but not cheap enough. The school was losing money; only later did she realize how much. Someone had to go and the Frog was expendable. And her father had been clever. His accusation, unspecific no doubt in its details but horribly clear in its essentials, was one the Frog would never dare publicly to refute.
She had never seen him again, nor had she heard from him. The gratitude for what she acknowledged he had given her was overlaid always with the shame of her weakness and betrayal. She had been fascinated by the game they had played but never by him as a man. And she knew she would have been ashamed if any of her classmates had seen them together.
The knowledge that she hadn’t fought for him, hadn’t defended him with vigour, let alone passion, that she had felt more shame for herself and fear of her father than she had felt compassion, stayed with her to taint the memory of those evenings together. He came now only rarely into her mind. Sometimes she found herself wondering if he were still alive, and would have disconcerting and surprisingly vivid pictures of his hurling himself from Westminster Bridge with incredulous passers-by straining over the parapet at the seething river, or would watch as he crammed the aspirin tablets into his mouth and washed them down with cheap wine, sitting on the single bed in some attic bed-sitting-room.
What, she wondered, had that fifteen-year-old child felt for him? Not love, certainly. There had been affection, need, companionship, stimulation and the sense that she herself was needed. Perhaps she had been lonelier than she realized. But she knew with shame what she had always known, that she had been using him. If she had met him in the street walking with her few friends after school, she would have pretended not to see him.
To a superstitious mind it might have seemed a judgement that after the Frog’s departure the school’s decline accelerated. It might have survived, however, might even have recovered some prosperity as parents, increasingly disenchanted with the local state school and seeking some imagined prestige, discipline and a show of good manners, saw Danesford as a reasonably cheap solution to family problems. But the suicide put an end to hope. The stretched neck of the young body hanging from the banisters in the annexe, the carefully written note with the spelling of “ahsamed” scrupulously corrected, as if the headmaster’s anger dominated even this last act of pathetic rebellion, were not things which could be covered up or explained away. It seemed to Venetia that, with the severing of that taut pyjama cord, more than the body was cut down. The weeks that followed, the inquest, the burial, the comments in the papers, the allegations of beatings and over-severity, became subsumed in the picture of departing cars, of small boys clutching their bulging cases and making their way, shame-faced or triumphant, to the waiting vehicles. The school died in a sickroom stench of scandal, tragedy and, by the end, almost relief that the agony was over, the undertaker’s van at last at the door.
The family moved to London. Perhaps, she thought, her father, like so many before him, had seen the great city as an urban jungle where loneliness at least walked with the safety of anonymity, where no questions were asked unless invited and where the predators had more satisfying prey than a disgraced schoolmaster. The school premises, now to be converted into a road-house and a motel, provided sufficient cash to buy a small terraced house behind Shepherd’s Bush and to furnish an income which augmented the pittance he occasionally managed to earn from casual work. After a few months he found an underpaid job marking papers for a correspondence school, a job which he did conscientiously, as he did all his teaching. When the correspondence school failed he advertised for pupils. A few recognized the quality of his teaching, others found too dispiriting the small dark front
She had never seen him again, nor had she heard from him. The gratitude for what she acknowledged he had given her was overlaid always with the shame of her weakness and betrayal. She had been fascinated by the game they had played but never by him as a man. And she knew she would have been ashamed if any of her classmates had seen them together.
The knowledge that she hadn’t fought for him, hadn’t defended him with vigour, let alone passion, that she had felt more shame for herself and fear of her father than she had felt compassion, stayed with her to taint the memory of those evenings together. He came now only rarely into her mind. Sometimes she found herself wondering if he were still alive, and would have disconcerting and surprisingly vivid pictures of his hurling himself from Westminster Bridge with incredulous passers-by straining over the parapet at the seething river, or would watch as he crammed the aspirin tablets into his mouth and washed them down with cheap wine, sitting on the single bed in some attic bed-sitting-room.
What, she wondered, had that fifteen-year-old child felt for him? Not love, certainly. There had been affection, need, companionship, stimulation and the sense that she herself was needed. Perhaps she had been lonelier than she realized. But she knew with shame what she had always known, that she had been using him. If she had met him in the street walking with her few friends after school, she would have pretended not to see him.
To a superstitious mind it might have seemed a judgement that after the Frog’s departure the school’s decline accelerated. It might have survived, however, might even have recovered some prosperity as parents, increasingly disenchanted with the local state school and seeking some imagined prestige, discipline and a show of good manners, saw Danesford as a reasonably cheap solution to family problems. But the suicide put an end to hope. The stretched neck of the young body hanging from the banisters in the annexe, the carefully written note with the spelling of “ahsamed” scrupulously corrected, as if the headmaster’s anger dominated even this last act of pathetic rebellion, were not things which could be covered up or explained away. It seemed to Venetia that, with the severing of that taut pyjama cord, more than the body was cut down. The weeks that followed, the inquest, the burial, the comments in the papers, the allegations of beatings and over-severity, became subsumed in the picture of departing cars, of small boys clutching their bulging cases and making their way, shame-faced or triumphant, to the waiting vehicles. The school died in a sickroom stench of scandal, tragedy and, by the end, almost relief that the agony was over, the undertaker’s van at last at the door.
The family moved to London. Perhaps, she thought, her father, like so many before him, had seen the great city as an urban jungle where loneliness at least walked with the safety of anonymity, where no questions were asked unless invited and where the predators had more satisfying prey than a disgraced schoolmaster. The school premises, now to be converted into a road-house and a motel, provided sufficient cash to buy a small terraced house behind Shepherd’s Bush and to furnish an income which augmented the pittance he occasionally managed to earn from casual work. After a few months he found an underpaid job marking papers for a correspondence school, a job which he did conscientiously, as he did all his teaching. When the correspondence school failed he advertised for pupils. A few recognized the quality of his teaching, others found too dispiriting the small dark front
Similar Books
