I swore Allen-Jones to secrecy about the matter, of course—which means it will be all over the Middle School by now.
And to think we were so anxious about a school inspection only a few weeks ago. Now, we are a school in crisis. The police are still here and show no sign of ever being ready to leave. We teach in isolation. No one answers the phones. Waste bins remain un-emptied, floors unswept. Shuttleworth, the new Porter, refuses to work unless the school provides him with alternative accommodation. Bishop, who would have dealt with it, is no longer in any position to do so.
As for the boys, they too sense an imminent collapse. Sutcliff came into registration with a pocketful of firecrackers, causing the chaos you’d expect. In the world outside, there is little confidence in our ability to survive this crisis. A school is only ever as good as its last set of results, and unless we can pull back this disastrous term, I have little hope for this year’s A levels and GCSEs.
My fifth-form Latin set could probably manage, given that they finished the syllabus last year. But the Germans have suffered terribly this term, and the French, who are now missing two staff members—Tapi, who refuses to come back until her case has been resolved, and Pearman, still absent on compassionate leave—have little likelihood of catching up their lost ground. Other departments have similar problems; in some subjects whole modules of course work have not been delivered, and there is no one to take charge. The Head spends most of his time shut up in his office. Bob Strange has taken over Bishop’s duties, but with little success.
Fortunately, Marlene is still here, running things. She looks less glamorous now, more businesslike, her hair pulled back from her angular face in a no-nonsense bun. She has no time for gossip nowadays; she spends most of the day fielding complaints from parents and questions from the press, wanting to know the status of the police investigation.
Marlene, as always, handles it well—of course, she’s tougher than most. Nothing throws her. When her son died, causing a rift within her family that never healed, we gave Marlene a job and a vocation, and ever since, she has given St. Oswald’s her total loyalty.
Part of that was Bishop’s doing. It explains her devotion to him and the fact that she chose to work here, of all places. It can’t have been easy. But she never let it show. In fifteen years, she’s never had so much as a day’s absence. For Pat’s sake. Pat, who pulled her through.
Now he is in hospital, she tells me; he had some kind of an attack last night, probably brought on by stress. Managed to drive himself to Casualty, then collapsed in the waiting room and was transferred to a cardiac ward for observation.
“Still,” she said, “he’s in good hands. If only you’d seen him last night—” She paused, looking sternly into the middle distance, and I realized with some concern that Marlene was close to tears. “I should have stayed,” she said. “But he wouldn’t let me.”
“Yes. Hum.” I turned away, embarrassed. Of course it’s been a fairly open secret for years that Pat has more than a simply professional relationship with his secretary. Most of us couldn’t care less about this. Marlene, however, has always maintained the facade, probably because she still thinks that a scandal might damage Pat. The fact that she had alluded to it now—even obliquely—showed more than anything else how far things have come.
In a school like St. Oswald’s, nothing is insignificant; and I felt a sudden acute lurch of grief for the ones of us who are still left; the Old Guard; valiantly keeping to our posts while the future marches inexorably over us.
“If Pat leaves, I won’t stay,” she said at last, turning her emerald ring round and around her middle finger. “I’ll take a job in a solicitor’s office or something. If not, I’ll retire—in any case I’ll be sixty next year—” That too was news. Marlene has been forty-one for as long as I can remember.
“I’ve also considered the retirement option,” I said. “By the end of the year I’ll have scored my Century—that is, unless old Strange gets his way—”
“What? Quasimodo, leave the Bell Tower?”
“It had crossed my mind.” Over these past few weeks, in fact, it has done more than cross it. “It’s my birthday today,” I told her. “Can you believe it? Sixty-five years old.” She smiled, a little sadly. Dear Marlene. “Where did those birthdays go?”
With Pat gone, Bob Strange took this morning’s Middle School Assembly. I wouldn’t have recommended it; but with so many of the management team either absent or unavailable, Bob has decided to take it upon himself to bring our ship back into calmer waters. Rather a mistake, I thought at the time. Still, there’s no arguing with some people.
Of course, we all know that it isn’t Bob’s fault that Pat has been suspended. No one blames him for that; but the boys dislike the effortless ease with which he has slid into Bishop’s position. Bishop’s office, always open to anyone who needed him, is now shut. A buzzer device like the one on Devine’s door has been installed. Detentions and other punishments are dealt with bloodlessly and efficiently from this administrative hub, but the humanity and warmth that made Pat Bishop so acceptable is noticeably lacking in Strange.
The boys sense this and resent it, finding ever more ingenious ways to show up his failings in public. Unlike Pat, our Bob is not a man of action. A handful of firecrackers thrown under the Hall platform during Assembly served to demonstrate this; with the result that the Middle School spent half the morning sitting in silence in the Hall while Bob waited for someone to confess.
With Pat Bishop, the culprit would have owned up within five minutes, but then, most boys aim to please Pat Bishop. Bob Strange, with his cold manner and cartoon-Nazi tactics, is fair game.
“Sir? When’s Mr. Bishop coming back?”
“I said in silence, Sutcliff, or you will go and stand outside the Headmaster’s office.”
“Why, sir? Does he know?”
Bob Strange, who has not taught Middle School for over a decade, has no idea of how to deal with such a frontal attack. He does not realize how his crisp manner betrays his insecurity; how shouting simply makes things worse. He may be a fine administrator, but in the field of pastoral care, he’s shocking.
“Sutcliff, you’re in detention.”
“Yes, sir.”
I would have mistrusted Sutcliff’s grin; but Strange didn’t know him and simply went on digging himself deeper. “What’s more,” he said, “if the boy who threw those crackers doesn’t stand up right now, then the whole of the Middle School will be in detention for a month.”
A month? It was an impossible threat. Miragelike, it descended on the Assembly Hall, and a low, slow sound rippled through the Middle School.
“I shall count to ten,” announced Strange. “One. Two.”
Another ripple as Strange demonstrated his mathematical skills.
Sutcliff and Allen-Jones looked at each other.
“Three. Four.”
The boys stood up.
A moment’s silence.
My entire form followed them.
For a second, Strange goggled. It was superb; all of 3S standing to attention in a tight little phalanx: Sutcliff, Tayler, Allen-Jones, Adamczyk, McNair, Brasenose, Pink, Jackson, Almond, Niu, Anderton-Pullitt. All of my boys (except Knight, of course).