“Yes, sir,” said Leon.
“Shit.” He slouched off, bearish, toward the office.
Leon grinned at me. “I wonder what Tidy’ll say when he smells that breath?” he said, running his fingers over the Mean Machine’s battered flank. Then he turned, his eyes bright with malice. “Hey, Pinchbeck. Want a ride?”
I shook my head, appalled—but excited too.
“Come on, Pinchbeck. It’s too good an opportunity to miss.” And with one light step he was on the machine, pressing the starter button, revving her up—
“Last chance, Pinchbeck.”
I could not refuse the challenge. I jumped up onto the wheel rim, balancing as the Mean Machine lurched into motion. The juniors scattered, squealing. Leon was laughing wildly; grass sprayed out from behind the wheels in a triumphant green spume; and across the lawn John Snyde came running, too slow for it to matter but furious, feather-spitting crazy with rage.
“You boys, there! You fucking boys!”
Leon looked at me. We were nearing the far end of the lawn now; the Mean Machine was making the most terrible noise; behind us we could see John Snyde, helplessly outdistanced, and behind him, Dr. Tidy, his face a blur of outrage.
For a second joy transfixed me. We were magical; we were Butch and Sundance, leaping from the cliff’s edge, leaping from the mower in a haze of grass and glory and running for it, running like hell as the Mean Machine kept going in majestic, unstoppable slo-mo toward the trees.
We were never caught. The juniors never identified us, and the Bursar was so irate at my father’s behavior—at his foul language on school premises, even more than at his drunkenness or his dereliction of duty—that he omitted to follow up whatever leads he might have had. Mr. Roach, who had been (officially) on duty, was given a ticking-off by the Head, and my father received an official warning and a bill for repairs.
None of this had any effect on me, however. Another line had been crossed, and I was elated. Even sticking it to that bastard Bray had never felt as good as this, and for days I walked on a rosy cloud, through which nothing but Leon could be seen, felt, or heard.
I was in love.
At the time I dared not think so in as many words. Leon was my friend. That was all he ever could be. And yet that’s what it was: blazing, purblind, triple-infatuated, sleepless, self-sacrificing love. Everything in my life was filtered through its hopeful lens; he was my first thought in the morning; my last at night. I was not quite besotted enough to believe that my feelings were in any way reciprocated; to him, I was just a first-year; amusing enough, but by far his inferior. Somedays he would spend his lunch break with me; at other times he might keep me waiting for the entire hour, completely unaware of the risks I ran daily for the chance of being with him.
Nevertheless, I was happy. I did not need Leon’s constant presence for my happiness to flourish; for the time it was enough simply to know he was close by. I had to be clever, I told myself; I had to be patient. Above all I sensed that I must not become tiresome, and hid my feelings behind a barrier of facetiousness whilst evolving ever more ingenious ways to worship him in secret.
I exchanged school sweaters with him, and for a week I wore his around my neck. In the evenings I opened his locker with my father’s master key and went through Leon’s things, reading his class notes, his books, looking at the cartoon doodles he drew when he was bored, practicing his signature. Outside of my role as a St. Oswald’s pupil I watched him from afar, sometimes passing by his house in the hope of catching a glimpse of him—or even his sister, whom I worshipped by association. I memorized the number plate on his mother’s car. I fed his dog in secret. I combed my lank brown hair so that I fancied it looked like his, cultivated his expressions and his tastes. I had known him for just over six weeks.
I anticipated the approaching summer holidays at the same time as a relief and a further source of anxiety. Relief, because the effort of attending two schools—albeit erratically—was beginning to take its toll. Miss McAuleigh had complained about missing homework and frequent absences, and although I had become skilled at forging my father’s signature, there was always the danger that someone might meet him by chance and blow my cover. Anxiety, because although I would soon be free to meet Leon as often as I wished, it meant running even more risks, as I continued my imposture as a civilian.
Fortunately, I had already completed the spadework within the school itself. The rest was a question of timing, location, and a few well-chosen props, mainly costumes, which would establish me as the well-off, middle-class individual I pretended to be.
I stole a pair of expensive trainers from a sports shop in town, and a new racing bike (my own would have been quite impossible) from outside a nice house a comfortable distance away. I repainted it, just to be sure, and sold my own on the Saturday market. If my father noticed, I would have told him I had traded in my old bike for a secondhand model because it was getting too small for me. It was a good story, and would probably have worked, but by then, with the end of term, my father was at last beginning to unravel, and he never noticed anything anymore.
Fallow has his place now. Fat Fallow, with his loose lips and ancient donkey jacket. He has my father’s slouch too, from years of driving the ride-on mower, and like my father’s, his gut spills out obscenely from over his narrow, shiny belt. There is a tradition that all school porters are called John, and this is true of Fallow too, though the boys do not call after him and bait him as they did my father. I’m glad; I might have to intervene if they did, and I do not want to make myself conspicuous at this stage.
But Fallow offends me. He has hairy ears and reads the News of the World in his little lodge, wearing ancient slippers on his bare feet, drinking milky tea and ignoring what happens around him. Half-wit Jimmy does the real work; the building, the woodwork, the wiring, the drains. Fallow takes the phone calls. He enjoys making the callers wait—anxious mothers asking after their sick sons, rich fathers detained at a last-minute meeting with the directors—sometimes for minutes on end as he finishes his tea and scrawls the message on a piece of yellow paper. He likes to travel, and sometimes goes on day trips to France, organized by his local workingmen’s club, during which he goes to the supermarket, eats chips by the side of the tour bus, and complains about the locals.
At work he is by turns rude and deferential, depending on the status of his visitor; he charges boys a pound for opening their locker with the master key; he gloats at the legs of female teachers as they walk up the stairs. With lesser staff he is pompous and opinionated; says “Know what I mean?” and “I’ll tell you this for nothing, mate.”
With the higher echelons he is obsequious; with veterans, nauseatingly pally; with juniors like myself, brusque and busy, with no time to waste on chat. He goes up to the Computer Room on Fridays after school, ostensibly to turn off the machines, but actually surfing Internet porn sites after hours, while outside in the corridor, Jimmy uses the floor polisher, passing it slowly across the boards, bringing the old wood to a mellow shine.
It takes less than a minute to obliterate an hour’s work. By eight-thirty on Monday morning the floors will be as dusty and scuffed as if Jimmy had never been there at all. Fallow knows this; and though he does not perform these cleaning duties himself, he nevertheless feels an obscure resentment, as if staff and boys were an impediment to the smooth running of things.
As a result, his life consists of small and spiteful revenges. No one really observes him—a Porter lives below the salt and so may take such liberties with the system that remain unnoticed. Members of staff are mostly unaware of this, but I have been watching. From my position in the Bell Tower I can see his little lodge; I can observe the comings and goings without being seen.