St. Oswald’s was another world. Here I knew there would be no graffiti, no litter, no vandalism—not as much as a broken window. The sign said so; and I felt a sudden inarticulate conviction that this was where I truly belonged; this place where young trees could be planted without somebody snapping their heads off in the night, where no one was left bleeding in the road; where there were no surprise visits from the community police officer, or posters warning pupils to leave their knives at home. Here would be stern Masters in old-fashioned black gowns; surly porters like my father; tall prefects. Here to do one’s homework was not to be a poof, or a swot, or a queer. Here was safety. Here was home.
I was alone; no one else had ventured this far. Birds came and went on the forbidden ground. Nothing happened to them. Sometime later a cat swaggered out from under the hedge and sat facing me, licking its paw. Still nothing.
I came closer then, daring first to breach the shadow, then to crouch between the sign’s great feet. My own shadow crept stealthily forward. My shadow trespassed.
For a time that was thrilling enough. But not for long: there was already too much of the rebel in me to be content with a technical misdemeanor. With my foot I jabbed lightly at the grass on the other side, then pulled away with a delicious shiver, like a child taking the first step into the ocean. Of course I had never seen the ocean, but the instinct was there, and the sensation of having moved into an alien element where anything might happen.
Nothing did.
I took another step, and this time, did not pull away. Still nothing. The sign towered over me like a monster from a late-night movie, but it was strangely frozen, as if outraged at my impudence. Seeing my chance, I made a break for it and ran across the windy field toward the hedge, running low, tensed for an attack. Reaching the hedge, I flung myself into its shadow, breathless with fear. Now I had done it. Now they would come.
There was a gap in the hedge only a few feet away from me. It looked to be my best chance of escape. I inched toward it, keeping to the shadow, and crammed myself into the tiny space. They might come at me from either side, I thought; if they came from both, then I would have to run for it. I had observed that given time, adults had a tendency to forget things, and I felt reasonably confident that if I could get away quickly enough, then I might possibly escape retribution.
Expectantly, I waited. The tightness in my throat gradually subsided. My heart slowed to a near-normal pace. I became aware of my surroundings, first with curiosity, then with increasing discomfort. There were thorns sticking through my T-shirt into my back. I could smell sweat, and soil, and the sour smell of the hedge. From somewhere close by came birdsong, a distant mower, a drowsy burr like insects in the grass. Nothing more. At first I grinned with pleasure—I had trespassed, and escaped capture—then I became aware of a feeling of dissatisfaction, a flutter of resentment beneath my ribs.
Where were the cameras? The land mines? The guards? Where was the ORDER, so sure of itself that it had to be written in capital letters? Most importantly, where was my father?
I stood up, still wary, and left the shadow of the hedge. The sun hit me in the face and I threw up a hand to shield my eyes. I took a step away into the open, then another.
Surely now they would come, these enforcers: these shadowy figures of order and authority. But seconds passed, and then minutes, and nothing happened. No one came, not a prefect, a teacher—not even a Porter.
A kind of panic clutched at me then, and I ran into the middle of the field and waved my arms, like someone on a desert island trying to flag down a rescue plane. Didn’t they care? I was a trespasser. Didn’t they see me?
“Here!” I was delirious with indignation. “Here I am! Here! Here!”
Nothing. Not a sound. Not even the barking of a dog in the distance or the faintest whoop of a warning siren. It was then that I realized, with anger and a clammy kind of excitement, that it had all been a big lie. There was nothing in the field but grass and trees. Just a line in the dirt, daring me to cross it. And I had dared. I had defied the ORDER.
All the same I felt somehow cheated, as I often did when faced with the threats and assurances of the adult world, which promises so much and delivers so little.
They lie, kid. It was my father’s voice—only slightly slurred—in my head. They promise you the world, kid, but they’re all the same. They lie.
“They do not! Not always—”
Then try it. Go on. I dare you. See how far you get.
And so I went farther, following the hedge up a small hill toward a stand of trees. There was another sign there; TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED. Of course by then the first step was taken, and the implicit threat barely slowed me down.
But beyond the trees was a surprise. I’d expected to see a road, a railway line perhaps, a river—something to show that there was a world outside of St. Oswald’s. But from where I was standing, and as far as I could see, everything was St. Oswald’s—the hill, the little wood, the tennis courts, the cricket green, the sweet-smelling lawns, and the long, long stretches of meadow beyond.
And here behind the trees I could see people; I could see boys. Boys of all ages; some barely older than myself, others dangerously, swaggeringly adult. Some were dressed in cricket whites, some wore running shorts and colored singlets with numbers written on them. In a square of sand some distance away, some were practicing jumps. And beyond them I could see a big building of soot-mellowed stone; rows of arched windows reflecting the sun; a long slate roof punctuated by skylights; a tower; a weather vane; a sprawl of outbuildings; a chapel; a graceful stairway leading down toward a lawn, trees, flower beds, asphalt courtyards separated from one another by railings and archways.
Here too were boys. Some sat on the steps. Some stood talking under the trees. Some were in navy blue blazers and gray trousers, others in sports kit. The sound they made—a sound I had not even registered until now—reached me like a flock of exotic birds.
I understood at once that they were a different race to myself; gilded not only by the sunlight and their proximity to that lovely building but by something less tangible; a slick air of assurance; a mysterious shine.
Later, of course, I saw it as it really was. The genteel decay behind the graceful lines. The rot. But that first forbidden glimpse of St. Oswald’s seemed like unattainable glory to me then; it was Xanadu, it was Asgard and Babylon all in one. Within its grounds young gods lounged and cavorted.
I understood then that this was far more than a line in the dirt, after all. It was a barrier no amount of bravado or desire would permit me to cross. I was an intruder; suddenly I felt very conscious of my dirty jeans, my scuffed sneakers, my pinched face and lank hair. I no longer felt like a daring explorer. I had no right to be there. I had become something low; common; a spy, a prowler, a dirty little sneak with hungry eyes and light fingers. Invisible or not, that was how they would always see me. That was what I was. A Sunnybanker.
You see, it had already begun. That was St. Oswald’s; that’s what it does to people. Rage flared in me like an ulcer. Rage, and the beginnings of revolt.
So I was an outsider. So what? Any rule can be broken. Trespass, like any crime, goes unpunished when there’s no one to see it. Words—however talismanic—are only ever words.