He’d called out, and the boys had fled; the one with his back to me plunging ahead of the other so that he came to a stop almost opposite me in the shadow of the Bell Tower. The other was Leon. I recognized him at once, a brief glimpse of his face in the harsh lights before he joined his friend at the edge of the gully.
It should have been an easy jump. A few feet, and they would have reached the main parapet, allowing them a clear run right across the main school roof. An easy jump for the boys, perhaps, though I could see from John Snyde’s lumbering progress that he was far from capable of following them there.
I could—I should—have called out then; but I needed to know who the other boy was. I already knew he was not one of mine. I know my boys, and even in the darkness I was sure I would have recognized him. They were balanced together on the edge of the drop; a long finger of light from the Quad illuminated Leon’s hair in scarlet and blue. The other boy was still in shadow; one hand outstretched, as if to shield his face from the approaching Porter. A low, but nevertheless violent discussion seemed to be under way.
It lasted ten seconds, maybe even less. I could not hear what they said, though I caught the words jump and Porter and a smattering of shrill, unpleasant laughter. I was angry now; angry as I was with the trespassers in my garden, the vandals at my fence. It was not so much the trespass itself, or even that I had been called there in the middle of the night (in fact I’d come of my own accord, on hearing the disturbance). No, my anger ran deeper than that. Boys misbehave; it’s a fact of life. In thirty years I’ve had ample demonstration. But this was one of my boys. And I felt much as I imagine Mr. Meek to have felt, that day in the Bell Tower. Not that I would have shown it, of course—to be a teacher is principally to hide rage when it is truly felt, and to feign it when it is not—all the same, it would have done me good to see the look on the faces of those two boys as I called out their names from out of the dark. But for that, I needed both their names.
I already knew Leon, of course. In the morning, I knew he would identify his friend. But the morning was still hours away; just then it would be as clear to the boys as it was to me that I was helpless to stop them. I could imagine their response to my angry call—the laughter, the jeers as they sprinted away. Later, of course, I would make them pay. But the legend would endure; and the school would remember, not their four weeks’ litter duty or five-day suspension, but the fact that a boy had defied old Quaz on his own turf and—even for a few hours—had got away with it.
And so I waited, squinting to make out the second boy’s features. For a moment I glimpsed them as he stepped back to make the leap; a sudden slice of red-blue light showed me a young face twisted by some harsh emotion; mouth drawn, teeth bared, eyes like slots. It made him unrecognizable; and yet I knew him, I was sure of it. A St. Oswald’s boy. And now he took the jump at a run. The Porter was approaching fast—his broad back partly eclipsing my field of vision as the roof dipped toward the gully—and then in the sudden blur of movement and the shutter-click of lights I’m sure I saw Pinchbeck’s hand connect with Leon’s shoulder—just for a second—before they went over together into the dark.
Well of course, it wasn’t quite like that. Not from where I was standing, anyway, but close enough all the same. Yes, old man, I pushed Leon, and when you called my name I was sure you’d seen me do it.
Perhaps I even wanted someone to see it; someone to acknowledge my presence at last. But I was confused; appalled at my act; uplifted at my daring; incandescent with guilt and rage and terror and love. I would have given anything for it to have happened the way I told you; Butch and Sundance on the Chapel roof; the last stand; the last look of complicity between friends as we made our brave leap to freedom. But it wasn’t like that. It was nothing like that at all.
“Your dad?” said Leon.
“Jump!” I said. “Go on, man, jump!”
Leon was staring at me, face streaked with fire-engine blue. “So that’s it,” he said. “You’re the Porter’s kid.”
“Hurry up,” I hissed. “There isn’t time.”
But Leon had seen the truth at last; the look I so hated was back on his face, and his lips were curling with cruel mirth. “It’s almost worth getting caught for this,” he whispered, “just to see their faces—”
“Stop it, Leon.”
“Or what, Queenie?” He began to laugh. “What are you going to do, eh?”
There was a horrible taste in my mouth; a taste of sour metal, and I realized I had bitten my lip. Blood ran down my chin like drool.
“Please, Leon—”
But Leon was still laughing in that gaspy, affected way; and for a terrible instant I saw through his eyes; saw fat Peggy Johnsen, and Jeffrey Stuarts, and Harold Mann, and Lucy Robbins, and all the freaks and losers from Mr. Bray’s class, and the Sunnybankers with no future beyond the Abbey Road Estate, and the pram-faces and slappers and toerags and proles, and worst of all I saw myself, clearly, and for the first time.
It was then that I pushed him.
I don’t remember this part as clearly. Sometimes I tell myself it was an accident. Sometimes I almost believe it was. Perhaps I expected him to jump; Spider-man does it across twice that distance; I’d done it enough times myself to be absolutely sure he wouldn’t fall. But Leon did.
My hand on his shoulder.
That sound.
God. That sound.
5
Bonfire Night, 9:55 P.M.
So, at last, you’ve heard it all. I’m sorry it had to be here and now. I was quite looking forward to Christmas at St. Oswald’s—not to mention the inspection, of course. But our game is done. The king is alone. All our other pieces have left the board, and we can face each other honestly, for the first and last time.
I believe you liked me. I think you respected me. Now you know me. That’s all I really wanted of you, old man. Respect. Regard. That curious visibility that is the automatic birthright of those living on the other side of the line.
“Sir? Sir?”
He opened his eyes. Good. I was afraid I’d lost him. It might have been more humane to finish him off, but I found I couldn’t do it. He’d seen me. He knew the truth. And if I killed him now, it would not feel like victory.
A draw, then, Magister. I can live with that.
Besides, there was one last thing that troubled me; one question left unanswered before I could declare an end to the game. It occurred to me then that I might not like the answer. All the same, I needed to know.
“Tell me, sir. If you saw me push Leon, why didn’t you say so at the time? Why protect me when you knew what I’d done?”
I knew, of course, what I wanted him to say. And silently, I faced him now, squatting low enough at his side to catch even the smallest of whispers.
“Talk to me, sir. Why didn’t you tell?”
For a time, there was silence, but for his breathing that rattled slow and shallow in his throat. I wondered then if I’d left it too late; if he planned to expire out of sheer spite. Then he spoke, and his voice was faint, but I heard him well. And he said: “St. Oswald’s.”
She’d said no lies. Well, I gave her the truth. As much of it as I could, anyway, though I was never sure afterward how much of it I had spoken aloud.