Innocence Read online

  ‘The whole school is to go out and line up around the playground immediately,’ he said. ‘Leave your books behind. And no talking.’

  Mr Coombes was looking grim. His hammy pink face had taken on that dangerous scowl which only appeared when he was extremely cross and somebody was for the high-jump. I sat there small and frightened among the rows and rows of other boys, and to me at that moment the Headmaster, with his black gown draped over his shoulders, was like a judge at a murder trial.

  ‘He’s after the killer,’ Thwaites whispered to me.

  I began to shiver.

  ‘I’ll bet the police are here already,’ Thwaites went on. ‘And the Black Maria’s waiting outside.’

  As we made our way out to the playground, my whole stomach began to feel as though it was slowly filling up with swirling water. I am only eight years old, I told myself. No little boy of eight has ever murdered anyone. It’s not possible.

  Out in the playground on this warm cloudy September morning, the Deputy Headmaster was shouting, ‘Line up in forms! Sixth Form over there! Fifth Form next to them! Spread out! Spread out! Get on with it! Stop talking all of you!’

  Thwaites and I and my other three friends were in the Second Form, the lowest but one, and we lined up against the red-brick wall of the playground shoulder to shoulder. I can remember that when every boy in the school was in his place, the line stretched right round the four sides of the playground – about one hundred small boys altogether, aged between six and twelve, all of us wearing identical grey shorts and grey blazers and grey stockings and black shoes.

  ‘Stop that talking!’ shouted the Deputy Head. ‘I want absolute silence!’

  But why for heaven’s sake were we in the playground at all? I wondered. And why were we lined up like this? It had never happened before.

  I half-expected to see two policemen come bounding out of the school to grab me by the arms and put hand-cuffs on my wrists.

  A single door led out from the school on to the playground. Suddenly it swung open and through it, like the angel of death, strode Mr Coombes, huge and bulky in his tweed suit and black gown, and beside him, believe it or not, right beside him trotted the tiny figure of Mrs Pratchett herself!

  Mrs Pratchett was alive!

  The relief was tremendous.

  ‘She’s alive!’ I whispered to Thwaites standing next to me. ‘I didn’t kill her!’ Thwaites ignored me.

  ‘We’ll start over here,’ Mr Coombes was saying to Mrs Pratchett. He grasped her by one of her skinny arms and led her over to where the Sixth Form was standing. Then, still keeping hold of her arm, he proceeded to lead her at a brisk walk down the line of boys. It was like someone inspecting the troops.

  ‘What on earth are they doing?’ I whispered.

  Thwaites didn’t answer me. I glanced at him. He had gone rather pale.

  ‘Too big,’ I heard Mrs Pratchett saying. ‘Much too big. It’s none of this lot. Let’s ’ave a look at some of them titchy ones.’

  Mr Coombes increased his pace. ‘We’d better go all the way round,’ he said. He seemed in a hurry to get it over with now and I could see Mrs Pratchett’s skinny goat’s legs trotting to keep up with him. They had already inspected one side of the playground where the Sixth Form and half the Fifth Form were standing. We watched them moving down the second side … then the third side.

  ‘Still too big,’ I heard Mrs Pratchett croaking. ‘Much too big! Smaller than these! Much smaller! Where’s them nasty little ones?’

  They were coming closer to us now … closer and closer.

  They were starting on the fourth side …

  Every boy in our form was watching Mr Coombes and Mrs Pratchett as they came walking down the line towards us.

  ‘Nasty cheeky lot, these little ’uns!’ I heard Mrs Pratchett muttering. ‘They comes into my shop and they thinks they can do what they damn well likes!’

  Mr Coombes made no reply to this.

  ‘They nick things when I ain’t looking’,’ she went on. ‘They put their grubby ’ands all over everything and they’ve got no manners. I don’t mind girls. I never ’ave no trouble with girls, but boys is ’ideous and ’orrible! I don’t ’ave to tell you that, ’Eadmaster, do I?’

  ‘These are the smaller ones,’ Mr Coombes said.

  I could see Mrs Pratchett’s piggy little eyes staring hard at the face of each boy she passed.

  Suddenly she let out a high-pitched yell and pointed a dirty finger straight at Thwaites. ‘That’s ’im!’ she yelled. ‘That’s one of ’em! I’d know ’im a mile away, the scummy little bounder!’

  The entire school turned to look at Thwaites. ‘W-what have I done?’ he stuttered, appealing to Mr Coombes.

  ‘Shut up,’ Mr Coombes said.

  Mrs Pratchett’s eyes flicked over and settled on my own face. I looked down and studied the black asphalt surface of the playground.

  ‘’Ere’s another of ’em!’ I heard her yelling. ‘That one there!’ She was pointing at me now.

  ‘You’re quite sure?’ Mr Coombes said.

  ‘Of course I’m sure!’ she cried. ‘I never forgets a face, least of all when it’s as sly as that! ’Ee’s one of ’em all right! There was five altogether! Now where’s them other three?’

  The other three, as I knew very well, were coming up next.

  Mrs Pratchett’s face was glimmering with venom as her eyes travelled beyond me down the line.

  ‘There they are!’ she cried out, stabbing the air with her finger. ‘’Im … and ’im … and ’im! That’s the five of ’em all right! We don’t need to look no farther than this, ’Eadmaster! They’re all ’ere, the nasty dirty little pigs! You’ve got their names, ’ave you?’

  ‘I’ve got their names, Mrs Pratchett,’ Mr Coombes told her. ‘I’m much obliged to you.’

  ‘And I’m much obliged to you, ’Eadmaster,’ she answered.

  As Mr Coombes led her away across the playground, we heard her saying, ‘Right in the jar of Gobstoppers it was! A stinkin’ dead mouse which I will never forget as long as I live!’

  ‘You have my deepest sympathy,’ Mr Coombes was muttering.

  ‘Talk about shocks!’ she went on. ‘When my fingers caught ’old of that nasty soggy stinkin’ dead mouse …’ Her voice trailed away as Mr Coombes led her quickly through the door into the school building.

  Mrs Pratchett’s Revenge

  Our form master came into the classroom with a piece of paper in his hand. ‘The following are to report to the Headmaster’s study at once,’ he said. ‘Thwaites … Dahl …’ And then he read out the other three names which I have forgotten.

  The five of us stood up and left the room. We didn’t speak as we made our way down the long corridor into the Headmaster’s private quarters where the dreaded study was situated. Thwaites knocked on the door.

  ‘Enter!’

  We sidled in. The room smelled of leather and tobacco. Mr Coombes was standing in the middle of it, dominating everything, a giant of a man if ever there was one, and in his hands he held a long yellow cane which curved round the top like a walking stick.

  ‘I don’t want any lies,’ he said. ‘I know very well you did it and you were all in it together. Line up over there against the bookcase.’

  We lined up, Thwaites in front and I, for some reason, at the very back. I was last in the line.

  ‘You,’ Mr Coombes said, pointing the cane at Thwaites, ‘Come over here.’

  Thwaites went forward very slowly.

  ‘Bend over,’ Mr Coombes said.

  Thwaites bent over. Our eyes were riveted on him. We were hypnotized by it all. We knew, of course, that boys got the cane now and again, but we had never heard of anyone being made to watch.

  ‘Tighter, boy, tighter!’ Mr Coombes snapped out. ‘Touch the ground!’

  Thwaites touched the carpet with the tips of his fingers.

  Mr Coombes stood back and took up a firm stance with his legs well apart. I thought how sma
ll Thwaites’s bottom looked and how very tight it was. Mr Coombes had his eyes focused squarely upon it. He raised the cane high above his shoulder, and as he brought it down, it made a loud swishing sound, and then there was a crack like a pistol shot as it struck Thwaites’s bottom.

  Little Thwaites seemed to lift about a foot into the air and he yelled ‘Ow-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w!’ and straightened up like elastic.

  ‘’Arder!’ shrieked a voice from over in the corner.

  Now it was our turn to jump. We looked round and there, sitting in one of Mr Coombes’s big leather armchairs, was the tiny loathsome figure of Mrs Pratchett! She was bounding up and down with excitement. ‘Lay it into ’im!’ she was shrieking. ‘Let ’im ’ave it! Teach ’im a lesson!’

  ‘Get down, boy!’ Mr Coombes ordered. ‘And stay down! You get an extra one every time you straighten up!’

  ‘That’s tellin’ ’im!’ shrieked Mrs Pratchett. ‘That’s tellin’ the little blighter!’

  I could hardly believe what I was seeing. It was like some awful pantomime. The violence was bad enough, and being made to watch it was even worse, but with Mrs Pratchett in the audience the whole thing became a nightmare.

  Swish-crack! went the cane.

  ‘Ow-w-w-w-w!’ yelled Thwaites.

  ‘’Arder!’ shrieked Mrs Pratchett. ‘Stitch ’im up! Make it sting! Tickle ’im up good and proper! Warm ’is backside for ’im! Go on, warm it up, ’Eadmaster!’

  Thwaites received four strokes, and by gum, they were four real whoppers.

  ‘Next!’ snapped Mr Coombes.

  Thwaites came hopping past us on his toes, clutching his bottom with both hands and yelling, ‘Ow! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Owwwww!’

  With tremendous reluctance, the next boy sidled forward to his fate. I stood there wishing I hadn’t been last in the line. The watching and waiting were probably even greater torture than the event itself.

  Mr Coombes’s performance the second time was the same as the first. So was Mrs Pratchett’s. She kept up her screeching all the way through, exhorting Mr Coombes to greater and still greater efforts, and the awful thing was that he seemed to be responding to her cries. He was like an athlete who is spurred on by the shouts of the crowd in the stands. Whether this was true or not, I was sure of one thing. He wasn’t weakening.

  My own turn came at last. My mind was swimming and my eyes had gone all blurry as I went forward to bend over. I can remember wishing my mother would suddenly come bursting into the room shouting, ‘Stop! How dare you do that to my son!’ But she didn’t. All I heard was Mrs Pratchett’s dreadful high-pitched voice behind me screeching, ‘This one’s the cheekiest of the bloomin’ lot, ’Eadmaster! Make sure you let ’im ’ave it good and strong!’

  Mr Coombes did just that. As the first stroke landed and the pistol-crack sounded, I was thrown forward so violently that if my fingers hadn’t been touching the carpet, I think I would have fallen flat on my face. As it was, I was able to catch myself on the palms of my hands and keep my balance. At first I heard only the crack and felt absolutely nothing at all, but a fraction of a second later the burning sting that flooded across my buttocks was so terrific that all I could do was gasp. I gave a great gushing gasp that emptied my lungs of every breath of air that was in them.

  It felt, I promise you, as though someone had laid a red-hot poker against my flesh and was pressing down on it hard.

  The second stroke was worse than the first and this was probably because Mr Coombes was well practised and had a splendid aim. He was able, so it seemed, to land the second one almost exactly across the narrow line where the first one had struck. It is bad enough when the cane lands on fresh skin, but when it comes down on bruised and wounded flesh, the agony is unbelievable.

  The third one seemed even worse than the second. Whether or not the wily Mr Coombes had chalked the cane beforehand and had thus made an aiming mark on my grey flannel shorts after the first stroke, I do not know. I am inclined to doubt it because he must have known that this was a practice much frowned upon by Headmasters in general in those days. It was not only regarded as unsporting, it was also an admission that you were not an expert at the job.

  By the time the fourth stroke was delivered, my entire backside seemed to be going up in flames.

  Far away in the distance, I heard Mr Coombes’s voice saying, ‘Now get out.’

  As I limped across the study clutching my buttocks hard with both hands, a cackling sound came from the armchair over in the corner, and then I heard the vinegary voice of Mrs Pratchett saying, ‘I am much obliged to you, ’Eadmaster, very much obliged. I don’t think we is goin’ to see any more stinkin’ mice in my Gobstoppers from now on.’

  When I returned to the classroom my eyes were wet with tears and everybody stared at me. My bottom hurt when I sat down at my desk.

  That evening after supper my three sisters had their baths before me. Then it was my turn, but as I was about to step into the bathtub, I heard a horrified gasp from my mother behind me.

  ‘What’s this?’ she gasped. ‘What’s happened to you?’ She was staring at my bottom. I myself had not inspected it up to then, but when I twisted my head around and took a look at one of my buttocks, I saw the scarlet stripes and the deep blue bruising in between.

  ‘Who did this?’ my mother cried. ‘Tell me at once!’

  In the end I had to tell her the whole story, while my three sisters (aged nine, six and four) stood around in their nighties listening goggle-eyed. My mother heard me out in silence. She asked no questions. She just let me talk, and when I had finished, she said to our nurse, ‘You get them into bed, Nanny. I’m going out.’

  If I had had the slightest idea of what she was going to do next, I would have tried to stop her, but I hadn’t. She went straight downstairs and put on her hat. Then she marched out of the house, down the drive and on to the road. I saw her through my bedroom window as she went out of the gates and turned left, and I remember calling out to her to come back, come back, come back. But she took no notice of me. She was walking very quickly, with her head held high and her body erect, and by the look of things I figured that Mr Coombes was in for a hard time.

  About an hour later, my mother returned and came upstairs to kiss us all goodnight. ‘I wish you hadn’t done that,’ I said to her. ‘It makes me look silly.’

  ‘They don’t beat small children like that where I come from,’ she said. ‘I won’t allow it.’

  ‘What did Mr Coombes say to you, Mama?’

  ‘He told me I was a foreigner and I didn’t understand how British schools were run,’ she said.

  ‘Did he get ratty with you?’

  ‘Very ratty,’ she said. ‘He told me that if I didn’t like his methods I could take you away.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said I would, as soon as the school year is finished. I shall find you an English school this time,’ she said. ‘Your father was right. English schools are the best in the world.’

  ‘Does that mean it’ll be a boarding school?’ I asked.

  ‘It’ll have to be,’ she said. ‘I’m not quite ready to move the whole family to England yet.’

  So I stayed on at Llandaff Cathedral School until the end of the summer term.

  Going to Norway

  The summer holidays! Those magic words! The mere mention of them used to send shivers of joy rippling over my skin.

  All my summer holidays, from when I was four years old to when I was seventeen (1920 to 1932), were totally idyllic. This, I am certain, was because we always went to the same idyllic place and that place was Norway.

  Except for my ancient half-sister and my not-quite-so-ancient half-brother, the rest of us were all pure Norwegian by blood. We all spoke Norwegian and all our relations lived over there. So in a way, going to Norway every summer was like going home.

  Even the journey was an event. Do not forget that there were no commercial aeroplanes in those times, so it took us four whole days to co
mplete the trip out and another four days to get home again.

  We were always an enormous party. There were my three sisters and my ancient half-sister (that’s four), and my half-brother and me (that’s six), and my mother (that’s seven), and Nanny (that’s eight), and in addition to these, there were never less than two others who were some sort of anonymous ancient friends of the ancient half-sister (that’s ten altogether).

  Looking back on it now, I don’t know how my mother did it. There were all those train bookings and boat bookings and hotel bookings to be made in advance by letter. She had to make sure that we had enough shorts and shirts and sweaters and gymshoes and bathing costumes (you couldn’t even buy a shoelace on the island we were going to), and the packing must have been a nightmare. Six huge trunks were carefully packed, as well as countless suitcases, and when the great departure day arrived, the ten of us, together with our mountains of luggage, would set out on the first and easiest step of the journey, the train to London.

  When we arrived in London, we tumbled into three taxis and went clattering across the great city to King’s Cross, where we got on to the train for Newcastle, two hundred miles to the north. The trip to Newcastle took about five hours, and when we arrived there, we needed three more taxis to take us from the station to the docks, where our boat would be waiting. The next stop after that would be Oslo, the capital of Norway.

  When I was young, the capital of Norway was not called Oslo. It was called Christiania. But somewhere along the line, the Norwegians decided to do away with that pretty name and call it Oslo instead. As children, we always knew it as Christiania, but if I call it that here we shall only get confused, so I had better stick to Oslo all the way through.

  The sea journey from Newcastle to Oslo took two days and a night, and if it was rough, as it often was, all of us got seasick except our dauntless mother. We used to lie in deck-chairs on the promenade deck, within easy reach of the rails, embalmed in rugs, our faces slate-grey and our stomachs churning, refusing the hot soup and ship’s biscuits the kindly steward kept offering us. And as for poor Nanny, she began to feel sick the moment she set foot on deck. ‘I hate these things!’ she used to say. ‘I’m sure we’ll never get there! Which lifeboat do we go to when it starts to sink?’ Then she would retire to her cabin, where she stayed groaning and trembling until the ship was firmly tied up at the quayside in Oslo harbour the next day.