The Sandcastle (27 page)

‘Let us now go on to ask go on to ask another question,’ said Bledyard. ‘Why do
painters represent in pictures the faces of their fellow fellow men? To this it
may be answered that painters represent things that are to be found in the
world, and human faces are things that are to be found in the world.’ Another
ripple of mirth, quiet but deep, shook the room. The School was still holding
back, with the delighted expectation of someone waiting for the conclusion of a
long but undoubtedly very funny story.
‘This answer is hardly sufficient sufficient,’ said Bledyard. He spoke
throughout with total solemnity and with the slow deliberation of one
announcing a declaration of war or the death of royalty. ‘There have been at
different times in history different reasons why painters have painted people
and why people have wanted to be painted by painters painters painters.’
When Bledyard repeated a word three times the glee of his audience knew no
bounds. A joyful roar went up, which drowned the noise of Bledyard rapping for
the first slide. A long silence followed. Hensman had not heard the rap, and
Bledyard was waiting patiently for the first picture. Mor, who immediately
guessed what had happened, leaned across Rain to whisper to Evvy to nudge
Hensman. At that moment, however, Evvy turned away, looking back over his
shoulder disapprovingly at some scuffling that was going on at the back. Mor
swayed back into his seat. As he did so, his cheek lightly touched Rain’s. He
cast another sideways glance and saw that she now had herself sufficiently under
control to turn towards him, her bright eyes slightly tearful with mirth,
looking out from above her handkerchief, which she still held pressed tightly
to her mouth. The silence continued.
‘Sound track’s broken down,’ said a clear voice from the back of the hall. The
School let itself go and rocked hysterically in a great surge of laughter. Rain
threw her head forward with a wail, her shoulders shaking. Mor began to laugh
silently. He felt an extreme crazy happiness.
‘Could we have the first slide, please, Mis-ter Hensman?’ said Bledyard.
The first slide appeared at last. It represented the Laughing Cavalier of Frans
Hals. The School gurgled into silence.
‘Now this gentleman,’ said Bledyard, ‘is of course well known to all of you.
And if we ask what is the bond here that holds the sitter the sitter and the
painter together the answer is - charm. The sitter wishes to be depicted as
charming, and the painter obliges him without difficulty.’ Bledyard rapped the
floor.
The School had subsided for the moment, and were listening to Bledyard. A soft
murmur arose from them, however, as from a hive of bees about to swarm.
The next slide represented the head of the Emperor Theodoric, taken from a
mosaic at Ravenna. ‘Now, what have we here?’ said Bledyard. ‘Not a portrait of
an individual by an individual, but an abstract abstract conception of power
and magnificence created in the form of a man.’ He rapped the floor again. The
School was restive, baulked of its prey.
‘Now this noble portrait — ’ A shout of laughter went up. The next slide
represented the digestive tract of the frog. Bledyard could be seen moving
hastily back from the screen in order to see what had happened and falling over
some small boys.
Someone’s been tampering with the slides!‘ Mor said into Rain’s ear. This had
happened once before. Now anything might be expected. He moved his chair a
fraction closer to hers and looked at her. She turned her head slowly and gave
him a look of joyful tenderness. Mor turned back towards the screen, bringing his
foot cautiously into contact with hers. The frog was still there. Bledyard’s
voice was saying, ’I think that one must be a mis-take.‘ Mor felt that he was
in paradise.
Hensman blotted out the frog by putting his hand over the front of the
projector, but then found that he was unable to insert the next slide. It was a
minute before things were reorganized and the next picture appeared. It was one
of the later self-portraits of Rembrandt.
‘Now here,’ said Bledyard, ‘if we ask what relates relates the painter to the
sitter, if we ask what the painter is after, it is difficult to avoid answering
- the truth.’ The audience was now totally silent. Bledyard paused, looking up
at the picture. The enormous Socratic head of the aged Rembrandt, swathed in a
rather dirty-looking cloth, emerged in light and shade from the screen. At the
edge of the lighted area Bledyard could be seen regarding it. He seemed for a
moment to have forgotten where he was.
‘Mmmm, yes,’ said Bledyard, and stepped back into the shadow. He rapped the
floor with his rod.
The next slide was a coloured photograph of the Queen, dressed in a blue coat
and skirt, standing on the steps at Balmoral. A well-organized group at the
side of the room immediately began to intone the national anthem. The audience
rose automatically to its feet. A bedlam of laughter followed immediately. A
few people still tried to sing, but soon gave it up. Mor tumbled weakly back
into his chair. Evvy was saying to Hensman, ‘I hardly think Mr Bledyard could
have intended — ’ Hensman, with greater presence of mind, blotted the offending
slide by superimposing another one. Rain said, ‘I don’t know how much longer I
can bear it!’ Mor discovered that he was clasping her hand. They both leaned
forward, moaning and holding their sides. ‘I love you madly!’ said Mor under of
the undiminishing din. ‘Sssh! said Rain.
Hensman managed to remove the Queen and reveal the next slide, which was a
Tintoretto portrait of Vincenzo Morosini. The School groaned and wailed itself
into silence at last.
Bledyard seemed unperturbed. ‘Now this picture,’ he was saying, ‘which is also
in London -’
Rain murmured to Mor, ‘Terribly good! I wish I — ’
A loud whispering was going on at the back of the Gym. There was a scraping of
chairs and one or two people seemed to be going out of the door at the further
end. The boys in front were turning round to see what was happening. Evvy
looked over his shoulder and said, ‘Silence, please!’ Bledyard was saying - ‘to
draw some moral moral from these preliminary examples.’
‘What’s the excitement back there?’ said Mrs Prewett to Mor. Mor didn’t know.
He turned in his chair, bringing his knee into contact with Rain’s thigh. A
number of boys were standing up and exchanging whispers. Then several of them
began making for the door. ‘ — being as Shakespeare Shakespeare put it, the
lords and owners of our faces,’ said Bledyard. Mr Prewett got up and began to
make his way down the side of the Gym towards the centre of disaffection at the
back.
‘Where is that picture?’ Mor whispered to Rain.
‘National Gallery,’ she whispered back. ‘We’ll go — ’
Bledyard was standing full in the light of the screen pointing upward with his
rod. He looked like an alchemist dealing with an apparition. The noise at the
back was becoming considerable. More boys were now looking to the back of the
Gym than to the front. A whisper of excitement went through the audience.
‘What’s up?’ said someone audibly in the front row.
Prewett had come back down the aisle and was leaning towards Evvy. He said in
an agitated voice, ‘You’d better come out, sir. Two boys are climbing the
tower.’
Mor’s blood turned to ice. The scene about him was annihilated. He sprang up
from his seat and got out into the aisle, stumbling in front of Evvy, who was
also rising. He made for the nearest door at the back of the Gym. But a
stampede had already started. The boys in the back rows had got up and were
pushing towards the door. Their excited voices grew louder and louder. Mor was
caught in the midst. As he fought his way through he caught a last glimpse of
the scene in the Gym. Bledyard was still standing in the light of the screen,
his rod lifted, looking back now towards the audience - while throughout the
Gym boys were standing up, pushing, climbing over the chairs, and the smaller
boys in the front, who still did not know what it was all about, were asking to
be told in tones which rose, with excitement and panic, higher and higher. Evvy
was stuck somewhere in the middle of this. His face was visible for a moment in
the light reflected from the screen, open-mouthed and stricken with alarm. As
he struggled through and finally passed out of the Gym, Mor turned all the
lights on.
He ran into the centre of the playground. It was now completely dark outside. A
large crowd of boys had already collected, and others were joining them,
streaming out of the two doors of the Gymnasium. Mor looked up. After the
brightness of the screen he could see nothing at first, not even the tower
itself. A dark haze fell in front of his eyes. He tried to look through it. He
did not need to be told the identity of the two boys on the tower.
‘There they are, sir,’ said someone at his elbow. It was Rigden. He was
pointing upward. Mor tried to see. He could still discern nothing. He felt as
if he had become blind. A terrible blockage in his throat nearly stopped him
from breathing. Then gradually he began to make out the shape of the tower,
rising up sheer into the night sky above him. He stepped back a little.
There was no moon, and the tower emerged blackly against a black sky. It was in
two segments: a lower square part which rose out of the roof of Main School,
and was used as a book store - there were two small windows in this segment -
and above this an extremely tall spire, ornamented with a great deal of
grotesque tracery, and ending in a bronze pinnacle. Between the square part of
the tower and the Gothic spire there was a jutting parapet, which reached out
for a distance of two or three feet, overhanging the lower segment. On the
upper side the spire reached almost to the edges of the parapet, which was wide
below and narrow above, so that the whole tower had a top-heavy spear-like
appearance.
‘There, sir, at the parapet,’ said Rigden, still beside him. Then Mor, craning
his neck backwards, saw two dark shapes clinging to the tower. One seemed to be
on the parapet, the other just below it, adhering somehow to the side of the
wall. They didn’t appear to be moving. A claw of fear contracted slowly about
Mor’s heart. He could see better now.
Someone said, ‘They must be stuck.’ A great crowd had by now collected in the
centre of the playground, almost the whole School must be there. Glancing back,
Mor saw row after row of heads outlined against the light which streamed from
the doors of the Gym. Everyone was talking and pointing. The noise rose in a
cloud through the warm night air. Mor thought, this will scare them out of
their wits and they’ll lose their nerve. He turned, half resolved to clear the
boys from the playground. But it was impossible. To do so would create even
more noise and chaos than there was already. He looked up again. The pair on
the tower were still motionless. It looked as if they were able to get neither
up nor down.
Prewett came up to him, pushing through the throng. It was too dark to see his
face. He said to Mor, ‘Bill, I’m afraid it’s your son and young Carde.’
‘I know,’ said Mor. He was still looking up.
What could be done?
He
realized that he was shaking all over with violent tremors. ‘Has anyone sent
for the fire-brigade?’ he asked Prewett. A long ladder. Why hadn’t he thought
of that instantly?
‘Everard is telephoning,’ said Prewett.
‘Oh God,’ said Mor. ‘Oh God! They’re obviously paralysed and can’t move.’
Prewett put a hand on his shoulder. ‘There’s the ladder that’s kept behind the
pavilion — ’
‘It’s too short,’ said Mor.
‘Shall I go and get it, sir?’ said Rigden, who was standing in a group of boys
just behind them.
‘Yes, go,’ said Mor, ‘but it’s too short’ Several boys ran away to accompany
Rigden.
Mor bit his hand.
Was there nothing he could do?
He feared that at any
moment Donald or Carde would lose his nerve completely. Still, neither of them
appeared to be moving. The agony of the fear nearly broke his body in two.
A steady murmur of excitement was rising from the watching crowd. ‘Turn on the
flood-lights!’ cried a voice from the back.
‘No!’ cried Mor, turning towards the speaker. ‘You’ll startle them!’
It was too late. A stampede had started in the direction of the boiler-room,
where the master switches were. A moment later the façade of Main School sprang
violently out of the darkness, mercilessly illuminated by the powerful
flood-lights. Carefully adjusted beams lit up the tower from top to bottom,
picking out every detail. A gasp arose from the crowd and everyone covered his
eyes, dazzled. Mor gave a moan of fear and tried to look upward. His eyes
closed against the violent light. When he opened them he saw, very clearly
revealed, the figures of the two boys clinging to the tower. Donald was above,
lying full length upon the extremely narrow top of the parapet. Carde was below
the overhang. He was clinging like a fly to the edge of the tower. He had one
arm over the parapet, and the other curiously flattened against the wall. Then
Mor saw that he was holding on to the wire of the lightning conductor which ran
down from the top of the tower. His feet were turned sideways, finding a
precarious foothold on a tiny decorative ledge, an inch or two wide, which
girdled the tower a few feet below the parapet. A rope, which the boys had
somehow managed to fix to the base of the spire, dangled some distance away,
out of Carde’s reach; and even if he could otherwise have hoisted himself out,
past the overhang and on to the parapet, helped perhaps by the lightning conductor
which went snaking on upwards above his head, it was impossible for him to do
so since Donald was in the way.
Donald lay full length along the extremely narrow upper side of the parapet,
his face turned inward towards the stone, and one long arm extended above his
head to grasp a projecting piece of decoration. His other arm was hidden. His
legs were oddly twisted under him. He had obviously got himself into an awkward
position and now dared not move for fear of rolling off the narrow ledge, which
could not be more than about ten inches across. On the ledge close to Donald’s
outstretched arm was balanced a white shining object which it took Mor a moment
to recognize as a chamber-pot. This had evidently been destined to be placed on
the topmost pinnacle as evidence of the climb.