“Don’t get all worked up, Harry,” I said. “I can’t force you to tell me anything. But whatever it is, I’m on your side. Remember that.” I kissed him. “Try to sleep now.”

I rose. As I was at the door, he called me back. I smiled at him. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said.

“Come here, Daddy.”

I sat on the bed.

“Do you really mean whatever I’ve done?”

“I don’t tell you lies,” I said.

He clutched my arm. “You won’t be angry with me, will you? You promised.”

His large blue eyes and the long dark lashes were wasted on a boy, Susan – and others – had always said; looking at him now for the first time in two months, I thought that I understood what had driven him from school. He was a good-looking boy; his features were, when I came to consider it, more delicate than Barbara’s. I began to feel angry again; this time the anger was directed against myself. Into what sort of captivity had I allowed him to go?

“Harry, listen. It doesn’t make any difference what you’ve done, I promise you you won’t hear one word of reproach from me. We all make mistakes, Harry. A mistake isn’t the end of the world.”

“They sent me to Coventry,” he said. “I couldn’t stand it. I hate the beastly school, anyway.”

“You might have told me what you felt about it,” I said. “But it doesn’t matter now. Why did they send you to Coventry?”

He looked at me suspiciously. “You’ll not want to speak to me again,” he said. He started to weep noisily; I held him tightly against me and wiped his eyes.

He snuffled and gave me back the handkerchief. “I’m soft,” he said. “I shouldn’t blub.” He shook off my arm.

“Ah, Christ,” I said. “Cry if you want to. What’s the good of holding it in? What are they training you to be at that bloody school? A Red Indian?”

“They wanted to whitewash me,” he said. “I wouldn’t let them. It’s an initiation ceremony for your second year.” He took my handkerchief from me and wiped his eyes.

“It sounds pretty stupid to me,” I said. “But I never had your advantages. What do you mean, whitewash you?”

“They whitewash your – thing,” he said. “They do it to every­body.”

“Did the headmaster know about this?”

“Of course he doesn’t,” he dropped his handkerchief. “You won’t tell him, will you?”

“No. But they didn’t send you to Coventry just because you wouldn’t let them initiate you. If that’s the word for white­washing your private parts. What did you do?”

“There were ten of them,” he said.

“All right, there were ten of them. What did you do to these ten heroes?”

“I knifed one of them.”