Jane Gardam - Old Filth

“Yes. Yes, I would. And you are a prefect. And, I understand, fairly sane. Yes.” The Head had shrunk in his chair. “Particularly today, I would.” He pointed to a second armchair across the fireplace. “Stick another log on the fire as you go by, would you? Will you have a cup of tea? We ought to be talking about your future. We have a bit of a worry with you — oh, nothing to do with this David and Jonathan business. We all grow out of every loyalty in the end.”

“It’s called friendship, sir.”

“Yes. Yes. And you won’t be seeing much more of Ingoldby. Your father has written to us to say that he wants you to leave school after Christmas. He wants you to go to Malaysia. Or Singapore. We have been giving it a lot of thought.”

“He — what?”

“He thinks you should be evacuated from England. To get away from the bombing. Place of safety. He was — I needn’t tell you — through the last one. And he’s been out of touch with British politics. We’re trying to persuade him to let you take the Oxford entrance exam first.”

“But it’s children who are evacuated. And women. I’m going on eighteen.”

“Until you are eighteen, your father has the say.”

“But I’ve his sisters. My guardians. What do they say?”

“We have written to the Misses Feathers and they replied in a very — sanguine — manner. Busy women. War work, one supposes.”

“I don’t know. I’ve hardly seen them. Am I to leave school after Christmas ?”

“And here is tea. Let us hope for crumpets though it will be only marge.”

“May I go now? I want to think.”

“If you feel it wise. One can of course think too much. Your father tended to think too much.”

As Eddie opened the door of the study, there came padding towards it an old lady in slippers pushing a tea-trolley. The teapot was muffled in a knitted crinoline of rose and orange frills and had an art-nouveau lady’s head on top, a black painted curl against each porcelain cheek. Whenever afterwards Filth beheld such an object — at a church fête, perhaps, at the end of his life and long after the precise reason for it had been lost — he found himself near tears.

The old woman handed Eddie a silver dish full of crumpets and indicated a brass crumpet-stand on the hearth.

“Oh, good. Jam,” said the Headmaster. “This is Ingoldby’s friend, Mrs. P.”

“Ingoldby’s a nice boy,” said the housekeeper, “and so was his brother, God rest him.” She left the room.

“What’s this?” cried Eddie.

“Sit down a minute, Feathers. I was coming to it. I’m sorry. But tomorrow I shall have to give the news out in prayers. I’m glad you came over. Jack Ingoldby’s plane has been reported missing over the Channel. His brother doesn’t know. We’re waiting until he is better. He is being taken home tomorrow. Keep it to yourself.”

Eddie ran from the penumbrous house to the nearest public phone box, on the corner of the playing fields, and dialled Trunks for a long-distance call. He asked for the High House number and was told by the operator to expect a long wait. “Will you be ready when a line comes free? Maybe twenty or thirty minutes, dear, and you must have the right money. One shilling and a sixpence and two pennies.”

“I haven’t got thirty minutes.”

“Try later, dear. And it’s cheaper.” She cut him off.

He ran back to his House and began a letter to Mrs. Ingoldby, but the words were senseless. I can’t write formalities, I can’t. I’m the family. She’ll want to hear my voice. She’ll be expecting to hear it. They’ll have been trying to get me and nobody’s told me. He sat, thinking, then wrote:

Dear Mrs. Ingoldby,

I am thinking of you all the time,

your loving Eddie.

Have I the right to be their loving Eddie?

The voids of his ignorance opened before him. I’m still the foreigner. To them. And to myself, here. I’ve no background. I’ve been peeled off my background. I’ve been attached to another background like a cut-out. I’m only someone they’ve been kind to for eight years because Pat was a loner till I came along. I’m socially a bit dubious, because they know my father went barmy. And because of living in the heart of darkness and something funny going on in Wales. And the stammer.

He signed himself

Sincerely yours, E. J. Feathers

He stuck a penny-ha’penny stamp on the letter and took it to the postbox as the evening Prep bell rang. It was his night to invigilate the little boys in the House but he doubled back to the San.

The windy restless afternoon was done and clouds covered the moon. It was damp but not viciously raining now. At the top of the San’s staircase he looked into Matron’s room where her coal fire blazed and the ghastly scarf lay abandoned. There was the smell of her meaty supper and a clink from her kitchen. Coals crashed, then blazed up in the grate. He walked on along the corridor expecting the San to be rows of beds, blanket-rolls, empty lockers with open doors, the smell of Detto! But there was Pat in a small lone room with a blanket over his head.

“Hey — Pat?”

Pat sat up. His head rose out of the blanket, its folds draped around his shoulders.

“Where are you, Fevvers? Put the light on.”

“How are you? They wouldn’t let me in.”

“Fine. I’m going home tomorrow. I’m ravenous. But, listen—”

Noises as of torn cats on a roof top issued from Pat’s chest.

“Good God!”

“It’s the Banshee. They’re giving me some new weird drug. It’s going to cost Pa something. I can make it sound like distant machine guns, listen.”

“They’ll fix it,” said Eddie, considerably frightened. “I’ve just written to your mother.”

“Well, keep it cool. There’s a scare on. Jack’s missing.”

“I — don’t know anything—”

“Yes, you do. If I’ve heard in here, you’ll have heard it out there. If he’s. .”

Silence.

“. . if he’s gone, well then, he’s gone. It’s what he believed in.”

A poker was being rattled about in the grate next door.

“You’d better go, Fevvers. She’ll have an orgasm if she finds you. ‘This is a CLEAN school.’” He began wheezing.

I’ll. . Shouldn’t I ring High House?”

Pat’s black eyes became blacker. A certain hauteur. “Nope. Leave them alone. I’ll be home tomorrow. There’s nothing you can do. It’s family stuff.”

Eddie turned for the door, amazed at how cold he felt.

“Oh, and hey — Ed?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t join the RAF. You couldn’t handle it. And don’t join the Navy — you’ve done the sea.”

“I can’t see myself in the Army, not any more. I couldn’t kill someone I was looking at. I mean, at his face. The point is, you can’t join the RAF. Not now. I mean, God — for your parents’ sake.”

“Oh yes I can,” said Ingoldby. “They’ll survive even if I don’t. My parents. I’ve told you — they don’t really feel much. Bye — see you sometime, Fevvers.”

A couple of days later and after no luck with the High House telephone though Eddie tried several times, a letter came to him from Pat in dithering writing.

Dear Ed,

I’m fine now but staying home.

I’ll not be coming back, lad,

When all the trees are green,

I have to join the pack, lad,

And drink my Ovaltine.

Take the lead soldiers we had at Sir’s. Melt them down for plough-shares or a sixth bullet, whatever. Will you gather up my stuff? — Pa forgot it and so did Matron-La-Booze. Hang on to it till — when? The clothes-brush you always fancied, my godfather’s, it’s from Bond Street (he used eau-de-cologne and had a mistress in Clarges Street) you can have but it will cost you a penny.