I must cut down on the Gauloises, I thought. And maybe the cheese, and the claret. I remember a time when I could have run from St. Oswald’s to the clay pits without so much as breaking a sweat; but that was a long time ago. The clay pits are gone, and so is that boy, whom Eric called “Straits” because he was constantly falling foul of the authorities.

Well, I’d rather not fall foul of them now, especially not for chatting up boys in the park on a Friday night. I went back to my house on Dog Lane with a fluttering sense of doom, almost expecting to find those boys waiting for me with the police.

I know. It was ridiculous. But as I opened my garden gate to see the shadow of a man in blue standing by my little porch, I felt all the air in my lungs rush out. The only coherent thought in my mind was once again: Just like Harry Clarke.

Chapter 11

11

October 1988

Seven years had passed since the Nutter affair. That’s twenty St. Oswald’s terms: cut grass; rainy lunchtimes; cups of tea in the Common Room and stacks of books in the Quiet Room; School plays and small dramas; Open Days; Parents’ Evenings; sporadic invasions of Mulberry girls; and sleepy Friday afternoons. St. Oswald’s is its own world; what happens in the world outside is of far less significance. In the world outside our gates, Margaret Thatcher was at the helm; but inside, we had Shitter Shakeshafte, and a kind of stable anarchy.

Nutter had left Malbry in early ’82, giving no further explanation for his disappearance. That Easter, Harrington also left, following a series of increasingly urgent letters from Dr. Harrington Senior, demanding to know whether there was any truth in the rumour that his son’s English teacher, Harry Clarke, was a homosexual.

I told you, Shitter Shakeshafte was no liberal. On the other hand, like all the Old Guard, he believed in St. Oswald’s above all else. Whatever the complaint, he would always take the side of a staff member against a parent (albeit for the privilege of being the one to wield the ax as soon as the battle was over). He duly informed Dr. Harrington that Mr. Clarke was an English Master of exceptional ability, and that how he conducted his private life had no bearing on his work, and that furthermore, if Dr. Harrington preferred to send his son to another grammar school, then he should do so without delay, or lose a term’s fees in lieu of notice. Then, in the privacy of his cheese-fetid office, with the leather-studded double doors, he gave Harry Clarke such a rocket that all the Lower Corridor overheard him; warning Harry to keep his Gay Lib to himself, and threatening him with the most baroque of consequences if there was another complaint.