Caryl Phillips - The Lost Child

“Well, sit down then, Wilson. I assume that everyone will introduce themselves in time, but for now you’ll just have to muck in like the rest.”

Again he hears sniggering.

“Are you asleep, Wilson? I said you can sit down, lad. This isn’t the army, you know.”

Mr. Hedges achieves the anticipated roar of laughter, and a self-satisfied smile creases his lips. He has some sympathy for the stray, but he doesn’t play favourites, and he isn’t about to start now.

“You had better buck your ideas up, Wilson. You’ll have to be on your toes to survive in these parts.”

At noon the bell rings out, and as soon as Mr. Hedges picks up his books and papers and leaves the classroom, desk lids are opened and slammed shut, and the mad rush commences. Tommy follows the other boys, feeling the double humiliation of not having anybody to talk to and understanding that he will most likely have to ask somebody where the line is for those who have free school dinners. Once they reach the cafeteria he discovers it to be a raucous cavern of clanging confusion and raised voices, and he anxiously scans the room for his brother, but he can’t see him. Perhaps the older boys eat in a different location? Despite the tight knot of hunger in his belly, he knows that this is neither the time nor the place to make a mistake, and so he turns and gently shoves his way back towards the door.

The gymnasium is in its own building behind the main school block, but between the two structures is a narrow gap into which neither sunlight nor noise from the playground can penetrate. He slumps down onto the shingles and leans his back against the brick wall of the school block. By pulling his knees up tight under his chin, he can make a ball of himself and therefore consider himself potentially useful. At the far end of the gymnasium building he hears a door smash open, and two boys in football kit, with shirts flapping out of their shorts, rush into view and head towards the playing fields. Intrigued, he stands and tiptoes his way along the loose stones until he reaches the gymnasium door, which remains invitingly ajar. Once inside he discovers himself to be in a changing room with its collection of shirts, jackets, and trousers hanging in seemingly random formation from various pegs, and he sees both white and black plimsolls and duffel bags scattered haphazardly on long benches and across the floor. He looks around and knows that he probably shouldn’t linger, but this is the first time he has felt any sense of familiarity and comfort since his mother dropped him off at Mrs. Swinson’s house on Saturday morning.

Mr. Hedges stands beneath the archway of the main entrance to the school with a whistle in his hand. The new lad is loafing by himself in the far corner of the playground, carefully watching two hastily assembled teams of boys playing an eleven-a-side match with a dirty tennis ball. The moment he saw the boy he knew it was an impossible situation. Thomas Wilson is not part of the group, nor does it look as if he’ll be invited to join in. In fact, he suspects that timidity has most likely been introduced into the lad’s soul by a neglectful upbringing. He sees it all the time — like whipped puppies, some of them — but there’s nothing to be done, for on top of everything else, they can’t be expected to minister to the welfare of the disadvantaged. They’re teachers, not social workers, and it’s an important distinction that some of his younger colleagues would do well to remember. That said, the curly-haired Wilson boy is clearly a special case. The lad has got his hands pushed deep into his trouser pockets, and occasionally he lurches and kicks out at the same time as somebody shoots, but then young Wilson remembers himself and quickly looks around to make sure that nobody has noticed. Mr. Hedges shakes his head. He blows his whistle and brings dinnertime to an end.

Tommy surreptitiously lifts himself off the chair and quickly hikes up his trousers so that none of the other boys notice what he is doing. He folds the waistband over and runs his hands to the sides to make sure that everything is even all the way around; then he plonks himself back down and slides forward so he is almost wedged under the desk. Their tired mother had left them with Mrs. Swinson on Saturday morning, but shortly after she went off back home, Mrs. Swinson took one disappointing look at their clothes and announced that she had no choice but to take them shopping that same afternoon.

“I’ve been doing this for a long time, and during the war I even had evacuees — Cockneys from London — dirty beggars all of them, and I couldn’t understand a word they were saying, but at least their mothers knew to send them with some proper clothes. I mean, really. I’ll wager she thinks she can use her depression as an excuse, but those plucked eyebrows give her away.”

Tommy and his brother were each kitted out with a new blazer, a white shirt, and a pair of school trousers, but everything was at least two sizes too big. Mrs. Swinson made a big show of handing over the council vouchers, as though she wanted all and sundry to know that these two boys were in her charge and she was going out of her way to provide them with a roof and bring them up to scratch. But her mood changed when the man failed to produce the two school ties that she was anticipating, informing her that she would have to pay for them. Tommy was relieved, for at least there would be one item of clothing that they would not be required to grow into.

The four o’clock bell signals the end of the day, and a glassy-eyed Mr. Hedges looks up from his desk. He slowly draws his hunched body to its full height and surveys the room, the weight of his judgmental gaze falling on each boy in turn. Tommy is the new boy in the class, but he already understands that being assigned to this form means that he has probably drawn the short straw.

The boys push back from their desks, and as they file past Hedges, they hand him their exercise books, which contain the answers to the history questions that are still chalked up on the board.

“Good night, sir.”

“Good night, Matthews.”

“Good night, sir.”

“Good night, Appleby.”

He wonders if “Privet”—for Tommy has heard the other boys secretly referring to the teacher by this nickname — will remember who he is.

“Good night, sir.”

“Good night, Wilson.”

He worries about his answers, but this being his first day perhaps he will be forgiven for getting most of them wrong.

“Wilson.” He stops but is afraid to immediately turn around. When he does so, he can see that Hedges has a biro in his hand and is gesturing with it towards his almost totally shrouded shoes. “I recommend a good-quality belt, if you get my drift?”

He hears some boys chuckling, but a quick swivel of Hedges’s owl-like head restores order.

“Yes, sir.”

He moves now with his eyes down, sure that everybody is laughing at him, and wishing that just one person — that would have been enough — could have made the effort to be his friend. He feels sure that when they see him play football, they will want to know him, but as he threads his way through the jostling crowds in the narrow corridor, he can’t remember whether the games period is tomorrow or the next day. He does, however, remember where the toilets are. Once he has finished, he looks around and is surprised to see that the pristine walls are unblemished by either hastily scribbled girls’ names or rumours and, increasingly implausible, counterrumours. He holds his hands under the cold water tap and quickly rubs them together, pretending that they’re lathered in soap, and he begins now to focus his mind on the task of meeting up with his brother.

Tommy stands by the school gates and waits until the deluge of excited boys reclaiming their freedom becomes a dribble. He screws up his eyes, hoping to see Ben emerging out of the glow of the fading sun, but the rush of pumping arms and legs appears to have dried up entirely. And then he sees Ben standing nonchalantly at the bus stop across the street with a group of twelve-year-old boys all of whom are greatly amused by whatever it is his brother is saying. Tommy looks both ways and begins to cross towards him, but when he sees the embarrassment on Ben’s face, he decides to keep walking. Behind him he hears his brother’s raised voice (“See you tomorrow”), the chorus of voices that confirm the appointment (“Yeah, tomorrow”), and then the pitterpatter of a short, unenthusiastic jog that concludes when Ben reaches level with him.