The last week of term progressed more or less as normal. Antigone proved a great success, especially among some of the more susceptible of my fifth-form pupils. The red-haired temptress from Mulberry House who had caused such devastation took her final curtain call and left, much to my unspoken relief. The pupils from La Baule came and went in a haze of illicit Gitanes. And Harrington and Spikely were quiet, polite, and respectful—except that sometimes I thought they looked at me with a hint of anxiety, as if they were waiting for something that I had not yet delivered.

As for Harry—I’ll admit I still felt embarrassed by what he had confessed to me, and by what the Chaplain had said. I didn’t exactly avoid him—we were both very busy that term—but neither did I go out of my way to seek him out. No more cups of tea at Break; no drinks at the Thirsty Scholar. Instead, I dealt with wet lunchtimes and Christmas card deliveries, and bullies and smokers and homework evaders and Dr. Devine’s repeated complaints about his disappearing supplies. Eric too seemed distant—although I’d said nothing to him of what Harry had said. He’d never really warmed to Harry in the way that I had, and he could sometimes be puritanical about the strangest of things. Perhaps he was slightly jealous of the way Harry and I had become friends. But Eric was subject to changes of mood—one day cheery and talkative, the next day curiously withdrawn—and so I gave little thought to his silence.

I suppose that even if I had known what was going on, I wouldn’t have known how to intervene. At least, that’s what I tell myself now. But sometimes, I still think about what might have happened, and I feel that absurd sting of guilt, just as I do when I hear the news that a boy I once taught has died—which happens more often now, of course, although I never get used to it—that feeling that I should have been there; I should have been looking out for my friend.

• • •

Tonight, in my dark and lonely house, I returned to Harry’s box. Over a pasty and a beer, I opened one of his blue School diaries; read until I strained my eyes. There was nothing much to see: scribbled reminders; lesson notes; drawings; a few lines of poetry—his own, or another’s, I could not say.

I dreamt that I was old. And you—you were beside me

Forever young—in your hand, a cup of stars.