Pat Barker - Border Crossing

‘I thought we were talking about Danny.’

A pause. The sound of sheep munching grass drifted up to them from the valley, while behind them bursts of laughter came from the lighted room.

‘How is he?’

‘Reasonably well. Finding it a bit hard to adjust.’

‘How long’s he been out?’

‘About a year. He’s a student. Reading English.’

A sound somewhere between a snort and a laugh. ‘Well, he had a lot of talent.’

For some reason this remark filled Tom with antagonism. ‘I expect he still does.’

‘They’ll all be spilling out in a moment,’ Angus said. ‘Shall we go further down?’

They scrambled over the wall, and began to walk down the hill, their shoes squeaking on the moist grass. Sheep raised their heads to watch them pass, but didn’t bother to move away. The sound of voices and laughter came faintly here. They turned and looked back, and the white farmhouse, with its lighted windows, emphasized the shared isolation of the hillside.

‘Does he know you’re here?’ Angus asked abruptly. ‘No. I’ll tell him the next time I see him. There’s a general agreement that I can see whoever I want to see.’

‘Will you give him my address?’

‘Only if you want me to. Do you?’

‘Oooh. Now there’s a question.’

Angus’s voice had changed. It was less consciously well modulated; his accent had thickened; there was a catch in his breath Tom hadn’t noticed indoors. Perhaps he was asthmatic, and the night air was tightening his chest, or perhaps the silence, the watching sheep, the gulf of white light, had created another self.

‘Yes, why not? He might be curious enough to find out what he did to me.’

‘What he did to you?’

‘Yes, I suppose it does sound odd. I was in my twenties, he was fifteen. Obviously it was my fault.’ He smiled. ‘Anyway, what does it matter? Water under the bridge.’.

‘I’d like to know what happened.’

‘Why?’

Tom started on the obvious reply: because I think it’ll help me to understand Danny, and found himself saying instead, ‘Because I’m standing in your shoes, and I’m starting to think it’s a dangerous place.’

‘Don’t be alone with him, then.’

‘I’ve got to be. Anyway, I’m not worried about that.’

Angus nodded. ‘Lucky you.’

‘What went wrong?’

‘I fell in love with him.’ A pause, while Angus contemplated, with a moue of distaste, the banality of the statement: its lack of any protective coating of cynicism or self-mockery. ‘Almost as soon as I met him. I wasn’t the only one, though, it took various forms. I’m not saying it was always sexual. In fact it wasn’t. But he was directly responsible for four people —. that I know of — leaving that unit. And generally it was because they were over-involved, or jealous. I just accepted it. Not simply the fact that everybody was intensely involved with Danny, but the pretence that it wasn’t happening. That all the kids were treated exactly alike. Like bloody hell they were.’ He pulled himself up, dismayed by his own bitterness. ‘Have you seen Greene?’

‘Yes. And Mrs Greene.’

‘Oh yes. Elspeth.’

‘Did Greene know what you were doing with Danny?’

‘Sexually?’

‘I meant the writing.’

‘No, he didn’t, and he wouldn’t have approved if he had. We were always told we didn’t need to know anything about them, the past was irrelevant, their backgrounds were of no importance whatsoever. And these were kids with completely fragmented lives. I mean, Danny was brought up by his parents, but he was the exception. There were kids there who’d had five or six foster placements in one year. Just at the… real bog-level standard of who they were and where they came from, they had no idea. And I thought it was important, and I still think it’s important, to help kids like that construct the narrative of their own lives. And to help them put names to emotions. You got the impression with a lot of them that they had a kind of tension level, and they didn’t know whether it was pain, boredom, loneliness, un-happiness, anger, bewilderment, because they didn’t know the names. They only knew it felt bloody awful, and they relieved it by bopping somebody else over the head. So I don’t apologize for what I was doing. It needed doing. And it wasn’t therapy. It was supplying a basic piece of equipment that the rest of us take for granted.’

‘Did you like Danny?’

‘You mean, apart from loving him?’ He thought for a moment. ‘There was nothing to like. He was incredibly charming, shallow, manipulative. I mean, beyond belief. Control was an end in itself. And he was shut down. You were dealing with about 10 per cent of him. And not only that. He was only dealing with 10 per cent of himself. And he had this very bright, cold intelligence, and he was talented — which was gold dust in there, believe me! And it seemed such a tragedy, that he was… frozen like that.’

‘So you decided you’d thaw him out?’

‘No, that’s not true. He decided. The sort of topics I was giving him were standard English essay stuff. It was Danny who started pushing it. I did say things like, “Look, I can’t see the people.” But he took that and ran with it. He got closer and closer, until you could hear them breathing, and okay, it was dangerous, but let’s not forget, it was also something that needed to happen.’

‘Did you ever think you ought to stop?’

‘Yes. He didn’t want to stop.’

‘Did you ever say, “Slow down”?’

‘I didn’t know how close we were. You’ve got to remember I didn’t know anything about the background. He’d be describing a particular incident and I didn’t know whether it was the day before the murder, or the year before.’

‘You could have asked.’

‘Not without pushing. I never mentioned the murder.’

‘Did he write about the time his mother tried to beat him with his father’s belt?’

‘And he grabbed it and swung her round? Yes.’

‘Did he write about Lizzie Parks?’

‘Yes, I think that’s what did it. The next day I was due to see him, and he didn’t show up. And that Sunday evening after tea he went to Greene and said I’d molested him. Greene sent for me. He established that I’d spent x number of hours alone with Danny, and that was it. I was out. I left the next morning.’

‘Why do you think he went to Greene?’

‘Because he was frightened. He couldn’t stop, he knew he was going to tell me about the murder, and that was a terrible thought. Because he’d never actually admitted it.’

‘Isn’t it possible he found the sex disturbing? He was only fifteen.’

‘No.’

‘How do you know?’

Angus turned to face him, a glimmer of amusement in his pale eyes. ‘I’m going to tell you something about the sex that’ll really shock you.’

‘I doubt it, but go on.’

‘There wasn’t any. It never happened.’

Tom took a deep breath. ‘You’ve shocked me.’

‘He cut my head off.’

‘Why didn’t you insist on an inquiry?’

‘I’d been alone with him. It was my word against his.’

‘And you thought Greene would believe him?’

‘Greene didn’t want a scandal. Bad for Danny, bad for the school. Bad for Greene.’ A moment’s pause. ‘How close are you to the murder?’

‘Pretty close.’

Angus grinned, and began walking back up the hill, calling over his shoulder, ‘Watch yourself.’

They parted at the door. Angus walked away along the corridor, wine glass in one hand, bottle in the other, not looking back. Tom had no desire to rejointhe party, and instead went upstairs where he was to sleep, for the first time since childhood, in a bunk bed. The lay preacher was already there, on his knees beside the bed, praying. Tom hadn’t encountered this before either. He undressed quietly, and tiptoed off to the bathroom. A woman muffled in a tartan dressing gown — one of the group who unaccountably wanted to write — was already waiting in the corridor.