Leslie Hartley - The Complete Short Stories of L.P. Hartley

‘How do you account for it, then?’ he asked, at last.

‘Account for what, Daddy?’ But Laurie knew.

‘Well, for your reports not being so good as they sometimes are.’

Laurie’s face fell.

‘Oh, weren’t they good?’

‘Not all that good. Mr. Sheepshanks——’ he stopped.

‘What did he say?’ The question seemed to be forced out of Laurie.

Mr. Sheepshanks had said that Laurie’s work was ‘disappointing’. How mitigate that adjective to a sensitive ear?

‘He said you hadn’t quite come up to scratch.’

‘I never was much good at maths,’ said Laurie, as though he had had a lifetime’s experience of them.

‘No, they were never your strong suit . . . And Mr. Smallbones——’

Laurie clasped his hands and waited.

Mr. Smallbones had said, ‘Seems to have lost his wish to learn.’ Well, so have I, his father thought, but I shouldn’t want to be told so.

‘He said . . . well, that Latin didn’t come easily to you. It didn’t to me, for that matter.’

‘It’s the irregular verbs.’

‘I know, they are the devil. Why should anyone want to learn what is irregular? Most people don’t need to learn it.’ He smiled experimentally at Laurie, who didn’t smile back. He unclasped his hands and asked wretchedly, but with a slight lift of hopefulness in his voice:

‘What did Mr. Armstrong say?’

Mr. Armstrong was Laurie’s form-master, and it was his cruel verdict that had rankled most with Laurie’s parents. It couldn’t be true! It had seemed a reflection on them too, a slur on their powers of parenthood, a genetic smear, a bad report on them . And it was indignation at this personal affront, as well as despair of finding further euphemisms, that made him blurt out Mr. Armstrong’s words.

‘He said you were dull but deserving.’

Laurie’s head wobbled on his too-plump neck and his face began to crinkle. Appalled, his father ran across to him and touched him on the shoulder, pressing harder than he knew with his big hand. ‘Don’t worry, old chap,’ he said, ‘don’t worry. When I was your age I had terrible reports, much worse than yours are. You’ve spoilt us, that’s what it is, by always having had such smashing ones. But now I’ve got some good news for you, so cheer up!’

Laurie raised his tear-stained face open-eyed to his father’s and set himself to listen. His father moved away from him and, drawing himself up to give the fullest effect to his announcement, said:

‘It doesn’t matter so much what these under-masters say, it’s what the Head master says that counts. Now the Head master says——’

Suddenly he forgot what the Headmaster had said, although he remembered that some parts of the report had best not be repeated. Reluctantly, for he meant to keep the incriminating document hidden, and believed he had its contents by heart, he pulled it out of his breast-pocket, ran his eyes over it, and began rather lamely:

‘Mr. Stackpole says, hm . . . hm . . . hm—just a few general remarks, and then: “Conduct excellent”. “Conduct excellent”,’ he repeated. ‘You’ve never had that said of you before. It’s worth all the others put together. I can’t tell you how pleased and proud I am.

He paused for the electrifying effect, but it didn’t come. Instead, Laurie’s face again began to pucker. For a moment he was speechless, fighting with his sobs; then he burst out miserably:

‘But anyone can be good!’

Trying to comfort him, his father assured him that this wasn’t true: very, very few people could be good, even he, Laurie’s own father, couldn’t, and those who could were worth their weight in gold. After a time he thought that he was making headway: Laurie’s sobs ceased, he seemed to be listening and at last he said:

‘Daddy, do you think they’ll ever build the pylon up again?’

His father stared.

‘Good lord, I hope not! Why, do you want them to?’

Laurie shook his head as if he meant to shake it off.

‘Oh, no, no, no. Of course not. It’s an eyesore. But I just thought they might.’

That night Laurie dreamed that he had got his wish. There stood the pylon: much as he remembered it, but bigger and taller. At least that was his impression, but as it was night in his dream he couldn’t see very well. But he knew that he had regained his interest in life, and knew what he must do to prove it to himself and others. If he did this, a good report was waiting for him. But first he must get out of bed and put on his dressing-gown which lay across the chair, and go down-stairs, silently of course, for if they were about they would hear and stop him. Sometimes, when he was sleepless, he would go out on to the landing and lean over the banisters and call out: ‘I can’t get to sleep!’ and then they would put him to sleep in the spare-room bed, where later his father would join him. But long before his father came up he would be asleep, asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow, such an assurance of security did the promise of his father’s presence bring.

And now if they heard him moving about he would just say that he couldn’t get to sleep, and put off his visit to the pylon to another night. Oh, how clever he was! It was the return of the pylon into his life that made him clever.

Nobody heard him; they had gone to bed. The house was in darkness, but if he was a burglar he wouldn’t mind about that: he would be glad; and Laurie-the-burglar was glad, too, as he tiptoed downstairs in his felt-soled slippers.

But the door—could he unlock it? Yes, the catch yielded to his touch as it would have to a real burglar’s, and he remembered not to shut it, for he must be able to get in again.

He went round to the front of the house. Now the pylon was in full view: its tapering criss-cross shape indistinct against the hill-side, as if someone had drawn it in ink on carbon paper with a ruler; but where it rose above the hill—and it soared much higher than it used to—it was so clear against the sky that you could see every detail—including the exciting cross-piece, just below the summit, that Laurie used to think of as its moustache.

With beating heart and tingling nerves he hastened towards it, through the garden gate and out into the field, feeling it impending over him long before he reached it, before he could even properly see where its four great legs were clamped into the concrete. Now he was almost under it, and what was this? Something grinning at him just above his head, with underneath the words: ‘Danger de Mort’. Abroad all pylons had them. He hadn’t needed to ask his father what the skull and crossbones meant; he hadn’t needed to ask what ‘danger de mort’ meant: ‘Your French is coming on!’ his father said. In England pylons didn’t bear this warning; the English were cleverer than the French—they knew without being told. In England pylons were not dangerous: could this be a French one?

It was a warm night but Laurie shivered and drew his dressing-gown more closely round him. But if there was danger of death, all the more reason to go on, to go up, to be one with the steel girders and the airs that played around them. But not in a dressing-gown, not in bedroom slippers, not in pyjamas, even! Not only because you couldn’t climb in them, but because in them you couldn’t feel the cold touch of the steel upon the flesh. It would be a kind of cheating: you wouldn’t win the good report, perhaps, which depended, didn’t it? on doing things the hardest way.

Lest anyone should steal his night attire Laurie hid it under a low bush close by the monster’s base. Clever Laurie, up to every dodge! English pylons had steps—iron bolts like teeth sticking out six inches from two of the four great supporting girders, and reaching to the top, making the climb easy. But this one hadn’t, so it must be a French pylon. He would have to climb the face of it, clinging to the spars as best he could, for the pylon was an empty shell until almost the top, where a network of struts and stays, like a bird’s nest in a chimney, would give a better foot-hold.