The White Devil (21 page)

Of course not, he said.
You’re shocked
, she countered. No, he said, even though he was; but he said it, because to him, here, in the heavy light, under the London sky, plastered, tragic, coming out of her dress and her pretenses, she was the dirtiest and most lovable girl he had ever met.
Why don’t we go
, he said.

THEY KISSED IN
the hall. The alcohol on an empty stomach made him dizzy when he closed his eyes. They went to the living room. The house was a beachy combination of pink furniture, silver gewgaws, white walls, and seashell-themed everything. They kissed on the couch and moved down to the floor. Andrew untied her sash, stripped her dress off her, then her bra. He licked her breasts, tugged at her panties. They had been waiting for this. For weeks. It had all been building up.
Now let’s do it
, a voice inside him urged. Beer sloshed inside him. He went through the motions. Get her clothes off, check. Stimulate sex organs . . .

“Ouch,” she said. “Wait.”

She readjusted and helped him pull her panties off. Her legs were white and smooth and tapered;
amazing
his brain registered
and there it is,
the
boulaiki,
brown and casual there in the daylight. He felt nervous, suddenly. It was like meeting a famous person, a personal hero, with only a minute’s notice.
Hey wait I’m not ready, not worthy
. He felt sweat at the base of his back.
Fear
. That wasn’t good. Not good at all. He touched her. She was okay. Almost wet enough. He rubbed. But it all seemed to be taking too long. The voice nagged him.
Get it done
. He tried to enter her. But it wasn’t happening. She reached for him, to take him in her hand, but that was worse—now she would see he wasn’t hard. The sweat in his lower back became sweat all over him. He felt hot, oppressed. He pulled away.

“You okay, Andrew?”

“Not really. I drank too much.”

They leaned against the sofa together, their bare bottoms on the carpet. Suddenly they were very accustomed to each other naked. Too much so. She had belly rolls. He had ingrown thigh hairs. It was as if they had caromed past the exit on the highway where all the buildup and the Victorian anticipation happened, and veered straight into—what? A sort of jaded nullity. Just two naked bodies already bored with each other. Andrew had never been inside this house before and within twenty minutes he was in the living room, naked, and in despair. He laid his head back on the sofa and groaned.

“Want me to go down on you?” she asked.

“I just want some water.”

“I scared you off, didn’t I? With all that about . . .”

“No, no,” he objected. “Can I get some water?”

“If it makes you feel any better,” she said, making no move to fetch him water, “I can’t have an orgasm.”

“Can’t?”

“Can’t. Don’t.” She watched his expression closely. She wanted to make sure she hadn’t gone too far. Scared him away completely.

“Seriously?”

She shrugged.

“Well,” he said, at last. “We’re quite a pair.”

TO CHEER HIM
up, Persephone dragged Andrew on a long trek to a cooler neighborhood thronged with leather-jacketed hipsters, and to a boutique where she bought him—on Sir Alan’s credit card this time—jeans that actually fit, a vintage shirt, and a jacket; then pulled him into a hair salon.
Why do I need a haircut?
he protested. The stylist, a woman named Charlie, had platinum hair and multiple earrings.

“Time to get rid of the Led Zeppelin,” Persephone told Charlie.

Thirty minutes later Andrew looked in the mirror.

“Now I’m a choirboy,” he declared.

To his surprise, Persephone jumped into the chair next to him. “I want to look exactly the same.” He watched her curls mingle with his on the salon floor before a dreadlocked assistant came and swept them away.

“TIME FOR YOUR
surprise,” Persephone said as they left the salon.

“Is that what you were texting about?” he said. Persephone had been furiously thumbing her phone during his makeover.

“Maybe,” she said.

She led him on a long, twisting walk through a darkening London to a midscale commercial neighborhood that hosted a string of Middle Eastern restaurants with fluorescent lights, and hookahs in the windows, with men seated in pairs, puffing at them. Persephone led the way inside one of these, sidled up to the seats at the bar, with a direct view of the kitchen, and instructed Andrew to watch the best chicken butcher in London. They watched him slice apart several dozen birds, whacking their wings off with single glances of his cleaver, his hands shiny and larded with guts. They ordered platters. Andrew shoveled the food into his mouth. Thick hot sauce, pasty tahini, warm pita—it felt like his first meal in months. His head rang and his nose ran from the heat.

A voice came over their shoulders. “Persephone?”

A voluptuous redhead, freckled, and in a black cocktail dress, hugged Persephone, who introduced her as Agatha. Agatha hugged Andrew and kissed both his cheeks, then looked at him and Persephone and made a face and hooted,
You’re not boyfriend-girlfriend, you’re twins!
Persephone beamed. Agatha’s date was behind her, a tall, sharp-featured Indian in a dark suit, Vivek. He carried a plastic bag. Agatha, Persephone explained, was in her first year at Cambridge, and was her best friend growing up. They spent summers in Greece together. (By now these casual references to a life of exotic privilege rolled off Andrew; they merely added incrementally to his intoxication with Persephone and her world.) The newcomers drew up stools, Vivek immediately noticing and marveling at the butchery, Agatha eyeballing Andrew and sending knowing glances to Persephone, clearly the
best-friend-who-has-heard-about-him-and-is-dying-of-curiosity
. (Andrew was glad he had changed into his new clothes; his khakis lay folded in a shopping bag at his feet.) Normally Andrew would feel threatened by an unfamiliar couple materializing on a date, but he was flush with nutrition and with the swirl of London, and he embraced it.

Vivek asked the burly man at the bar for some plastic cups. “I’ll be flogged if they catch me,” he said to Andrew, privately. “Eighty lashes. They’re Muslims here. If you hadn’t noticed.” Vivek reached into his plastic bag and gripped the neck of a frosty champagne bottle. The cork popped softly, expertly.

Vivek poured golden, bubbling champagne into the clear plastic cups and they toasted. The burly man taking orders glanced at them angrily but allowed them to drink.

“So,” said Vivek. “The girls tell me you’re seeing the Lot ghost.”

Andrew turned to Persephone. Her cat’s-eyes glistened, amused and proud that she had kept her surprise a secret until now. But Andrew grew grim at the reminder of what was waiting for him back at school.

“You went to Harrow?” Andrew asked.

Vivek nodded. “I was in the Lot. I saw it, too.”

“Are you serious?” Andrew sat up straight.

“In my second year my parents divorced,” Vivek explained. “My brother and I were not getting along—he was in Fifth Form. I was picked on very badly. I was miserable and lonely and all those horrible things that get worse because they are happening to you at school, and you have nobody.” He said all this with a kind of matter-of-fact ease. Andrew noticed that Vivek wore a pocket square, and that the weave of his jacket was silky and many-threaded, and he wondered what breed of international gentleman this could be, whose life was so multifarious and rich that minor family tragedies were reduced to mere anecdotes, lyrically told, while pouring champagne in a North African chicken bar. “My escape was the bath. Aha! I see from your face I’m on the right track.”

Agatha and Persephone looked back and forth between the two young men, delighted by this mystery. Vivek refilled their glasses and continued.

“I was even skinnier than I am now, but I had to play on the house rugger team. One time I left the game early after being completely crushed, and I went back very angry. You know, to hell with these English people and their game. So I was going to transgress. I was going to take a hot bath in the
prefect’s
bath.” He smiled and raised his eyebrows to emphasize what a taboo this was. “So I filled the tub. Steam was rising. I couldn’t wait to steep my aching limbs. But when I took off my towel, I saw a face in the water.”

The girls made a show of shivering and oohing.

“I sprang back like I had an electric shock!” said Vivek with a laugh. “It was just
there
. Not like it was actually in the water, but like the surface of the bath was a window, and he was looking through it right at me. I ran to my room, completely naked. I was terrified.”

“What did the face look like?” Andrew asked.

Vivek started to answer. “No, you should tell me,” he said, instead. “And you know what, before you answer,” said Vivek, “give me a piece of paper.” Persephone handed him their bill, a long strip of cash-register receipt, and a pen. Vivek began doodling, hiding his work with his hand. Then he theatrically folded the bill and placed it in his pocket. “I just drew a picture of what
I
saw. Now: tell me what
you
saw.”

“He has white hair,” Andrew began, finding his voice suddenly small. “Sunken cheeks. And blue eyes. He has a speckling across his face. Like a rash.”

Vivek frowned.

“That’s creepy, man.” He nodded gravely. “Same guy. I don’t remember the rash or the cheeks. But the white hair—definitely.” He took the bill and placed it on the counter.

They crowded around to gaze at the figure he had drawn. It was a long face with a mop of blank white for hair, and Vivek had carved in the eyes deeply with repeated pen strokes, as if the memory of those in particular had not left him.

Andrew swallowed. He heard the girls commenting, but his eyes were glued to the scribbled figure.

“You all right, man?” Vivek said to him quietly.

“Yeah,” he managed.

Vivek patted him on the shoulder with a grimace of commiseration.

Before long their group bundled out into the street. Agatha and Vivek had a party to go to.

“Don’t worry,” called Vivek over his shoulder as Agatha pulled him down the block toward a taxi. “The ghost never harmed anyone. That I know of !” He grinned and waved.

PERSEPHONE LED HIM
upstairs. The house was warm, stale, sterile; her bedroom was anonymous, serving now as a guest room. They stood before the dressing mirror. They saw their reflections together, symmetrical images of the two sexes, long white necks, dark curls.

Andrew placed his fingers on her neck. Persephone sighed. She still wore her wrap dress. Andrew peeled it off. Her skin was moist, sticky, vulnerable. They fell to the bed. She eased backward and guided him into her. The only sound in the silent, sealed house was their shallow panting. Only later, half asleep, did he remember, and sit up and whisper,
Did you . . . ?
Even though he knew, or at least suspected, the answer. Persephone found his hand in the dark and held it to her chest in a tight, possessive grip.

15

Sputum

ANDREW CLIMBED THE
Hill, proud as a conqueror, deliciously guilty and greasy in his jeans. Yet every step recalled the clamp of school rules. He passed students in Sunday dress—the tailcoat, the striped trousers. Chapel and lunch had evidently just concluded. He sped his step. Crossing the street, he was nearly run over by a screaming ambulance gunning up the Hill. He leapt to the far curb and bumped into Rupert Askew, the praying-mantis-like reader from Essay Club.

“You’re a sight, Taylor. Just returning now? You’ll be crucified, walking back like that.”

Andrew crested the Hill, trying to look inconspicuous. It took him several moments to realize that the ambulance that just passed him was now backing into the Lot.

He began to run.

When he rounded the gate the ambulance had pulled to a stop by the front entrance. One EMT was rushing inside. A second followed, carrying equipment.

Andrew finally reached the foyer. No lights on because of the sunny day; a strange sense of calm. Then: raised voices, up the stairwell. He followed them. They became clearer with each step.

Can you hear me, Roddy? Have you been ill?

Roddy, listen to me, have you been taking any medications?

Check his dresser there, bedside—see any pills?

Roddy, can you hear me? Do you know where you are?

Andrew reached the top landing and saw Rhys standing outside Roddy’s door. The head of house was biting his lip anxiously and staring inside the room. He stood in his white shirtsleeves and his black silk vest. Roddy’s door was being held open by an EMT in coveralls and some object that looked like a combination surfboard-papoose.

All right, we’re going to have to move him. You have the bag? Here we go. Give me a hand.
The EMT called for Rhys.

Rhys moved into the room. Andrew rushed to the doorway. Two EMTs were digging their forearms under Roddy—also in white shirtsleeves and striped trousers; postchapel casual—to prop him onto the papoose. Roddy’s face was half covered by a black latex mask and an EMT’s hand gripping it. The mask was attached to what looked like a black boxer’s punching bag, inflating and deflating. Rhys grabbed one end of the stretcher.

Clear the way, clear the way,
the EMT barked at Andrew.

Andrew backed up against the corridor wall. Rhys and the EMT grunted as they carried Roddy, strapped to the stretcher. The second worker came alongside, holding the mask to Roddy’s face. Andrew caught a glimpse of Roddy as they passed. His skin was waxy. When he saw Andrew, his eyes, at first drooping, opened wide. He tried to speak. He reached a hand out to Andrew.
Steady there
, cautioned the EMT, who hustled him past.

“Wait!” Andrew called. He clambered down after them as they bumped down the stairwell, into the foyer, into the sunlight.

FAWKES—IN A
blazer and tie—nearly rammed into the group of them, Andrew right behind. Fawkes had seen the ambulance and was charging into the Lot.

“Who is that? Good God, what happened. Rhys?”

Sweat trickled down Rhys’s cheek. He gave a shove to help launch the stretcher into the ambulance, then wiped his forehead and turned to Fawkes.

“I was in my room,” he puffed. “I heard a thump. A big one. I went into Roddy’s room. He was gasping. I got him upright. He hadn’t swallowed anything—nothing blocking his throat. I was going to go for Matron. But it got worse. His coughing.” Rhys’s face twisted. “It was almost a . . . a barking noise.”

“
Barking?
” asked Fawkes.

“And there was something else.”

The expression on reliable, plain-spoken Rhys Davies’s face revealed that the
something else
had made him very uncomfortable.

“There was something . . .
going on
in there. It wasn’t good.”

“What was it?” Fawkes demanded. He and Andrew exchanged glances.

“Any of you coming?” shouted the driver, swinging his one door shut.

“I’ll go.” Fawkes clambered into the back of the ambulance. “Rhys, get Mr. Macrae. Tell him I’ll phone him.”

The second worker closed the back doors and the ambulance lights swirled again. The vehicle beeped as it reversed. Boys, still returning from lunch, now scattered before it. A small group also gathered around Rhys as he explained again what had happened: Roddy had fallen ill; they had to call an ambulance. The boys’ faces fell.

“Is it the same thing that got Theo?”

“Is this an epidemic, Rhys?”

“Should we evacuate?”

The younger ones chattered anxiously, almost panicked. Rhys told them to
calm down, there was nothing to worry about, Roddy would be fine
—then he escaped by charging off toward the small side building where the assistant housemaster lived. Andrew followed.

“What the
hell
,” exclaimed Andrew when they were out of earshot; he didn’t want to show fear in front of the young ones. “What exactly did you see?”

“I walked in there and felt like I was on drugs,” Rhys said, keeping up a trot. “It felt terrible. Like a cloud. A fog.” He scowled. “Then a minute later it was back to normal. Except for Roddy wriggling on the floor. I don’t know . . . maybe I lost it for a minute there.” They reached Macrae’s door. “You’d better go back,” he said to Andrew.

“Why?”

“You’ll only make it worse, dressed like a pimp.”

Rhys turned his back on Andrew and thumped Macrae’s door.

Andrew hastily returned to his room to change into school garb. Now there were only two rooms occupied on his narrow corridor. His, and Rhys’s. Roddy’s and Theo’s lay empty.

THE STUDENTS MILLED
about, waiting for news. The common rooms sat empty. No one could watch television; no one could study. The snooker room, by contrast, was packed. St. John and Vaz held the cues. The smaller boys hung around the periphery. The basket of biscuits had been devoured.

“What did you do to this one, Andrew?” Vaz challenged him as he entered and took a seat.

St. John sneered from the shadows. “Thought you’d keep Roddy alive. He’s the only one who’ll talk to you.”

“Fuck you,” Andrew growled.

“Are those the only words in your vocabulary?”

“I also say, ‘Suck my dick.’ ”

“This is an uplifting conversation,” pronounced Vaz, sinking the yellow ball with a
thunk
.

A rustling noise came down the darkened corridor. A hush fell over the group. The silhouette of the headmaster soon filled the doorway. It took them a moment to recognize him, it was so out of context to see him, here in the snooker room.

“Boys,” said Colin Jute.

Headmaster
, they all murmured, subdued. Not so much because it was him, but because his presence, so unexpected, portended terrible news.
Roddy is dead
, they all thought silently to themselves.

“Mr. Taylor,” he said. “I need to see you a moment.”

Andrew rose.

“Davies here? Rhys Davies?” said the headmaster.

“No, he’s with Mr. Macrae,” said Andrew. The headmaster eyed him. “Sir,” Andrew added.

“Right. Someone find Davies for me. You.” The headmaster designated a Remove by the door. “Tell him to meet us by the gate.” The Remove dashed off. The headmaster crooked his finger. Andrew followed, wondering along with everyone else in the room—especially St. John, whose eyes were dancing delightedly—whether the headmaster had heard Andrew say
Suck my dick
.

THEY WAITED UNDER
the plane tree. The headmaster said nothing. Whatever this visit portended, its matter was worse than a reprimand for bad language.

At last Rhys strode across the drive, all purpose and energy, a head of house ready to take action in his full Sunday regalia of tailcoat and waistcoat and striped trousers. Jute didn’t offer a greeting. Merely turned and waved them up the High Street. He walked deliberately. In his casual clothes (grey slacks, green jumper) he had the air of someone whose Sunday with the newspaper had been interrupted by bad news. Andrew skulked along like a prisoner. He could only assume that Roddy was critically ill, or that he was being expelled for going AWOL, and that Rhys was in trouble, too, for covering for him.

In Jute’s office a woman waited for them. Tiny-framed, fiftyish, she was Indian with an enormous mantle of black hair, and dressed in a stylish cotton dress.

“Boys, this is Miss Palek.”

They introduced themselves.

“I am from the Health Protection Agency,” she said. She had a soothing alto and massive soft brown eyes.

“Is this about Roddy?” Andrew asked in disbelief.

She pursed her lips. “There has been an incident of infectious disease, and we think you were exposed.”

Andrew’s stomach dropped.

I’m a nurse
, she explained. She worked for one of the Health Protection Units for the London area, Northwest, which covered Harrow and Harrow-on-the-Hill. One of their responsibilities, which they took very seriously, was response to epidemiological emergencies such as possible outbreaks.

Andrew’s heart jolted again.

A few weeks ago, one of their classmates, a young man, died of a pulmonary infection here at the school.

Rhys and Andrew nodded. “Theo Ryder.”

“But he died of sarcoidosis,” added Andrew.

Miss Palek nodded sagely. Yes, because the death was sudden and the cause of death unknown, the medical authorities at Clementine Churchill Hospital—which they were very lucky is top-notch—performed an inquest, and in doing so revealed a pattern of tissue damage. This was at first diagnosed as sarcoid, but for completeness, a culture for mycobacterium tuberculosis was also performed. Those tests returned positive. Yesterday.

Rhys, whose studies allowed him to follow this jargon faster than Andrew, broke in, indignant. “Wait . . . you’re saying Theo died of tuberculosis?
Here?
”

“It would have been probable that the student, since he was from Africa, brought the infection with him,” Miss Palek said.

“Very few cases from England,” sniffed Jute.

“Most of our patients are AIDS patients or from sub-Saharan Africa,” confirmed Miss Palek, but her eyes flashed; the snobbery in the headmaster’s remark was not lost on her. She continued.

The hospital notified the HPA when the results returned positive, and the first action they took was to put a watch on the databases for the medical facilities surrounding the school. So when their classmate, just a few hours ago, was
also
brought to Clementine Churchill, with symptoms consistent with TB, he was immediately moved to another, even better-equipped hospital in London; and Miss Palek’s team was notified. It was their duty to review the circumstances around the incident—or index event—to determine the extent of the outbreak.

“So . . . ,” stammered Andrew, catching up. “Theo had TB.”

“That’s correct.”

“And Roddy has TB.”

Miss Palek hesitated. Obviously she was not supposed to confirm the name of any kid who had gotten sick. “Anyone with symptoms consistent with active tuberculosis will be isolated in a special ward. We need to take precautions with those who have been living in close proximity to the victims, to find out whether they have been infected.”

“You mean us,” said Rhys.

“Isolated?” barked Andrew. “You mean
quarantined
?”

“Please do not be alarmed. As I said, only those with active TB—fevers, coughing, lung tissue damage—need to be isolated. It is all for your protection. The gentleman accompanying the victim to Clementine Churchill—”

“Fawkes,” interjected Jute with distaste.

“A very quick thinker. He immediately understood the risks, and he provided your names.”

“Never mind the risk of a panic at the school,” mumbled Jute resentfully.

“Panic is not good for anyone,” she intoned, sympathetically. “Right now I would advise only telling the parents of those affected. What we call the inner circle.”

“That means you boys will keep absolute mum, or we’ll have a real crisis,” Jute said.

“Mum about what?” Andrew asked, his voice rising with his confusion.

Miss Palek smiled tightly. “We recommend you submit to a test.”

And there it was.

“A test,” Andrew repeated.

“When,” said Rhys. “Now? Here?”

In answer to his question, she produced two clipboards from a bag at her side and told them, no, it was suggested they accompany her to London, not far, the Royal Tredway Hospital . . .
one of the best in Europe for this sort of thing
, interjected Jute,
certainly the best in London
. . . They would need to review and sign these forms . . . this was for their own benefit. . . . The remainder of her words vanished into a haze. They were actors in a play that had been carefully staged by Miss Palek and (grudgingly) Jute. Andrew and Rhys signed the papers. They found themselves being ushered to the street, where a car waited for them. The driver, seeing them, placed a white surgical mask over his face. He started the engine. Miss Palek sat in front. She too placed a mask over her face. She handed the boys their own surgical masks. They were made of spongy, fibrous cotton, folded over in a rippling pattern. Miss Palek looked at them expectantly. Rhys and Andrew pulled the masks over their faces, stretching the pink bands behind their heads. The masks smelled of rubber. Andrew’s made him painfully conscious of his breathing. He involuntarily started counting his breaths as they descended the Hill, passing the Old Schools . . .
one, two
. . . passing the drive to Headland House . . .
six, seven
. . . then down to the roundabout, where, for the first time in weeks, sun shone on the yellow warning street sign.

Andrew pulled out his cell phone. He had Fawkes’s mobile number programmed in it. He lifted his mask to speak and turned to the window so he would not be overheard.
They’re taking us to some hospital because they think we all have TB. TB as in tuberculosis. Can you come find us?
Rhys glared at Andrew, nodding his head at Miss Palek in the front in warning.
You’re the only person who understands what’s really going on. Rhys said he felt something when it happened. Harness!
he hissed.
If you don’t come get us, I’m not sure what’s going to happen. If we don’t make it out alive
, he added,
write me a good epitaph
.