5. The Seemingly Endless Opening of Doors
Westby’s interest in a tour abruptly ends once he has pastries in hand.
He points a few things out as they wander along another wood-clad corridor, Briar limping slightly, both sipping their watery coffees - ‘classrooms all along here, plods’ offices on the floor above, there’s a sneaky shortcut to the sports centre that runs down the back of the cricket pitch and behind the pavilion, it’s called Jim’s Passage - if you have any pharmaceutical vices, best indulge at Jim’s’ - but then goes silent as he gets to the more involved part of his pastry, leaving a trail of flaky crumbs that somebody - maybe Briar - is going to have to clean up.
Overwhelmed by terminology, Briar surreptitiously starts writing a list on their phone.
chambers – morning break
pips – prospective scholars
Mons – prefects?
plods – teachers??
Jim’s – drugs
As they exit into a cloister, columned arcades surrounding a neat, decorative garden, Westby comes to life again for long enough to give an overview of the timetable when prompted, and Briar adds:
7.30am – breakfast, refectory
scholars go to chapel, morning lessons, chambers between
lunch – there’s a teacher’s dining room. ask Eugenia
afternoon lessons
3pm on – scholars have tea, office hours with plods and Dames, hobbies
(hobbies – extracurriculars, sports? Dames – professional mums, weird)
6pm – dinner shifts start, refectory
9pm – gates locked weekdays
The bell rings above. It sounds ponderous and heavy, likely housed in a tower, used primarily to warn of incoming Normans.
The cloister is suddenly full of scholars, talking and shoving and laughing with their mouths full as they traverse the walkways, and Westby comes to a halt outside a classroom door.
‘I have to bugger off to Foundations of Law now,’ he says mildly.
‘Good luck out there. Try to hold on to your other foot, you’ll need it. ’
Briar is left stranded in a sea of dress shirts and waistcoats. They have to brace their shoulders to push through the crowd, but none of the scholars seem to mind, or even notice - it really is like a lack of school pin makes Briar completely invisible, able to watch unobserved.
A tall scholar lounging against a nearby pillar snaps his fingers and calls ‘Boy’; two younger boys look up from where they’re hunched over a notebook and come rushing at once, shoving each other out of the way, eager to be the first in line to carry the older scholar’s books and bag.
In the doorway of one classroom, a tiny, freckled ginger who’s made the mistake of carrying too appetising a spread away from the refectory has it stolen from his hands without resisting; the aggressor doesn’t even pause in conversation to acknowledge his theft, gathering up pastries and a cup of tea from the first year like he’s helping himself at the buffet.
Four girls who look about fourteen travel in a pack down the hall, wide eyes vigilant, and the entire crowd ripples around them like alligators churning in dark water; a broad final-year scholar, bulging ominously, reaches out a hand and lets it trail along the blazered back of the girl nearest to him as she passes.
Somehow, it’s worse than if he’d just whistled at her or shouted something; the casual proprietary touch, the complete lack of shame, the girl’s expression wiped blank as she walks on, her refusal to react probably a learned response.
Dunts retrieves the toiletries bag from their luggage and risks a slow trip down one set of stairs in tank top and trousers to find the bathroom.
It’s a communal nightmare, cracked tile and hair, toothpaste and other substances crusted on the porcelain.
Down the hall, mercifully, there’s a single unit with its own shower, which is marginally cleaner.
They freshen up in the sink, slick back their hair with cold water, untuck the chain of their necklace from under their collar.
Back in the attic, Briar ‘unpacks’ (paperbacks by the bed, underwear in a drawer, jackets on the door hooks, bag left unzipped for easy access to everything else) until they uncover the corner of a battered blue ring binder, the cardboard fraying at the corners.
The Folder. Briar hasn’t even looked at it for years, but they’d tossed it in quickly yesterday, before they could think too hard about what they were doing.
They climb the stairs to the platform bed and crack it open on a random page, the plastic pockets silky under their fingers.
The handwriting dates it to the beginning of Briar’s last year of primary school, when they were entirely certain they’d be going to Temple next September.
Sean’s battered laptop had been mostly off-limits, so Briar had conducted research using Seb’s phone and the ancient grey brick at the library in Herring Bridge, precociously transcribing everything in painful detail on printer paper.
Blog posts from 2009, guy says he goes to a very exclusive school, talks about the Horse and Bugle pub so I think it’s Temple. Posts are mostly about a girl he fancies, he calls her ‘The Princess’.
Social media pictures from a man called Oliver who now works at a bank - outside of Temple maybe?
Mostly flowers and lawn but I think in one picture the chimneys look the same.
Never says where he is. Then he goes to Oxford and tags the location and posts loads of pictures wearing a bow tie and something about ‘gaudy guests’ (ask mum?)
Interview with old Prime Minister where he talks about his school days and says that Temple ‘made him who he is’ and when the reporter asks him more questions about school he just starts talking about something else
Temple school tie (it says it’s ‘continental’) for sale on ebay but the listing was deleted after one day and mum wouldn’t give me fifty pounds for it anyway and laughed because she is mean
There are notes from Seb, too, written in the margins. Mostly entirely unrelated to Briar’s research. Lines from songs. Haikus. Smiley faces. Drawings of the cat.
Briar has put a lot of mental padding between themself now and the desperate ten-year-old they once were.
Practice makes it easier to swallow the pang, close the Folder and throw it from the platform bed to the floor.
The pillow is suddenly very enticing. Briar flops, hard, and doesn’t move for a long time.
When they finally find the strength, they discover that if they turn onto their side, they can look out of the dramatic window and see the rooftops and chimneys of the main building, a bit of lawn, a chorus of swaying, whispering treetops.
With their very last scrap of resolve, Briar lifts the heavy iron window stay and gives it a shove to unstick it, cracking it open and letting in the breeze.
When Briar wakes up, it’s dark. They’re still dressed, their contact lenses are the texture of pub coasters, and they’ve got a throbbing day-nap headache that feels like someone’s turning the handle on a brain clamp.
More pressingly, the door is open, and blonde, crabby joint-smoker Hadley Watson is looming over Briar’s bed, dressed all in black.
‘Whatsthefuck,’ Briar slurs. Hmmm. That’s not quite it. ‘You doing?’ Not that, either.
‘Shut up,’ says Hadley, which feels a bit rich, seeing as she’s broken into their room and initiated looming. ‘I mean, shhhh, sssshhhh, this is a dream. Go back to sleep.’
‘You’re on my bed,’ Briar manages.
‘People would pay good money for the privilege,’ hisses Hadley. ‘Don’t complain. Be quiet, I just need to get something.’