Chapter Two
– A Harrow-ing Introduction
Daylight filled
the room as my heavy sleep was felled by an unbidden morning. Ghostly plumes of
fog arranged themselves outside my window, ready to be let in and choked on. It
was a typical Harrow School morning for an atypical Harrow boy. And my roommate,
18- year-old Wallace Fox, had just upchucked into a too-shallow straw boater.
My introduction
to public school Wally was an onslaught of personal disclosures; that his was a
family of prominent laughing-stock, kept back by a chain of misfortunes that
seemed on the surface to be brought on by the lighting of social dumpster fires
and the burning of bridges. An uncle gambling away multiple fortunes; a cousin
who bullshitted his way into muckraking journalism (under an assumed nickname!)
and yakked his way into multiple defamation suits; and most demonstratively for
our present purposes, his ill-fated father, Colwin Fox, whose law practice was undermined
by its titular head’s disbarment-worthy criticism of a judge whom had presided
over one too many of Colwin’s poorly conceived arguments. Connected with Wally in my mind were scenes of
social degradation and public humiliation; and in my 17-year-old head positively
swimming with teenage attempts at allegory, aphorism and allusion, I imagined
his family crest taking the form of a giant cartoon mouth garlanded with wicked
verbiage.
I found this
particular morning unflattering to my current adolescent condition; so, tunneling
under the covers, I attempted to return to dreamland. My newly assigned roommate, despite having no hangover
remedies to speak of (‘Hair of the Dog’ still being at least a decade in the
distance from our lexicon) made it his morning’s mission to keep me awake and
loop me into his post-carousal routine.
“While you were
copping a nod, I was on the horn with some friends who can sneak us into a
licensed premises.”
I pulled the
sheet down to reveal one weary glaring eye. “’Copping a nod’ is grossly
dismissive of my desire to get some real shut-eye,” I spat, “and isn’t sneaking
into a licensed premises what you did last night?”
What I quickly
discovered as our friendship began to burgeon is that Wally Fox exercises absolutely
no discipline over his appetites.
Talking of
appetites, I next saw my troublingly curious roomie after he had scrubbed and
powdered himself into a splendidly florid condition for his arrival at the communal
dinner table. We at Rendalls were quite
house proud, and particularly covetous of our meal menus, which to us read like
a cornucopian feast; until we discovered that there was no discernible
difference in catering among the hallowed houses of Harrow. This caused unbounded amounts of
consternation, until Wally Fox leapt into the fray with his all-nonsense take
on house living.
“This must be
my lucky day! Chicken Kiev again!”
Wally made a
hard, bouncing landing on the bench next to me, startling more than one of our
reserved schoolmates and insinuating his slovenly eating habits into our
previously tranquil meal.
“Are you twats
still getting your ekker intercoursing on the merits and demerits of house
meal offerings?”
A new boy
called Blanche chimed in feebly, “It is my firm belief that the reason you see
more Bradbys boys at the tuck shop is the inferior quality of their catering.”
“I’ll wager
your firm belief couldn’t measure up to the sustained wood of my trouser
furniture! Firm this, Blanche!”, as Wally raised a closed fist in our general
direction.
“Charmingly
over-familiar, Fox. Yet, as ever, scarcely contributes to our understanding.”
“Perhaps you
lizards could take a survey of those old goats lining up for morsels.”
“Oh, God,” I
spluttered into my chicken. “One of those old goats is my mother!”
Meanwhile, at
the headmaster’s office…
“Someone has
deposited a gaggle of pensioners at our doorstep…”
“We have
doorsteps at Harrow? I wasn’t aware and did not authorize.”
“All right,
perhaps they were ditched at the proscenium arch – is that better?”
“Why are you
pestering me with this?”
“It seems one
of them, a certain Margaret Hickinbotham, proposes a filial claim to one of our
pupils.”
“Well, that
would be the one called Hickinbotham, I should think. Christ on a digestive. Can’t
you sort this out on your own?”
“I should be
remiss if I did not point out that the nameplate on the door I’ve just passed
through reads ‘headmaster.’ I defer to the superior judgment which this title implies,
not to mention the wage packet. Come, Dudley, and demonstrate for this
community that the faith they have placed in you is justified.
“You seem
strangely unconcerned that with a thirty-second phone call I could render your
wage packet superfluous.”
“If you promise
to make that call right now, which would ensure that I’ve no further participation
in the scene currently unfolding in the dining hall, well, I double-dog dare
you…”
“Quite. I much
preferred your former Pickwickian manner to this…this…well, I haven’t
identified it yet.”
“That manner
still resides in me, sir. It’s your fecklessness that brings forth a quite
other character.”
“Can you at
least debrief me on the motives for the appearance of these interlopers?”
“It appears to
be a field trip, sir.”
“Right. A field
trip which just happens to contain among its participants the mother of one of
our pupils.”
“I really do
think we should make haste, sir. You see, Ms. Hickinbotham is reciting dirty
limericks.”
“Christ, why
didn’t you say so! I thought perhaps hostages were being taken. Hustle now,
Roger – lead me to the front!
The faint light
of an October morning wove its way through threadbare curtains, as I awakened
to scattershot images of familiar figures elbowing their way into my drugged
vision. Or at least I assumed it was a drugged vision I was seeing this strange
world through; because the last thing I remember before disconcertingly waking
up in my bed in full dinner dress was the image of my mother mocking 17-year-olds
for not laughing at her filthy jokes; and my schoolmates, their faces bright
with the feel of a new autumn, returning fire with incredulous nincompoopery;
and all the while mum was working the crowd under an assumed nickname.
“Don’t you get
it, boys? Ben lives above Paddy’s non-existent abode, to get out of trouble…oh,
it’s no good having to explain a joke of such extraordinary subtlety…”
“Is that what the People’s Friend thinks is
fit to print these days, is that it?”
“How would you
know? No one under the age of forty reads the People’s Friend!”
My first waking
moments after this travesty found me with the overwhelming feeling which
Dorothy must have felt in her bed at the end of the Wizard of Oz; the only
thing that seemed to be missing was a traveling showman. However, it could be
argued that Meg filled that bill.
“You’d worked
yourself into quite a state, Kevin. But what’s it all about?”
As I lay their
soaking in the waves of a spirited conversation, evidently concerning my
well-being, I found that their voices could not be lifted above the tedium of
schoolmarm concern. This was chiefly due to the fact of Wally, who, while coming
from a long line of eloquent mischief-makers; and having the bizarre fortune of
being both endearingly normal and wildly charismatic, leading the ludicrous
conversation swirling around me; as one might expect from a socially inept
descendant of the realm of the emblazoned.
“He’s always
been like this,” harped a feminine voice too familiar to presume such
cheekiness in mixed company. “Forever embarrassed by his mother’s antics.”
“You don’t
say?” Wally piped. “It’s a bit much, isn’t it? Falling away in a faint like
that. Seems wholly disproportionate to the circumstances.”
“Try telling
him that! I wouldn’t go as far as to say I’ve suffered – he’s a good son – but
the occasional bouts of theatricality are off-putting.”
“If I may
interject,” the assistant headmaster ventured, “he appears to be on the verge
of awakening.”
“On the verge
of awakening, or on the verge of an awakening? It’s a crucial
distinction.”
“I shan’t
speculate on the boy’s metaphysical condition, only his stage of
consciousness.”
“Perhaps we can
solve him together, Meg. I could do with a project. Harrow can be quite
stifling for a precocious ne’er-do-well like me.”
Despite all
this high-minded tripe, Wally Fox was bound sentimentally to the old way of
life. Which means he is very much “of” Harrow. He has no oppositional
fortitude, no latent hatred of the establishment to bring to the surface; and
certainly no sincere desire to get to the bottom of Kevin Hickinbotham, as it
were. This was never more true than as I watched Wally peeling off his
Harrovian jersey before mother had even darkened our threshold in exit; as if in
discarding the garment he was also discarding any notion of undertaking a
conversation with me on any subject beyond his newfound fascination with the member
of the Hickinbotham tribe whose Jovan musk still lingered in the air.
On the approach
to the local Polytechnic, one finds conspicuous the absence of the guardian
gargoyles rising snarling from the abutments which grace our buildings at
Harrow. It is this kind of aesthetic nitpicking in which I had begun to partake
as my scandal-prone roommate continued to descend into paroxysms of puerile pedantry
on the subject of comedy; and how my mum was going to school him in the art of
the rib tickle. That is, if he could stop thinking about how to get another
pickle tickle long enough to have anything else enter his fool head.
“Circulate,
laddie, circulate!”
Night’s
reflection on the lake fomented dazzling acres of moonlight, as I wandered
moodily round the grounds of the polytechnic. This had become my form of
respite whenever Wally dragged me to a shindig that was not to my taste. I had
just struck out wildly with a Poly girl whose hair was not plainly British in
color and whose manners were not recognizably adolescent. After this abysmal failure
I was sucked into the undertow of intoxication, getting absolutely stomped on foul
whisky. I found myself careening around the various rooms of the labyrinthine
house till finally, swathed in malevolent belches, I slumped pooped in the
ill-heated drawing room. The room was stubborn in its emanating stink of
moisture, as if recently bombarded by pit-stained academics donning insensible
forms of tweed.
I had
absolutely no intention of circulating.
It soon became
clear that putting my backfield in motion might have been the better notion, as
presently I was approached by yet another far-from-bright-eyed, considerably
less-than-bushy-tailed bird on the make; causing me to reconsider the
socialization aspect of the gathering, as this one was leaden with a fruity-drink
drunk disposition. Without so much as a wink of a nod of foreplay, she was
crawling up my not inconsiderable pantleg and kneeing me in the groin as she
surmounted my mid-section, as if she were after something beyond me and the
now-groaning sideboard; and as I fell back under the thrust of her
comparatively feather weight and steeled myself for a fully-clothed rape scene,
she adjusted her glasses that didn’t need adjusting, giving her the appearance
of lopsidedness. Just as I was about to close my eyes (or it could have been
hold my nose, the mingling of furniture polish and her alcohol breath was making
me gag), she listed to the port side, wildly overcorrected to starboard, and
collapsed face-first into a tray of canapes.
I must admit I
quite admired her pluck; and she had crafted her movements with the accuracy of
a sober person, at least until the sudden keeling into party pastry.
Wally woke up the
next morning with what appeared to be unclaimed unrewarded baby teeth stuck to
his cheek; in point of fact these curious items were the lost earrings of his
overnight lover.
“Where do you
reckon those came from?”
He accepted my
bleary-eyed half-stare as a reply.
In his rumpled
fireside manner, Wally stoked the electric fire with a flippant flick of a
switch. Everything in his morning’s
manner indicated to me that he had no intention of allowing the momentum of the
last two nights to stall; even his usual sloppy making of tea was particularly
strident in its handling of cup and saucer. Too bad I didn’t have any bets on
how quickly my prediction would come true.
“Hey, Fox, telephone
call for you!”
Wally sprang up
and out to the hallway telephone as if his very day depended on it.
“Shut the
bloody door!” I cried hopelessly. When it came to goings on in our house, Wally
admitted no privacy, for himself or others. Our entire floor would likely be in
on whatever he would cook up on the telephone.
Through the grogginess
of a stubborn if light hangover, I picked up snatches of Wally’s end of the
conversation, which from the sound of it was the arranging of yet another night
on the prowl. That is, until I detected a marked change in the nature of his
ringing tones.
“I’m not a
child!
“What does it
matter that I’m seventeen?”
“This wasn’t a
problem when you were shagging me this morning!
“I know you are
but what am I?”
Sheepish couldn’t
begin to describe the attitude that overtook Wally as he returned to our rooms.
His countenance was one of the babysat boy who realizes that his sexy
babysitter does in fact look upon him as “just a kid.”
“Kev, old son,
we’ve been found out.”
“Who’s we? Did
someone report the theft of their baby-teeth earrings?”
He proceeded to
describe for me the other end of the just completed phone conversation. The
following is what Wally heard as his previous night’s conquest tried to
convince her friends to paint the town with Wally and me.
“I’ve got
something going with a couple of Harrovians – are you in?”
“Oh, they are
pale-faced hopefuls, to be sure, but they’re adorable…”
“You can’t
possibly be this stupid…”
“Who wants to
tell her?
“They’re sixth
formers, you bloody cow!”
There was
something of especial satisfaction in the knowledge that Wally had been
rejected by someone who may be wondering if they had just hours earlier sauced someone
below the age of consent.
“Had some
misgivings, did they?”
“Yes, you could
say Miss Givings was hyper-vigilant in her squaring things away.”
“I can’t think
why I’m so cast down by this turn. Jesus, even her cigarettes were an
unmentholated bore…”
Harrow is a
public school, and therefore a regime of some psychological force; wherein the principal
warring factions of society are established; achievement versus nature. Was it
Jung who said, “We wholly overlook the essential fact that the achievements
which society rewards are won at the cost of a diminution of personality”. A
symptom of lingering pubescence, at least in the case of Wally Fox, is to do
battle with forces arrayed against his nature. The sloughing off of his personality
would come later; Wally would make one last stand in defense of nature. I found
myself caught in the crossfire of the dueling factions of fate.
As I looked
wistfully over the unfathomable horizon of my future, farther and rarer than
memory can reach, it all seemed a folkloric deceit. Every school tradition we
upheld, every Harrow custom we took up and carried on; every belief the
ancients instilled in us, staring down from musty portraits with a beady
leering; had not one whit of the substance of promise.
And the
substance of promise is what delivers us back onto the shores of Wally’s fickle
nature; where it strikes me as incredible that fortune lays it on so thick. Wally
seemed to have all the advantages and privileges and capacities that one would
hope for – and indeed expect – from a shiny Harrovian. Yet he managed to tear
through all the credit he’d been gifted; called in and fumbled every favor; and
burned every bridge, and still managed to come out smelling like a grand champion
rose. But this rendering fallow the gardens of promise had swallowed me up and
blinded me of my purpose, so all-consuming was Wally’s fulsome presence.
Giving up my masturbatory
practices of youth now seemed frightfully short-sighted, as I found myself freed
from Wally’s depraved purposes for at least this evening. As my randy
rooms-mate continued his persuasive onslaught with several house denizens he’d
targeted as replacements for my role as his wingman, I began to prepare
mentally for a night of tranquil self-love.
Recalling
Wally’s words of wisdom as regards the use of opiates and hallucinogens as aids
to the physical act of love (“I find that a little ganja before making it helps
things along”), I turned my attention to the aesthetics segment of my carefully
worked out plans for an evening without Wally Fox. This was ushered in by the
lighting of scented candles, rendered even more necessary than usual as Cox
directed at me a particularly searing flatulence in his departure. “You know I
can’t abide your stench directly before mealtimes! It puts me off my food!” However,
on this night so pregnant with the potential for solitary pleasures, I simply
wouldn’t allow this attempt at derailing my ambitious agenda; as I called forth
the soul-fluffing power of Buddhist meditation.
“I am one with
the universe.”
It’s not as if Wally
and I have ever enjoyed the delightful sympathies of friendship (his knowledge
of my inability to sustain an appetite for anything sensate when confronted
with unappetizing aromas notwithstanding). Being his “friend” meant only that
you fluffed his ego and that you were comfortable and indeed found joy in the
fleeting moments of debauchery that he would lead you into. As part of his
entourage, you could find no intimacy or even familiarity, only the temporary
thrill of being part of one of his escapades. He was capable of holding onto
scraps of knowledge about others only because of a prodigious memory for
trivialities; and only as this knowledge related to his mostly nocturnal
activities; who has access to the best pot, who knows the bouncers at
undiscovered dens of iniquity and houses of ill-repute; who had connections
with those off-licenses who were known to turn a blind eye to under-age
consumers. In fact, everyone he’d come in contact with in the time I’d known
him was assigned a nickname related to what they acquired for him or provided
access to him. He chose me as a friend as a “front”, to give the appearance of
normalcy whenever a suspiciously unfamiliar extended family member would appear
at our doorstep to enquire of his well-being. You didn’t “know” Wally Cox; you
simply discovered bits and pieces of half-truths and seemingly fanciful tales
that accompanied his ranting and raving about a dodgy childhood.
And yet, I was
determined to know him, and to change him; and I was remorseless in pursuit of
this prize. Delusional? Probably, but we all need our projects.
Something I had
overheard him mutter in a candid moment when he thought no one of “import” was
listening, is quite useful in understanding my status in his sorry excuse for a
life. “My latent life’s purpose illumined by the wit of a middle-aged widow”.
Could it be
that my mother was not a front, but in fact a means?
Then, not 15
minutes after he had vamoosed and left me to what I thought was to be a quiet night
of imaginative wanking, he came bursting into our rooms like a madman.
“I’ve been
accepted to Cambridge!”
“And I suppose
that means I can expect to be accepted too?”
