Here Be Monsters (28 page)

‘Oh, but you are, dear boy, you are!’ The old man searched for his glass on the flagstones, and then sipped from it. ‘Lucky in love—to have such a beautiful and understanding wife, and intelligent to boot … and a daughter who takes after her mother, not her father.’ He set down the glass carefully. ‘Lucky to be a round peg in a round hole—or whatever shape it is, it is your shape, at all events.’ He looked at Elizabeth. ‘Lucky in this instance too, to have so loyal and persuasive a colleague—undeservedly lucky there indeed, as in those other regards.’ He smiled at Elizabeth. ‘And he was lucky in war, also. For I vividly recall—all too vividly still!—having occasion to trace the route of his armoured regiment across the Norman
bocage
, shortly after its passage therein … Purely by chance, you understand, Elizabeth. For I had other fish to fry … But it was not difficult—it was well-marked with burnt-out tanks and the fresh graves of their occupants. So many, in fact, that I gave up stopping to check identities after a while, where there were identities, as the odds on finding his name shortened. For I wasn’t so sure that he was so lucky then, you see.’ He switched to Audley suddenly. ‘Forty years to the day now, that would be, almost—eh, dear boy!’

And the Pointe du Hoc too, give or take a week or two
, thought Elizabeth as she switched also.

Audley’s face was a blank mask. ‘You said you were getting something, Willy. But I don’t see anything. And I’m hearing nothing whatsoever of interest.’

Mr Willis raised a mottled hand. ‘Season your impatience! “
Comes the deer to my singing
—
Comes the deer to my song
”
—
you remember that Red Indian poem we found, about the hunter lying in wait? You have sung your song, so now I have sung mine, over the telephone just a moment ago. And you are still most undeservedly lucky, because this deer is getting into his Jaguar car not far away—very close, indeed—and coming, because I have asked him to do so … And that he is even here, in his little house across the hill, is further proof of your outrageous luck, when he could have been the other side of the country, in his new factory in the Cambridge Science Park. Although, I do admit that I did ask him to stay, after you telephoned me this morning.’

‘Who, Willy?’ Audley interrupted him sharply.

‘Wait and see. Meanwhile I shall use these unforgiving minutes to tell you what you don’t know about Waltham School.’ He reached down for his glass, but raised his eyes to Elizabeth as his hand closed on it. ‘Or perhaps you do, eh?’

The eyes were sharp and bright, belying the rest of the face. ‘It’s a very good school, I believe, Mr Willis.’

That’s not the half of it, my dear.’ He let the hock-and-Seltzer moisten his lips. ‘Waltham is that rare perfect blend of pretension and common sense: it is that rare public school—or private
independent
school, in the modern jargon—in which any sensible child would like to be a pupil, or any fortunate teacher would like to be a master … or even an ancillary hanger-on—‘ He watched her carefully ‘—yes?’

If he was testing her then she might as well pass his test. ‘It does take girls in its sixth form though, doesn’t it?’

‘Only as an experiment.’ He twinkled with satisfaction. ‘But my spies tell me that the experiment is shortly to be abandoned, in any case. Does that please you?’ He waited only long enough to accept her nod. ‘And to what do you attribute Waltham’s excellence, eh?’

Enough was enough. ‘You tell me, Mr Willis, I’m not an educationist.’

‘Money, Elizabeth, money!’ He slapped his knee, delighted with the outrageousness of his answer. ‘Enlightenment based on hard cash—the wickedly acceptable face of multi-national capitalism is its sure foundation.’ He challenged Audley in turn with this sudden departure from liberal conscience. ‘Did you know that, dear boy?’

If Audley knew it, he didn’t show it. ‘I’m not an educationist either, Willy. I’m a heptagonal peg in a heptagonal hole—remember?’ The old man pointed at him. ‘Immingham is what you are—St Martin’s School, Immingham: a very
minor
public school, with much more pretension than common sense … even though it did get you into Cambridge, David.’

‘We beat Waltham at rugger. And you taught there, Willy.’

Mr Willis pointed at him. ‘We beat Waltham
because
I coached the 1st XV—and because the headmaster regarded rugby as a form of Christianity. And there is no disgrace in giving one’s whole loyalty to a second-rate battalion.’ He gave Elizabeth an old-fashioned look. ‘Besides which, I doubt if Waltham would have taken a second-rate classics master, Elizabeth.’

Audley had the agonized expression of a man who wanted to say something agreeable, but couldn’t quite bring himself to do so.

‘But at least those were the days when the classics still mattered, before Oxford and Cambridge had sold their birth-right, and the pass with it.’ Mercifully, the old man was still staring at her. ‘You know what they used to say about a classical education, my dear?’

It was not the moment to recall her brief career as fifth-form Latin mistress, acting, temporary, unpaid and only prepared one lesson ahead. ‘No, Mr Willis.’

‘Hah! It enables us to look down contemptuously on those who have not shared its advantages. And it also fits us for places of emolument not only in this world, but in that which is to come.’

Elizabeth could no longer pretend she wasn’t looking at Audley, because he was growling now.

‘Take no note of him, Elizabeth,’ the old man pulled her back to him. ‘That is an apocryphal rendering of a remark allegedly made in a Good Friday sermon in Oxford Cathedral. And it is no longer true, alas—although it once was … except at Waltham School, perhaps. For there the classics still have status, thanks to the tradition established by the Haddock who was senior classics master there for many years.’

Audley had finished grinding his teeth. ‘You were talking about money, Willy, I thought?’

‘Money
and
the classics, dear boy.’ Mr Willis was unabashed. ‘And eventually the Haddock.’

Waltham was rich, Elizabeth remembered. In fact, it was an envied by-word in the profession, both for its salaries and for its disdain of fund-raising appeals. ‘Money, Mr Willis?’

‘There is a charitable trust, Elizabeth. The school was founded in the nineteenth century—Victorian buildings grafted on to the late Tudor mansion built with the stones of a Cistercian abbey. Added to in the thirties, rebuilt in the swinging sixties—and recently vastly extended to the design of Europe’s most expensive architects’ partnership, to win some international award or other. And all thanks—though not publicly—to PAM.’

Audley breathed in. ‘PAM—Lord God!’ he murmured. ‘Of course!’

‘Pan-African Minerals,’ Mr Willis nodded. ‘Just a few Victorian businessmen, with a little venture capital, who speculated here and there—and elsewhere.’ Mr Willis cocked an eye at Audley. ‘Didn’t they get into Mexican railways, too? And Malayan tin? And now they’re into everything from hotels and holidays to car import franchises? They have certainly learned to speak Japanese. Because one of Waltham’s old boys—old
American
boys—was on General MacArthur’s staff, looking the place over before the Korean War. Isn’t that so?’

Audley said nothing.

‘Well, whatever … PAM is huge now, and it has always poured money into the school. Its background hardly matters: what matters is that Waltham hands out scholarships like no other school, although it has always been very secretive about it. Just … the awards committee goes walkabout every year, and back come the pupils. still mostly British … including
new
British, black, brown and yellow, incidentally … but also from the old African connection, now Nigerian, and Zambian, and Zimbabwean, and all the rest … But also Japanese and Hong Kong Chinese—and
Chinese
before long, I’d guess, the way things are going … But only first-class material. You can’t
buy
into Waltham, no matter who your father is—eh?’

He had stopped because he was aware that they were both staring fixedly at him. And when neither of them spoke he stirred uneasily.

‘Yes … well, you’ll soon find out more, no doubt. I only know about the school—and what I know is fairly out-of-date, too.’

‘Go on, Willy,’ said Audley mildly. ‘This is all quite fascinating to non-educationists—eh, Elizabeth?’

Elizabeth didn’t like his non-educational look, which was as though to rebuke her for not knowing any of this before, except that Waltham had seduced her scholarship girls into its sixth form.

But now Willy was getting the message too. ‘Otherwise it’s a normal school.’ He shrugged to late. ‘The pupils are uniformed—not in wing-collars of course, just jacket-and-tie”. Uniform is only to keep the parents happy. In Britain good schools have uniform—go to France or Germany, and it doesn’t matter, but people expect it here. And out of class they wear their own kit—that was a Haddock-innovation.’

He fell silent again, but they waited him out again.

‘Academically … when I said “first-class”, I didn’t quite mean that. The aim is to get the boys into good universities, but not just Oxbridge. It isn’t a crammer’s school, where the bright ones sit like cuckoos, with their mouths open, waiting to be fed. God knows, I’ve felt like a thrush sometimes, trying to fill the greedy little buggers!’ He shook his head. ‘Waltham is said to go for character—the emphasis is on learning how to learn, and they pick for that ability.’ He stopped abruptly, staring from one to the other of them. ‘And, talking of cuckoos, I wish you wouldn’t both sit there with your mouths open. Disagree—or agree … Or say you believe in comprehensive education, and I’m an elitist-fascist—or knock over a glass, or something.’

Elizabeth looked at Audley, but didn’t really need to: if Debrecen had ever been a place in which talent was processed early, then what about the actual talent-spotting, earlier than that? If Haddock Thomas had been a Debrecen-graduate, what better job could he have than talent-spotting? And in what better place than Waltham School? If the old Jesuit boast—
catch
‘
em young
—
had any force—

‘But we
are
cuckoos, Willy,’ said Audley smoothly. ‘So feed us some more worms, there’s a good chap.’

‘Worms? Can of worms, more like!’ Mr Willis looked around. ‘Where is the dratted man?’

‘Worms, Willy.’ Audley pointed at his open mouth.

‘Dear boy—‘ The old man’s voice belied his words ‘—what else do you want? Religion? Oddly enough, it’s quite strong at Waltham in a real sense, because those who take part in it do so voluntarily. The school has a chaplain, but the Master isn’t in orders. As a matter of fact, I believe he’s a linguist with a Liverpool degree, if it’s still the same man I met once. But the staffs very varied, at all events—and very well paid. And the selection process matches the pay. There was a joke, a few years back, about Waltham staff recruitment, in some educational magazine—or it may even have been in the
Times Ed Supp
—
to the effect that, if you were shortlisted, but didn’t quite make it, you could always get a university fellowship or a job piloting the next American Moon-landing, as a consolation prize.’

‘And Haddock would have a hand in that, I take it?’

‘Oh yes—Second Master at Waltham was never a bottle-washer’s job, so the Master could go off junketing. The Master always led the school from the front—the Liverpool man was highly visible in the life of the place. And there was a
Third
Master who handled the timetable and the donkey-work. Second Master was big time—I told you the Haddock was a grandee. In fact, he was really
de facto
chairman of the staff selection board and the scholarship panel, and took it in turns with the Master to go trawling in foreign parts dear to PAM, and keeping up University contacts. Sort of foreign secretary to the Master’s prime minister, you could say—‘ The old man caught himself in the mid-flow of his eloquence as he happened to glance from Audley to Elizabeth ‘—
hmmm!
’

‘Go on, Willy.’ Audley had more successfully assumed an expression of guileless interest.

‘Worms, did you say?’ Mr Willis fixed his gaze on her. ‘And I said cuckoos. But snakes is what I’m thinking now! Or wolves—wolves pulling down old bulls for sport, maybe.’

Elizabeth cursed her inexperience. ‘Nobody’s pulling anyone down for sport, Mr Willis. I told you the way things were—and how they are. We are not concerned to establish anything other than the truth.’

‘The truth? Only the truth?’ He dropped her almost contemptuously. ‘What I do not understand, David, is why you are wasting your time on Haddock, believing as you do. Could you not be better employed?’

‘I could indeed, Willy,’ agreed Audley. ‘I have much better things to do—much better, and probably more pressing, and certainly more important things. From which I have been untimely ripp’d, Willy. However … as I was at pains to explain in words of one syllable … I think I am being set up, one way or another. And I think the basis for that setting-up
may
be some error I once made—not in regard to the snow-white Haddock—or in regard to his former friend. But I’m certainly not going to wait around for the trap to close. And Haddock is the only clue I’ve got at the moment.’

‘But he’s no traitor, dear boy—not in a thousand years!’

‘So he’s been set up too, then.’ Audley’s voice lifted defiantly. ‘And so clearing him—
clearing him for the third time, Willy
—
could be reckoned as much my job now as it ever was, as well as saving my own valuable skin. Remember those rules you made? Bloody impossible rules—when I saw you after old Fred had recruited me in ‘57—remember?’

What rules? wondered Elizabeth, altogether frozen out of the exchange. And, when it came to the crunch, David Audley was a notorious rule-breaker.

But now there came another crunch, of tyres on the track on the other side of the privet hedge, accompanied by the opulent engine-noise of a much larger car than hers.