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 dummy2
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, dummy2
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 dummy2
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".