It was all in his file, as I discovered too late; along with the many recommendations she had sent us concerning his diet, exercise, uniform requirements (man-made fabrics gave him a rash), phobias, antibiotics, religious instruction, and social integration. Under allergies: wheat (mild intolerance); and, in capital letters marked with an asterisk and several exclamation marks, NUTS!!
Of course, Anderton-Pullitt doesn’t eat nuts. He consumes only food that has been declared risk-free by his mother and which, furthermore, corresponds to his own rather limited idea of what is acceptable. Every day the contents of his lunch box consist of exactly the same things: two cream cheese and Marmite sandwiches on wheat-free bread, cut into four; one tomato; one banana; a packet of Maynards Wine Gums (of which he discards all but the red and black sweets); and a can of Fanta. As it is, it takes him all lunchtime to consume this meal; he never goes to the tuck shop; never accepts food from any other boy.
Don’t ask me how I managed to carry him downstairs. It was an effort; boys milled uselessly around me in excitement or confusion; I called for help, but no one came except for Gerry Grachvogel next door, who looked close to fainting and gasped “oh dear, oh dear,” wringing his little rabbity hands and glancing nervously from side to side.
“Gerry, get help,” I ordered, balancing Anderton-Pullitt on one shoulder. “Call an ambulance. Modo fac.”
Grachvogel just gaped at me. It was Allen-Jones who responded, running down the stairs two at a time, almost knocking over Isabelle Tapi, who was coming up. McNair raced off in the direction of Pat Bishop’s office, and Pink and Tayler helped me support the unconscious boy. By the time we reached the Lower Corridor I felt as if my lungs were filled with hot lead, and it was with real gratitude that I passed on my burden to Bishop, who seemed cheered to have something physical to do, and who picked up Anderton-Pullitt as if he were a baby.
Behind me, I was vaguely aware that Sutcliff had finished taking the register. Allen-Jones was on the phone to the hospital—“They say it’ll be quicker if you drive him to Casualty yourself, sir!”—Grachvogel was trying to retrieve his form, who had followed en masse to see what was happening, and now the New Head emerged from his office, looking aghast, with Pat Bishop at his side and Marlene peering anxiously from over his shoulder.
“Mr. Straitley!” Even in such an emergency as this, he retains a certain curious stiffness, as if constructed from some other medium—plaster, maybe whalebone—than flesh. “Could you perhaps please explain to me—” But the world had become full of noises, among which my heartbeat was the most compelling; I was reminded of the old jungle epics of my childhood, in which adventurers scaled volcanoes to the sinister cacophony of native drums.
I leaned against the wall of the Lower Corridor, as my legs suddenly effected a transformation from bone, vein, sinew, to something more akin to jelly. My lungs hurt; there was a spot, somewhere in the region of my top waistcoat button, which felt as if someone very large were poking it repeatedly with an outstretched forefinger, as if to emphasize some kind of point. I looked round for a chair to sit upon, but it was too late; the world tilted, and I began to slide down the wall.
“Mr. Straitley!” From the upside-down perspective, the Head looked more sinister than ever. A shrunken Head, I thought vaguely, just the thing to placate the Volcano God—and in spite of the pain in my chest I could not quite prevent myself from laughing. “Mr. Straitley! Mr. Bishop! Can someone please tell me what is going on here?”
The invisible finger poked me again, and I sat down on the floor. Marlene, ever efficient, reacted first; she knelt down beside me without hesitation and pulled open my jacket to feel my heart. The drums pulsed; now I could sense rather than feel the movement around me.
“Mr. Straitley, hang on!” She smelled of something flowery and feminine; I felt I should make some witty remark but couldn’t think of anything to say. My chest hurt; my eardrums roared; I tried to get up but could not. I slumped a little farther, glimpsed the Powerpuff Girls on Allen-Jones’s socks, and began to laugh.
The last thing I remember was the New Head’s face looming into my field of vision and myself saying, “Bwana, the natives, they will not enter the Forbidden City,” before I passed out.
I awoke in the hospital. I had been lucky, the doctor told me; there had been what he called a minor cardiac incident, brought on by anxiety and overexertion. I wanted to get up immediately, but he refused to allow it, saying that I was to remain under supervision for at least three or four days.
A middle-aged nurse with pink hair and a kindergarten manner then asked me questions, the answers to which she wrote down with an expression of mild disapproval, as if I were a child who persisted in wetting the bed. “Now, Mr. Straitley, how many cigarettes do we smoke a week?”
“I couldn’t say, ma’am. I’m not sufficiently intimate with your smoking habits.” The nurse looked flustered. “Oh, you were talking to me,” I said. “I’m sorry, I thought perhaps you were a member of the royal family.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Mr. Straitley, I have a job to do.”
“So do I,” I said. “Third-form Latin, set two, period five.”
“I’m sure they can do without you for a little while,” said the nurse. “No one’s indispensable.”
A melancholy thought. “I thought you were supposed to make me feel better.”
“And so I shall,” she said, “as soon as we’ve finished with this little bit of paperwork.”
Well, within thirty minutes Roy Hubert Straitley (B.A.) was summarized in what looked very like a school register—cryptic abbreviations and ticks in boxes—and the nurse was looking suitably smug. I have to say it didn’t look good: age, sixty-four; sedentary job; moderate smoker; alcohol units per week, fair to sprightly; weight, somewhere between mild embonpoint and genuine avoirdupois.
The doctor read it all with an expression of grim satisfaction. It was a warning, he concluded: a sign from the gods. “You’re not twenty-one, you know,” he told me. “There are some things you just can’t do anymore.”
It’s an old drill, and I’d heard it before. “I know, I know. No smoking, no drinking, no fish and chips, no hundred-yard dash, no fancy women, no—”
He interrupted. “I’ve been speaking to your GP. A Dr. Bevans?”
“Bevans. I know him well—1975 to 1979. Bright lad. Got an A in Latin. Read medicine at Durham.”
“Quite.” The syllable spoke volumes in disapproval. “He tells me he’s been concerned about you for some time.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
Drat it. That’s what comes of giving boys a Classical education. They turn against you, the little swine, they turn against you, and before you know what’s happening, you’re on a fat-free diet, wearing sweatpants, and checking out the old peoples’ homes.
“So, tell me the worst. What does the little upstart recommend this time? Hot ale? Magnetism? Leeches? I remember when he was in my form, little round boy, always in trouble. And now he’s telling me what to do?”