Wednesday, 3rd November
Five days, and still no word of Knight. No word of Bishop either, though I saw him in Tesco the other day, looking dazed before a trolley piled high with cat food (I don’t even think Pat Bishop has a cat). I spoke to him, but he didn’t answer. He looked like a man under heavy medication, and I have to admit that I didn’t have the courage to pursue the conversation.
Still, I know that Marlene calls every day to make sure he is all right—the woman has a heart, which is more than can be said of the Headmaster, who has forbidden any member of the school to communicate with Bishop until matters have been cleared up.
The police were here all day again, three of them, working through the staff, boys, secretaries, and such with the machine efficiency of school inspectors. A helpline has been set up, encouraging boys to confirm anonymously what has already been established. Many boys have called it—most of them to insist that Mr. Bishop couldn’t possibly have done anything wrong. Others are being interviewed in and out of lesson time.
It makes the boys unteachable. My form don’t want to talk about anything else, but as I have been told quite clearly that to discuss the matter might harm Pat’s case, I must insist that they do not. Many of them are deeply upset; I found Brasenose crying in the Middle Corridor toilets during period four Latin, and even Allen-Jones and McNair, who can usually be relied upon to see the ridiculous in most things, were listless and unresponsive. All my form are—even Anderton-Pullitt seems odder than usual and has developed a new, extravagant limp to go with all his other peculiarities.
The most recent word on the grapevine is that Gerry Grachvogel too has been questioned and may be charged. Other, more outrageous rumors are also running, so that according to gossip, all absentee staff members have become suspects.
Devine’s name has been mentioned, and he is absent today, although that in itself shouldn’t mean anything. It’s ridiculous; but it was in the Examiner yesterday morning, citing sources within the school (boys, most probably) and hinting that a pedophile ring of long duration and unprecedented importance has been uncovered within the hallowed portals (sic) of the Dear Old Place.
As I said, ridiculous. I’ve been a Master at St. Oswald’s for thirty-three years, and I know what I’m talking about. Such a thing could never have happened here; not because we think we’re better than anywhere else (whatever the Examiner may think), but simply because in a place like St. Oswald’s, no secret can be kept for long. From Bob Strange, perhaps; rooted in his office working out timetables; or from the Suits, who never see anything unless it comes to them in an e-mail attachment. But from me? From the boys? Never.
Oh, I’ve seen my share of irregular colleagues. There was Dr. Jehu (Oxon.), who turned out afterward to be just plain Mr. Jehu, from the University of Durham, and who had a reputation, it seemed. That was years ago, before such things made the news, and he left quietly and without scandal, as most of them do, with no harm done. Or Mr. Tythe-Weaver, the art teacher who introduced life modeling au naturel. Or Mr. Groper, who developed that unfortunate fixation on a young English student forty years his junior. Or even our own Grachvogel, who all the boys know to be homosexual—and harmless—but who fears terribly for his job if the Governors were to find out. A bit late for that, I’m afraid; but he isn’t a pervert, as the Examiner crowingly suggests. Light may well be a boorish ass, but I don’t think he is any more of a pervert than Grachvogel. Devine? Don’t make me laugh. And as for Bishop—well. I know Bishop. More importantly, the boys know him, love him, and believe me, if there had been any breath of irregularity about him, they would have been the first to scent it out. Boys have an instinct for such things, and in a school like St. Oswald’s, rumors disseminate at epidemic speed. Understand this; I have been teaching alongside Pat Bishop for thirty-three years, and if there had been any kind of truth in these accusations, I would have known. The boys would have told me.
Within the Common Room, however, the polarization continues. Many colleagues will not speak of the matter at all, for fear of being implicated in the scandal. Some (though not many) are openly contemptuous of the accusations. Others take the opportunity to spread quiet, right-thinking slander.
Penny Nation is one of these. I remember the description of her in Keane’s notebook—poisonous do-gooder—and I wonder how I could have worked alongside her for so many years without noticing her essential malice.
“A Second Master should be like the Prime Minister,” she was saying in the Common Room this lunchtime. “Happily married—like Geoff and me.” A quick smile at her Capitaine, today attired in navy pinstripe that perfectly matched Penny’s skirt-and-sweater combination. There was a small silver fish in his lapel. “That way, there’s no possible cause for suspicion, is there?” Penny went on. “In any case, if you’re going to be working with children”—she says the word in a syrupy, Walt Disney voice-over tone, as if the very thought of children makes her want to melt—“then you really need to have one of your own, don’t you?”
That smile again. I wonder if she sees her husband in Pat’s job in some not-too-distant future. He’s certainly ambitious enough; a devout churchgoer; a family man; a gentleman player; a veteran of many courses.
He isn’t the only one with ideas. Eric Scoones has been putting the boot in—rather to my surprise, as I’d always thought of Eric as a fair-minded chap in spite of his resentment at being passed over for promotion. It seems I was wrong; listening to the talk in the Common Room this afternoon I was shocked to hear him siding with the Nations against Hillary Monument—who has always been pro-Pat and who, being at the end of his career, has nothing to lose by nailing his colors to the mast.
“Ten to one we’ll find it’s some ghastly mistake,” Monument was saying. “These computers—who trusts them? Always breaking down. And that—what d’you call it? Spam. That’s it. Ten to one old Pat got some spam in his computer and didn’t know what it was. As for Grachvogel, he hasn’t even been arrested. Questioning, that’s all it is. Helping the police with their enquiries.”
Eric gave a dismissive grunt. “You’ll see,” he said (a man who never uses computers any more than I do myself). “The trouble with you is that you’re too trusting. That’s what they all say, isn’t it, when some bloke gets up on a motorway bridge and shoots ten people dead. It’s always: and he was such a nice chap, isn’t it? Or some scoutmaster who’s been fettling little lads for years—ooh, and the kids loved him, you know, never thought for a minute. That’s the trouble. No one ever thinks. No one thinks it might happen in our own backyard. Besides, what do we really know about Pat Bishop? Oh, he plays it straight—well, he would, wouldn’t he? But what do we really know about him? Or any of our colleagues, for that matter?”
It was a remark that troubled me then, and has continued to do so ever since. Eric’s had run-ins with Pat for years, but I’d always thought, like my own little spats with Dr. Devine, that it was nothing personal. He’s bitter, of course. A good teacher—if a little old-fashioned—and might have made a good Head of Year if he’d made a bit more of an effort with the management. But deep down I’d always thought he was loyal. If ever I’d expected any of my colleagues to stab poor Bishop in the back, it would not have been Eric. Now I’m not so sure; there was a look in his face today in the Common Room that told me more than I’d ever wanted to know about Eric Scoones. He’s always been a gossip, of course; but it has taken me all these years to see the gleeful schadenfreude in my old friend’s eyes.