22. Inconvenient Truths #2
‘Can I help you?’ asks the teacher, from where he’s writing on a whiteboard.
The room is entirely pale stone, a single, faded tapestry decorating the south wall.
There are no clues as to the subject taught here - just a few bookcases, and a circular table with a teapot and a stack of used cups piled next to it.
The desks are arranged in five neat rows, and to Briar’s horror, they realise both Bastian and Alistair are in attendance, the former bent over his desk, the latter lounging nonchalantly until he sees Briar and sits up straighter.
Briar gestures to the cleaning cart, mortified.
‘Oh, well, you start, we’ll only be another few minutes,’ says the teacher.
He turns back to the whiteboard immediately.
‘As I was saying - brute force reduces texts to their simplest forms. Some of your peers have never and will never be able to move past this. What I hope is that as graduates, as representatives of this school in the wider world, you will use the skills I’ve taught you to seek out as many meanings as possible in your Work.
Everybody in this room will meet with the board in September, and I hope it goes without saying that you are not to embarrass me with anything base. ’
Briar picks up a cloth as quietly as possible and starts wiping down the dust on the windowsills.
‘So, for example, Inquiry. Your average scholar might use it on themselves to glean the truth of someone’s words, to figure out if they’re lying - or to ensure that they ask exactly the right questions to get the answers they’re seeking.
They might even use it to encourage somebody to arrive at the point faster.
But the true scholar knows that the right reading of Inquiry can be far more powerful than any of these modern lie detector tests.
It can force someone to offer up their truths.
Buckingham, why don’t you show us? And, ah - Merton, you’re closest to the door, will you run and fetch a first-year?
Bell’s rung, hall should be full of them. ’
‘Why bother?’ Alistair says languidly, a smile in his voice. ‘There’s a cleaner right here.’
Briar goes perfectly still, like that might help. It doesn’t. ‘Oh, yes,’ the teacher says. ‘Good. Come here, would you?’
‘Um,’ Briar says, glancing at the teacher and then the back of Bastian’s head. ‘No thanks.’
At the sound of their voice, Bastian finally looks sharply round, and then at Alistair.
The teacher seems gently exasperated. ‘Don’t be silly, it’ll only take a moment.’
‘Why don’t you go and stand up in front of the board, Jones?’ Alistair says. ‘Quickly, now.’
Briar puts down the cloth and goes to take their rightful place next to the teacher, who says, ‘Well, now, that is brute forcing it, Buckingham. Try something with a little more subtlety now. Go ahead.’
From the front of the classroom, Briar looks back at a sea of vaguely interested faces. The only two people who seem to find this worthy of close attention are Bastian and Alistair.
Alistair smiles, a dimpled, handsome shark in a waistcoat. ‘What is it that your parents do for a living, Jones?’
‘They work real jobs,’ says Briar, unexpectedly. They’d planned on saying nothing at all. ‘I’m sure your parents are entirely unfamiliar with the concept.’
‘Well, now,’ says the teacher, ‘there’s no need for that. Go on, Buckingham. Push a bit harder.’
‘What is it that your father does?’
‘I don’t know,’ Briar says. ‘I’ve never met him.’ It feels strangely good to offer this up, like it was a secret they’ve been holding on to, released into the air. The room erupts into scattered laughter.
‘Your mother, then?’
‘Shift work,’ says Briar. ‘When she can get it. She likes working at the garden centre café. She used to be a teacher, but she got so stressed she had to quit.’
‘Oh! Well, very relatable indeed,’ says the teacher. ‘You see, Buckingham? If you focus on the language around evidence, you’ll find—’
‘What’s your real name?’ Alistair says, ignoring him. ‘There’s no way you’re called Briar, that’s one of those stupid fucking names you’ve invented for attention.’
‘Briar Jones,’ says Briar, because it is. No middle name. They’d felt short-changed, when they were small.
‘I think that’s enough, Buckingham,’ the teacher says, without any particular weight. ‘You’ve demonstrated this quite nicely.’
‘I don’t know, I think I can do better,’ says Alistair, getting up from his desk.
‘Buck,’ Bastian says. He stands too. Suddenly, everybody in the room is watching them intently.
‘How do you know Wolfe?’ Alistair asks, eyes darting between him and Briar.
Briar laughs. What an easy question. ‘We were best friends when we were kids. More than best friends.’
‘What the hell does that mean?’
Briar shrugs. Even easier. ‘I loved him.’
‘Stop.’
This comes not from the teacher, but from Bastian, and in response, every single person in the room stops moving.