David Storey - Saville

A bell was rung: the mass of uniformed figures divided into two and moved off towards either end of the dark stone building.

He went back up the steps. Boys with tasselled caps were standing at the door. They called out to the boys as they rushed inside.

Connors was standing immediately inside.

‘I wondered where you’d got to,’ he said. ‘I’ve been looking in the field.’

He took his arm.

‘Have you got your health certificate?’ he added.

He took out the piece of paper he’d been given before he left. It had been signed at the bottom, first by his mother and then, after an argument, by his father.

‘Three A. You’ll have old Hodges,’ Connors said.

‘When do they do the ducking?’ he said.

‘Haven’t they collared you already?’

He shook his head. He wondered if he’d been abandoned because of his build, or overlooked.

‘They’ll probably have you in at break, then,’ Connors said. He released his arm. ‘If you have any trouble I’ll see you around.’

The corridor itself was full of figures; the walls were lined by framed photographs of football teams. Stone steps went up to the floor above.

Connors had left him at a panelled door. The room inside was tall: so high, in fact that the ceiling went up into the roof of the building. The windows, mullioned, with diamond panes, took up the greater part of the outside wall. The other three walls were completely bare. The desks themselves were large and stood in four rows the length of the room. The spaces between the rows were full of boys – mostly like himself, in new blazers, some still wearing caps, they stood gazing up at the ceiling, at the height of the windows, at the massive, square-shaped desks and the empty walls.

A man came in. He wore the white collar of a clergyman. His clothes were dark, his face red, a line of white hair receding across his scalp and growing out in two broad tufts at the back of his head.

‘Caps off! Caps off! Do you wear caps inside a building? What manners have you been taught? Caps off, caps off inside a building.’

The few caps still on were taken off.

‘Sit down. Don’t stand around,’ the man had said.

He went to a large desk at the end of the room.

‘What are you doing, boy?’ he shouted.

Several of the boys, following his command, were already sitting.

‘Do you sit down before a master?’

‘No, sir,’ one of the boys had said.

‘Wait till I’m seated.’ He raised his head. ‘Then you sit down, when I’m sat down.’

The boys got up. The master sat down. He wore a long black gown over his dark-blue suit.

‘Now please be seated, gentlemen,’ he said.

Colin found a chair at the back of the room. Most of the desks were already taken.

‘First things first,’ the master said. ‘I’ll call your names. Have you got that clear?’

‘Yes, sir,’ some of the boys had said.

‘When I call your name you come up here, hand me your certificate, your health certificate, and go back to your place.’

He waited for an answer.

‘Yes, sir,’ most of the boys had said.

‘Sit up straight. I want no loafers in 3A.’

The names were called. The master ticked them off inside a register.

‘Not here. Not here,’ he began to shout at one point. ‘You’re in 3 Upper, boy, not here. In with the brainy lot, not these first-year duffers.’

The boy went out.

Colin went up when his name was called. He gave in the certificate: it was opened out, straightened, put on the pile, and he went back to his chair.

‘All present. All correct,’ the master said. He screwed back the top of his pen, took off the pair of glasses he’d put on to mark the register, and glanced slowly round the room. The murmur of voices faded.

‘My name is Hodges,’ he said. ‘Not Bodges. Or Codges. Or even Dodges. Mister Hodges .’ He gazed round at them again for several seconds. ‘I’ll be your form-master for the whole of the year. And woe betide’, he added, ‘any boy who gets himself into any trouble. I don’t like trouble. I have an aversion to trouble. Trouble and I have never got on well together. You’ll see that now by the colour of my face. You’ll see it going slightly red. It gets even redder when trouble actually appears. It becomes positively scarlet, and woe betide anyone who comes in front of me when my face is scarlet. I do all sorts of unimaginable and horrible things when my face is scarlet. I do pretty terrible things when it’s even red; but when it’s scarlet I can’t tell you the things I’m capable of. So trouble is something I don’t wish to hear even mentioned in this room: not in my own classes, that is, or anyone else’s.’

He waited for the colour to subside.

‘Now there’s a lot to do today. At times, to some of you, it may seem extremely tedious. Whenever it does I want you to gaze, not at me, nor at your neighbour, nor at the floor, nor at your desk, but at the ceiling. If you gaze at the ceiling it’s my opinion you won’t come to any harm. I want you, whenever you feel boredom coming on, to gaze in a vertical direction and silently, so no one anywhere can possibly hear, recite to yourself your multiplication tables. I want you to recite the two times, the three times, right through to your twelve times. I shall test you on those tables at the end of the morning and woe betide anyone who gets one wrong. I have a strong aversion to boys who get things wrong, particularly to boys who’ve had all morning to get things right.’ He waited. ‘You, boy: what’s twelve times seven ?’

A boy near the front put up his hand.

One or two other hands went up.

The boy who had been asked had gone bright red.

‘Twelve times seven.’ He waited. ‘You’ll be one of the boys whose head I’ll expect to see gazing for quite lengthy intervals in a vertical direction. What is it? What is it? What is it, boy?’

‘Seventy-two, sir,’ one of the boys had said.

‘Seventy what ?’

‘Eighty-four!’ several boys called out.

‘My goodness. The procedure for admitting boys to this school deteriorates visibly every year. I expect a seven-year-old boy to tell me that. How old are you?’

The boy with the red face had murmured his age.

‘What? What? What’s that?’

‘Twelve, sir.’

‘Twelve? Twelve what? Weeks? Months? Hours? Rabbits? ’

‘Years, sir.’

‘Years.’

He waited, nodding.

‘I can see we’ve got a great deal of work before us here. A great deal.’

He waited once again, still looking round.

‘I was going to add, if there are any clever-dicks here who think they know their tables backwards I would like them by a similar process – namely, the head inclined in a respectful manner towards the ceiling – to memorize and familiarize themselves with a favourite hymn. It may be a Jewish hymn, a Catholic hymn, a Methodist hymn, or an Anglican hymn, or, indeed, a Buddhist hymn if they so desire. But whatever its source, a paean of praise directed to the Divine Presence who overlooks us all. Has that been understood?’

He waited.

‘I shall, after the multiplication tables have been thoroughly tested, turn to the hymns and call forth from amongst you, ad hoc… what does ad hoc mean, boy?’

Another boy’s face turned red.

He waited.

No one, however, had raised their hands.

‘Ad hoc. Ad hoc. What language can it be, I wonder? German? Dutch? Double -Dutch?’

He waited.

‘Anybody heard of Latin?’

Several hands went up.

‘I wonder: can ad hoc be Latin?’

‘Yes, sir,’ someone said.

‘There’s a bright boy. Latin. Latin.’ He waited once again. ‘Ad hoc is Latin for “specifically for this purpose”. In other words, I shall ask certain individuals specifically to give evidence of their silent – and I repeat emphatically silent – memorizing of their favourite paean of praise to God Almighty. And may God Almighty come to your rescue if you haven’t got one ready.’ He paused. He examined each of their faces in turn. ‘What a miserable looking lot. What a clump of sour-faced duffers. Here I am, sitting in front of forty white-faced puddings, while you have the privilege of sitting in front of me.’ He paused. He looked up, speculatively, towards the ceiling. Arched supports ran across it from the walls on either side. He contemplated these for several seconds. ‘I shall expect’, he said, ‘to see not only forty studious faces memorizing their tables as well as their favourite hymnal text, but forty cheerful faces, forty smiling faces – not grinning, smiling - not laughing, not baring teeth and fangs, but joyful faces, not dismal faces, but faces which will be a welcome distraction whenever I happen to raise my head.’