On Worms and Marigolds

 

The evening before my last day at school I wandered past the kitchens and found the usual crate of empty milk bottles just inside the door. I stole a bottle and filled it with water just before going to bed. I had a top bunk. This meant nothing more than a bed with long legs enabling another one to be slid underneath.  Partitions were strung down the dormitory, grouping beds into fours, as though cells had been planned before the cash had run out. Top bunkers could raise their heads and see the string of unkempt blankets and tousled haired youths reading, fighting or even trying to sleep. That was before matron arrived and told us all to be quiet and put the lights out. She was the archetype, large and rarely pleasant. One boy had thrown a blanket over a work table some months earlier to make the place a bit more homely.

 

‘What do you think this is, Samuels?’ she’d said, ‘A back street hotel? Remove it now and buck your ideas up.’

 

The water wasn’t for drinking. It was to soak Blanchett’s head. The bastard had the adjacent top bunk the other side of the partition. His head was covered in a mop of black tousled hair. His lanky face contained eyes that had a nasty habit of piercing objects rather that simply looking at them. For five years he’d used those eyes on me.

‘I hate you, Phillips,’ he’d say for no particular reason. ‘You’re a waste of skin. What are you going to be when you get out of here? Some little pen pusher with no more spirit than a used bottle of turps.’

 

I learned to ignore it. I was never much good at witty ripostes. And eventually I persuaded myself that he didn’t deserve a response anyway. What I was I was and it didn’t actually matter what Blanchett thought. But tonight, I hoped to have one final go at annoying him. His wet head and especially his wet bed would provide me with pleasant memories for many years.

 

‘Hey, Phillips,’ said Slicker. ‘What’s that bag packed for?’

 

Slicker’s real name was A L Rowbottom. He wouldn’t tell us what A L stood for at first so we decided, given that surname, it must be Arse Licker and the inevitable shortened version stayed with him. It turned out his name was Algernon Lesley, poor bugger. I think I’d have preferred Arse Licker. But he was sharp. I didn’t imagine anyone would have noticed.

 

‘It’s a bit stuffed isn’t? What’s it stuffed with?’

‘Clothes,’ I said, knowing that if I didn’t say they’d rip it open and see for themselves.

‘Why?’

‘I’m getting out,’

‘Who gave you permission?’

‘Nobody.’

‘For Chrissake, you’ve still got exams.’

‘The last one’s tomorrow. Then I’m walking.’

 

In seconds the story had got round the dorm and everyone was listening.

 

‘Right,’ said Blanchett. ‘destroy his bed.’

 

Blanchett was called Chalky by his henchmen, via the temporary nickname of Blanko. The four of them were on me in moments. The four metal poles that held the bed up were stable only when vertical and it swayed viciously. Norton, underneath me, said ‘shit’ quietly, jumped out of his bed and ran to other side of the dorm to get a ring side seat. I held grimly on to the mattress as it tipped upright and attempted to shake water over Blanchett. The trouble was I needed three hands. Blanchett grabbed the bottle and forced it in my direction. I was now slipping toward the floor and, to avoid a soaked bed and broken bones, wrestled the bottle from Blanchett and jumped to the ground. My blankets and mattress followed me quickly. Whether the cheering woke the dead I’m not so sure but it certainly woke the housemaster.

 

‘What the hell’s going on here?’ he roared as he stormed through the doorway.

 

Mr Hanson had been in the far east during the war as an interrogator of the Japanese. It was a rumour but totally believable. He scared us all so much we didn’t even have a name for him. Some tried Ugly as a crude form of mispronounced irony but it never stuck.

 

‘Phillips! Come here. What do you think you’re doing?’

 

I extracted myself from my bedding and walked over to him.

 

‘You have an explanation for the state of your bed?’

 

I said nothing. The reason was perfectly clear anyway. Blanchett’s henchmen had had no opportunity to move when Hanson had walked in.

 

‘Richardson, Penny, Crowhurst, Daniels. I presume you destroyed Phillips’ bed. Is that correct.’

 

They said nothing.

 

‘Blanchett! Did you put them up to this? It has your style all over it.’

 

Blanchett said nothing

 

‘You have exams tomorrow?’

‘Yessir.’

‘Phillips?’

‘Yessir’

‘Right. At five-o-clock I want you all in my study. You’ll have a two hour detention. And if I hear the slightest noise from any of you I shall take you downstairs and cane you. In fact I might cane you anyway. Remake your bed, Phillips, in total silence.’

 

When Hanson said stay quiet one didn’t ask for qualifications. The bottle had landed horizontally on a blanket and I picked it up gently. I would now have cold, wet feet but that was as nothing compared to the prospect of the glass clanging on to the floor and ringing like a bell round the building. As I remade the bed I realised that my escape plan had got a bit more complex. My last exam, Biology Theory, ended at four thirty. I needed to avoid Hanson becoming aware of my existence for half an hour. After that my absence was going to be obvious. I’d hoped for several hours.

 

None of the others required to attend Hanson’s study are doing the same exam so I walk to the exam room with a few boys who have a saner, more reasonable state of mind.

 

‘Packing a bit?’ says one.

‘I thought I might go for a run after. Celebrate the end of the pain.’

‘You’ve heard what Plant’s got in his lapel.’

 

Mr Plant is the biology master. With a name like that what’s the point of making something up? He has a ritual each year of skimming the exam papers and providing some vague clue as to what we might expect. He never says a word of course and neither do any of the boys. It took a couple of years apparently before anyone cottoned on but it’s now one of those legends that form part of school culture.

 

‘Yeah,’ I say, ‘a marigold.’

‘I presume then we can all draw the cross section of a marigold and name each part and function. I can almost read the question now.’

‘I think I’m gonna be sick,’ says another, ‘I guessed the sex life of the worm.’

‘You shouldn’t be so obsessed with sex,’ I say.

‘Can I smell the stench of hypocrisy?’ he replies. ‘Who’s going to be drawing the naughty bits of a marigold?’

‘I wonder who has the more fun,’ asks a third, ‘a worm or a marigold?’

 

By this time, we have reached the gym changing rooms and I leave them to their conversation which I can hear turn into a comparison between asexual reproduction and masturbation. I dump the bag in my locker, go for a pee and then on to the exam room. Both worms and marigolds are on the paper, which seems a bit too good to be true, and I write my third answer on the life cycle of the amoeba. One hour per question.

 

Four thirty arrives and I put my pens and pencils away and look around. No sign of Hanson. As always, we are instructed to complete the front page, leave the papers on the desk and go quietly. I retrieve my bag and walk toward the school boundary. On my left is the gym, temporarily used for exams, and on my right is the infirmary. I reach the corner and turn right towards the Farmer’s Club. They keep a few pigs and chickens here and one horse. It doesn’t interest me much, mainly because of the smell, but I hope to be a bit anonymous in this vicinity and am completely out of sight of the main school building.

 

‘Phillips! What are you doing here?’

 

It’s Plant, his lapel now devoid of biological innuendo.

 

‘Just getting a bit of fresh air, sir. I’ve just finished Biology.’

‘Yes I know you have. How was it?’

‘Not too bad, sir, thanks.’

‘Since when have you been in the Farmer’s Club? What’s in the bag?’

‘I just thought I’d come round here to take a look. I was going to change to go for a run, sir, but I feel a bit tired.’

‘Well if you’re interested I could show you round.’

 

My body freezes. I try to think of reasons why I can’t. Other than the two alternative truths, escape or detention, nothing materialises other than to be just plain rude.

 

Plant looks at his watch. ‘But I can’t at the moment. Come to my office tomorrow and I’ll arrange something.’

 

‘Thank you, sir.’

 

I walk on, allowing myself to breath very heavily once he is out of earshot, and follow the perimeter road to the playing fields. It’s four forty five. At this point the road bears left through a large copse, past the village church and on to the gate house and the road to Ipswich. But I don’t want to leave just at this moment. I turn to look across the playing fields to the school building, 400 yards away.

 

The sun has beaten down relentlessly all day and is still quite high in the sky giving short sharp shadows to the Georgian façade, picking out the heavy sills and pillars and painting contrasts to each curve of its two wings. It’s a beautiful building. Such irony that after two centuries it should have been purchased for the discipline and moulding, even torture, of 300 boys.

 

A cricket match for the under sixteens is in progress. The players shimmer in the thick heat of the air as the batsman makes contact with the ball and starts to run. A second later I hear a click as the clichéd sound of leather on willow reaches my ears followed by the faint calls and shouts of boys desperate for a result without relevance. They have a few years left in this desperate place. Those vile creatures who sleep near me have almost no time but it includes a mind numbing two hours detention starting very shortly and perhaps commencing with red raw, possibly bleeding, backsides.

 

I smile, turn away and walk towards the main road. I have a new, unknown life to lead and a bus to catch.