Old Filth - Jane Gardam [15]
“I’ll see if all’s ready,” she had said. “I’ll lock up the house.”
After Auntie May had gone into the house the children did not stir but began to observe a small motor car working its way towards them from the cliff road. It turned into the maze of stone walls. A car was rare. This car was fat and business-like with a cloth roof and rounded, tinny back and a high, rubber running-board down each side. Mudguards flowed like breaking waves over the solid wheels and the windows were made of orange celluloid, rather cracked. A short man jumped out and came jollily to the foot of the garden steps. He was talking.
“—I dare say,” he said. “Eddie Feathers, I dare say? Excellent to meet you. I am your new Headmaster and my name is Sir. Always Sir. Understood? The school is small. There are only twenty boys. They call each other by their surnames. I have one assistant, Mr. Smith. He is always called Mr. Smith, my assistant, whatever his real name. Different ones come and go. This Mr. Smith is something of a trial but very good at cricket, which I am not. And so, good morning, Eddie, and these are your sisters, I dare say?”
“C-cou-cousins,” came out of Edward’s mouth. He liked this man.
“I know nothing of girls,” said Sir. “I know everything about boys. I am a very good teacher, Feathers, as your father may remember. By the time you leave my Outfit there is not a bird, butterfly or flower, not a fish or insect of the British Isles you will not recognise. You will also read Latin like a Roman and understand Euclid like a Greek.”
“Will he still have to do Welsh?” asked blonde Claire.
“Welsh! I should hope not.”
“What if you get a stupid boy?” asked Babs from the shadows (and thought: I do not like this man; he’ll change Eddie).
“Eddie isn’t stupid,” said Claire and, suddenly aware—for here came Auntie May with luggage—that Eddie was going away, she jumped from her plinth and hugged him as she had never done in all the terrible years since they met at Liverpool Docks. She began to cry.
“Sh-shut up, Claire.” Eddie turned to the man accusingly and said, “Claire never cries.” He looked down at Claire’s top-knot, felt her arms round him, did not know what to do about it and carefully removed himself.
“Auntie May,” said Auntie May to Sir. “I am Auntie May.”
“Ah, the redoubtable Auntie May. You are seeing to the girls, I hear? This would be quite outside my territory. I teach only boys. My establishment is very expensive and very well-known. I am unmarried, as is Mr. Smith, but let me say, for all things good should be noised abroad, that there is absolutely nothing unpleasant going on in my school. We are perfectly clean. There is nothing like that.”
“Well, that will be a change for him,” said Auntie May. “There’s been nothing pleasant here.”
“So I understand. Or rather I do not understand for such events are beyond comprehension in a well-run Outfit. There is no corporal punishment in my school. And there is no emotional hysteria. One can only suppose that these things are the result of the mixture of the sexes. I never teach girls.”
“What happened here was not to do with a school. These children went to the village school.”
“Which accounts for the pink child’s regional accent. Come, boy, say your goodbyes. At my school nobody leaves with an accent.”
“Goodbye,” said Eddie, looking only at Sir’s face. He remembered to shake hands with Auntie May and say, “Th-th-tha-thank you.” Ignoring the girls, for the three of them would all their lives be beyond formalities, he picked up some of his belongings, Auntie May some more and Sir none at all and they processed to the car, where Sir unfastened broad leather straps and the back was lifted, like the lid of a bread-bin.
“It’s marvellous. Your car.”
“Marvellous, Sir.”
“Marvellous, Sir.”
Sir stood back and watched the luggage being put inside the bread-bin. Then he nodded at Auntie May, pointed to the dickie seat and watched Eddie climb in, Babs and Claire looking on nonchalantly from above.
“You have the address?” said Sir to Auntie May. “And Feathers has