The Betrayals(14)

Maybe I’m being disingenuous. There was a moment this morning, on the last stretch of road with the towers looming into sight, when I felt as pleased as Punch to be here again. I felt myself swagger as I walked through the gate. It still comes as a surprise that I’m a scholar of Montverre. And second in my class, no less. I didn’t expect that, this time last year. This time last year I was afraid they’d realise there’d been a mistake.

It doesn’t matter, anyway. I’m back. Two more years to go.

Later

Had to break off because Felix came and knocked for me and we went down to get some lunch. He’s worrying about being near the bottom of the class; apparently his parents gave him a hard time over the summer and they’ve threatened to make him find a job if he doesn’t get at least an Upper Second next year. I told him it was a bit early to be worrying about leaving, but I couldn’t muster much sympathy. He clearly thinks getting a job is about the worst thing that can happen to him. Any job. Presumably earning a living is the sort of thing only the middle classes do. I’d like to see him slaving away in Dad’s scrapyards, the way I did all summer. For goodness’ sake, all these people whose dream is sitting in a country house somewhere, studying the grand jeu while the country goes to the dogs … Not that I’m much better, if what I want is to be Magister Ludi – but at least that’s an honest ambition, it isn’t just trying to avoid hard work. I bit my tongue and didn’t mention the scrapyards; but then, there are a few other things I did over the summer that I’m not going to mention, either. That bit of my life (manual labour, colleagues who only read the Flag, the occasional sweaty fifteen-minute-stand behind the architectural salvage pile) is staying firmly in another compartment. Every so often I wish I could tell him, if only to see his face. But I’m not an idiot.

Lunch was plain wholesome food suitable for the grand jeu players of tomorrow, as per, but at least it was copious. Most of the class were already down there, swapping the usual Long Vacation stories. Emile had been in France for most of it (naturally, my dears!) and was regaling the others with tales of the conquests he’d made chaperoning his cousins round Paris – whereupon Matthieu tried to outdo him by announcing that he had met an obliging dairymaid (or was it a shepherdess? I forget) in the Alps and had actually lain hands on the most perfect pair of … etc. etc. Jacob (who has never quite mastered the idiom) was boasting that he’d been invited to Oxford to study. He was telling Felix about the Abacus Collection – his uncle’s the curator, he was invited to the grand jeu soirées with the best players in England, blah blah – until I said, ‘Jacob, the Abacus Collection is in Cambridge,’ and he choked a bit and went quiet. Sometimes I wonder whether any of us tells the truth about anything.

After I’d picked up my timetable – we have fewer lessons this year, to give us time to work on our games – I came back up here. As I turned the corner I caught sight of Felix outside Carfax’s room, pinning something up on the door. I paused and looked over his shoulder, and he turned and grinned at me. ‘Like it?’ he said.

It was an advert for fire extinguishers, with a picture of a burning house and two wide-eyed children loitering on the lawn, hand in hand. Why take the risk? it said.

‘Are they meant to be the survivors, or the culprits?’

‘They’ve definitely got the de Courcy look, haven’t they?’ Felix pushed in the last drawing pin, and stood back to appraise his work. ‘Slightly manic … guilty expressions … ash-smeared hands …’ He looked round and grabbed my arm, but it was too late. Carfax was coming down the corridor towards us. He must have been in the lavatory, because his hair was wet and he was carrying a damp towel. He paused in front of us and read the poster. His face went tight. For a second I thought he was going to go inside without saying anything, but then Felix giggled.

‘Hilarious,’ Carfax said. ‘Did you spend the whole vacation planning that?’

‘No,’ Felix said, ‘I just saw it and thought of you.’

‘Maybe if you thought less about me and more about the grand jeu you wouldn’t be in line for a Third.’

Felix’s grin slid off his face. ‘You really can’t take a joke, can you?’

Carfax turned so suddenly I thought he was going to hit one of us. ‘For pity’s sake, will you leave me alone?’

‘Or what? Will you burn us in our beds?’

‘I’m sorely tempted.’ He looked past Felix, at me.

‘What have I done?’ I said. ‘I simply happened to be walking past—’

‘I hope one day you realise what a bastard you are, Martin. That’s all.’ He pushed the door open, and then paused, as if something else had occurred to him. ‘Oh, and by the way – congratulations on coming second. Your family must be very proud.’

The door shut behind him. Felix grunted, and peeled the poster off the door. ‘He is such a sanctimonious prig.’ He caught my eye. ‘Shall we catch him off guard somewhere and scrag him?’

I shook my head. For Felix it really is a joke. He likes teasing Carfax because he gets a reaction. He doesn’t realise how much I loathe him. How much I would like to see him – all right, maybe not hurt, not badly, but humiliated. No one knows that; except possibly Carfax himself. In some ways we see each other more clearly than anyone else does, I think.