In the Thirties by Edward Upward

Author:Edward Upward [Upward, Edward]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-05-31T15:48:42+00:00

7

Some boy unidentifiable among a group near the iron railings made an insulting noise as Alan was walking across the quad at the beginning of break. A coarsely suggestive variation on the kind of hissing that he had quite often heard during his earlier terms, it began with a strongly plosive ‘p’ sound. The distance and the moment had been slyly chosen: the offender was just too far off for Alan to observe the facial contortion that must surely have accompanied a noise so violently spiteful; and now already the whistle had blown for Physical Training, the boys had hung their brown blazers on the railings, the suspect group quickly dispersed and its units were mingled with others all hurrying across the asphalt. Childers and the younger Marston, either of whom was quite capable of an offence of this type, had seemed to be standing where the noise had come from; but Alan could not be certain. Could he even be entirely certain that it hadn’t been accidental, an automatic boy-noise as unconscious and unintentional as a locomotive’s letting-off of steam, or, if intentional, might it not have been aimed at another boy rather than at him? Such doubts, Alan quickly recognized, were nothing but wishful thinking. He must cope with what had happened, not try to believe that it hadn’t. Since his crucial interview with the Headmaster a year ago he had at four different times caned four boys, and had put a stop to the hissing at least inside the classrooms. Suppressed there, it had today burst out in a new and a more cunning manifestation, more difficult to deal with. But he could and must suppress it again, and by the same methods. If he didn’t it could become very nasty indeed. It might before long begin to assume the dimensions of a persecution.

He watched the boys form up into squads on the asphalt, stared at the nearer faces but could detect none of the signs he looked for – no smirks, no side-glances of collusion. The farther squads were less easy to examine. From the iron railings and from the crenellated brickwork of the lavatories in the background an encroaching indistinctness defeated him as he tried to extend his investigation to other faces, an emotional blur, a dimness which was caused by the agitation of his feelings and which was suddenly reminiscent of a dream he had had one or two nights before. In the middle of a badly-lit assembly hall he had stood surrounded by boys, two of whom had come very close to him and had calmly and in unison spoken an outrageous word. He had tried to raise both hands to strike at them, but his arms had been bound with invisible elastic whose resistance had strengthened with every new effort he had made. Now for a moment the movements on the quad in front of him had the quality of movements in an unpleasant and uncontrollable dream. But the moment passed, and he was able to take warning from it against allowing his feelings to get the better of him.

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