A Kestrel for a Knave (18 page)

Waiting. No one appeared, so he emerged from his hideout, stepped down off the foot-bench and ran the few yards up to the corridor. Nobody there; just an electric buzz and an echo permeating the atmosphere. He went into the toilets next door: empty, the cubicle doors ajar at different angles. He ran across to the outer door, and pressed a cheek to the meshed glass, trying to squint along the outside walls. His view was obstructed by jutting brick, so he stepped back and glanced out across the fields. The crow
had flown from the crossbar. The goals ran parallel, horizontally and vertically, to the mesh pattern in the glass, and the posts filled the width of one mesh square exactly.

He yanked the door open and rushed out into the yard, looking back over his shoulders at the walls. Blank. He cut back into the wall, sneaked down to the corner and peeped round the back of the school. Just the cycle shed, a cluster of bins and a blunt heap of coke. He sprinted across to the cycle shed and glanced inside. Cycles. Crept down the side and peeped round the corner, along the back and up the far side. Then a look across the front of the shed to his starting point, and a wipe of his brow on his sleeve.

Somewhere in school a class was singing. They would sing a verse then break it down: every few bars the piano would stop, and the hoo-haa-hee of voices would tail away, dragging the tune down with it. The same snatch would be repeated, and repeated; until finally the whole verse would be allowed again, the new version sounding exactly the same as the original.

Billy ran back across the asphalt and tried the boiler room door. It opened. Hot air rushed past him out of the darkness. The light switch was on the wall to his left. He felt sideways for it and clicked it on. A yard inside the door the floor fell away in a ten foot cliff. Across a chasm, at the same height as Billy’s feet, was the top of the boiler. A good long-jumper could have run from the cycle shed, straight in, and jumped on top of it. From the boiler, pipes bent up the walls and disappeared through the ceiling like branches of the beanstalk. The whitewashed walls were grey with dust, and a thickness of dust lay like fur around the shoulder of the bulb, which was suspended on a long flex from the ceiling.

Billy stepped to the cliff edge, turned around and
descended the iron ladder. The edges of the rungs were rusty. The centres were hollowed and silver with wear.

In the well bottom, the boiler occupied most of the floor space. Billy flicked his fingers at the insulating coat surrounding it, tigging it as though expecting it to be red hot. It was warm, a pleasant heat, like a hot water bottle wrapped in a towel. He walked down one side. At the back, between the boiler and the wall, was a yard gap, spanned in the centre by a thick pipe at ground level. He skiddled back up the side of the boiler, back up the ladder, and shut himself in. Clicked the light off, then stood still, waiting for the black shapes to come out and establish themselves in the darkness. Then back down the ladder to the space behind the boiler, where he sat down and rested his head against the pipe; as snug as a bug, as warm as toast, as safe as houses; enclosed on two sides, with the darkness before him and the thick pipe behind. He began to nod.

When he woke up the light was on, and somebody was moving about close by. He sat still, staring down at his pumps which were sticking out in the shadow of the boiler. Holding his breath he flexed his knees and withdrew them, replacing them close to his buttocks. Then, pushing himself up on his finger tips, he transferred his weight forward from his heels to his toes, and rocked over to a cat-landing on all fours. A pause for listening, then he peeped round the corner of the boiler. The caretaker was feeling into a jacket hanging on a nail in the wall. He found a twenty cigarette packet, shook it, and turned away. As he ascended the ladder the studs in his boots made music on the metal. He clicked the light off and swung the door to. The band of sky in the doorway narrowed rapidly, and on the walls, darkness slid across the panels of light like a curtain.

Billy stood up and stretched. He padded up the ladder,
felt for the door sneck and pulled. Stuck. Pulled and rattled. Locked.

‘Bloody hell.’

He dabbed for the lock, grabbed it, felt it with his finger tips, and smiled. Yale.

The wind had dropped. It was starting to rain. Big spots dotted the asphalt like pennies from heaven. On top of the cycle shed a black cat froze in mid-stride and stared down at him. When he shut the door the noise and movement sent it silently down the grain of the tin and out of sight down the back of the shed.

It was quiet without the wind. No birds sang, and the singing had stopped in school. There was no sound from the school. Billy stood back in the doorway listening, and watching the back corner of the shed. Nothing happened. So he ran across and had a look. The cat had gone. On the roof of the shed the raindrops were quickening like a heartbeat. The sound developed into a solo, and water began to trickle down the tin, bringing up the rust, copper and orange. Billy turned round and sprinted. Round the corner of the building, straight in through the toilets and into the corridor. Empty. The first classroom he looked into was empty. The second was occupied. He stared in until he attracted everyone’s attention, and the teacher came rushing to the door.

‘What’s the matter, Casper? What are you looking at?’

‘What time is it, Sir?’

‘Time! Never mind the time lad! What do you want?’

He stepped down the corridor. Billy stepped back.

‘Is this 3B, Sir?’

‘No it isn’t 3B, why?’

‘I thought it wa’. I’ve got a message for ’em.’

‘Well get to the office then.’

‘Why, are they in there, Sir?’

‘No, to find out where they are, you fool! Ask the secretary to look at the timetable.’

‘Yes, Sir. I forgot.’

‘You will forget, lad, if you come disturbing me again like that.’

He banged the door and frowned his way across to his desk. He was still frowning when he resumed the lesson, two vertical frowns between his eyes. Billy walked slowly by and looked into the next room. A class was working. He dodged back out of sight and stood between the two rooms with his back to the radiator, glancing continually right and left, up and down the corridor.

The bell rang, and before the ringing had stopped doors opened and boys came out into the corridor. For the first few seconds there were wide spaces between them, but these spaces diminished rapidly as the rooms emptied and whole classes merged, shouting and jostling, and pursuing their various destinations. Billy shouted and jostled with them. ‘Seen 4C? Hey up! Seen our class?’ Jumping up to see over heads; failing, and mounting boys’ backs to gain a momentary vantage point. They tried to wrestle and thump him off, but he was too quick, and he jumped down and dodged away while they were still bent forward.

He found them and rushed amongst them, smiling and rubbing shoulders. ‘Where’s tha been, Casper?’ Billy just smiled and mingled, and moved alongside Tibbut.

‘Seen our Jud?’

‘Hey up, where’s tha been? They’ve been looking all over for thee.’

‘Who has?’

‘Gryce pudding and everybody.’

‘What for? I haven’t done owt.’

‘Youth Employment. Tha should have gone for thi interview last lesson.’

‘Seen our Jud?’

‘I saw him earlier on, why?’

‘Did he say owt?’

‘Just asked where tha wa’ that’s all. What did tha run away for when tha saw him?’

‘Seen him since?’

‘What’s up, is he after thi for summat?’

When they reached their classroom Gryce was standing at the door. When he saw Billy he batted him twice about the ears, forehand left ear, backhand right.

‘And where do you think you’ve been, lad?’

Billy muffed his ears with his hands.

‘Nowhere, Sir,’ shouting like someone deaf.

‘Nowhere! Don’t talk ridiculous lad! Who are you, the invisible man?’

Billy backed into the empty room as Gryce came for him again.

‘I felt sick, Sir. I went to the toilet.’

‘And where were you, down it? I sent prefects to the toilets, they said you weren’t there.’

‘I went outside then, Sir. For a breath o’ fresh air.’

‘I’ll give you fresh air.’

Billy manoeuvred a horseshoe course, to stay within striking distance of the door.

‘I’ve just come back in, Sir.’

‘And what about your interview? I’ve had the whole school out looking for you.’

‘I’m just goin’, Sir.’

‘Well get off then! And God help anyone who employs you.’

Billy set off, then stopped in mid-stride and half turned.

‘Where to Sir?’

‘The medical room! If you’d stay awake in assembly you’d know where to!’

He lunged across and made another swipe. But Billy had gone, and he overbalanced and staggered, like a tennis player failing to make a forehand return. The audience, observing through the doorway and the corridor windows, turned away and stared into space, not daring to meet each other’s eyes. Gryce parted them like a curtain and strode away up the corridor, massaging his shoulder. He stopped massaging to cuff a small boy on the back of the head and shove him to one side.

‘Get over, lad! Don’t you know to keep to the right hand side yet?’

There were four chairs outside the medical room. A woman and a boy occupied the two nearest the door. Billy sat down, leaving an empty chair between them. The boy leaned forward and nodded at him across the front of the woman. The woman glanced round, then turned back to the boy.

‘And don’t be sat there like a dummy when you get in there.’

The boy blushed and looked across at Billy again. Billy sat staring straight ahead, top teeth working across his bottom lip, squeezing it white.

‘Tell him that you’re after a good job, an office job, summat like that.’

‘Who’s after an office job?’

‘Well what are you after then? A job on t’bins?’

‘I wish you’d shut up.’

‘An’ straighten your tie.’

The boy held the knot and pulled the back tag. The knot
slid up and covered the top button of his clean white shirt. ‘I wish you’d stop nagging.’

‘Somebody’s to nag.’

The door opened. The woman stood up and practised a smile down at herself. A boy emerged, followed by a woman smiling back into the room. The women smiled at each other. Their boys grinned. They crossed. The door closed, and the interviewed couple walked away, close in conversation. They stepped in accord, but the clip of high-heels predominated, and their echo preceded them down the corridor. Billy watched them go, then propped his face in his hands and stared down between his legs.

The floor was covered with red and green vinyl tiles set in a check pattern. Their surfaces were mottled white, seeking a marble effect. On some tiles the mottling was severe, on others a mere fleck, and where a series of heavily mottled tiles had been laid together, the white dominated the basic colours as though something had been spilt there.

Billy placed his feet parallel over two edges of the red tile directly between his legs. They just failed to span the tile’s length. He eased his heels back to the corner, increasing the space at his toes. Then he eased them forward, decreasing the toe space, but introducing a growing space at his heels. He wriggled his toes, trying to stretch his feet, his pumps rippling like caterpillars. But the space remained constant, so he lifted his feet and perched them out of sight on the stretcher under the chair.

The white markings of the red tile, and the markings of the adjoining green ones never matched up; they all missed slightly, like a fault in a stratum of rock. The only strokes that did cross the dividing lines were skid marks made by rubber-soled shoes. These skid marks scarred all the tiles, and ranged from blunt scuffs to long sabres. They all
pointed lengthways down the corridor, but were so different in form that they were never quite parallel to each other, or to the lanes formed by the edges of the tiles.

Billy sat back and lifted his head. On the opposite wall, directly across from the Medical Room door, was a fire alarm. Underneath it, in red capitals, were the instructions,
IN CASE OF FIRE BREAK GLASS.
The case of the alarm was red painted metal. The glass was round, like a big watch face. Billy sat and stared at it. A woman laughed close by. He turned instinctively towards the sound, then stood up and walked across to the alarm. Behind the glass, almost touching it, was a knob. Billy ran a finger round the rim, gathering dust under the nail. He breathed on the glass, drew a Union Jack in the vapour, then rubbed it up with his cuff. The glass shone. He tinked it with his nails, tapped it with a knuckle, then rapped it with his knuckles. The noise made him step back and glance up and down the corridor. All quiet. Nobody there. Then the door opened. Billy swung round. Boy. Woman. Man at desk behind, between them. ‘Good afternoon.’ Left masking the alarm, looking across, in at the bald crust of a man writing. He looked up, out at Billy.

‘Are you next?’

Billy looked in, not moving.

‘Well come in, lad, if you’re coming, I haven’t got all day.’

Billy walked in, closed the door and crossed the room.

‘Sit down, Walker.’

‘I’m not Walker.’

‘Well who are you then? According to my list it should be Gerald Walker next.’

He checked his name list.

‘Oliver, Stenton, then Walker.’

‘I’m Casper.’

‘Casper. O yes. I should have seen you earlier, shouldn’t I?’ He flicked through the record cards. ‘Casper…. Casper…. Here we are,’ placed it on top, then replaced the stack on the blotting square.

‘Mmm.’

While he studied Billy’s card, Billy studied his scalp. The crown was clean and pink. Hair, cut short and neat, grew round the back and sides, and a few greased strands had been carefully combed across the front to disguise the baldness. But they failed, like a trap covered with inadequate foliage.

‘Now then, Casper, what kind of job had you in mind?’

He shunted the record cards to one side, and replaced them with a blank form, lined and sectioned for the relevant information,
CASPER, WILLIAM,
in red on the top line. He copied age, address and other details from the record card, then changed pens and looked up.