Winter in Madrid (17 page)

Harry studied the stone, cleaning mud from the whorls of the shell with his fingers. ‘It’s amazing.’ He thought it was beautiful, but you didn’t use words like that at Rookwood.

‘Come out with me some time if you like,’ Sandy said diffidently. ‘I’m building a collection. I’ve got a rock with a fly in it, three hundred million years old. Insects and spiders are as old as the dinosaurs, much older than us.’ He paused, reddening slightly at his display of enthusiasm.

‘Are they?’

‘Oh, yes.’ He looked out over the Downs. ‘They’ll be here when we’ve gone.’

‘Taylor’s frightened of spiders.’

Sandy laughed. ‘What?’

‘I found out once.’ Harry reddened, he wished he hadn’t said that.

‘Stupid old bugger. I’m going to go in for hunting fossils when I leave this dump, go on expeditions to places like Mongolia.’ He grinned. ‘I want to have adventures, far away from here.’

A
ND SO THEY
became friends of a sort. They went on long walks hunting fossils and Harry learned about the life that had heaved and rolled in the ancient seas that had flowed where they stood. Sandy knew a lot. Once he found the tooth of a dinosaur, an iguanodon, buried in the side of a quarry. ‘They’re rare,’ he said gleefully. ‘And they’re worth money. I’ll take it up to the Natural History Museum in the hols.’

Money was important to Sandy. His father made him a generous allowance, but he wanted more. ‘It means you can do what you want in life,’ he said. ‘When I’m older I’m going to make a packet.’

‘Hunting dinosaur bones?’ Harry asked. They were exploring one of the old iron workings dotted around the woods. Sandy studied the horizon, the bare brown trees. It was an early winter’s day, still and cold.

‘I’ll make my fortune first.’

‘I suppose I don’t think much about money.’

‘Piper would say that’s because you’ve got plenty. We all have here. But it’s our families’ money. I want to make my own.’

‘My money was left me by my father. I wish I’d known him, he was killed in the war.’

Sandy’s eyes went back to the horizon. ‘My dad was a padre on the Western Front. Telling all those soldiers God was with them before they went over the top. My brother Peter is following in his footsteps, he’s at theological college now and then he’s going to join the army. He was Head Boy at Braildon, Head of Games, Greek Prize, all that.’ Sandy’s face darkened. ‘But he’s stupid, as stupid with his religion as Piper is with his socialism. It’s all nonsense.’ He turned and looked at Harry and there was something strange, fierce, in his eyes. ‘My mother left when I was ten, you know. They don’t talk about it but I think it was because she couldn’t stand all the rubbish. She used to say she wanted some fun in life. I remember feeling sorry for her, I knew she didn’t have any.’

Harry felt uncomfortable. ‘Where is she now?’ he asked.

He shrugged. ‘They don’t know. Or won’t say.’ He grinned broadly, showing square white teeth. ‘You need some fun in life, she was right. Why don’t you come out with me and my crowd? There’s some girls we meet in the town.’ He raised his eyebrows.

Harry hesitated. ‘What do you do?’ he asked diffidently. ‘When you’re with them?’

‘Everything.’

‘Everything? Really?’

Sandy laughed. He jumped off the rock he’d been sitting on and slapped Harry on the arm. ‘No, not really. But we will, one day. I want to be the first.’

Harry kicked a stone. ‘I don’t want to get into trouble, it’s not worth it.’

‘Come on.’ Harry felt the force of Sandy’s personality bearing down on him. ‘I plan it all, make sure we always leave when there’s no one around, never go anywhere the masters might come – or if they did, would be more worried than us about being seen.’ He laughed.

‘Some dive? I’m not sure I fancy that.’

‘We won’t get caught. I got caught breaking the rules at Braildon,
I’m more careful now. It’s fun, knowing they’re out to get you and you’ve got them fooled.’

‘What did you get sacked for? At Braildon?’

‘I was in the town and this master caught me coming out of a pub. He reported me and I got all the usual stuff, why couldn’t I be like my brother, how much better than me he was.’ The hard angry look came into Sandy’s eyes again. ‘I got him back, though.’

‘What did you do?’

Sandy sat down again and folded his arms. ‘This master, Dacre, he was young. He had this little red car. He thought he was the bee’s knees, driving about in it. I know how to drive; I sneaked out one night and took it out of the masters’ garage. There’s a steep hill near the school. I drove the car right to the edge, jumped out, and over it went.’ Sandy smiled, his happy smile, all white teeth. ‘It was amazing watching it go down the hill, smashing up bushes. It hit a tree and the front caved in like cardboard.’

‘God! That was dangerous.’

‘Not really. Not if you know how. But when I jumped out of the car I cut my face on a branch. They saw that and put two and two together. But it was worth it, and it got me out of Braildon. I didn’t think anywhere else would take me, but my father pulled strings and got me in here. Worse luck.’

Harry dug at the ground with his foot. ‘I think that’s going a bit far. Destroying someone’s car.’

Sandy gave him an even stare. ‘Do unto others as they would do to you.’

‘That’s not what the Bible says.’

‘It’s what I say.’ He shrugged. ‘Come on, we’d better get back, we don’t want to miss roll-call or we’ll be in trouble, won’t we? With our kind teachers.’

They said little as they walked back. The winter sun set slowly, turning the puddles in the brown muddy paths pink. When they reached the road the high walls of the school came into view. Sandy turned to Harry. ‘D’you know where the money came from that started the school, and that funded the scholarships for people like Piper?’

‘Some merchants a couple of hundred years ago, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes. But d’you know what their main trade was?’

‘Silks and peppers and stuff?’

‘Slavery. They were slavers, capturing niggers in Africa and shipping them to America. I found a book in the library.’ He turned to Harry. ‘It’s amazing what you can find out if you look. Things people want to keep hidden that might come in useful.’ And he smiled again, a secret smile.

T
HE TROUBLE BEGAN
a few weeks later, in class with Taylor. The form had had a Latin translation to prepare and Sandy had skimped it. He was called on to read and produced a succession of nonsensical howlers that made the class laugh. Some boys would have been humiliated, but Sandy sat with a smirk on his face, laughing along with the class. Taylor was furious. He stood above Sandy, his face red.

‘You didn’t even try to do that translation, Forsyth. You’ve as good a brain as anyone here, but you just don’t bother.’

‘Oh no, sir,’ Sandy said seriously. ‘I found it difficult, sir.’

Taylor got even redder. ‘You think you can get away with that dumb insolence, don’t you? There’s a lot you think you can get away with, but we’re watching you.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ Sandy replied coolly. The class laughed again, but Harry could see Forsyth had gone too far. You didn’t provoke Taylor.

The master crossed to his desk and picked up his cane. ‘That’s sheer insolence, Forsyth. Come out here!’

Sandy set his lips. You could see he hadn’t expected that. Canings in front of the class were rare. ‘I don’t think that’s fair, sir,’ he said.

‘I’ll give you fair,’ Taylor marched up to Sandy and hauled him out of his place by the collar. Sandy wasn’t tall but he was stocky and Harry wondered for a moment if he might resist, but he allowed himself to be led to the front of the room. His eyes were blazing, though, with a fierce anger Harry had never seen before, as he bent over the master’s desk and Taylor brought the cane down, again and again, lips tight with anger.

After class, Harry went up to the studies. Sandy was leaning on the table. He was pale and breathing heavily.

‘You all right?’ he asked.

‘I will be.’ There was a moment’s silence. He squirmed and winced. ‘You see, Harry? You see how they control us?’

‘You shouldn’t have provoked him.’

‘I’ll get my own back,’ Sandy muttered.

‘Don’t be stupid. How can you get back at him?’

‘I’ll find a way.’

T
HE SCHOOL
ate their meals at long tables in the dining room, the form master sitting at the end. One evening, a week later, Harry saw that Sandy and Taylor were both missing. Sandy wasn’t seen again that night and another master took the class next morning. He announced that Alexander Forsyth would not be returning; he had been expelled for an assault on Mr Taylor, who would be having a period of sick leave. The boys plied him with questions but the master said it was too unpleasant to talk about, a spasm of disgust crossing his face. It was that morning, through the classroom window, that Harry saw Bishop Forsyth walking in the quadrangle. His face was stern and drawn. Bernie, next to him, whispered, ‘I wonder what Forsyth did. Good riddance to bad rubbish, anyway. I wonder if they’ll let me back in the study.’

At lunchtime the boys were full of excitement, wondering what had happened. Harry skipped the meal and went up to the dormitory. Sandy was there, packing his fossil collection carefully into a suitcase. He gave Harry a cynical half-smile.

‘Hello, Brett. Heard what happened?’

‘I heard you were going. What did you do? They won’t say.’

Sandy sat on the bed, still smiling. ‘Best revenge I’ve ever had. It was you put the idea into my mind, actually. Spiders.’

‘What?’

‘Remember that day we were out fossil hunting and I told you insects and spiders were as old as the dinosaurs.’

Harry felt his heart sink. He remembered Taylor asking him to spy on Sandy, though he had kept that to himself. Taylor had been distant with him ever since.

Sandy smiled. ‘Ever been up in the attics? They’re full of cobwebs.’ He smiled broadly. ‘And where there are cobwebs there are spiders. I collected a biscuit tin full, I went for the big ones. Then yesterday I
went to Taylor’s study when he was in the common room.’ He laughed. ‘I put them everywhere. In the drawers, in the cigarette box on his desk, even in his cheesy old slippers. Then I went into the study next door; you know it’s been empty since old Henderson retired at Christmas. I sat there to wait. I knew Taylor would be along at four to do his marking. I wanted to hear him scream.’

Harry clenched his hands. Sandy had used what he had told him, this was partly his fault. ‘Did he?’ he asked.

Sandy shrugged. ‘No. It went wrong. I heard him come up the corridor and shut the door but there was no sound, just silence. I thought, come on, you bastard, you must have found them by now. Then I heard his door open and footsteps like somebody drunk and then a thud. Then there was a funny whimpering noise, like a cat mewing. It got louder, it turned into a sort of screech and some of the other masters came out of their rooms. I heard Jevons say, “What’s the matter?” and then Taylor’s voice. “In my room,” he said, “it’s full of them.” Then Williams went into his room and called out that it was full of spiders.”

‘Hell, Sandy, what did you do it for?’

Sandy met his gaze evenly. “Revenge, of course. I said I’d get him. Anyway, then I hear Taylor’s voice, saying he was going to be sick. Williams said to get him into the empty room and next thing the door was open and they were all staring at me.’ He smiled. ‘It was almost worth it to see Taylor’s face. He’d been sick, his face was all white and there was vomit down his gown. Then Williams grabs me and says, “Got you, you little swine.” ’

Sandy shut his case and stood up. ‘The head said Taylor was in the war, it affected him, he saw some spiders on a body or something. How was I to know?’ He shrugged again. ‘Anyway, that’s that, I’m off home. Dad tried pleading with them but it didn’t work. It’s all right, Harry, there’s no need to look angry. I didn’t say you’d told me about the spiders. I refused to say how I knew.’

‘It’s not that. It was a rotten thing to do. And it was me that made it possible.’

‘I didn’t know he was going to go potty. Anyway, he’s ended up being sent off to some sanatorium and I’ve got the sack. That’s life. I knew something like this would happen sooner or later.’ He gave
Harry an odd look. Harry saw tears in his face for a moment. ‘It’s my fate, you see, my fate to be the bad lad. Couldn’t avoid it if I tried.’

H
ARRY SAT UP
with a jerk; he had fallen asleep sitting on the sofa. He had been dreaming, something about being trapped in his study; a storm had been raging outside and Sandy and Bernie and a load of other boys were banging at the window, crying out to him to let them in. He shivered; it was cold now, and almost dark. He got up and went to draw the curtains. The buildings, the streets, were so silent it unnerved him. He looked out at the empty square, the one-armed statue a dim shape in the weak white light of the streetlamp. There was nothing moving, not even a cat. Harry realized he hadn’t seen a cat since he came here, perhaps like the pigeons they had all been eaten. No sign of his watcher; maybe they let him go home in the evenings.

He wondered suddenly if they knew, at Rookwood, what had happened to Bernie. If they did, they probably weren’t surprised, or sorry. And Sandy’s fate, or whatever it was that drove him, had washed him up here. Where, tomorrow, he would be spying on him, after all. Harry remembered Jebb telling him it was Mr Taylor who had given them his name, and smiled grimly at the irony. The way the wheels came round, perhaps there was something in those notions of fate after all.

T
HE SAME AFTERNOON
Barbara went for a long walk. She felt restless and worried, as she had since her meeting with Luis. The weather was fine after the rain but still cool and for the first time since the spring she wore her coat.

She went to the Retiro park; it had been refurbished since the end of the Civil War, new trees planted to replace those cut down for fuel during the Siege. Once again it was a meeting place for the respectable women of Madrid.

Now it was getting colder only the hardier or lonelier women gathered on the benches to gossip. Barbara recognized the wife of one of Sandy’s friends and nodded to her, but walked on to the zoo at the rear of the park; she wanted to be on her own.