12. O for a Thousand Tongues
The hot nurse is in his early forties, with a salt-and-pepper scruff of hair and beard, and a pair of translucent acetate glasses perched on his long nose.
He’s wearing smart work trousers and a shirt unbuttoned at the collar, but on top he’s thrown on a faded turquoise jumper, vintage nineties, with embroidered bears in dungarees on it in a kaleidoscope of pastels.
He’s tall with a slight, muscular build, and to occupy their mind while their body suffers, Briar imagines a life for him: gay, single, avid runner, birdwatcher, terrible but enthusiastic dancer.
Tate calls him James, and keeps up light, flirty conversation with him while he uses long tweezers to remove the last shards of glass from Briar’s skin. It’s extremely uncomfortable, each probe accompanied by a fresh spike of nausea, but Briar refuses to flinch.
‘Too bright in here,’ Hadley says, taking the magnolia chunky-knitted blanket neatly folded at the end of the vinyl bed Briar’s sitting on and dragging it over her head.
The room smells like fresh laundry and disinfectant.
Briar is determined to wait until they’re in the privacy of a bathroom stall before they vomit.
‘Drink lots of water, Watson,’ James the nurse says, in a tone that indicates he knows she’s high and is choosing, very generously, to ignore it. ‘Right. Only one of these needs a stitch or two. I just need to clean you up first, and it’s going to sting.’
‘Don’t cry, Jones, you’ll embarrass me,’ Hadley says, from underneath her blanket.
To Briar’s surprise, a heavily ringed and braceleted hand then appears, with chipped nail polish in oil-spill black, and gropes for theirs.
Briar takes it with a reasonable amount of trepidation.
Hadley’s hand is both clammy and bony, not particularly comforting textures, but it’s the thought that counts.
James the nurse isn’t quite attractive enough to improve the experience of being cleaned and stitched up when all the action is happening so close to Briar’s eye socket.
He seems to be finished, puts down his instruments of torture and then, returning to check his work, pauses and frowns.
‘How did you get this burn?’ he says, pointing to Briar’s shoulder, where the strap of their top has shifted just enough to reveal the round, blistered welt.
‘Curling iron,’ Briar says, without emotion. James looks at Briar’s hair - wavy, yes, but not really long enough to curl - and raises his eyebrows.
Eugenia shows up as James is applying some ointment, and Briar braces to be instantly fired, or at least heavily reprimanded for attending a scholars’ party at which several people were injured; she looks thoroughly annoyed, arms folded and keys dangling from her hand, but she takes in Briar’s bloody face and the sharp instruments on James’s desk and just sighs.
‘You look pretty sorry,’ she says. ‘Come on. I have the golf cart, I’ll take you back.’
‘I can walk,’ Briar says.
‘They don’t know what they’re saying. Blood loss, you know - they’re confused,’ Tate says. ‘We will definitely be riding in the golf cart.’
‘I wasn’t offering it to you,’ Eugenia says, but she lets all three of them come anyway, Tate riding shotgun, Hadley and Briar perched on the back.
Hadley has stolen the blanket from the infirmary, and makes a half-hearted attempt at putting it over Briar’s knees, too, even though it’s not in the least bit cold and the journey back is going to take less than five minutes now that they’re motorised.
‘D’you know there’s a hymn,’ Hadley says, as they whizz along the tarmac path past the chapel, all the school buildings around them shut up for the night and lit only by small candle-glows of emergency exit green, ‘called O for a thousand tongues? Up there in the top ten funniest fucking hymn names. And it’s this guy being like, oh man, I wish I had more tongues .
. . to praise God! Nothing weird, I just like praising God. ’
She starts to sing it, in a surprisingly good operatic lilt. A few lyrics seem to have been altered.
‘Watson, that hymn is banned on campus,’ Eugenia says, sounding very tired.
‘O for a thousand tongues to rim, my great Redeemer’s—’
‘Ah, I love this song,’ Tate says beatifically from the front seat, as Hadley merrily blasphemes.
Eugenia clears her throat. ‘Watson.’
‘My gracious master and my God, assist me to proclaim, to spread your ass so big and broad—’
Eugenia stops the golf cart abruptly, and they all jolt forward in their seats.
She waits in silence, making her point, then starts the engine again.
Hadley sighs wistfully, but ceases her song of praise.
There’s an ambulance parked over by the staff entrance, back doors wide open, lighting the tarmac blueish-white.
Outsiders on campus, obviously permitted to go no further than the back yard. Nobody says anything about it.
They reach Cavendish first, and Hadley gets off, with one last squeeze of Briar’s arm and the blanket slipping from her narrow shoulders as she walks up the path to the front door. Eugenia waits until she’s actually inside, the door closed behind her, before setting off.
‘I’ll get Briar upstairs,’ Tate says, when Eden comes into view.
‘You’re still out of bounds until the moment you are in your bed, Adams,’ Eugenia warns, as Briar and Tate get out of the cart. Eugenia drives it away at top speed, too cool, one hand on the wheel, the other arm draped casually over the back of the passenger seat.
‘I love her,’ says Tate. ‘What’s her car like?’
Briar considers. ‘Clean.’
‘What a woman.’
‘I don’t actually need help getting upstairs.’ It’s true; the night air has helped immensely, and Briar’s shaking has slowed to the occasional shiver.
‘Well, maybe not, but in theory you might faint or something, and I should check on West.’
On the second floor, Tate knocks on Westby’s door. No answer. He waits, then knocks again. Miller opens it, wearing the blue striped pyjamas of a little cartoon boy in a fifties chapter book, and squints at them disapprovingly.
‘It’s after nine, Adams.’
‘So true, Miller, and I can only apologise, but - is West in?’
‘Hey,’ Miller says, registering Briar. ‘You’re all covered in blood.’
‘West?’ Tate calls quietly, trying to peer through the doorway.
‘He’s not here, I don’t know where he is, and I don’t intend to get into any trouble on his behalf, so if you’ll excuse me.’ Miller primly shuts the door, and Tate drums his fingers on the frame for a moment before straightening up.
‘Up we go,’ he says.
On Briar’s floor, Tate turns left instead of right, and Briar realises that there’s a second door.
It’s dirty white, the same colour as the wall - Briar just assumed it was long painted over, and their mind painted over it too.
Tate has to shove his shoulder into it to get it to move, but when it does, it lets in a blast of outside air, and reveals steps leading up to a flat section of roof.
‘I didn’t know this was here,’ Briar says.
‘We used to come out here sometimes in the summer but then the door jammed shut. Guess they fixed it.’
Westby is sitting propped up against a gable, accompanied by a half-empty bottle of Famous Grouse, a neon yellow lighter and a packet of cigarettes, four or five butts scattered around him like fallen blossoms. He’s wearing a plush, chequered dressing gown over his uniform, and the effect is quite endearing.
Grandfatherly - but the sort of grandfather you’re sincerely starting to worry about.
‘You’re having a party,’ Tate says.
‘Mmm,’ says Westby, taking a drag on his cigarette. ‘Hey, Jones, did you always have a big ugly facial wound? Rude to ask, I know, but I’d be embarrassed if I just hadn’t noticed.’
‘We were at the Study.’
Westby’s eyebrows lift. ‘What happened?’
‘Alistair,’ Briar says. The last vestiges of adrenaline keeping them upright have waned.
They sit down heavily, and Westby wordlessly offers the Scotch.
Briar remembers the vitriol in his voice, when he’d told Briar to fuck off.
I don’t need any more friends. They take the bottle anyway, throw some back for medicinal purposes.
‘He was trying to get me to spy on you, I think.’
‘Bastard,’ Westby says seriously. ‘What did he do to your face?’
‘Nothing. The window . . . exploded.’ Briar’s hands mime the violence of the moment, the force of it, the glass rushing in.
‘What? Exploded? How? Firework, Molotov cocktail?’
‘Remains a mystery,’ Tate says, from where he’s now leaning against the doorframe. ‘I got there . . . after.’
‘Just long enough to allow Jones to be put through the shredder.’
‘They wandered off!’
‘I did wander off,’ Briar says in his defence. ‘Sorry.’
Tate sighs. ‘Hit Buck, too, but unfortunately I think he’s fine. They called the private ambulance anyway, obviously. Can’t take any chances with the Buckingham heir.’
‘Obviously,’ Westby repeats.
Briar clears their throat. ‘Alistair - Buck - he was able to . . . He was telling me what to do, and I was doing it. It felt like a good idea, but I still . . . I knew I hated him. And did it anyway. How does that work?’
‘Yeah. It’s kind of twin to what Aiden was doing,’ Tate says. ‘Buck does action, no feelings. Aiden’s is all feelings.’ In an aside to Westby, he adds, ‘Briar got sucked in. I forgot to warn them.’
‘You said Aiden was good at . . . magnetism. Is Buck especially good at . . . what he was doing?’
‘Sadly, yes,’ says Westby. ‘It’s a sort of specialism. You figure out what you’re best at, and then if you’re lucky, you get into the advanced classes and dedicate all your independent study hours to it in the upper years.’
‘But are they all . . . like . . . ?’
‘Manipulation?’ says Tate, with an edge of bitterness. ‘Mostly, yes.’