My father, you see, would have liked a son in his own image; a lad who shared his passion for football and scratch cards and fish and chips, his mistrust of women, his love of the outdoors. Failing that, a St. Oswald’s boy; a gentleman player, a cricket captain, a boy with the guts to transcend his class and make something of himself, even if it meant leaving his father behind.
Instead, he had me. Neither fish nor fowl; a useless daydreamer, a reader of books and watcher of B movies, a secretive, skinny, pallid, insipid child with no interest in sports and whose personality was as solitary as his own was gregarious.
He did his best, though. He tried, even when I did not. He took me to football matches, during which I was heartily bored. He bought me a bicycle, which I rode with dutiful regularity around the outer walls of the School. More significantly, for the first year of our life there he kept reasonably and dutifully sober. I should have been grateful, I suppose. But I was not. Just as he would have liked a son in his image, I longed desperately for a father in mine. I already had the template in my mind, culled from a hundred books and comics. Foremost he would be a man of authority, firm but fair. A man of physical courage and fierce intelligence. A reader, a scholar, an intellectual. A man who understood.
Oh, I looked for him in John Snyde. Once or twice I even thought I’d found him. The road to adulthood is filled with contradictions, and I was still young enough to half believe the lies with which that road is paved. Dad Knows Best. Leave It to Me. Elders and Betters. Do as You’re Told. But in my heart I could already see the widening gulf between us. For all my youth I had ambitions, while John Snyde, for all his experience, would never be anything but a Porter.
And yet I could see he was a good Porter. He performed his duties faithfully. He locked the gates at night, walked the grounds in the evening, watered plants, seeded cricket lawns, mowed grass, welcomed visitors, greeted staff, organized repairs, cleaned drains, reported damage, removed graffiti, shifted furniture, gave out locker keys, sorted post, and delivered messages. In exchange some of the staff called him John, and my father glowed with pride and gratitude.
There’s a new porter now—a man called Fallow. He is heavy, discontented, lax. He listens to the radio in his lodge instead of watching the entrance. John Snyde would never have stood for that.
My own appointment was made St. Oswald–style, in isolation. I never met the other candidates. I was interviewed by the Head of Section, the Head, and both the Second and Third Masters.
I recognized them at once, of course. In fifteen years Pat Bishop has grown fatter and redder and cheerier, like a cartoon version of his earlier self, but Bob Strange looks just the same despite his thinning hair; a lean, sharp-featured man with dark eyes and a poor complexion. Of course back then he’d only been an ambitious young English master with a flair for administration. Now he is the School’s Eminence Grise; a master of the timetable; a practiced manipulator; a veteran of countless INSET days and training courses.
Needless to say, I recognized the Head. The New Head, he’d been in those days; late thirties, though prematurely graying even then, tall and stiff and dignified. He didn’t recognize me—after all, why should he?—but shook my hand in cool, limp fingers.
“I hope you have had time to look around the School to your satisfaction.” The capital letter was implicit in his voice.
I smiled. “Oh yes. It’s very impressive. The new IT department especially. Dynamic new tools in a traditional academic setting.”
The Head nodded. I saw him mentally filing away the phrase, maybe for next year’s prospectus. Behind him Pat Bishop made a sound that might have been derision or approval. Bob Strange just watched me.
“What struck me particularly—” I stopped. The door had opened and the secretary had walked in with a tea tray. It stalled me midphrase—the surprise of seeing her more than anything else, I suppose; I had no real fear she would recognize me—then I carried on: “What struck me particularly was the seamless way the modern has been grafted onto the old to create the best of both worlds. A school that isn’t afraid to give out the message that although it can afford the latest innovations, it hasn’t merely succumbed to popular fads but has used them to strengthen its tradition of academic excellence.”
The Head nodded again. The secretary—long legs, emerald ring, whiff of Chanel No. 5—poured tea. I thanked her in a voice that managed to be both distant and appreciative. My heart was beating faster; but in a way I was enjoying myself.
It was the first test, and I knew I had passed.
I sipped my tea, watching Bishop as the secretary removed the tray. “Thank you, Marlene.” He drinks his tea as my father did—three sugars, maybe four—and the silver tongs looked like tweezers in his big fingers. Strange said nothing. The Head waited, his eyes like pebbles.
“All right,” said Bishop, looking at me. “Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty, shall we? We’ve heard you talk. We all know you can spout jargon at interview. My question is, what are you like in the classroom?”
Good old Bishop. My father liked him, you know; saw him as one of the lads, completely failing to see the man’s real cunning. Nitty-gritty. A typical Bishop expression. You can almost forget that there’s an Oxford degree (an upper second) behind the Yorkshire accent and the rugby player’s face. No. It doesn’t do to underestimate Bishop.
I smiled at him and put down my cup. “I have my own methods in the classroom, sir, as I’m sure you do. Outside it, I make it my business to know every bit of jargon that comes my way. It’s my belief that if you can do the talk, and you get the results, then whether or not you’ve been following the latest government guidelines becomes irrelevant. Most of the parents don’t know anything about teaching. All they want is to be sure they’re getting their money’s worth. Don’t you agree?”
Bishop grunted. Frankness—real or faked—is a currency he understands. I sensed a grudging admiration in his expression. Test two—I’d passed again.
“And where do you see yourself in five years’ time?” That was Strange, who had remained silent for most of the interview. An ambitious man, I knew, clever beneath his prissy exterior, eager to safeguard his little empire.
“In the classroom, sir,” I replied at once. “That’s where I belong. That’s what I enjoy.”
Strange’s expression did not alter, but he nodded, once, reassured that I was no usurper. Test three. Another pass.
There was no doubt in my mind that I was the best candidate. My qualifications were excellent: my references first-rate. They ought to be; I spent long enough forging them. The nicest touch was the name, carefully selected from one of the smaller Honors Boards on the Middle Corridor. I think it suits me, plus I’m sure my father would have been pleased that I’d re-created him as an Ozzie—an Old Boy of St. Oswald’s.
The John Snyde business was a long time ago; not even the oldsters like Roy Straitley or Hillary Monument are likely to remember much about it now. But for my father to have been an Old Boy accounts for my familiarity with the school; my affection for the place: my desire to teach there. Even more than the Cambridge first, the reassuring accent, and the discreetly expensive clothes, it makes me suitable.
I invented a few convincing details to carry the story—a Swiss mother, a childhood overseas. After such long practice I can visualize my father quite easily: a neat, precise man with musician’s hands and a love of travel. A brilliant scholar at Trinity—that’s where he met my mother, in fact—later to become one of the leading men of his profession. Both killed, tragically, in a cable car accident near Interlaken, last Christmas. I added a couple of siblings for good measure: a sister in Saint Moritz, a brother at university in Tokyo. I did my probationary year at Harwood’s Grammar School in Oxfordshire, before opting to move north into a more permanent post.