on it, but promised he would give it his full and early attention.

The man remained unpacified and asked to speak to Mrs Haslett. As a rule he would have insisted on acting on his staff's behalf in such a matter but he thought it probable that she would have read the book and thus been able to give a more effective response than he had constructed. He excused himself and went to her room where she was rummaging in the depths of her handbag. Before he had time to explain his visit she snapped at him about the notice-boards.

‘Mr Cameron, I don't feel it's a very fair distribution of the available space when junior classes get as much space as senior ones. One of my children is surely going to produce more display work than a child at the bottom end of the school. I don't see how I can get all their work on and they've all worked very hard at it. I wouldn't want to disappoint any of them.'

Her sensitive concern for her pupils was most touching except for the fact that he knew her complaint was motivated by her persistent and petty fixation with the gradations and demarcations of status. On a better day he would have judged it a trivial enough issue over which to find some placatory compromise, but on this particular one he felt he had encountered one more miserably narrow perspective on life than he felt able to take.

‘We'll have to discuss this at another time, Muriel, because at the moment I have the parent of a girl in your class in my office who thinks you're trying to recruit his daughter into the legions of Satan, through one of the books you use.'

Her mouth slipped open and she dropped her car keys back into the black hole of her bag.

‘I've a meeting now with Miss Fulton, I wonder if you
could
speak to Mr Watson, try to assure him that wasn't your intention. I assume it wasn't?'

He turned away briskly before she had a chance to formulate a reply and everything inside him was skipping. When he was in the corridor he did a little soft-shoe shuffle. Two girls coming round the corner caught him in mid-movement and simultaneously contorted their faces to suppress the rising giggles. Slipping on his stern face, he stared at them as they approached, daring them to laugh but then as they drew level he started to sing the words of ‘Ghostbusters'.