“A music teacher who teaches in a studio in the north quad,” he said, “laid a complaint with us that you had been harassing her students.”
“What?” Against his will Stanley felt himself begin to flush.
“Harassing her students,” the Head of Movement went on. “In particular a young girl in the fifth form. Does this mean anything to you?”
Stanley sat for a moment without speaking.
“Nothing?” the Head of Movement said.
He drew the silence out between them carefully, like a measured breath. There was a dreadful sinking feeling in the pit of Stanley’s stomach. He sat and stared at the glossy sheen of the table under the Head of Movement’s hands, and said nothing.
“Normally,” the Head of Movement said, “we wouldn’t intervene in a case like this, of course. Normally we’d treat you like an adult and expect you to sort it out of your own accord. But the fact that this music teacher has taken up the issue directly with us—you see that we are compelled to talk with you about it. You see that.”
“Yes,” Stanley said automatically, and he nodded his head.
“The music teacher was very concerned about her students’ safety, given the proximity of her studio to this Institute,” the Head of Movement said.
Stanley nodded again.
“What happened, Stanley?” the Head of Movement said. “What’s all this about?”
Stanley looked up quickly to meet the Head of Movement’s gaze, and then drew his eyes away, turning his head to look at the framed posters and theater programs above the filing cabinet. They were ordered chronologically, lined up like a simple recipe for the Head of Movement’s life, the plotted path to where he sat right now at his empty desk with his bare feet together and a frown upon his face.
“I don’t know,” Stanley said at last. “I don’t know anything about a saxophone teacher.”
“I said music teacher.”
Stanley drew in his breath sharply and again glanced at the Head of Movement, even quicker this time, as if the tutor’s haggard face was either very hot or very bright, and his eyes could not stand to rest for long.
“I knew she played sax,” he said quietly, and the words were like a horrible admission, a statement of guilt. A little cough in the back of his throat broke the last word in two.
“I assume you are keeping quiet so as not to incriminate yourself,” the Head of Movement said coldly, after another wretched pause.
“I just—”
In truth Stanley simply had nothing to say. He shrugged, more to communicate helplessness than insolence, but the Head of Movement’s eyes flashed and Stanley saw that the gesture had angered him. The Head of Movement’s coldness somehow amplified now, and he pressed his palms flatter upon the tabletop.
“Because the young girl in question is in the fifth form,” the Head of Movement said, “you understand that she is not yet sixteen.”
Stanley was still nodding.
“Because she is not yet sixteen,” the Head of Movement said, “you understand that any form of sexual relations an adult might have, or have had, with this girl would be a crime. I’m speaking in my capacity as your tutor here.”
Stanley nodded again. He was vaguely aware that he had gone white and that his mouth had started to fill with saliva in an awful tongue-shrinking preface to vomiting. He felt nauseous and all of a sudden found his sense of smell sharpened acutely: he could smell the damp wool of his tutor’s jacket hanging on the back of the door, the paper twist of nuts on the dresser, cold coffee pooling in the bottom of a cold mug. He felt his head reel.
The Head of Movement surveyed him for a moment. He had a wide-eyed straining look about him, as if the worst was still to come. He leaned forward, puckering his lips slightly in a dry kiss as he made a careful choice of words.
“Stanley,” he said, “I want you to think about something very carefully. You don’t have to answer, I just want you to think about it. If the parents of this young girl ended up being in the audience when you produce your first-year production at the end of this week, would it change anything? If they were there?”
It was a strange question and Stanley didn’t understand it. He stared at the Head of Movement blankly and said, “I don’t know what you mean.”
“This girl that you have been—”
“Isolde.”
“Yes. She has a sister, am I right?”
“I don’t know,” Stanley said. “Why?”
The Head of Movement was now looking at him with open disgust. “Oh, come on, Stanley, let’s not dance around like this. This is ridiculous.”
Stanley swallowed and reached up to wipe a film of sweat from his upper lip. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I must be missing something.”
“Isolde’s sister’s name is Victoria,” the Head of Movement snapped. “Does that ring any bells?”
Stanley stared at him for only a brief half-second before he realized—and the realization descended upon him like the awful downward shudder of a guillotine. Victoria, he was screaming. Victoria, the celebrity focus of their production, snipped from a column in the newspaper, snatched up and stolen and grafted on to all the posters, black and red, The Bedpost Queen. Would it change anything if Victoria’s parents were there—that was the Head of Movement’s question.
And then the second blade of realization fell, if possible more horrible than the first. They think Isolde is a pawn, Stanley thought, a pawn that I wielded to get information for the play. My pawn.
“Of course, I am not supposed to know anything about the content of the first-year devised theater production,” the Head of Movement was saying, “and really I do know very little about what you are rehearsing and working on. But I can’t avoid walking past an open door every so often, or hearing a scrap of conversation in the hall. You understand.”
Stanley sat shrinking in his clammy seat, trying with difficulty to swallow the nausea that was rising like a hard stone in the back of his throat.
“Does Isolde know?” he said stupidly.
“About what?” the Head of Movement said.
“About the production. What it’s about, and what we’re doing.”
“I have no idea,” the Head of Movement said. “I have only spoken to the saxophone teacher. We were discussing the situation, and she explained the family had had a difficult year, given the scandal surrounding the older daughter’s rape. I recognized the name and made the connection myself.”
Stanley was furiously trying to think back to all the conversations he’d had with Isolde—had he ever mentioned it? Had he ever said Victoria’s name?
“Are you going to tell them?” he asked. “Are you going to ring the parents?”
“I think that’s for you to think about, Stanley. As I said, you’re an adult, and you can deal with this yourself.”
“What about the music teacher? What if she’s rung them already?” he said. He had never seen Isolde’s saxophone teacher, but he imagined her as a vicious oily shadow standing by the curtain and looking down past the branches into the courtyard below.
“I don’t know,” the Head of Movement said. He was looking at Stanley oddly now. “So you’re saying you didn’t know,” he said. “About the sister.”
“No,” Stanley said. He felt himself shrivel further. How stupid was he? He had never even asked this girl’s last name. He had never asked—about her family, about her life at home, about the house where she woke up and showered and ate breakfast and practiced her saxophone with the scruffy leaves of her sheet music around her on the floor: these were scenes he had never imagined. He had never imagined this girl beyond the time he had spent with her: she had simply been—what? A function of himself, maybe. She had simply presented a role for him to fill.