'But why? Surely that's not normal. Most boys of his age like the chance to show off. Is it simply that he's shy — or does it go deeper than that?'
Hannant shook his head. 'I don't know. Let me tell you about yesterday.'
When he was through, the head said: 'Almost exactly parallel to what we've just seen.'
'That's right.'
Jamieson grew thoughtful. 'If he really is as clever as you seem to think he is — and certainly he seems to have an intuitive knack in some directions — then I'd hate to be the one to deprive him of a chance to get somewhere in life.' He sat back. 'Very well, it's decided. Keogh missed the exams through no fault of his own, so… I'll speak to Jack Harmon at the Tech., see if we can fix up some
sort of private examination for him. Of course I can't promise anything, but — ' 'It's better than nothing,' Hannant finished it for him.
'Thanks, Howard.'
Tine, fine. I'll let you know how I get on.' Nodding, Hannant went out into the corridor where
Keogh was waiting.
Over the next two days Hannant tried to put Keogh to the back of his mind but it didn't work. In the middle of lessons, or at home during the long autumn evenings, even occasionally in the dead of night, the boy's young-old face would be there, hovering on the periphery of Hannant's awareness. Friday night saw the teacher awake at 3:00 a.m., all his windows open to let in what little breeze there was, prowling the house in his pyjamas. He had come awake with that picture in his mind of Harry Keogh, clutching Jamieson's folded sheet of A4, heading off across the schoolyard of milling boys in the direction of the back gate under the stone archway; then of the boy crossing the dusty summer lane and passing in through the iron gates of the cemetery. And Hannant had believed that he knew where Harry was going. And suddenly, though the night had not grown noticeably cooler, Hannant had felt chilly in a way he was now becoming used to. It could only be a psychic chill, he suspected, warning him that something was dreadfully wrong. There was something uncanny about Keogh, certainly, but what it was defied conjecture — or rather, challenged it. One thing was certain: George Hannant hoped to God the kid could pass whatever exams Howard Jamieson and Jack Harmon of Hartlepool Tech. cooked up for him. And it was no longer simply that he wanted the boy to realise his full potential. No, it was more basic than that. Frankly, he wanted Keogh out of here, out of the school, away from the other kids. Those perfectly ordinary, normal boys at Harden Secondary Modern.
A bad influence? Hardly that! Who could he possibly influence — in what way? — when the rest of the kids generally considered him a weed? A corruption, then, a taint which might somehow spread — like the proverbial rotten apple at the bottom of the barrel? Perhaps. And yet that simile didn't exactly fit either. Or maybe, in a way, it did. For after all, it makes little difference that an apple can't appreciate its own rottenness: the corruption spreads anyway. Or was that too strong? How could it even be possible that there was something, well, wrong with Harry Keogh, something of which even he was unaware or lacked understanding? Actually the whole thing was becoming distinctly ridiculous! And yet… what was it about Keogh which so worried Hannant? What was in him, seeking a way out? And why did Hannant feel that when it finally emerged it would be terrible?
It was then that Hannant decided to investigate Keogh's background, discover what he could of the boy's past. Perhaps that was where the trouble lay. And then again, i f maybe there was nothing at all and the whole affair was pi simply something spawned of Hannant's own overactive imagination. It could be the heat, the fact that he was If sleeping badly, the unending, unrewarding, repetitious routine of the school — any or all of these things. It could ! 1 be — but why then did that inner voice keep insisting that Keogh was different? And why on occasion would he find Keogh staring at him with eyes which might well be those of his own dead and buried father…?
Ten days and two Tuesdays later, tragedy struck. It happened when the boys, PTI Graham Lane, and the Misses Dorothy Hartley and Gertrude Gower went off on their end-of-day stone-gathering trek to the beach. 'Sergeant', ostensibly to collect specimens of some rare wild flower, but more likely to impress his lady love, had climbed the beetling cliffs. When he had been more than half-way up the treacherous face of the cliff, projecting stones had given way under his feet, pitching him down to the boulder-and scree-clad beach below. He had tried to cling to the crumbling surface even as he fell, but then his feet had struck a narrow ledge, breaking it away, and he had been set spinning free in air. He had landed on his chest and face, crushing both and killing himself outright.
The affair was made more especially gruesome in light of the fact that 'Sergeant' and Dorothy Hartley, only the night before, had announced their engagement. They were to have been married in the spring. As it was, the following Friday saw 'Sergeant' buried. It would have been better for him, Hannant later remembered thinking, as he watched Lane's coffin being lowered into a fresh plot of earth in the old cemetery, if he'd stayed in the Army and taken his chances there.
Afterwards, there had been sandwiches, cakes and coffee in the staff-room at the school, and a nip of something stronger for those who fancied it. And of course, Dorothy Hartley to console as best she could be consoled. So that none of the teachers had been there to see the grave filled in, or, after the gravedigger was through and the wreaths lay in position, the last lone mourner where he sat on a slab nearby, chin in the palms of his hands and lacklustre eyes staring from behind his spectacles, fastened mournfully — curiously? expectantly? — upon the mound.
Meanwhile, Howard Jamieson had not been remiss in seeking to get Harry Keogh a post-examination place at the Tech. in Hartlepool; or if not an actual place, at least the opportunity to win one for himself. The private examination — in the main an IQ test consisting of questions designed to measure verbal, numerical and spatial perception and aptitude — was to take place at the college in Hartlepool under the direct supervision of John ('Jack') Harmon, the headmaster. Wind of it had got out, however, along the Harden Boys' School grapevine, and Harry had become something of a target for various jibes and japes.
He was no longer simply 'Speccy' for instance but had acquired other nicknames including 'the Favourite' — which meant that Big Stanley had been putting it about that Harry was some sort of teacher's or headmaster's pet. And with the help of a twisted sort of logic, of which Stanley was a past-master — not to mention the threat in his pudgy but hard-knuckled fists — it hadn't taken long to convince even the more liberal-minded lads that there was definitely something fishy about Keogh's belated emergence as someone who was a bit more than just 'ordinary'.
Why, for instance, should Speccy — or 'the Favourite' — why should he alone get this crack at a special Tech. examination? Other kids had been sick that day, too, hadn't they? And were they being given special treat ment? No they weren't! It was just because that dreamy little fart got on well with the teachers, that was all. Who was it went digging up stupid, smelly shells for that old bag Miss Gower? Speccy Keogh, that was who — and hadn't old Sergeant always used to stick up for him? Of course he had! And now, since he'd suddenly started being a bit clever at maths and so on, even snotty old Hannant was on his side. Oh, he was 'the Favourite', all right — the four-eyed little fart. But not with Big Stanley Green he wasn't!