Life_ An Exploded Diagram - Mal Peet [86]
Wagstaff unbuttoned his tunic and prostrated himself on the stage. He pulled the back of his tunic up over his head, then tucked his hands between his thighs.
“Like so,” he said, muffled.
A man lying on the stage of Newgate’s school hall with his head covered by his jacket, his braces showing, and his hands on his nadgers. The silence that ensued was like the insuck of the sea before a tidal wave, or the ponderous gap between lightning and thunder.
Clem nudged Goz, then looked at him, expecting his face to be taut with suppressed laughter. It wasn’t. It was pale with rage. Grim.
“Goz?” (Whispered.)
Nothing.
Wagstaff got to his feet and adjusted his clothing.
“Now,” he said, “a word about fallout. Fallout is the radioactive material that falls from the sky after a nuclear explosion. It might fall in the form of rain or, more likely, ash or dust. If you do find yourselves in an exposed space, and you are in a fallout area, you should remain in the covered position, which I have just demonstrated, for two hours, which is the maximum time in which fallout will occur. After that time, you should seek shelter within the nearest building. However, before you do so, you must remove the fallout from your clothes, thus.”
He removed the tunic and shook it vigorously with his face averted. Then he used the tunic to slap at his trousers, fore and aft. Finally he flapped a handkerchief at his shoes.
“Fallout is a form of contamination, and it is vital that you free yourself of it before you rejoin your families or other groups. I cannot stress enough the importance of this, gentlemen.”
He regarded his audience somberly. Then he smiled.
“So pick yourselves up, dust yourselves off, and start all over again, as the song has it. Thank you for your attention.”
He returned to his seat.
There came a light scattering of uncertain applause from the Worms and Maggots in the front pews, which the Gestapo quickly suppressed.
Goz walked slightly ahead of Clem toward the sixth-form common room. He went past the doors, saying over his shoulder, “Fag. Bogs.”
The Newgate lavatories had been built a hundred years earlier, less as a convenience than a warning, their squalor and discomfort a stern reminder of the vileness of human bodily functions and their attendant temptations. The building was roofless, the urinal a black-painted wall with a low gutter at its foot. The cubicles lacked doors, doors being an encouragement of the Solitary Vice. Now and again Hake, the school caretaker, sluiced the place out with a bucket of diluted Jeyes Fluid, which added an acrid sweetness to the bogs’ ancient aroma.
Goz went to the far corner and leaned against the stained trough that served as a washbasin. He took a packet of ten Anchor from his inside pocket and lit one up. Clem waited silently. After three drags, Goz passed him the ciggie and let forth a stream of elaborate obscenities.
Clem laughed smoke.
“What’re you laughing at, Ackroyd? You think it’s funny, sitting there and being idiotized?”
“Is that a word?”
“Yeah. I just used it. Give us that fag back.”
Goz emitted a mean stream of smoke and said, “One: nuclear missiles do not explode when they hit the ground. They explode above it. So lying in a ditch with a bloody newspaper over your head is . . . is about as stupid as you can get. Two: fallout is effing radioactive. What did that moron mean, brush it off? Like it was dandruff, or somethun? Lie in a ditch with that shit dropping on you for two hours, then just tidy up and go home?”
“Goz, I know all that. Why’re you —?”
“Three: RAF Beckford is five miles away. It’s a base for V-bombers, if I remember correctly. Planes that’re got nuclear bombs on them. Plus, there are two Yank air force bases within fifty miles of here.