At first, the Anderton-Pullitts were bewildered. How could a peanut have found its way into their son’s drink? Their initial reaction was to contact (and sue) the manufacturers, but it soon became obvious that any malpractice on their part was, at best, unprovable. The can had already been opened; anything might conceivably have fallen inside.
Fallen, or been put there.
It was inescapable; if James’s drink had been tampered with, then the culprit must have been someone in the form. Worse still, the perpetrator must have known that his act might have dangerous, if not fatal, consequences. The Anderton-Pullitts took the matter straight to the Head, bypassing even Bishop in their rage and indignation, and announced their intention, if he did not pursue the matter, of going directly to the police.
I should have been there. Unforgivable, that I was not; and yet when I awoke the morning after my brief stint in the hospital I felt so exhausted—so wretchedly old—that I called the school and told Bob Strange that I wasn’t coming in.
“Well, I didn’t expect you to,” said Strange, sounding surprised. “I assumed that they’d keep you in hospital over the weekend, at least.” His prissy, official tone failed to hide his real disapproval that they had not. “I can have you covered for the next six weeks, no problem.”
“That won’t be necessary. I’ll be back on Monday.”
But by Monday the news had broken; there had been an investigation of my form on Friday afternoon; witnesses had been called and questioned; lockers searched; telephone calls exchanged. Dr. Devine had been consulted, in his capacity as Health and Safety officer, and he, Bishop, Strange, the Head, and Dr. Pooley, the Chairman of the governors, had spent a long time in the Head’s office with the Anderton-Pullitts.
Result: I returned on Monday morning to find the class in uproar. The incident with Knight had even eclipsed the recent—and most unwelcome—piece in the Examiner, with its sinister implication of a secret informant within the school. The findings of the Head’s investigation were irrefutable; on the day of the incident, Knight had bought a packet of peanuts from the school tuck shop and had brought them into the form room for lunch. He denied it at first, but several witnesses remembered it, including a member of staff. Finally Knight had confessed; yes, he had bought the peanuts but denied tampering with anyone’s drink. Besides, he said tearfully, he liked Anderton-Pullitt; he would never have done anything to hurt him.
A record sheet had been produced from the day of Knight’s suspension, listing the witnesses to the fight between himself and Jackson. Sure enough, Anderton-Pullitt was among them. A motive was now clearly established.
Well, it wouldn’t have stood up in the Old Bailey. But a school is not a court of law; it has its own rules and its methods of applying them; it has its own system, its safeguards. Like the church, like the army, it looks after its own. By the time I returned, Knight had been judged, found guilty, and suspended from school until after half-term.
My problem was that I didn’t quite believe he’d done it.
“It’s not that Knight isn’t capable of something like that,” I told Dianne Dare in the Common Room that lunchtime. “He’s a sly little oik, and far more likely to cause mischief by stealth than to play up in public, but—” I gave a sigh. “I don’t like it. I don’t like him—but I can’t believe that even he could have been that stupid.”
“Never underestimate stupidity,” remarked Pearman, who was standing nearby.
“No, but this is malice,” said Dianne. “If the boy knew what he was doing—”
“If he knew what he was doing,” interrupted Light from his place under the clock, “then he should be bloody well locked up. You read about these kids nowadays—rapes, muggings, murders, God knows what—and they can’t even put them away for it because the bloody bleeding-heart liberals won’t let ’em.”
“In my day,” said McDonaugh darkly, “we had the cane.”
“Bugger that,” said Light. “Bring back conscription. Teach ’em some discipline.”
Gods, I thought, what an ass. He held forth in this muscular, brainless style for a few minutes more, attracting a sultry glance from Isabelle Tapi, who was watching from the yogurt corner.
Young Keane, who had also been listening, did a quick, comic mime just outside of the games teacher’s line of vision, twisting his sharp, clever face into an exact parody of Light’s expression. I pretended not to notice and hid my smile behind my hand.
“It’s all very well to go on about discipline,” said Roach from behind the Mirror, “but what sanctions do we have? Do something bad, and you get detention. Do something worse, you get suspended, which is the opposite. Where’s the sense in that?”
“No sense at all,” said Light. “But we’ve got to be seen to be doing something. Whether or not Knight did it—”
“And if he didn’t?” said Roach.
McDonaugh made a dismissive gesture. “Doesn’t matter. What matters is order. Whoever the troublemaker is, you can be bloody sure he’ll think twice about stepping out of line again if he knows that the minute he does, he’ll get the cane.”
Light nodded. Keane pulled another face. Dianne shrugged, and Pearman gave a little smile of vague and ironic superiority.
“It was Knight,” said Roach with emphasis. “Just the kind of stupid thing he would do.”
“I still don’t like it. It feels wrong.”
The boys were unusually reticent on the subject. In normal circumstances, an incident of this type should provide a welcome break from the school’s routine; petty scandals and minor mishaps; secrets and fights; the furtive stuff of adolescence. But this, it seemed, was different. A line had been crossed, and even those boys who had never had a good word to say about Anderton-Pullitt viewed the incident with unease and disapproval.
“I mean, he’s not all there, is he, sir?” said Jackson. “You know—not a mong or anything, but you can’t say he’s completely normal.”
“Will he be all right, sir?” asked Tayler, who has allergies himself.
“Fortunately, yes.” The boy was being kept at home for the present, but as far as anyone could tell, he had made a complete recovery. “But it could have been fatal.”
There was an awkward pause as the boys looked at one another. As yet, few of them have encountered death beyond the occasional dog, cat, or grandparent; the thought that one of them could actually have died—right in front of them, in their own form room—was suddenly rather frightening.
“It must have been an accident,” said Tayler at last.
“I think so too.” I hoped that was true.
“Dr. Devine says we can have counseling if we need it,” said McNair.
“Do you need it?”
“Do we get to miss lessons, sir?”
I looked at him and saw him grinning. “Over my dead body.”
Throughout the day the feeling of unrest intensified. Allen-Jones was hyperactive; Sutcliff depressed; Jackson argumentative; Pink anxious. It was windy too; and the wind, as every schoolteacher knows, makes classes unruly and pupils excitable. Doors slammed; windows rattled; October was in with a blast, and suddenly it was autumn.
I like autumn. The drama of it; the golden lion roaring through the back door of the year, shaking its mane of leaves. A dangerous time; of violent rages and deceptive calm; of fireworks in the pockets and conkers in the fist. It is the season in which I feel closest to the boy I was, and at the same time closest to death. It is St. Oswald’s at its most beautiful; gold among the lindens, its tower howling like a throat.