The Quickening of Tom Turnpike (The Talltrees Trilogy) (14 page)

twenty three

Reggie
had not been wrong.  Just as I closed Barrington’s door behind me, I saw the
top of his lacquered, silver head rising step-by-step up the Spiral Staircase,
my only means of escape.  Looking around me frantically, I could see that there
was nowhere to hide here.  Not even any shadows.  The Sun was blazing brightly
though the glass roof, giving me the feeling of a fly trapped under the
magnifying glass of a sadistic child.  The Colonel could not see me just yet,
but he would in ten, nine, eight...  Where on Earth did Reggie get to?  Six,
five, four...  I had to take a wild chance.

I
threw myself headlong into the next room along, without time to read the name
on the door.  The room was mercifully empty, for now, and I waited by the door,
struggling not to breathe too loudly, my pulse drumming my ears.  I didn’t wish
to step any further into the room because that would somehow feel more like
trespass than waiting here with my head against the door.  A quick glance
around made it clear whose room this was:  there was a large bottle of Gordon’s
Gin and an ashtray brimming with cigarette butts on the table amid stacks of
papers and history books.  This was fortunate because, as I recalled, Mrs.
Stowaway was on duty this breaktime.  I might yet get away with this.

Then
I heard the Colonel’s unmistakeable, clicking footsteps marching in my
direction.  Instinctively, I stepped back away from the door and put out my
hand to steady myself.  But, as I did so, I foolishly knocked the ashtray off
the table.

It
clink-clanked petrifyingly across the floor-boards, spraying fag-ends around
the room and billowing up a plume of filthy ash.  It then rolled around in
increasingly loud circles until it eventually came to rest, leaving me standing
in intensifying silence and a shower of noxious dust.

I
froze still.  Barrington’s footsteps had ceased.  I even heard him clear his
throat gently outside the door like he was about to say something.  I waited, starting
to choke on ash, trying desperately not to cough out loud.  I cursed my malco-ordinated
fumbling and wished that I could magically make myself the size of an ant and
tuck myself underneath the rug.

The
ash was tickling the back of my throat.  I knew I was going to cough.  I
crouched down, my eyes were watering and I could feel my face going red with
the effort to suppress it.  I started to splutter, desperately trying to keep
it silent.  The tickling was driving me insane.  I was doubled over now,
practically gagging until the sensation passed.

I
didn’t dare to move, still crouching.  He was still out there, I knew it.

But
finally, after what seemed like ages, Barrington clicked past and I heard his
door close.  I waited for a few more moments in case he was bluffing and was
still standing outside.  But I could hear nothing, not a shuffle or a scratch.

Then,
holding my breath like I was about to be ducked in the deep end of the Pool, I
plunged out into the Top Floor corridor and ran helter-skelter down the Spiral
Staircase, across the Main Hall and out onto the Veranda, not looking back,
praying that Barrington had not seen me.

twenty four

The
first lesson after Break was Germanic Studies.  Doctor Saracen’s classroom was
at the back of the school.  It was probably the biggest classroom and was
decked out with Party banners and portraits of the
Führer
and his generals.
 
About one desk in three
was empty now.  In fact, looking around, the only boys here were me, Pickering,
Trout, Foxtrap, three of the boys from Marlborough dorm, Nigel Hardcastle, Emilio
Menzies and Olivier Plumm, and two from Bedwyn, Ollie Philander and St. John Grüber. 
All of the other boys had been spirited away and each must by now be at some
hideous stage in the grizzly process of zombification.

“Right,
boys,” growled Doctor Saracen, strutting purposefully into the room with his
gown billowing out behind him and the door slamming dramatically in its wake. 
It always surprised me how agilely he could move for a man who looked as if he
was stooped by arthritis.  “Bit of a sorry-looking shower, aren’t you, hmm?”

Saracen’s
presence always cast an immediate spell over a roomful of boys.  Everyone
became deathly silent and still.  His preferred mode of punishment was the use
of the thick cane that hung by a leather strap from a hook by the blackboard, a
looming threat against misbehaviour.  The faintest flutter of activity or
whisper of noise would soon result in a beating.  You would think twice before
brushing away a fly or blowing your nose.  And if he was in a particularly foul
mood, he would turn the weapon around and use the leather strap against you.

He
went over to open one of the enormous windows.  It was another oppressively
clammy day.  The window let in no breeze, just the buzzing of insects, the
whisper of a distant motorcar and the tick-ticking of water-sprays, all of
which seemed, if anything, to make the air in the classroom even heavier.

“Page
one hundred and two.”

I
opened my red and black book.  There was a picture of the sort that appears on
stained glass windows in churches of a middle-aged man with receding dark hair
and a long, bedraggled beard.  He looked gaunt, but not unhealthy, with bright,
intelligent, kind eyes. 

I
started thinking about Head Matron and Pontevecchio’s story about how she was
taken from Barrington in Africa.  It occurred to me that she probably hadn’t
been kidnapped at all.  He probably zombified her, I thought grimly.  Maybe she
was his first.  But what sort of twisted person would zombify his own wife?  I
tried to focus on the lesson.  Saracen was unhooking his cane and flexing it
with menace.

“This
is an early depiction of Saint Nicholas,” began Doctor Saracen.  He walked over
to the window, stood there with the cane tucked under his arm like a drill
sergeant, and started to ramble on about the superiority of the Old High German
traditions and that the beliefs of the Volksdeutsche were too strong for many
of the Christian ones when they were introduced to Europe.  The only solution,
he explained, was for the Christian beliefs to surrender to the existing
beliefs and to be incorporated into them. 

This
was starting to sound familiar to me.  It was like what Doctor Boateng had told
us about the Voodoo beliefs that the slaves brought from Africa.

“The
next picture is of the god Wotan, who goes back to a long time before Christianity
existed,” he continued.  “As you know from last week, he used to ride an
eight-legged horse that could jump so far that it seemed like it was flying.  Children
would leave carrots, straw and other treats by their chimneys for the horse and
Wotan would thank them by leaving them gifts.  Does this sound familiar...” he
rounded on us suddenly and pointed the cane at Nigel, “Hardcastle?”

“It
sounds like Santa Claus and his reindeer, Sir.”

“Exactly. 
So what happened was that the Christian saints were associated with the
superior deities with which they had the most in common.  In this case, Wotan
was connected with Saint Nicholas because both of them were givers of gifts. 
Thus both of these pictures are different depictions of Santa Claus.  This
process of identifying a Germanic god with a Christian saint is called
syncretism
.” 

Doctor
Saracen carried on talking and I looked closely at the page so that it looked
like I was thinking about what he was saying, when a passage on page one
hundred and three caught my eye:

“
Syncretism
in Inferior Cultures:

Christianity
also succumbed to the beliefs of certain low cultures, such as Voodoo, as a
result of the inherent dishonesty of the believers.  Catholic mass was used to
disguise Voodoo rituals and the rudimentary Voodoo gods, called Loas, were
syncretised
with the Christian saints that were most similar to them. Grand Bois, the Loa
of the forest became associated with Saint Sebastian; Dambala, the serpent Loa,
with Saint Patrick; and Legba, the Loa of trickery, with Saint Peter.
”

The
lesson passed uneventfully and, aside from Peregrine Trout, who got a sharp
whack across the back of his hand for asking an impertinent question, we all
managed to get to Lunch unharmed.

***

Usually
at lunchtimes, the Dining Room was a raucous place with boys and Masters alike
wolfing down their food before the Kitchen Staff had an opportunity to remove
the plates.  Today, two of the ten long, ancient banqueting tables which
stretched across the width of the room were empty and the room felt a good deal
quieter.  The scrapings of cutlery and crockery echoed around the high,
ornately carved ceiling and distant, panelled walls, which were engraved with
the names of the members of every Talltrees 1
^st
XI cricket team
going back to 1871 (excluding war years).

One
of the boys in the 1927 team was named W.M. Turnpike, though I had no reason to
think I was related to him.  I often stared at his name and wondered whether
his life before the Occupation would have been any different from mine.  Maybe
not: the cane, Detention, bullies, bad food and people shouting at him.

“Oy...
Turnpike!”  It was Reggie, whispering to me intently.  I had so much on my mind
that I had not even noticed that he was sitting next to me.  “Come on, then. 
What did you find on your dekko of Barrington’s room?”

I
looked around quickly to make sure that nobody was looking.  It was never good
to be seen speaking in hushed tones to someone else, especially when the likes
of Saracen and Barrington were around. 

I
started to explain, whilst pretending to concentrate on my food.  I recited as
much as I could remember from the letters and, with Reggie’s eyes widening in
surprise, I revealed to him the identity of Barrington’s wife. 

“To
be honest, Reg, I’m finding it all very hard to understand.  There’s obviously
so much we don’t know.”  I looked around to where Doctor Saracen sat, two
tables away.  “And I’m just beginning to wonder whether anyone else is
involved.”

Reggie
was frowning and hacking at the meat on his plate.  “But I thought,” he said, a
forkful of gammon muffling his voice, “that Pontevecchio reckoned that
Barrington’s missus died out in Africa, didn’t he?”

“Well
I’m only telling you what I saw,” I whispered.  “Honestly, it was definitely
Head Matron.  So either Pontevecchio’s story wasn’t right or he didn’t know the
whole thing.”

“We’ve
got to get into the Sick Bay,” said Reggie, “and see what’s happening to Milo,
Freddie and the others.  I don’t care how many Detentions we get.  What do you
reckon – after Lunch yeah?  We’ll go the back way this time.”

***

He
looked at his watch.  We had managed to make it to our dorm without being seen,
and waited there until the corridors fell silent. 

“Okay. 
Lunchtime Surgery’s started.  Let’s go!”

We
scurried out of our dorm and around the gallery above the Main Hall to a door
leading to the Sick Bay, the Sewing Room and a couple of other rooms which
together formed Head Matron’s private fiefdom.

I
had been in the Sick Bay only once before, so this was another part of the
school building that was relatively unknown to me.  It was a year or so ago,
when I had croup, which is like a nasty cold, but with loads more mucus.  I was
sitting in English, feeling ghastly, when Mr. English said to me, “Turnpike,
lad, I’m sure you are not usually that spearmint shade of green.  Blackadder,
be a good lad and take Turnpike up to Head Matron at once.”

Well,
at first I thought, judging from what I had been told about the Sick Bay, that
a brief stint there would represent a welcome holiday from the rigours of the
term –  glasses of Apfelschorle on demand, breakfast in bed, football on the
wireless, visits from my mother and so forth.  But, as it turned out, it is
very difficult to enjoy any of these amenities when you are struggling for your
next breath with a towel draped over your head and a bowl of steaming water
under your chin. 

I
pushed the door slightly ajar to ensure that the hallway in front of me, which
led down towards the Surgery at the other end, was empty before we stepped in. 
It was dimly lit by three antique lamps ensconced on the wall.  The carpet and
wallpaper were the technicolour of horror-films, red clotting to a thick black
at the other end, the sort of colour scheme you would expect in Castle
Dracula.  The air was thick with the formaldehyde stench of languorous
sickness.  Just being here made me feel bile rising in my stomach.

“Which
door is it?” I whispered.  There were three along the same side of the passage,
each covered in a sort of dark red carpet, followed at the other end of the
passage by the door towards the Surgery and the Upper Corridor, where Reggie
had been caught by Mr. Caratacus and Mr. English.

Reggie
looked at me, astonished.  “How the hell should
I
know? 
You’re
the one who’s been here before, not me.”

“I
really don’t remember,” I said.  “We’ll have to try each of them.”

The
first door led to what was obviously the Sewing Room.  The lights were out and
the shutters closed, but enough sunlight filtered through to illuminate a
lonely rocking chair in front of which there was a large open chest containing
various colours of wool and all the mysterious paraphernalia of the
seamstress. 

As
I struggled to adjust my vision to the darkness, I had a terrible shock.  But,
as I started to discern the dark shapes of boys hanging from the ceiling all
around the room, I quickly realised that these were items of careless boys’
clothing hanging wherever they would fit:  moth-eaten socks draped over
radiators, threadbare shorts spread out over the floor and torn blazers hooked
over wardrobe doors. 

I
closed that door behind me and moved on to the next one.

Again,
the shutters were closed, but in this room the lights were on, dimly displaying
that the decorators had stuck to the same scheme of gory red in here as they
thought fit for the passageway.  A fly buzzed around my head and then out of
the room in a mazy bid for freedom.  The heady odour in the passageway was
clearly emanating from this room.  In here it was far more intense and sickening. 
The room contained a long table at the far end upon which was a row of bottles
which I recognised from the shelves in the Physics and Chemistry Lab, bearing
labels with long words and symbols denoting various hazards.

Reggie
nudged me and whispered, “This must be where they make the zombie-poison. 
Look!” he pointed to a far corner of the room where there was a waste-paper
bin.  But instead of carrying paper, it was brimming with hypodermic syringes. 
I wondered, with horror, if one of the needles near the top had recently been stabbed
into Freddie’s arm. 

Suddenly
there was the clunk of the doorknob at the end of the corridor.  I bundled
Reggie through the door and hurriedly pulled it shut behind me.  We waited in
silence as footsteps tapped along the corridor and through the door at the far
end. 

“Come
on!”  Reggie whispered.

We
closed the door behind us and moved on to the next.  It was the final door up
here, the one that must lead to the Sick Bay.

I
pushed it open carefully, terrified about what I might see in here – maybe some
of my best friends jerking in electric agony, their sorry flesh putrefying on
their bones and necromantic lunacy perverting their thoughts, hallucinations
drifting callously in and out of their nightmares, open wounds drizzling
and...? 

But
what I saw, though initially less disgusting, was more peculiar than that and,
I realised, far more sinister. 

“Christ,
Tom.  Oh god.  Let’s get out of here now!”