That was when my paralysis broke. I gave a shout—and a good one too, in my loudest Bell Tower voice—and started to run toward the bridge. My foot slipped on the muddy path; my knee cramped again in agony. I lurched painfully to the side, and the invisible finger started to play a solo—tuba, I think, or a saxophone—along the buttons of my coat.

Meanwhile, on the canal bridge, Harrington had fallen, facedown. Winter too had dropped to his knees, and I thought somehow he had been hit. But as I reached the bridge, I saw that Winter was gasping for breath, as if he were having an asthma attack—

I used to have a boy like that in my form, many, many years ago; a boy of such sensitivity that he would suffer panic attacks at the sight of violence. Rugby matches; playground fights; and once, a particularly bloody staging of Coriolanus, during which he became so upset that he had to leave the theatre. The Old Head would have caned him for that, having no patience with what he called the Sensitive Brigade, but I was more sympathetic, and I’d managed to fix things somehow. That boy was Joseph Apple, and he ended badly. But he was one of mine, nevertheless, as was Johnny Harrington, and, whatever our differences—the Honours Boards, the curriculum, even Harry’s memorial—I’m glad to say that my instincts remained; to intervene in defense of my boys.

With Winter helpless on his knees, it would have been easy for Spikely to finish the job he had started. But Spikely hadn’t expected to see me lumbering onto the footbridge, waving my arms (as advised to do in the presence of wild animals) and shouting at the top of my voice:

“Spikely! Stop that, right now!”

Chapter 5

5

November 4, 2005, 9:12 p.m.

There’s something about a Master’s voice that never loses its potency. That voice took me back to St. Oswald’s almost as if I’d never left: the smell of polish and chalk dust; the sunlight shining down South Stair; the scent of the geraniums under the glass on the window ledge in Harry’s room.

Old Mr. Straitley got old, Mousey. I don’t believe he ever looked young. Now he’s fat and raddled and slow; not so much a lion as an elephant: small-eyed, angry, ready to charge. Another moment, Mousey, and I could have finished your brother. He was right there, at my feet. I could taste the victory. But Straitley’s presence changed all that. I hadn’t expected a witness. And yet, there seemed to me to be a kind of poetry in his being there; as if I’d been waiting for this all along; the final page in the diary.

“Mr. Straitley. You don’t look too well. You ought to take better care of yourself.”