I tore the letter in half, then in four, then into a hundred pieces. They fluttered away like moths’ wings, under the hedge, into the canal. There, Mousey. There’s no going back. Those words cannot be recovered. They can never be made whole again, any more than a man’s life can be made whole once it has been broken into pieces.

They change the sky, not their souls, that run across the ocean. Well, I could do with a change of sky. Maybe something blue this time. America, Australia. No one would come looking for me. No one would care that I was gone. I’ve got money. I’ve got skills. I’ve got more than thirty years before I can think about dying.

And yet, the canal looks good tonight. It smells of the clay pits, and childhood. On a night like this, I could probably find a stray dog or cat to drown. Maybe even a homeless man sleeping out in a cardboard box. It wouldn’t take much. It never does. Just hold his head for a minute or two. A couple of fireworks in the sky above White City. Red. Green. I stick out my tongue to taste them, the way we used to with snowflakes. I see the bright reflections on the surface of the canal. I take a step. You could almost believe a man could walk on water.

Chapter 9

9

Monday, November 7, 2005

It was my birthday on Saturday. Sixty-six, and still chained to the oar. If anyone had dared to tell the fourteen-year-old boy I was that I would one day volunteer to spend more time at St. Oswald’s, he would probably have given them a vicious Chinese burn, before stealing their lunch and retreating to the playing fields with Eric Scoones, to share the spoils of infamy.

Of course, in those days we both believed a friendship would last a lifetime. Now, in the light of recent events, I wonder if our friendship can. He tried to call me on Saturday night, but I was too troubled to answer the phone. We all have guilty secrets, of course. We’ve all done things that we regret. But if Eric abused a boy in his charge, then allowed Harry Clarke to go to jail, rather than name his blackmailer—that’s infamy of another kind than the odd illicit Gauloise taken in my form room, or failure to declare a mouse infestation, or theft from Dr. Devine’s stationery cupboard.

Of course, the evidence against Eric remains purely circumstantial. But if it is true—and my instincts, honed by my years as a Master, were screaming like a Greek chorus that yes, Eric Scoones was guilty as charged—then what did that say about Straitley? What price our friendship then?

I arrived in my form room early today. Eric was already waiting for me. A bottle of claret stood on the desk, between two of my ugliest spider plants.