Alan Hollinghurst - The Stranger’s Child

‘Oh, no, sir…!’ There were sickened protests.

‘Fine, fine… Fine , what about “Hearts of Oak”.’

‘Mm, all right, sir,’ said Sloane, who was still exhilarated by the magic eruption of the sonic boom, and seemed to have promoted himself to class leader, or bargainer.

‘ “Hearts of Oak” is a fine old song,’ said Peter. ‘Come, cheer up, my lads, ’tis to glory we steer!’ And a minute later he had them all at it.

Hearts of oak are our ships, jolly tars are our men,

We always are ready – Steady, boys, steady!

and he joined them to stiffen up the sinew: ‘We’ll fight and we’ll conquer again and again!’ There was undoubtedly something wrong, but he got them into the next verse and shouting ‘Keep going!’ he left the piano and walked along just in front of the front row and then behind the back row, pausing and leaning in as if to share a confidence with each child. There was a standard place for giggles in this song, as reliable as some old music-hall gag, and Peter hardened his face against it:

But should their flat bottoms in darkness get o’er

Still Britons they’ll find to receive them on shore.

‘Yes, thank you very much, Prowse 2,’ said Peter. ‘Sing on, sing on!’ As a master, one could make the boys laugh, but one couldn’t be made to laugh by them – in class it meant a notable loss of authority, and out of class it was oddly too intimate. Even so, the sheer idiocy of their jokes could be hard to resist.

‘Aha!’ he said, ‘yes, I thought as much.’ He sounded much more bad-tempered than he really meant. Poor Dupont coloured up and dried up too, but Peter had got the proof he needed. The singing trailed off at the promise of an incident, less exciting than a sonic boom but with a human interest that had them all peering round in happy relief that someone else was in trouble. It had happened before – in the first week of term red-headed Macpherson had been sent out smirking and shrugging into his new freedom. ‘Just give me the first verse,’ said Peter. Dupont stared at him with a mixture of anxiety and indignation he hadn’t seen before; cleared his throat; and then started singing, very quietly, ‘Come, cheer up, my lads…’ in a voice that wouldn’t obey him. There were sniggers from along the row, and Peter supported him, nodding firmly, holding his eye – ‘’Tis to glory we steer , To add something more to this wonderful year …’ – Dupont burning red and looking away as the tune cracked and lurched out of control – ‘Ah well – I’m sorry,’ said Peter, and pursed his lips in friendly regret. In the front row Morgan-Williams uttered a croaky warble. Peter ignored the laughter that followed. ‘It will happen to you too,’ he said, ‘we’ll all enjoy laughing at you then.’ He went back to the piano. But he sensed something more was in the air. When he sat down, and turned to look at them, Dupont was still hovering at the end of the row. Peter smiled at him, to say goodbye, a little flash of favouritism after all – in a way it was cause for congratulation, like being confirmed. He would soon settle down, in the Sixth Form next term, long trousers, a teenage voice, he could hear him already. Milsom 1 was looking with furrowed interest at his friend. Sloane said, ‘You’re meant to go, Dupe.’ Dupont’s mortification made Peter himself feel uncomfortable. This clever and unusual child felt for the first time like a figure of fun, perhaps, or of superstition, sent out awkwardly into the future on the other boys’ behalf. ‘You can go and read in the library, if you like,’ said Peter, which properly was a Sixth Form privilege. Still, there was a crackle of mockery as Dupont went smiling through his blushes to the door.

Paul leant forward, raised the brass bolt, and opened the little doors of his position. In less than a minute the bank itself would open; through the frosted glass in the lower half of the windows the grey shapes of three or four waiting customers could be seen outside, blurred and overlapping. But for now the Public Space was deserted, its dark linoleum unscuffed, the ashtrays sparkling, the ink-wells full, The Times and the Financial Times untouched on the table. There was something beautiful in the sheer old-fashioned dullness of the place. On the notice-board above the table were advertisements for 5% Defence Bonds and Premium Savings Bonds, and under a bold sans-serif heading a statement on ‘ BANK RAIDS’ which lent the Public Space its one note of possible excitement.

Already he and Geoff had emptied the Night Deposit Safe, and spent a friendly ten minutes checking the contents of the locked leather wallets. As the bank closed at three, most shopkeepers dropped off their takings later, in the swivelling chute of the safe. Counting and entering the paid-in cash and cheques was the first task of the day. Geoff counted money with eye-puzzling speed, the rubber thimble on his right forefinger pulsing over the notes. Paul was lightly distracted by the sense of competition, as well as by Geoff’s sleepy but determined morning presence, hair still damp, aftershave new and sharp. He sighed and started on a batch again. Mrs Marsh had reduced his military bandage to a neat pad at the base of his thumb, but he still felt clumsy and went cautiously. Ten-shilling notes were the dirtiest and most torn, and had sometimes to be set aside. Ten-pound notes he always took more slowly, out of respect. Susie had asked him about his bandage, and the story of last night had come out and given him a first enjoyable taste of being a character, with comical adventures. He heard her say, ‘Did you hear what happened to young Paul?’

There were three positions on the counter – Jack nearest the door from the street, Geoff in the centre, and Paul waiting to be discovered at the far end, closest to the Manager’s office. Geoff was informally keeping an eye on Paul, and Paul even more informally, in fact quite furtively, was keeping an eye on Geoff. It was absurd to have a thing about Geoff, but there he was all day long, on view, in his tight-fitting suit and zip-up ankle-boots with built-up heels hooked over the bar of his stool. Mr Keeping made sardonic allusions to Geoff’s boots, but didn’t actually ban them. Among the girls, too, at their desks and typewriters behind them, Geoff’s looks were a bit of a joke, one of those jokes that of course allowed them to be talked about. Paul felt no such freedom. When they ribbed Geoff about Sandra, the girl he was seeing from the National Provincial, it was Paul who blushed and felt his pulse quicken at the curiosity in the air. He imagined being kissed by Geoff, suddenly but inevitably, in the staff-room Gents, and then Geoff – ‘Opening!’ said Hannah, as the front door was unlocked, and with a flutter of nerves Paul sat back on his stool and squared his hands on the counter in front of him.

His first customer was a farmer paying in cheques and drawing a large cash sum for his men’s wages – Fridays were heavily to do with paying wages and banking the week’s takings, alarming queues building up while he tallied fifty or sixty cheques. Hundreds of pounds could pass through his window at a time. He felt the farmer, George Hethersedge, was treating him as a bit of a fool for never having seen him before. He seemed to suggest he would look back on this moment of ignorance with rueful embarrassment. Paul had a rough sense, as he counted the notes and totted up the cheques on his adding-machine, that the name Hethersedge had implications, a weight and a place in the light and shade of local opinion. Like many of these quick-set local names, it also had a terrifying overdraft attached to it. He saw how strange it was, in normal social terms, for him to know this. This slight social awkwardness seemed to lie at the heart of their professional relations.