The Perils and Dangers of this Night (11 page)

He knelt, disappearing into the darkness. Mrs Kemp
started quizzing Sophie, drawing her out a bit. The girl
had recovered from her coughing fit. She was saying that
she'd left school in the summer, had had such disastrous
A-level results that her parents had hit the roof, that she'd
packed a bag and run off to London and taken the first
job she could get, in the record company that Martin
worked for, 'not really working, just looking cute and
b-b-brainless at the front desk . . .' I was listening, and
aware that Pryce was listening too, because once or twice
his face popped up as though he were ready to butt in and
stop the girl if she said too much.

The music continued, so marvellous, so much a part of
Foxwood Manor. It swooped and lurched again. 'Sorry,
sorry,' I heard Pryce mumbling through a mouthful of
bread and bacon, and I knew he'd jiggled the wires on
purpose: because, in the prickling of my palms which was
suddenly more than just the salt in my wounds but a flash
of the dream I'd had and the faces in it, I knew that the
music was as maddeningly familiar to him as it was for
me.

The lights stopped flickering. Pryce stood up and
stuffed the last of his sandwich into his mouth. He looked
round for somewhere to wipe the bacon grease from his
hands, ducked out of sight again.

At last he wandered back to the fireside. Dr Kemp was
conducting again, more relaxed now, allowing himself a
little nod of thanks as Pryce sat down. I was holding
Wagner's collar, and I tightened my grip as he leaned
towards Pryce.

'It's all right,' Pryce said softly, 'I think he's getting
used to me.' I warily let go of the collar and Wagner
sniffed at Pryce's fingers. After a moment, the dog lifted
his head, peered blearily around him, and limped away.
He disappeared into the shadows. 'He's hot,' Pryce said.

The music was reaching a surging climax. '
Quando
coeli movendi sunt, quando coeli movendi sunt, in dia illa
tremenda . . .
'

There was a sharp bang at the other end of the hall. A
flash, a cloud of smoke. The music groaned and died.
And there was a dreadful, snarling commotion by the
Christmas tree.

Everyone – except Mrs Kemp – jumped to their feet.
The tree groaned and leaned and fell to the floor with an
enormous crash. The lights exploded like a crackle of
gunfire. The snarling continued for another second,
became a horrid gurgling growl, and stopped.

We gathered around to see what had happened. It took
Mrs Kemp a few frantic seconds to manoeuvre her
wheel-chair from the fireside to the wreckage of the
Christmas tree.

Wagner's teeth were clenched on the bare wires. His
eyes bulged red, and his legs twitched as though he were
asleep and dreaming of rabbits. He was smouldering. A
haze of blue smoke rose from his fur.

The spade cut through the snow and the encrusted
blades of grass, then banged to a jarring halt. The
impact sent a shock through Dr Kemp's wrist and right
up to his elbow. The ground was frozen hard. It might as
well have been rock.

He and Mrs Kemp were on the lawn, under the
branches of their favourite copper beech. I was there too;
I'd been trying to help.

It was another glorious morning. In the night it had
been snowing again, so all the world was gleaming, a
pristine, immaculate world from which all things less
than perfect had been expunged. The sky was blue, the
sun was shining. Indeed, there was a glow of sweat on
the headmaster's brow as he struck again and again with
the spade. Mrs Kemp sat beside him in her wheelchair,
wrapped in her coat and scarf, with the tartan rug around
her legs. Wagner's body lay on the dazzling snow.

'It's no good.' Kemp stopped and wiped his face with
the palm of his hand. He was breathing heavily. He
loosened the scarf around his throat and glanced back
to the house. After fifteen frustrating minutes he'd made
hardly a dint in the surface of the lawn. Before that, he
and I had struggled to get the unwieldy corpse out of
the house. The only way, after we'd tried and failed to
carry it in our arms for more than a yard or two, had
been to use his wife's wheelchair. Kemp had taken her
into his study, leaving her sitting at his desk with the
door shut, and then I'd helped him to manhandle the
dog on board. A bizarre sight, if there'd been anyone
else to see it, as we'd emerged from the front door and
crunched the chair through the deep snow, not with the
headmaster's beloved wife but the stiffening body of a
dead labrador. And there, in the spot he'd decided on,
we'd attempted to lift the dog and rest it gently on the
snow, but its bulk and unusual rigidity had proved so
awkward that at last there was no choice but to tip it
unceremoniously onto the ground. It had lain there on
its back, its legs sticking into the air, until Kemp rolled
it onto one side.

Now, having returned to the house to bring out his wife, he
was clanging at the unyielding ground with a spade. No good, no good, no good.
Mrs Kemp began to sob. He hurled the spade into the snow and stood there,
heaving for breath, with tears of rage and sorrow pricking in his eyes. He
panted at me testily, 'There's no need for you to be here, Scott, for heaven's
sake go indoors.'

Pryce and Sophie were watching from the great hall.
'Come on, old man,' Pryce whispered, 'we need a good,
big hole.'

He strolled to the piano, where the tree lay bristling
and black, where fragments of glass from the exploded
bulbs crunched under his boots. He sat down, and with
one finger he played the first lines of 'In the Deep
Mid-winter', so spare, so cold, every note an icicle. He
stopped, affecting the headmaster's look of puzzlement
and exasperation, and reached for the leather wallet of
tuning keys that lay on top of the piano. He stood up,
lifted the lid of the instrument and propped it open.

'What are you d-d-d-doing?' Sophie asked, unnecessarily.
He was leaning into the piano and randomly loosening
string after string. 'Don't you think . . .?'

'The piano tuner never made it. I'll have a go. Now,
which way do you turn these things?'

Unseen, unheard, I'd come into the hall from the long
corridor. I'd been watching them, hesitating, dazed from
the exertion and misery of helping the headmaster with
the dog. When Pryce opened the piano and I saw my
reflection in the shine of the lid, I stepped forwards, as
though in a dream, to meet the figure of the boy who was
walking towards me.

With a feeling of horror in my stomach, I peered into
the dark hole. Before either Pryce or Sophie had time to
acknowledge that I was there, I saw what he'd been doing
and I said sharply, 'Please don't, sir, I got into enough
trouble yesterday.'

'The b-b-boy'll get the blame,' Sophie blurted. 'Kemp's
already mad about the d-d-d-dog . . .'

'The dog had it coming. So has Kemp.'

Pryce pushed me out of the way and submerged himself
again in the piano. He turned a key with one hand, while
his other arm snaked out and felt blindly for the
keyboard, and the notes he struck were strangely plangent,
quite different from the chilly air he'd conjured
from the carol.

Sophie gestured hopelessly at me, seeing the despair on
my face. Pryce glanced up from the piano and saw the
little exchange. 'Hey Alan,' he started, 'are you with me
or Kemp? Do you want a bit of fun with us, or a cosy
threesome with the old farts?'

'Watch out!' Sophie hissed without a hint of a stammer.

Through the window we saw that the Kemps were
approaching the house. We heard the crunch of the
wheel-chair on the snow, the hiss of its tyres as it ran up
the ramp to the front door. And as the handle turned and
the door creaked open, Pryce said, 'Alan, here!' and
tossed the wallet of tuning keys through the air.

I had no choice but to catch it and stuff it into my
pocket, just as Kemp propelled the wheelchair into the
hall.

Without looking at me or Pryce or Sophie, the headmaster
manoeuvred the chair to the fire. His face was set,
as though frozen, but ruddy from the cold and the effort
of pushing. His breathing was hoarse. Mrs Kemp's face
was hidden behind the fall of her hair. She was dabbing
her eyes and nose with a white handkerchief.

'You shouldn't have come out,' he said to her. 'It's
much too cold. You should've stayed indoors.'

'I wanted to be there,' she said, controlling her voice with
difficulty. 'And now we've left him lying in the snow . . .'

Kemp swivelled furiously towards Pryce. 'I don't
suppose you could've helped at all, instead of just
standing there grinning like a fool.'

Pryce demurred, affecting the manners of a perfect
gentleman. 'I'm so sorry. I didn't want to intrude at the
graveside.'

'There is no grave,' the headmaster retorted, 'so, by
definition, there is no graveside.' This provoked an
outburst of sobbing from his wife. He bent to her and put
his arm around her shoulders.

'Oh dear,' Pryce said. 'Perhaps we should make some
coffee, to warm you up a bit. Come on, Sophie.' He led
the girl out of the hall and into the corridor.

I stood there, as though nailed to the floorboards. My
whole body ached with the unfairness of the situation.
My head groaned with it. It was mean, just mean, that I
was standing in that place, at that moment, with an
enormous nail of obligation driven through each foot.
The effortlessness of Pryce's exit made it worse. I was on
my own. And the question that Pryce had tossed to me
just before the Kemps came in, as casual and yet as
weighted as the keys he'd tossed through the air a
moment later, whirled in my mind.

It wasn't the first time I'd considered it. I'd lain awake
the previous night and weighed it one way and the other,
the same question, my eyes staring into the darkness of
the dormitory. On the one hand, I was a twelve-year-old
choirboy, blessed with a perfect ear and imbued with a
genuine love of church music; on the other, I was an
incipient teenager, my ear glued to the rock'n'roll on my
transistor radio. On the one hand, I was a prefect at
Foxwood Manor, infused with a grudging respect for my
headmaster and a real affection for the headmaster's
wife; on the other, I was a defiant adolescent thrilled by
the arrival of Martin Pryce. Who was I? And when I
glimpsed the reflection of a small boy in the polished
blackness of the piano, it wasn't me, but a different boy
who folded and vanished as I turned my head towards
him.

'You've let the fire go out.' Dr Kemp's words cut
through the room. 'While you're here with us, Scott, you
could do something to earn your keep, couldn't you? This
is supposed to be
our
holiday as well, you know.'

I bent to the hearth immediately, trying to set aside the
thought of what would happen next, or soon: in either
case, the appalling inevitability of it. I picked up some of
the holly twigs and branches I'd collected from the woods
a few days before, which I'd carried into the hall and
stacked neatly so that they'd be dry and ready for
burning. I laid them onto the neglected embers, knelt
close and blew softly. There was a sudden glow and a
little blue flame stood up. It licked around the fuel that I'd
put there. With a crackle and spit, the fire was alive again.

Dr Kemp was kneeling too. He'd taken off his scarf
and coat and was helping his wife with hers. He slipped
off her shoes and started to rub her feet gently; they were
white as marble between his reddened hands. 'We all
loved the old boy,' he was saying. 'Was he seventeen,
eighteen? And this was his place, right here, in front of
the fire . . .'

Mrs Kemp wept again. As I stood away from the
hearth and saw her shoulders shuddering as she sobbed
and sobbed, my heart ached to see her crying, and a lump
came into my throat. The headmaster squeezed her feet,
then looked up and saw the sadness in my eyes.

'Oh yes,' he said, 'the boys were fond of him too, years
and years of Foxwood boys. What a character, what a
dog . . .'

And then he stood up. He held my eyes as though there
were a special bond between us, something only we could
understand: a bond which excluded his wife and the love
he felt for her and was far beyond the comprehension of
Pryce and Sophie. I read his thoughts – I wished I could
not. It was a nightmare, to know what the man was
about to say, and to be powerless, utterly powerless to
forestall it.

'Music,' he said. 'At a time like this, people like us, we
have our music.'

It was hopeless to protest. I gaped at him, stammered,
'Please sir, please sir, no sir', but the headmaster was too
much for me. Evincing an avuncular kindliness which he
must have thought appropriate to the occasion, Dr Kemp
was overwhelming. He'd seen in my eyes how much the
death of the dog had moved me, and now he reached for
my hand and eased me across the room towards the
piano. He even, feeling me wince from his touch, folded
open my palm to appraise the three red stripes on it, and
he pursed his lips to express sympathy tinged with regret.

He said gently, 'It's your gift, it's your duty. Sing for
me and Mrs Kemp. Sing for Wagner.'

I held my breath as Kemp sat at the piano. My heart
had stopped beating.

The headmaster played an arpeggio. With a yell,
flapping his hands as though he had dipped them in
boiling oil, he leaped to his feet.

'What's this?' he roared. 'Who has done this?' He
banged a chord, a mess of noise. He whirled at me.
'Where are they? You know what I mean! Don't just
stand there gawping like an idiot! Where are they?'

For a blinding second, thinking he meant Pryce and
Sophie, I gestured feebly towards the corridor. He shoved
past me, snarling, knocked over the table that had been
knocked over the night before, and stormed to the hearth.
His wife blinked at him through bleary eyes.

'
You
know where they are!' he shouted. 'I left them on
the mantelpiece! I put them on the piano! I was
using
them
! The keys! Where
are
they?'

'Anyone for coffee?'

Pryce emerged from the corridor, with Sophie behind
him. He was carrying a tray with five steaming mugs and
a plate of mince pies. He frowned at the overturned table.
'Oh dear, where can I put this?'

'It's unplayable!' the headmaster shouted. 'The piano is
unplayable! It might as well be chopped into pieces and
burned on the fire! That's all it's good for!'

Pryce put the tray on the hearth, gave a mug of coffee
to Mrs Kemp and took one for himself. 'What happened
to the piano tuner you were expecting? I suppose he's
stuck in the snow somewhere.'

'I'm looking for the tuning keys!' the headmaster hissed
at him, barely controlling his anger. 'They were here, on top
of the piano, and now they're gone. Have you seen them?'

'Search me,' he said, like an innocent caught in the
crossfire. 'Alan? Any idea?'

They all stared at me. I saw a flicker of a smirk on
Pryce's face and felt the cold grey eyes run down to the
bulge in my pocket. I licked my lips, for my mouth was
very dry, and said, 'No sir, no idea, sir.'

Pryce moved to the piano. 'Don't touch it,' the
headmaster said softly. 'I cannot stand the noise.' Pryce
ignored him. He set his mug down on the end of the
keyboard, right next to the highest note. The headmaster
repeated himself, as softly as before. 'Do
not
touch the
piano.'

Pryce sat on the stool. 'Unplayable? I like a challenge.'

As he laid his hands on the keyboard, the headmaster
stormed towards him. Pryce had one second to bang out
the first excruciating line of 'Ding Dong Merrily on High'
before Dr Kemp reached the piano.

Pryce withdrew his fingers just in time. Bellowing, 'Are
you deaf? ' the headmaster slammed the lid shut with all
his might. The mug splintered into smithereens. The
coffee splashed onto Pryce's hands and face.

There was a lull. The only sound was the drip-drip-drip
of coffee from the piano to the floor. We all looked at
each other, as though waiting – waiting for a familiar
sound to fill the silence. But there was no gurgling growl.
No booming bark. Nothing to punctuate the moment
with a resounding exclamation mark.

It was an uncomfortable silence. It pronounced the
unalterable fact that Wagner had gone for ever.

'Be careful, Dr Kemp,' Pryce said at last. 'Be very
careful.' His voice was gentle, as soft as silk. 'I'm not
deaf, although you've told me many times that my ear is
not as good as yours. That's one thing you instilled in me
at Foxwood.'

Mrs Kemp was crying very quietly. The fire collapsed
and settled, consuming itself. The coffee dripped and
dripped and stopped dripping.