7. Flesh Wounds
Tate’s declaration that Mons will be ‘miffed’ by the interruption to their opening ceremony is somewhat underselling it.
Briar is ignorant of the consequences all day, left alone to continue the business of piles and sorting, working until they’re filmed with grime and then taking a long, weak shower in the single stall before dressing for supper.
It’s the one meal of the day that’s completely impossible to sneak into a pocket and enjoy in solitude - the staff dining room is closed in the evenings, the other admin staff retreating to their houses on campus.
It’s immediately apparent when Briar arrives at the refectory that dining with the students is a formal affair, with three staggered mealtimes and an air of ceremony that makes them wish they’d put on something with buttons rather than a T-shirt.
They hover in the doorway, watching scholars rush past to find their tables, which are organised by houses of residence.
There’s a Mon at the head of each one and three of them sitting at the high table on the dais, which is otherwise mostly empty.
None of them are familiar. It becomes clear that there is an entire ritual that must take place before eating: as Briar dithers, faculty members sweep into the room and the scholars stand to attention behind their chairs, waiting for their elders to be seated before they take their places.
The only students not to sit are the smallest, who jump into action, rushing to fetch platters of duck confit with crispy potatoes and over-boiled vegetables.
They go straight to Mons first - Briar watches the nearest cloaked boy encourage his servers to heap his plate, paying no mind to the boys who’ll be served next - before moving on to everyone else.
A teacher almost walks into Briar and has the gall to look irritated by this near-collision, despite the fact that Briar is standing completely still. ‘Watch it, boy,’ he snaps, eyes roaming briefly over Briar’s choice of outfit with undisguised revulsion. ‘Sit down, for God’s sake.’
Briar had wondered if maybe the teachers might be more reasonable than the scholars, mellowed by age and experience, matured out of their class-based theatrics.
They’re not wondering any more.
There’s a seat open at the table nearest the door, next to an older woman who must be one of the Dames, so Briar hurries to that one, becoming briefly visible as every scholar stares, jarred by the intrusion and the T-shirt.
An elderly gentleman - portly, white and moustachioed, in a suit that’s slightly too small for him and a sort of half-gown draped from his shoulders - stands and delivers a quick grace from the top table.
All of the scholars briefly clasp their hands together in a caricature of earnest prayer.
Only then is supper finally allowed to begin.
Briar is staring determinedly at their plate (tiny sliver of duck, one potato, cauliflower boiled to mush, perfectly spherical bread roll) and being completely ignored by the adjacent scholars of about fourteen arguing about rugby, when there’s a commotion over by the doors.
Briar doesn’t look. The third-years, who either haven’t heard of subtlety or don’t consider it a virtue, actually stand up so that they can gawk and speculate.
‘He can’t have been shot very well if he’s still having supper,’ one of them says, disappointed. Briar’s ears perk up at shot.
‘Settle down, please,’ says one of the faculty, a round-faced bearded man in his fifties, probably a Housemaster. He could be the elderly robe-wearer’s younger self in waiting. ‘Settle.’
When they do settle, Briar finally sees who’s just walked - limped - in.
Westby, pale and cheerful, wearing a grey cable-knit cardigan over his dress shirt instead of the mandated waistcoat and blazer. He’s leaning on an old-fashioned, knobbly walking stick, of the kind usually only found by the door in antique shops, lurking amongst broods of mouldy umbrellas.
Tate and Hadley are nowhere to be seen; he’s instead being accompanied by a boy Briar doesn’t know, short and pouty, with curly fawn-coloured hair and glasses, looking deeply unimpressed by all the furore.
As Westby limps down the aisle, Briar realises that his leg looks oddly lumpy under his trousers, like he might be heavily bandaged in the calf region.
Shot. Shot? Surely not.
‘But Buck is an excellent shot,’ says one of Briar’s neighbours. ‘And Ryder said he was standing very close. Almost point-blank range. So he can’t have been trying to kill him, or he’d be dead. Duh.’
‘Kill him?’ another scoffs. ‘Obviously he wasn’t trying to kill him, idiot. It was the middle of the day. It was an accident. Buck’s not that stupid.’
‘Alistair Buckingham shot Westby?’ Briar says, before they can think better of it. The boys look as startled as if one of the baroque carvings of gurning babies on the walls has sprung to life and asked them for the time.
‘Er,’ says one of them, glancing at his companions and then back at Briar. ‘Yes? On the range, during hobbies. Sorry . . . who are you?’
‘Nobody,’ says Briar. The boys seem quite relieved by this explanation, and go back to pretending Briar doesn’t exist.
Shot. With a gun. On the range. A shooting range, presumably.
Of course Temple has a shooting range. Of course somebody can get shot here, point-blank, and it’s nothing more than the subject of gossip over dinner.
Perhaps, Briar thinks hysterically, that’s why Alistair isn’t here.
Instead of a call to the police and charges filed, he’s been sent to bed without his supper.
Briar abandons their last soggy floret and then maps a path out of the refectory to return their plate that just so happens to pass by Westby’s seat. He’s got his bulky leg propped up on a spare chair, and he’s eating his duck with the enthusiasm of the recently almost-murdered.
‘Westby,’ Briar prompts quietly, and he glances up.
‘Hullo, Jones. Come to see the patient? I wish everybody would stop making such a fuss, it’s only a flesh wound.’
Briar thinks, privately, that Westby might actually quite like the fuss. Case in point: limping into the refectory with a walking stick when Briar is pretty sure he’d have been allowed to eat in his room in private.
‘You’ve not really been shot?’
‘Really and actually.’ Westby hikes up his trouser leg to reveal a white flash of thick bandaging at his knee, then lets it drop back into place. ‘I mean, you can’t see anything because they’ve wrapped me in so much bubble wrap and cotton wool, so it’s not particularly impressive.’
Briar, who still can’t believe any of this is happening, stares. ‘Alistair shot you?’
Westby’s eyes glitter as he swigs his orange juice and slams the glass down, a hardened cowboy knocking back moonshine at the saloon. ‘Apparently he got it into his head that I might have had something to do with a few logistical delays he’s been having. Ridiculous, of course.’
‘Ridiculous,’ repeats his dour-faced friend. ‘West, are you going to be much longer? Only I don’t like duck, and I told Calahan I’d show him my rare dictionaries.’
‘I would never hold you back from showing Calahan your rare dictionaries,’ Westby says solemnly. ‘Go ahead, Miller. Jones here will carry me from the room in a fireman’s lift.’
Miller gives this comment no acknowledgement, but gets up immediately. Briar sits down in his emptied seat. They picture a rifle, raised, and nowhere to run. Alistair’s hands pressing down on a child’s shoulders, water flying, little legs frantically kicking. Eugenia, telling Briar to look away.
‘If he shot you on purpose—’
‘Hush now,’ says Westby, gently reprimanding. ‘This isn’t supper talk.’
Briar could just leave, but they want to know what the hell’s going on, so they sit and watch Westby finish his duck and then insist on slowly savouring a cup of thin, lemony pudding, leaving fine drifts of powdery sherbet all over the table.
He keeps up a light prattle the whole time, complaining about Miller - who is apparently his roommate - and his various idiosyncrasies, which include leaving slightly damp (but not clean) socks on the radiator and practising the clarinet at unsociable hours.
‘He took my best cashmere out of its mothproofing because he wanted to use that particular garment bag for his tuxedo,’ Westby says darkly as he drops the spoon back into the crystal pudding bowl.
Briar can’t help but smirk a bit. ‘Unimaginable horrors.’
‘Moths,’ Westby says, ‘are. All right, come on, Jones, stop dawdling. We’ve got places to be.’
There’s a lot of theatre required to get out of the refectory, with Westby leaning heavily on his walking stick and sighing approximately three times a minute, but when he misjudges the well-worn stone step that leads down into the corridor, he’s forced to put a bit of weight on the leg and Briar sees him wince sharply.
It’s more complicated a performance than Briar realised: he’s playing the martyr and hamming it up, ensuring people will laugh it off despite the fact that he’s truly hurt. Briar can’t work out why. Maybe he can’t help but ham. Maybe he wants to be left alone to suffer privately.
People are weird.
‘I had planned on running a gentle 10k followed by some light hurdling this evening, but why don’t you just take me back to my room - I’m in Eden too, second floor - and then I can answer all your prying questions. Miller will be out for hours, promenading his dictionaries.’
Eventually, they make it back to the dorm.
The door to Westby’s room is as unremarkable as the rest; Briar prepares for regulation grey noticeboards and ugly blue curtains, old carpet on the floor and Swedish laminate desks, and is amazed but not particularly surprised to discover that Westby lives in a style that would make any Oxford Classics applicant weak at the knees.