‘No,’ said Christopher. ‘Course not. He’d have given in. They always do in the end.’
The dormitory was known as ‘The Pit’. Five steps down and you were in a huge vaulted room with bare floorboards and high mullioned windows like a church. There were twelve beds on each side, and a wooden locker in between each. No one wanted to be in The Pit. It was the closest to Rudolph’s flat and therefore the most dangerous. Any noise after lights-out and he could pounce without warning. It was freezing cold too and the beds were the old type – metal frames with springs that sagged in the middle. It was like sleeping in a squeaking, spiky hammock. But Toby was happier than he’d ever been on the first night of any term. His mind flitted from Wanda to Christopher and back to Wanda again. All thoughts of home and Mum and Dad and Gran and little Charley were forgotten. Matron had put the lights out some time ago but no one was asleep. No one would be asleep for hours, not on the first night. Suppressed giggling and whispering filled the darkness. The tower bell sounded in the quad outside, eleven o’clock. Toby looked across at Christopher. He lay still under his blankets, hands under his head. ‘You awake?’ Toby whispered.
‘Yes,’ said Christopher.
‘What school were you at before?’
‘A day-school down the end of our road, St Peter’s.’ He was talking louder than he should.
‘You haven’t been to a boarding school then, like this?’
‘No, and I won’t be staying for long either.’
The door opened suddenly. ‘Talking! Who was talking?’ Rudolph stood silhouetted in the doorway. The lights went on. ‘Who was talking then? Come on. I heard you.’ Everyone lay doggo and looked at everyone else.
‘I was,’ said Christopher propping himself up on his elbows. Rudolph hesitated for a moment, clearly surprised.
‘You again. We really haven’t made a very good start have we? Out of bed. Over here.’ Christopher stepped into his slippers and put on his dressing-gown. He took his time. As he walked over to Rudolph everyone in the dormitory knew what would happen, everyone except Christopher, it seemed, for he showed no sign of fear, even in his voice.
‘Yes, sir?’ he said, looking Rudolph straight in the eye.
‘Take off your slipper,’ said Rudolph stonily.
‘Which one, sir?’ Christopher asked.
‘Either.’
Christopher bent down and took off his right slipper. Rudolph almost snatched it out of his hand. ‘There is no talking after lights-out. It is a rule. Do you understand about rules? I don’t suppose they had rules in your Council school?’
‘Yes, sir, they did.’
‘There’s things you are going to have to learn, Christopher, like not answering back for instance. Hold out your hand.’ Rudolph gripped the heel of the slipper and struck three times. Christopher stood silent, his hand still held out in front of him. ‘You want more?’ said Rudolph, breathing hard.
‘No, sir.’
‘Get back to bed.’
Christopher walked slowly back towards his bed undoing his dressing-gown cord. He lay down in bed, pulled the sheets up under his chin, and stared up at the ceiling. The lights went out and no one said a word until they could no longer hear Rudolph’s footsteps, until the door of his flat shut behind him.
‘You all right?’ said Toby. But there was no reply.
When Toby woke next morning the bed next to him was empty. There was an excited huddle around Simpson’s bed at the other end of the dormitory. Toby went over. Simpson was sitting cross-legged on his pillow and holding court.
‘What’s happened?’ said Toby.
‘Your friend,’ said Simpson. ‘He’s run off.’
‘You don’t know,’ Toby said.
‘Oh, don’t I? I only saw him go, that’s all,’ Simpson retorted. ‘I was coming out of the bog early this morning, and there he was fully dressed. He walks right past me with his suitcase. Never says a word. Never even looks at me. Just walks down the stairs and out of the front door. I saw him from the bathroom window. He stops at the school gates, puts his suitcase down, takes off his shoes, shakes them, puts them on again and that was it. I’m telling you, he’s gone, he’s done a bunk.’
CHAPTER 2
MAJOR BAGLEY TAUGHT LATIN. HE WAS HARMLESS enough, unless you caught him in a bad moment and then he could be quite unpredictable. The trouble was that he drank too much. Everyone knew it, and indeed he made little attempt to hide it. Latin lessons that ended at break always finished with the same flourish. He would close his battered Latin grammar book –Kennedy’s Latin Primer – take his watch out of his waistcoat pocket, flick it open with his finger-nail and announce: ‘Time for my tipple and time for your milk.’
Milk, like everything at Redlands, was administered with military efficiency. Miss Whitland, the thin-lipped Assistant Matron, stood stiff and unsmiling, arms crossed above her blue canvas belt. Her job was to make sure that every boy drank his bottle of milk. You filed by under the archway, picked up your bottle, a straw through the silver top, and drank it leaning up against the archway wall. It was always cold, even in summer, and Toby drank it fast to get it over with. He didn’t like cold milk because, like ice cream, it gave him a headache. Miss Whitland knew Toby of old and kept her eye on him making sure the bottle was empty before he returned it to the crate and threw his straw in the bin. Only after you had drunk your milk were you free for break. There often wasn’t time in morning-break to go down to the park, and anyway that first morning of term no one would have wanted to. There was too much to talk about. Christopher’s escape. Christopher and the slippering of the night before. Christopher and the rice-pudding incident. Rudolph glowering in morning assembly. The boys gathered in little groups in the quad and talked of little else.
Toby found himself subjected to a barrage of questions. Surrounded by a crowd of straw-sucking boys he told them all he knew about Christopher, and that wasn’t much. It seemed that Simpson had put it about that he was bosom friends with Christopher. It wasn’t true of course, he’d only spoken to him a few times. He told them that, but they didn’t want to believe him. ‘Did you see him go?’ ‘Did you try to stop him?’ ‘What was he like?’ Unused to all this attention and uncomfortable with it, Toby made himself scarce at the first opportunity.
He was walking past the kitchen door, past the line of dustbins, when Wanda came out shrugging her coat over her apron. ‘Here,’ she called, and she beckoned him over. Toby hesitated, looking around him to be sure it was him she was calling. It had to be him, there was no one else about. She was taller than he thought and even more beautiful. Her hair was a sunburst of curls around her face. Toby found it difficult not to stare at her. He had to force himself to look down at her hands. She bit her nails, but then so did Toby. It only made him like her more. ‘Here, aren’t you the one in the kitchen yesterday?’ Toby nodded. ‘You heard about that boy have you? You ask me,’ she went on, ‘you ask me, I’d run away and all, like he did. What are you all doing here anyway? Don’t your mum want you home? Don’t she love you?’
‘Course she does.’
‘Then what are you doing here?’
It was the talk of home and his mother that choked Toby’s voice. He turned away to hide it, but it was too late. She came after him. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean nothing. Here.’ She took him by the shoulder and turned him round to face her. She was holding out a bar of chocolate. ‘Go on,’ she said, and then conspiratorially: ‘I filched it. Cooking chocolate from the kitchen. Good though.’
‘Thanks,’