Dangerous Things Read online

  Wilton reddened and opened his mouth to say something but again the door opened and a black woman in neat overalls came in with a tray loaded with cups and saucers and a coffee pot and a biscuit tin, and at once the room seemed to lighten. Wilton ignored his irritation and hurried to pick up the pot as soon as the maid had set her burden down and gone, ignoring Bevan pointedly as he began to pour for everyone else.

  ‘We ought to do some more introductions, Mrs Clements,’ he chattered. ‘Yes, more introductions — is black all right for you? Are you sure? There’s plenty of milk — well, there is at present, it might run out later.’ He threw a glance of loathing at Bevan which clearly took a lot of courage and Hattie was amused. ‘Some people hog it, of course, but right now — oh, Martin, you take yours black too, don’t you? Yes, and there are a few biscuits, do help yourself…’ And Wilton thrust the tin of Butter Osbornes at her.

  A few more men had arrived now and seemed as startled by the sight of a woman in their staffroom as the earlier arrivals had been, but showed it — or hid it — in different ways, and Hattie began to enjoy herself. It was quite amusing to cause such a stir in such a very small pond and she took her coffee and sat down in one of the armchairs and watched them all as she sipped.

  ‘Well now, as I said, this is Martin Collop, Mrs Clements.’ Edward Wilton had clearly appointed himself her guardian and she accepted his concern graciously. Later perhaps he might become irritating — his tendency to repeat phrases and chatter nervously could clearly become tiresome — but at present he was helpful.

  ‘Martin Collop is Head of English, you know,’ Edward was gabbling at her, ‘and the best Drama person; you can’t imagine how good, but you’ll see later on — this term, you know, very big for Drama it is, of course, and — yes, Head of English, my boss. And then there’s Gregory Steenman, the Mathematics department, all very esoteric there, don’t you think? I always do. This is Mrs Clements, Gregory, just starting today. And here’s Richard Shuttle from the French department and his friend, also in French, he’s George Manson, probably spent the whole of his holiday locked up in the Dingdong somewhere. The good old Dordogne, eh? You usually do …’ The two in question looked at him and then at Hattie, and showed no expression on their faces at all, just holding out their hands to be shaken, but Hattie felt the suspicion in them and said nothing, just smiling briefly. ‘And here’s Sam Chanter, Biology, all those frogs and suchlike …’

  She shifted her head at that. ‘Biology? How do you do?’

  Chanter, a bulky man with a good deal of untidy dark hair, looked amused. ‘A subject you like?’

  ‘I trained as a nurse and midwife,’ she said. ‘So —’

  ‘Oh, Christ Al-bloody-mighty!’ cried Bevan in the armchair, his voice dripping with disgust. ‘All this mumsy chatter makes me sick. Can’t we have our coffee in peace for once?’ And Gregory Steenman snorted with laughter as Wilton raised his voice to drown them both out. ‘Oh well, yes, of course,’ he said brightly. ‘You would be interested, wouldn’t you? Yes, naturally — oh, and here’s our Tully, pride of the staffroom …’ And he giggled a little awkwardly as the door that had crashed open to admit the newcomer crashed closed just as noisily.

  He was a tall thin man, with his head shaved almost to the scalp, so that only a stubble of fair hair showed on its pinkness. His eyes were a bright hard blue and looked even brighter because the lashes that surrounded them were thick and long but almost white, they were so pale. He was wearing what seemed to be a tightly fitting catsuit of dark blue cloth, which reminded Hattie of the blue calico that she had seen French schoolchildren wear, and round his narrow waist was a wide and very heavy leather belt with a brass buckle that showed a lion with its mouth wide and snarling. It was difficult, Hattie found, not to stare at it.

  ‘David, this is our newest member of staff, come to help us deal with the girls. She’s teaching some health things, but mostly she’s here for the girls. Which soothes my anxieties a good deal, I can tell you. Mrs Clements, this is Dave Tully, and as I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you, he’s the Art department. Most of it on his own, aren’t you, Dave? Now that young Matterson’s gone, who used to help him … well, mustn’t go on about that right now.’ He looked uneasy suddenly, and a small silence fell on the room until Edward seemed to recover himself and hurried on. ‘They don’t think it’s worthwhile here at the Foundation, having too many people to look after the arts. We have to be glad there are enough of us in the English department, hmm, Martin? Yes, we’re not even sure of that sometimes, there’s so much to do —’

  ‘If you talked less you’d do a bloody sight more work!’ Bevan howled from the depths of his armchair in a sudden access of rage, but Wilton paid no attention, considerably to Hattie’s amusement, and nor did anyone else except perhaps Steenman, who threw a glance at him, but didn’t do anything. Clearly he was rude to everyone and didn’t just save it for women, Hattie thought, and turned and beamed a wide smile directly at him. It was a technique she used sometimes when angry male drivers objected because she overtook them or otherwise behaved as assertively as they did; she would blow them kisses in her rear-view mirror, and it clearly drove them almost to apoplexy. Now it worked again; Bevan stared at her furiously and reddened to an almost purple tinge and again produced his horrible snorting noise. Behind her Dave Tully laughed.

  ‘Mrs Clements, if you can make old Bevan as annoyed as that, you and I are going to be friends!’ he said. His voice was light and mocking and had a hint of a Northern accent. ‘Won’t that be nice for me, Dr Bevan?’ And he put just enough emphasis on the ‘Doctor’ to make it offensive. ‘Two of us to drive you up the wall. One of these days you’ll get stuck up there and never come down.’

  ‘Oh, leave him be, Tully,’ Steenman said, and got to his feet. ‘I’m afraid, Mrs Clements, that you may find the company here less than agreeable. I shall talk to the Headmaster about making better arrangements for you. A room of your own somewhere perhaps, so that you can be in peace —’

  ‘Oh, no, thank you,’ Hattie said and again smiled sweetly. Inside she was still furious but now she was beginning to feel better. She’d taken some of the initiative into her own hands. ‘I’d hate to be quite alone. No way to keep in touch with all that is going on in the school, to be alone! I’ll be much happier taking my place here in the staff common room with all the rest of you. Then you can tell me if there are any little problems the girls are having’ — she smiled even more widely — ‘and I can tell you if you’re upsetting them. I’m sure that will be immensely useful, don’t you agree?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Wilton said earnestly, but no one else spoke and Hattie thought, That’ll show you, you —

  The bell rang so shrilly that she jumped convulsively and the fat man for the first time looked as though he was getting some pleasure out of the situation; but she gathered her wits quickly and looked at Wilton.

  ‘We keep asking to have the bell put outside the door rather than in here — makes such a racket,’ he bawled above the continuing shrilling. ‘But you know how it is, always more important things to do than trying to please the staff, and so forth.’

  The bell stopped at last and she took a deep breath as several of the men put down their coffee cups and gathered up piles of books and made for the door.

  ‘Should I be leaving now too?’ she asked. ‘Isn’t it’ — she scrabbled deep into her memory of her own schooldays — ‘assembly now, or whatever?’

  Wilton shook his head. ‘Not on the first day of the autumn term. Everyone changing their forms, you see, and there are new bugs to look after and so forth, and all the timetables and suchlike to fix. The first day’s always a bit of a time-waster, to tell the truth. You don’t do any real work, you just tell the little blighters about the work that’s coming up, and fiddle with these Godforsaken timetables and people’s dental appointments and music lessons and all the rest of it. I have to go. The third’ll be committing mayhem —’

  The room ha
d emptied now and as he reached the door she cried after him almost despairingly, ‘Where do I go now, then? I don’t know the —’

  ‘Sorry!’ Wilton smiled anxiously at her and shook his head. ‘So sorry, Miss — Mrs Clements, madly sorry, just no idea. Go to the sixth-form room perhaps? I imagine the girls’ll be there and they’re why you’re here, so I’d try there if I were you. I’m sorry Staveley wasn’t in here this morning — he’s the sixth-form master. Yes, that’s what you should do. Go to the sixth-form room — it’s just at the far end of the corridor …’

  And then he too was gone, leaving Hattie staring at the door as the last of the clattering footsteps of running children faded and left her in the middle of the self-conscious squalor of the staffroom. Which, she thought savagely as she gathered up her bag, still stinks. In every meaning of the word.

  Four

  The seven girls sat in a row, not looking at each other and certainly not looking at the boys who had clustered together in one corner of the room. The latter had started by clowning about a bit, showing off the way boys always did, of course, but Dilly, for one, had refused to show in any way that she had even noticed their presence, let alone their behaviour. The other girls seemed to follow her lead, though one of them, a willowy creature with more blonde hair than was decent, in Dilly’s opinion, had shown signs of being interested in the display; but even she had subsided when the other girls continued staring sternly ahead of them and now sat a little slumped and bored at the end of the row. Now the boys sat and waited too, talking a little but offering no more horseplay.

  On the wall ahead of them, over the long benchlike desk that stood there, was a plaque of dirty brass on which words had been deeply engraved, and Dilly, for want of something better to do, began to read them.

  ‘Dame Alice Nollys, Her School for the Children of Freemen of the City of London. Erected 1558 in Memory of Alderman Richard Nollys of the Worshipful Company of Scriveners. Requiescat in Pace’, and below that a later piece of engraving: ‘They Gave Their Lives That We Might Live, 1914-1918’, and then in even more recent script, ‘1939-1945’, followed by lists of names. She read them, trying to see behind the blankness of the Johns and Archibalds, Edwards and Henrys, to the sort of boys they might have been. Young, certainly; old people don’t get killed in wars, they just start them going, Dilly told herself. Young people have to do what old ones make them do, like me sitting here. I hate old people. All of them.

  The door banged open and the boys at the back straightened up and the girls stiffened a little as a square man with an aureole of iron-grey hair brushed high over his head came in, his elderly and very rusty black academic gown streaming behind him in the wake he had created.

  ‘Good morning,’ he bawled, not looking directly at them, and dropped the little pile of books he was carrying on the table with a small crash, and then, with what was clearly meant to be a lissom leap but looked rather more effortful than that, sat on the edge of the high desk. ‘And for God’s sake, man, sit down. If I needed a chair I’d ask for it.’

  Behind her Dilly felt rather than saw one of the boys subside, letting the chair he’d been about to carry to the newcomer clatter to the floor, and stared at the man in front of her. His face was round and fat, like an angry baby’s, she decided, and he drank a good deal. She’d seen that red-eyed soggy-lipped look too often before not to know it well. Whoever he is, he’ll be unpleasant, she thought, and felt the familiar sense of dreariness that the thought of alcohol always created in her.

  The master caught her eye, looked angrier than ever and then flicked his glance to the back of the room, talking over the girls’ heads loudly.

  ‘Well, I haven’t much time to waste here, I’ve got better things to do than talk to you lot. Haven’t even got time to get my morning coffee, but there it is, I’ve got to welcome you to the sixth form, God help me, of which I am master. I don’t have to tell those of you who belong to this establishment this fact, but I have to do so for those who are here for the first time today. It will not have escaped School’s notice that we have been invaded.’

  He makes us sound like cockroaches, Dilly thought, and scowled at him, wanting to get up and shout back that she for one wasn’t here of her own choice; but of course she didn’t.

  ‘Nor will it come as a surprise to those who belong here that I for one think this is as stupid an arrangement as could be devised for the Foundation. Not that anyone listens to what I have to say, despite my seventeen years in this Godforsaken hole. It takes people of sense to do that, and we are not, by and large, greatly blessed here with such persons.’

  There was a soft movement from the boys behind and a breath of laughter and Dilly sat grimly staring ahead. She wouldn’t give the bastard the pleasure of seeing how she felt; and please don’t let any of the rest of you do it either, she shouted inside her head at the row of girls beside her. Don’t, don’t, don’t —

  ‘I must take minor exception, sir, to your comments.’ The voice was a silky one, deeper than Dilly would have expected from a boy of sixteen or so. The accent was odd too, very precise and clipped, and she tried to work out in what way she found it odd. But the voice was going on.

  ‘For my part, sir, I find this invasion, as you regard it, a highly agreeable one. Can you not consider the possibility that some of us are of an age to relish the company of well-reared young females?’

  The man sitting on the desk looked sourly at the source of the voice and then sniffed loudly. ‘Are you still talking in that ridiculous way, Forster?’ he demanded. ‘It was boring last year. This year it’s likely to prove stultifying.’

  ‘My dear sir,’ the silky voice murmured, ‘would you have me speak in the common manner? Surely not.’

  This time there was real laughter from the rest of the boys and Dilly felt the other girls turn round to look and allowed herself to move slightly on her chair and turn her head unobtrusively. To go on being intransigent about it would be daft, she decided. There were useful things to be found out, clearly.

  Leaning against the wall in the far corner she saw the boy she had noticed briefly on the way in: tall, very slender but clearly muscular, his hair thickly springing and arranged in neat dreadlocks. He was smiling widely at the man on the desk, and his teeth looked incredible, like a television advertisement, in his very smooth and handsome face. His eyes were wide and dark beneath a high broad forehead, his nose was an elegant prow that jutted from his face with great authority, and he was black. It was an extraordinary face and Dilly thought she’d never seen anyone quite so beautiful.

  He moved then and came to the front of the room, and Dilly smiled a little. He moved as well as he looked, smoothly and with a spring in his step that made him seem to exude energy. ‘Now we’re sixth-formers, it is my understanding that we may enjoy a modicum of additional freedom. That being so’ — and he smiled even more widely, making it clear he had no intention of waiting for any rejoinder — ‘I take some of that freedom upon myself to greet our fair newcomers with the appreciation that they must surely regard as their just due.’

  Beside Dilly the girl with the cloud of blonde hair giggled shrilly and nudged her neighbour on the other side, who was staring at the tall black boy with her mouth half open. The boy saw her, and bowed a little ironically. ‘You find my mode of speech amusing, ma’am? I beg you will not. It is my crusade, you must understand, to bring back the elegance of a vanished age. It is not good enough to speak as sloppily as some of my friends here —’

  ‘Oh, belt up, Harry,’ one of the other boys called. ‘Give the rest of us a chance.’ And he too moved forward until he was standing right behind the blonde girl’s chair, and at once the rest of the boys moved forward too. The man sitting on the edge of the desk said nothing, just watching, and Dilly looked at him, nonplussed. If anyone had behaved like this under a teacher’s eye at St Aloysius, they’d have had a boot up their backsides by now.

  The boy Forster moved to stand beside the master and beam
ed at the rest of them. ‘Well now, ladies, let me take over from our esteemed usher here. A man highly regarded by us all, I do assure you, for all his apparent — ahem — bellicosity.’ He turned his head and looked at the man beside him with such a gleam in his eye that Dilly couldn’t help producing a giggle of her own, and the boy looked at her and sketched a wink. ‘Permit me to introduce our revered Head of History and author of what will undoubtedly be the definitive textbook of British Military History when he finishes it. Mr Michael Staveley.’

  ‘Shut up, Forster, and stop showing off,’ the man growled, but he was clearly not at all annoyed, and Dilly stared at him, her puzzlement growing. How could a master be so easy-going when someone was being so insolent to him? Or couldn’t he tell it was insolence? Surely he could. No one could be that thick, not even a schoolmaster as old as this one.

  Forster sketched his ironic bow again and said solicitiously, ‘Are you sure I can be of no further help, sir? I would not wish you to tire yourself unduly —’

  ‘I told you to shut up. Now, you lot, let me get on with the business. This year there are twenty-three of you. Would have been twenty-four but, as I dare say you heard, Matterson met with some sort of accident…’

  There was a little intake of breath but no one said anything and Staveley looked up and said, ‘You’ll send a card or some such, Forster?’

  ‘Already have,’ the boy said. ‘Fixed it as soon as I saw it in the paper.’ The accent had coarsened slightly and Dilly risked another look at him. Now he was no longer performing. He looked back at her, catching her eye at once and she jerked her head back, feeling her face redden. ‘I sent flowers to the funeral too. I’ll collect from you lot later.’

  There was a little flurry of words then, as the boys began to mutter and ask questions but Harry Forster said loudly, ‘Later! I told you, later,’ and they subsided. He’s quite something, Dilly thought, and this time didn’t turn her head.