It's Murder at St. Basket's (10 page)

“Not much,” she said. “First let me tell you about Wheeler's. It was absolutely
soooopah,
frightfully expensive, and I had some smashing strawberries flown in from somewhere, and Charles gave me lots of wine, and then we drove out to the country.” If you ask me, she was sort of drunk. Whatever it was, she had to give us a play-by-play account of the whole day, right from leaving in the morning. Going out for lunch with Charles seemed to be about the most exciting thing that had happened to her for years.

“Is Charles still famous?” I asked.

“What? Oh, Charles says he expects all A's and B's on his A levels. He says he expects to get into Oxford without any trouble.”

“Modest as ever is our Charles,” Leslie said. “Did you trouble to say anything about David?”

“Oh, yes.” She looked a little embarrassed. “I'm afraid he wasn't frightfully helpful. He said not to be a silly ass and all that, St. Basket's wasn't going to let a boy die.”

“
Did you tell him about the boy who committed suicide?”

“Oh, yes, surely. He remembered that case. He said the father came over from France and spent fortunes on private detectives, but they never found out anything, except for his clothes turning up on the beach. There was something about the way they found the clothes that didn't seem right for suicide, but Charles couldn't remember what. Maybe it had—”

And then we realized Mrs. Rabbit was standing by the table, face low down, sort of in amongst us. “Yer mustn't talk about that,” she said in a low, kind of hissing whisper. “Yer mustn't never, ever talk about that again.”

We didn't say anything, but sat quiet, staring at her.

“That's all over and done with, and yer mustn't talk about it. Yer couldn't help the little lad now.”

We were quiet some more, and then finally I said, “Why not, Mrs. Rabbit?”

She kind of licked her lips and looked toward the door as if she were afraid Miss Grime might suddenly appear out of the air. Her voice stayed whispery. “Poor lad. I've put it aht of me mind all these years, and I means to keep it aht.”

“What, Mrs. Rabbit?”

She straightened up. “Yer've ‘ad yer warnin', I've said me tuppence worth.” And she went back to the kitchen.

We didn't say anything. We just kept quiet and went on eating. We didn't say anything at all. It was dead still. All you could hear were the sounds of spoons clicking on the plates. I'd never heard the sounds of spoons clicking in there before. Even when there were just the boarders eating supper there was always somebody arguing or shouting and you never could hear spoons clicking.

After a while Leslie finished his custard pudding and stood up. “Come on, Quincy,” he said. “Let's go.”

“No, don't go,” Margaret said. “Wait for me.” She was still on her beans and toast.

Leslie sat down. “Be quick about it, then, Margaret.”

When we finally got up to the fourth floor, David was sleeping. We left his sandwiches and tea on a chair by his bed and went into Margaret's room, which was a worse mess than ever, because of her rushing out in the morning to have lunch with the famous Charles. We dumped all her stuff off the chairs onto her desk and sat down.

“
Have you got any fags, Margaret?” Leslie said.

“No,” she said.

“You stupid idiot, you could have pinched a packet from the famous Charles.”

“Never mind about the cigarettes, Plainfield,” I said. The only thing I had in my head was David. I was really sick of having him hanging over my mind all this time. I didn't want to be responsible for him anymore. I just wanted to get rid of him some way. I just couldn't stand being nervous about him all the time. “Listen,” I said, “I'm serious. I think we ought to tell the police. We're just a bunch of kids.”

“Chicken, Quincy?”

“I say, Leslie, shut up,” Margaret said. “You're just as scared as we are.”

He blushed. “Sorry.” He paused. “But it isn't going to work. They'll never believe us. Suppose one of us went round to the police station and actually got somebody to listen. Why, they'd just come round here and speak to Shrimpton or Groin-Fortesque and he'd say it was just schoolboy talk and not to pay it any attention.”

He was right, and we knew it. But I still didn't want to have to be responsible for David anymore. “Well, then the only thing left to do is get Choudhry into the hospital. I think we could do it. I mean, if we got up in the middle of the night and carried him quietly down the back stairs and out through the yard. Once we got onto the Heath it would be pretty hard for anybody to see us, and then we could get him to a hospital.”

“He said he didn't want to go,” Leslie said.

“Well, I don't understand that,” I said. “Probably he's afraid we'll bump his leg. We'll just have to make him, is all.”

Margaret said, “I think we should tell Shrimpton.”

“That's no use,” Leslie said. “Are you positive you haven't got any fags, Margaret?” He began opening the drawers in her desk.

“Stop mucking about in my desk, Leslie,” she said.

“Forget about the cigarettes, can't you?” I said. “Margaret, why should we tell Shrimpton?”

“Because he'd believe us.”

We thought about that. It was partly true. “At least,” Margaret said, “he would come up and have a look at David's leg.”

“
But then what would he do?” I said.

“What side are the masters on?” Leslie said.

It was a pretty good question. “They're not actually on Grime's side,” I said. “I mean, they have to pretend they are, because they have to support the Establishment and all that, but I don't think any of them actually
like
Grime.”

“They don't want to get the sack,” Margaret said.

“I still think we ought to get him to a hospital,” I said.

“I say,” Leslie said, “I think we ought to ask David.

That was true. And I suddenly decided in my mind that if he still refused to go to the hospital I'd wash my hands of the whole thing. He was my friend and all, and I certainly didn't want him to die, or anything. But if he refused to let us help him, what could we do? It wouldn't be my fault—it would be his, and I could feel clear in my conscience about it. And then I would have it off my mind finally. “All right, let's go ask him.”

He was awake when we went in. I guess the hum of our voices from Margaret's room waked him up. “How do you feel, David?” Margaret said.

“Not too bad,” he said. He looked terrible, all yellow and pasty, and there was something funny about his eyes. I didn't like looking at him. I noticed he hadn't eaten the sandwich we'd brought, although he'd drunk some of his tea.

“Listen, David,” I said, “we've decided we're going to sneak you out to the hospital. You're real sick, you can't take a chance on it anymore.”

“That's good of you chaps,” he said, “but I'd rather stay.”

“That's crazy,” I said. “You might die.”

“Christopher's right, David,” Leslie said. “You really must, you know.”

“No, I'm feeling a lot better,” David said.

That was a lot of hooey. He was making me mad. “Damn it, David, you have to.”

“Please,” he said. “I don't want to.”

“Why, David?” Leslie said. “What reason can you have?”

“Please,” he said. “I'll be all right. I'm feeling much better.”

Margaret said, “Perhaps you should try to eat a bit of your sandwich.”

“I'm not hungry,” he said.

But that wasn't it: he was feeling too sick to eat. He could lie all he wanted to about
being
better, but he wasn't, he was worse. That sort of grayish, butterish color his skin had gotten and the funny way his eyes looked scared me. I didn't want to look at him, and I noticed Leslie wasn't looking at him either, but sort of keeping his eyes off to one side. But there didn't seem to be any use in arguing anymore. He was determined to stay there, for some reason we didn't understand. Whatever the reason was, though, he wasn't going to tell us.

And so now I could safely wash it all out of my mind and forget about him. I wouldn't have to worry about him anymore: he'd have to worry about himself from now on. But just to make sure that I'd really tried my best to help him, I said, “Now look, David, we insist that you go to the hospital. Don't argue anymore. We insist.”

He just shook his head. “Thanks, chaps, I'll be all right.”

So that did it, and Margaret went back to her room, and Leslie went with her just to make sure she hadn't got a fag buried under the stuff on her desk somewhere. I went over to my desk to do my maths homework, mostly to get my mind off things, and David closed his eyes, although I didn't know if he was sleeping, or just faking it so I wouldn't argue with him anymore.

But the maths didn't go too well. I'd get into it, going along struggling with the problems, and then I'd hear some movement behind me on the bed, and that would bring David back to my mind. I'd get a picture of him dying, or of his leg just exploding from pus; and then I'd sort of take a deep breath, and work my way back into the maths again. And I'd work away at it for a while, and then David would move again, or I'd see his blazer hanging over his chair out of the comer or my eye, and he d come back into my mind again. I tell you, it's okay to say that you're not going to think about something, but it doesn't always work. I hung his jacket up in his closet where I couldn't see it, and then I tried to pretend that Shrimpton had come in and taken him to the hospital, and that he wasn't in the room, but was safe where he could be cured. But nothing worked: about every ten minutes there he'd be, back in my mind again, keeping me nervous and worried.

Finally I gave up on the maths, told Leslie to be quiet when he came in, I was going to sleep, and went to bed. It took me awhile to doze off, but I guess I was pretty tired, because I did.

I don't know what woke me up, but I think maybe David groaned in his sleep, or shouted or something, because I could hear him thrashing around as I came up out of sleep. All I wanted to do was get back to sleep, but I felt pretty wide awake. I have a thing I use when I can't get to
sleep,
which is to float around one of the apartments we used to live in and see if I can remember where everything was. I mean I sort of float up in the air above everything, and try to remember where the sofa was in that apartment, and where we kept the silverware and the paper napkins and so forth. So I tried that, but it didn't work. All I could think about was David lying there with his sick-looking face and his leg hurting, and maybe dying; and it came to me finally that no matter what I tried, I wasn't going to be able to put him out of my mind. He wasn't my responsibility, that was true. He was the Grimes' responsibility or his father's or his own, since he wouldn't let us help him. But still and all, I was stuck with it: he was
my
responsibility because no matter what I did, my head was making him mine. And I knew that whatever happened, my head was going to force me to go on worrying about him until it came to an end, and there was no use fighting it any longer.

I got up. I didn't want to turn the light on, because it would shine out into the backyard and if one of the masters was awake he'd see it. I fumbled up my watch from where I leave it on the floor by my bed, and went out into the hall. There's a dim light that stays on all night out there. It was two o'clock, according to the watch. That was a good time to do it. The pubs close at eleven, which means that the masters are in bed usually by midnight. Of course, there's actually no law against staying up late in England, but they close the tubes and buses around eleven-thirty or twelve, too, so everybody pretty much goes home after the pubs close, anyway.

I sat down at the head of the stairs and thought about it. There were front stairs and back stairs down. The front ones were wide, and easier for carrying David down, but more risky. The back ones were meant for servants, and were kind of dark and steep and small. We didn't use them much because they led down to a sort of back hall leading to the kitchen and the laundry room and so forth. But there was a door out into the backyard through the kitchen, where the deliverymen came, and I didn't think it would be locked. Mostly they didn't lock the doors at St. Basket's, except during the vacations when nobody was around. I wasn't even sure they had keys for all the doors. Shrimpton once said to us, “No self-respecting thief would be caught dead in this place—there isn't anything worth the trouble of carrying off,” which was pretty much true. But even if the door was locked, there were plenty of windows. We could go out one if we had to.

The question was how to carry David. I thought about the fireman's carry, where you sling the guy over your shoulders, but that didn't seem too good because we'd be bound to bump
his
leg. Then I thought about the way two people can make a chair with their hands, crossing them over and grabbing onto each other's wrists. When I was younger I used to do that sometimes to carry some little kid around. But I realized that was too risky: you have to walk sort of bent over and since there wasn't any way to hang onto anything, there was a good chance we'd stumble and fall. Finally I remembered a carry I'd seen in a movie. It was supposed to be a comic movie. These two guys were soldiers and they were rescuing their pal from the army hospital so he could meet his girl friend. What they did was each sling the ends of a sheet over their shoulders, and the hero sat in between them, where the sheet made kind of a seat. I figured we could do that. David wasn't too heavy.

I went back into the room, leaving the door open so there would be a little light, and shook Leslie. “Wake up,” I whispered.