Fireside Gothic - Andrew Taylor

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was the sort of school where you had to be good at sport, or work or music if you were to have a tolerable life. Faraday was good at everything, but especially good at singing.

      I suppose I should also mention that I did not much like Faraday.

      My parents were in India. They went there the week before my seventh birthday, leaving me in England. The climate was healthier for children, they said, and besides the schools were so much better. It was what many parents did in their situation: it was considered quite normal and in the best interests of the child. Perhaps it was. But I wished they had taken me with them. I still wish it.

      During school holidays, I stayed with my aunt, the widowed sister of my father. My aunt was a kind woman. But she didn’t know what to do with me and I didn’t know what to do with her. She and my parents decided to send me to the King’s School because it was only thirty miles from her house and it had the reputation of being a sound Christian establishment.

      The school was a spartan place whose routine revolved around the Cathedral, even for those who were not in the choir. There was a good deal of bullying. Education of a sort was hammered into us. I made the best of it. What else was there to do?

      I received regular letters from Quetta or Srinagar or New Delhi, written in my mother’s careful, upright hand. Every year or so, my parents would come home on leave. I looked forward to these visits with anxiety and delight, as I dare say they did. Seeing my parents was always painful because they were not as they had been, and nor was I: we had become strangers to one another. We tried to make the most of it, but then they would be off again and whatever fragile intimacy we had achieved would trickle away, leaving behind more misleading memories. Still, I longed to see them. Hope always triumphed over experience.

      The last time they came home, I was twelve. My father tried without success to teach me to fish; he wanted me to share his passion. My mother took me shopping with her and showed me off to her friends, who remained unimpressed. We went up to London for matinées at the theatre.

      On one of these outings we had tea at the Charing Cross Hotel. I don’t remember much about it except for one thing my mother said.

      ‘You used to be such a chatterbox when you were little.’ She smiled at me. ‘Where did all the words go?’

      My parents were coming home again. They would be here by mid-December in plenty of time for Christmas. My mother wrote that my father was planning to buy a motor car. If he did, they would drive over at the end of term and collect me.

      The thought of my parents turning up at school in a motor car added a new element to my anticipation. At that time cars were uncommon, especially in the Fens. I imagined my parents driving up in an enormous, gleaming equipage worthy of Mr Toad in The Wind in the Willows and sweeping me away before the whole school. Like a fool, I boasted to my friends of this triumph to come, which was tempting fate.

      I did not have long to enjoy it. In my mother’s next letter she wrote that they had been obliged to change their plans. They would not be able to come home this year after all.

      ‘It’s nothing to worry about, darling,’ she wrote, ‘but I’ve been a little under the weather lately, and the doctor says it would be better to leave it until next year. Daddy and I are so disappointed, though we know you will have a wonderful time at Christmas with Auntie Mary. And next year, we shall try to come home for longer.’

      I know the reason now. My mother had just discovered she was pregnant. Of course, neither she nor my father ever talked about it to me, but it was easy enough to work out when my sister was born the following May.

      Fifteen years is a long gap to leave between children. Perhaps my parents found it hard to conceive another child. Perhaps my sister was an accident. Not that it matters now. But it is strange to think that, if my sister had never existed, none of this would have happened and I would have been quite a different person now. And as for Faraday …

      ‘Try not to mind too much, darling,’ my mother’s letter ended. ‘With fondest love.’

      Nevertheless, I looked forward to Christmas. If nothing else it meant getting away from school and going to a warm house where there were four meals a day and I was never left hungry for long. My aunt knew little about boys but she knew a great deal about creature comforts. The vicar’s son would be home from school, which meant that for at least part of the time I would have someone to go about with. And there would be presents – and perhaps more generous ones this year because my parents would feel I deserved consolation.

      Two days before the end of term, Mr Treadwell, my housemaster, sent a boy to fetch me. He was a small, harassed man, a bachelor, who didn’t care for boys or anything else except geology, which was his passion.

      ‘There’s been a difficulty,’ he said, staring at the fire; he never looked at you if he could help it. ‘I’m sorry to say that your aunt is unwell.’

      He paused. I did not dare interrupt him with a question. My housemaster believed boys should hold their tongues unless asked to speak. He had a vicious temper, too – we never knew how far he would go when roused.

      ‘She’s in hospital, in fact. Pneumonia, I’m afraid.’ He was still staring at the fire, but I saw the tip of his tongue emerge, lizard-like, from between his lips. ‘We must remember her in our prayers. Must we not?’

      I recognized my cue. ‘Yes, sir.’

      ‘We must hope for a full recovery,’ he went on. ‘Not a good time of year to be ill. But still.’

      ‘What about Christmas, sir?’ I blurted out.

      My housemaster turned his head and glared at me. But he must have remembered the circumstances, for when he spoke his voice was almost gentle.

      ‘You will have to stay at school,’ he said. ‘I have arranged for you to lodge with Mr Ratcliffe. It will be best for all concerned.’

       2

      Christmas that year fell on a Wednesday. ‘Wednesday’s Child is full of woe,’ shrieked one small boy over and over again as he ran round the playground, until one of the bullies of the Fifth Form pushed him over and made him cry instead.

      The school broke up two days earlier, on Monday. It was strange to watch the familiar routines unfolding and not be part of them: the station fly taking boys to the railway station by relays; the steady stream of parents, always a matter of enormous sociological interest; the boys queueing to shake hands with Mr Treadwell.

      At that stage I was not the only one to stay – two other boys at Treadwell’s did not leave with the rest on Monday. For an hour or two, we revelled in undisputed possession of the few amenities the house afforded – the billiards table with torn baize, for example, and the two armchairs that leaked horsehair by the common room fire. There was a sense of holiday so we talked loudly and laughed a great deal to show what fun we were having.

      On Christmas Eve, however, these boys left as well, collected one by one by their parents. Mr Treadwell’s suitcases stood in the hall. He shook hands with Matron, who was going to her married sister in Huntingdon, and tipped the maids.

      Finally, only Mr Treadwell and I were left. He looked at his watch. ‘The taxi will be here soon. I’ll take you over to Mr Ratcliffe’s now.’

      My trunk, packed and corded, was staying at Treadwell’s with my tuckbox. But I had been given a small suitcase, in which Matron had put those things she thought I would need, and I had a satchel containing a few personal possessions. I followed Treadwell into the College, which was the name given to the Cathedral close.

      The College was, and for all I know still is, a world apart with its own laws and customs. Every evening at 7 p.m., the great gates were closed, and the place turned in on itself for the night. Its boundaries were those of the mediaeval monastery, as were many of its buildings where the Cathedral dignitaries lived and where the houses and classrooms of the school

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