I turn the boys away, in any case, ring the bell for lights-out. And in the morning the coaches arrive, all eleven of them, to carry fifty-eight upper-school boys to the train station. It’s snowed again and the horses are steaming, and don’t one of them shit just as old Swinburne goes walking past. Lovely smell that, fresh horse dung on snow. You want to bottle it and sell it to yer sweetheart.

I watch them go, wrapped in my old blanket. One of the boys looks back at me all the way to the end of the driveway. He don’t wave.

Neither do I.

When they’re gone, I go inside, shovel some coals into the stove, put on a bone for soup. By the time it’s cooked they’ll be pulling in at Oxford.

INFECTION

INFECTION

The country stretches before them, white and serene. The sun emerges, seeks out the snow, ignites it. Hedgerows stand out against the blaze, cut up the valleys into irregular parcels; shade trees rising black and crisp, mirroring their shadows: frost for foliage, bereft of birds. Charlie sits, his scarf tied around his ears, hanging out the window of the coach, glorying in the sights. He cannot remember another December this cold, this beautiful. A mile from Oxford one of the wheels gets stuck in a drift and the boys spill out to dig it free; throw snowballs, but make haste, too, afraid of missing the train.

Oxford itself is a row of fairy castles embroidered by college crests. The streets are full of ladies and their attendants, making purchases. They halt at the station, a procession of coaches, and the whole street stops to watch them get out: young women in fur stoles and muffs pointing them out to one another. Nervously, but also with a sense of joy, Charlie tugs at the nicely tailored jacket of his school uniform and reties his white scarf. There is something very pleasing about walking into the station and tipping one’s hat to the gentlefolk waiting at the ticket counter and watching them respond in kind. School seems many miles away all of a sudden, a thing of the past. They have reentered society and are welcomed as equals, as adults. Charlie is not alone in his reaction. All around him he can see the boys walking taller, smoothing the hair down under their caps, and abandoning all horseplay; looking about themselves with a shy sort of pride. Only Thomas appears untouched by this feeling, walks gloomy, head bowed, forever apart. For a moment Charlie is angry with him, at his inability to enjoy the morning. Then a more generous feeling wins out. He walks over to him, attempts to draw him into conversation.

“I wonder what platform it is, to London.”

Thomas looks at him caustically. Don’t pity me, his look is saying. Don’t you dare pity me.

“We are with the swine.”