‘What?’
‘Ruprecht, what the hell are you talking about?’
‘Well, I mean to say, one day we’ll all leave here and become scientists and bank clerks and diving instructors and hotel managers – the fabric of society, so to speak. But in the meantime, that fabric, that is to say, us, the future, is crowded into one tiny little point where none of the laws of society applies, viz., this school.’
Uncomprehending silence; and then, ‘I tell you one difference between this school and the Big Bang, and that is in the Big Bang there is no particle quite like Mario. But you can be sure that if there is, he is the great stud particle, and he is boning the lucky lady particles all night long.’
‘Yes,’ Ruprecht responds, a little sadly; and he will fall silent, there at his window, eating a doughnut, contemplating the stars.
Howard the Coward: yes, that’s what they call him. Howard the Coward. Feathers; eggs left on his seat; a yellow streak, executed in chalk, on his teacher’s cape; once a whole frozen chicken there on the desk, trussed, dimpled, humiliated.
‘It’s because it rhymes with Howard, that’s all,’ Halley tells him. ‘Like if your name was Ray, they’d call you Gay Ray. Or if it was Mary, they’d call you Scary Mary. It’s just the way their brains work. It doesn’t mean anything.’
‘It means they know.’
‘Oh God, Howard, one little bump, and it was years and years ago. How could they possibly know about that?’
‘They just do.’
‘Well, even if they do. I know you’re not a coward. They’re just kids, they can’t see into your soul.’
But she is wrong. That is exactly what they can do. Old enough to have a decent mechanical understanding of how the world works, but young enough for their judgements to remain unfogged by anything like mercy or compassion or the realization that all this will one day happen to them, the boys – his students – are machines for seeing through the apparatus of worldliness that adulthood, as figured by their teachers, surrounds itself with, to the grinding emptiness at its heart. They find it hilarious. And the names they give the other teachers seem so unerringly right. Malco the Alco? Big Fat Johnson? Lurch?
Howard the Coward. Fuck! Who told her?
The car starts on the third try and putters past slow droves of boys babbling and throwing conkers at each other till it reaches the gate, where it joins a tailback waiting for a space to open up on the road. Years ago, on their very last day of school, Howard and his friends had paused beneath this same gate – SEABROOK COLLEGE arching above them in reversed gold letters – and turned to give what was now their alma mater the finger, before passing through and out into the exhilarating panorama of passion and adventure that would be the setting for their adult lives. Sometimes – often – he wonders if by that small gesture, in a life otherwise bare of gestures or dissent, he had doomed himself to return here, to spend the rest of his days scrubbing away at that solitary mark of rebellion. God loves these broad ironies.
He reaches the top of the line, indicating right. There’s the ragged beginnings of a sunset visible over the city, a lush melange of magentas and crimsons; he sits there as witty responses crash belatedly into his mind, one after another.
Never say never.
That’s what you think.
Better join the queue.
The car behind honks as a gap opens up. At the last second, Howard switches the indicator and turns left instead.
Halley is on the phone when he gets home; she swivels her chair around to him, rolling her eyes and making a blah blah shape with her hand. The air is dense with a day’s smoke, and the ashtray piled high with crushed butts and frazzled matchsticks. He mouths Hi to her and goes into the bathroom. His own phone starts to ring as he’s washing his hands. ‘Farley?’ he whispers.
‘Howard?’
‘I called you three times, where have you been?’
‘I had to do some work with my third-years for the Science Fair. What’s wrong? Is everything okay? I can’t hear you very well.’
‘Hold on’ – Howard reaches in and turns on the shower. In his natural voice he says, ‘Listen, something very –’
‘Are you in the shower?’
‘No, I’m standing outside it.’
‘Maybe I should call you back.’
‘No – listen, I wanted to – something very strange has just happened. I was talking to the new girl, the substitute, you know, who teaches Geography –’
‘Aurelie?’
‘What?’
‘Aurelie. It’s her name.’
‘How do you know?’
‘What do you mean, how do I know?’
‘I mean’ – he feels his cheeks go crimson – ‘I meant, what kind of name is Aurelie?’
‘It’s French. She’s part-French.’ Farley chuckles lasciviously. ‘I wonder which part. Are you all right, Howard? You sound a bit off.’
‘Well, okay, the point is, I was talking to her in the car park just now – just having a nice, normal conversation about work and how she’s getting on, and then out of the blue she says to me –’ he goes to the door and opens it a sliver. In the next room Halley is still nodding and making mm-hmm noises, the phone cradled between her jawbone and shoulder ‘– she tells me she isn’t going to sleep with me!’ He waits, and when no response is forthcoming, adds, ‘What do you think of that?’
‘That is strange,’ Farley admits.
‘It’s very strange,’ Howard affirms.
‘And what did you say?’
‘I didn’t say anything. I was too surprised.’
‘You hadn’t been rubbing her thigh or anything like that?’
‘That’s just it, it was completely unprompted. We were standing there talking about schoolwork, and then out of nowhere she goes, “You know, I’m not going to sleep with you.” What do you think it could mean?’
‘Well, off hand I’d say it means she isn’t going to sleep with you.’
‘You don’t just say to someone that you’re not going to sleep with them, Farley. You don’t introduce sex into the conversation, out of a clear blue sky, and then just banish it. Unless sex is what you really want to talk about.’
‘Wait – you’re suggesting that when she told you, “I’m not going to sleep with you,” what she actually meant was, “I am going to sleep with you”?’
‘Doesn’t it sound like she’s laying down a challenge? Like she’s saying, “I’m not going to sleep with you now, but I might sleep with you if certain circumstances change.” ’
Farley hums, then says reluctantly, ‘I don’t know, Howard.’
‘Okay, I see, she’s just trying to save me a little time and embarrassment, is that it? She’s just trying to help me out? There couldn’t possibly be any sexual element.’
‘I don’t know what she meant. But isn’t this entirely academic? Don’t you already have a girlfriend? And a mortgage? Howard?’
‘Well obviously,’ Howard says, simmering. ‘I just thought it was a strange thing to say, that’s all.’
‘If I were you I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it. She sounds like one of those flirty types. She’s probably that way with everybody.’
‘Right.’ Howard agrees curtly. ‘Here, I’d better go. See you tomorrow.’ He hangs up the phone.
‘Were you talking to someone in there?’ Halley asks him when he comes out.