Текст книги "Boy in the Water"

Автор книги: Stephen Dobyns

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

Shortly before midnight the telephone rang. Hawthorne assumed that a friend in San Diego had forgotten the time difference. He put down his files and hurried to the phone.

“Hello?” He heard a deep breath, then a woman’s voice speaking quickly.

“Mr. Hawthorne, Jim, this is Kate Sandler.”

Hawthorne sat down on the chair next to the telephone. “Yes, how are you? Is something the matter?”

“I’m not sure. Well, yes, there might be. I guess I’m not sure how to talk about it.”

Hawthorne leaned back. “Any way you’d like. Does this have to do with school?”

“Not exactly. You see, I’m divorced. I’ve been divorced now for about a year. My husband, or ex-husband, lives in Plymouth. He has a sporting goods store . . .”

Hawthorne couldn’t guess what she was leading up to. He started to speak, then waited.

“The divorce was my idea,” continued Kate. “He didn’t want to. We have a son who’s seven. George is still very bitter.”

“Is that your son?”

“No, my son’s name is Todd. George, George Peabody is the ex-husband.” Kate laughed nervously. “George is very possessive. He keeps saying he wants us to get back together, though I can’t believe he means it. But he’s constantly afraid that I’ll get involved with someone else. When I went out once last spring with Chip Campbell, George actually called him up and shouted at him.”

“And what does this have to do with me?” Hawthorne asked, as gently as possible.

“I saw George late this afternoon in Plymouth when I was picking up our son. George sees him every week. Anyway, George said he was going to come over to the school and beat the shit out of you—those were his words. I didn’t want to call, but . . .”

Hawthorne sat up. “Me? What in the world for?”

Kate spoke in a rush. “Someone put a note in his mailbox that he found this morning. It said we were sleeping together. I mean, you and me. I feel terrible about it.”

“Why would somebody tell him that?” Hawthorne thought of how he had spoken to Kate briefly at Skander’s. He’d regretted not having the opportunity to talk to her again.

“A prank, a malicious prank,” said Kate. “But he was furious. He accused me of carrying on with Todd in the house. I thought of not bothering you, but George could easily come over, especially if he’s been drinking.”

It astonished Hawthorne to think that someone he’d never known about until this moment could harbor such anger against him.

“Do you have any idea who might have told him?” asked Hawthorne.

“Absolutely none. He showed me the letter. It was typed and unsigned.”

Four

The shouts and the sound of a basketball hitting a backboard drew Kate Sandler to her classroom window at the back of Emerson Hall. Half a dozen male students and several teachers were playing basketball in the small court between Douglas and the Common. Yellow leaves from a maple at the corner of Douglas floated through the sunlight and across the court, resembling gold doubloons drifting among the players. In the national forest to the north, Kate could see great bands of orange and red, with the color more fierce at higher elevations. The sky was intensely blue. The basketball players whistled and called to one another but Kate was too far away to hear more than the occasional word: a name or a shout of praise. The sound of the ball being dribbled across the blacktop echoed between the buildings.

With surprise, Kate saw that one of the adults was Jim Hawthorne. He had removed his coat and loosened his tie, which flapped over his shoulder as he ran. A second adult was Roger Bennett, whose pale blond hair would make him recognizable, Kate thought, from at least a mile. The third was Ted Wrigley, the other language teacher. It was shortly after three on Tuesday afternoon. Kate’s last class had ended ten minutes earlier and she was washing her blackboard with a wet sponge, a chore that teachers were expected to do themselves. At three-thirty the third of the faculty meetings meant to discuss the students was due to begin.

The six boys were upper classmen, and though quicker than the adults, they were too hasty, more exuberant than efficient. Hawthorne was on one team, Bennett and Wrigley on the other. A boy passed the ball to Hawthorne, who dribbled in for a layup. People cheered. Another boy took the ball out, then passed it to Bennett, who dribbled it behind his back, then between his legs, laughing and showing off till Tank Donoso snatched it away, none too gently. In his shape and size, Kate thought, the boy was indeed tanklike, a tank with a square face and a fuzzy colorless crew cut.

From her third-story vantage point, Kate watched the players weave among one another, passing the ball, going in for a shot, competing for the rebound. One boy fell to the blacktop, lay still for a moment holding his stomach, then scrambled to his feet again. On a patch of the Common, about ten boys and girls sat watching. Several were students of Kate’s, including Jessica Weaver, who sat to one side of the others with two yards between her and the nearest person, as if she was both in the group and pointedly not in the group. And she looked up into the maple tree instead of at the game, seemingly lost in the splendor of the leaves. Also standing to the side was Harriet Bennett, the chaplain, in a dark gray suit. She wasn’t close enough for Kate to see her expression. Usually it was severe, which made her marriage to Roger a source of speculation, since he seemed to have the emotional makeup of an adolescent setter. Where she would walk stolidly, he bounced. Still, Roger had sometimes struck Kate as watchful and even guarded, as if his youthful fervor were no more than a convenient persona.

Kate leaned against the windowsill, holding the wet sponge. It seemed to her that Hawthorne was the best player, better even than the teenagers. At least Kate hadn’t seen him miss a shot. His play had a seriousness that the others lacked. The court extended behind the far end of Douglas, which stood to the left of Emerson, so the two buildings made an L shape. Kate wondered what it meant for the school’s headmaster to engage in a pastime that many would think beneath his dignity, but she was impressed by how Hawthorne was involving himself with so many aspects of the school. Not that he could do this unscathed. Two weeks earlier the gossip had concerned what he might do—jobs lost, positions changed, even turning the school into a home for the retarded. Now the gossip focused on his behavior—the people he liked and those he didn’t, how he could be seen past midnight standing on the terrace behind his quarters, the speculation that he might be writing a book. Shortly the sexual gossip would begin. Indeed, given the anonymous letter that George had received and his subsequent anger, it had begun already. Was she the one whose name was going to be linked with Hawthorne’s? It was a tiresome thought.

Hawthorne again had the ball and Bennett was trying to bat it out of his hands. Briefly the game shrank to a rivalry between them as Hawthorne hugged the ball to his body and Bennett tried to pull it away. Then Hawthorne passed the ball to a senior by the name of Rudy Schmidt, who shot from the foul line. The ball chimed against the rim and bounced into the grass. Wrigley took the ball out. In the bright sunlight his old acne scars gave his face a mottled appearance. He passed the ball to Bennett, who drove toward the hoop. Bennett’s blond hair was perfectly straight and combed back over his head so it leapt up with every running step. It reminded Kate of English public school boys of the Evelyn Waugh era, or at least how such students were depicted on public television. Two boys ran in to block Bennett, waving their arms like passionate windmills, and he passed the ball back to someone behind him.

Kate hadn’t spoken to Hawthorne since she had phoned late Sunday night, though she had seen him earlier in the day at lunch. He had smiled at her across the room. Just the smile had been a relief since Kate still felt embarrassed about the call. Her ex-husband hadn’t contacted Hawthorne—not yet, at any rate—but she kept thinking of how George had accused her of having sex with another man while Todd was in the house.

“I bet he even heard you,” George had said. “For all I know, he saw you. Don’t you have a shred of self-respect?” He went on to tell Kate that his lawyer had been waiting for information like this. “Who knows what kind of damage it’s caused Todd.” His words had been slurred and Kate guessed that he had spent the earlier part of the afternoon watching football and drinking beer from his favorite mug—an elaborate German stein he had bought in Munich ten years earlier, as if drinking from it was not simply getting drunk but engaging in a culturally significant ritual. It had amazed Kate that he could talk like this and still claim to want her back, to make a life with her and have more children.

The faculty meeting at three-thirty would focus on the students in the lower school, grades seven through nine. Kate, like many other teachers, had students in both the upper and the lower schools and had to attend the meetings on Tuesdays and Thursdays. At lunch Chip had told her that he wouldn’t be there, which meant missing his third meeting. Kate didn’t know if he had prior business or was “taking a stand,” as he might say. She wondered if others would cut the meeting and if Hawthorne would notice. But she knew he’d notice. He was making it his business to pay attention to everything that went on. Even now he was working with students who had been sent to the office because they had acted up or failed to do their class assignments. The previous day he had talked to an eighth grader in Kate’s first-year Spanish class who refused to bring his book to class. Kate had spoken to the boy that morning to see if Hawthorne had scolded him.

“He wanted to help me study,” said the boy, struck by the oddness of it. “We went over vocabulary after dinner. He wanted to make a game of it.”

Kate was impressed by Hawthorne’s willingness to devote all his waking hours to school business. Was this the man that George accused of going after his ex-wife? When would he have time? And in her question to herself Kate saw that becoming involved with Hawthorne didn’t strike her as strange or inappropriate, which was followed by the feeling she sometimes got from too much caffeine or when her car swerved suddenly on wet leaves. It almost frightened her.

Tank and another boy were wrestling on the blacktop for the ball. Hawthorne knelt beside them with a hand on each and talking calmly, or at least his face appeared calm. Tank gave the other boy a shove as he stood up, and the ball rolled away. Grabbing it, Hawthorne tossed it to Rudy Schmidt and the game resumed. Several onlookers wandered off and others appeared, but Jessica was still among them, sitting with her arms around her knees and looking toward the mountains. Harriet Bennett also continued to watch with folded arms. Even from this distance Kate could see her big black shoes. On Sundays the Reverend Bennett preached about moderation and the need for equilibrium, as if her enemy were not Evil but Excess. In her vestments and with her bulk and wispy gray hair, she looked very eighteenth century. Kate had attended chapel a few times in the spring but had yet to go this fall. She wasn’t a believer but it was expected of faculty to set an example for the students.

Kate happened to glance over at Douglas Hall, diagonally across the Common. There, at a second-story window, Fritz Skander stood with his hands in his pockets, watching the game. Kate recalled he had a geometry class that met in the afternoon. Skander had a faintly benign smile but there was a concentration about him, especially in the way he leaned forward as if listening for some delicate noise far in the distance. He was below Kate and to her left. For no reason she could think of, she moved back so he wouldn’t notice her. To Kate, Skander’s actions always seemed as if they were in fact reactions to the people around him, unspontaneous outbursts followed by small jokes and a sort of delayed ebullience. Now, framed by the window, he appeared unusually expectant, almost eager.

Bennett was trying to get the ball from Hawthorne, pressing him close and waving his hands in Hawthorne’s face. Hawthorne passed the ball back between his legs to Tank, then dodged around Bennett, who turned quickly and stumbled. Tank passed it back to Hawthorne, who jumped and scored with a hook shot. Bennett got to his feet, then took the ball out again, his hair bouncing as he ran. Hawthorne’s white shirt was pulled from his waist and the top buttons were undone. He wore black leather shoes that didn’t seem to interfere with his game.

Kate noticed that a new person had sat down next to Jessica and was chatting with her. It was the assistant cook. Whatever he said, Jessica began to laugh. It made her look quite pretty. Kate recalled Chip Campbell’s suggestion that Hawthorne was sexually involved with the girl—“doing the dirty with that little ex-stripper.” Seeing Jessica laugh, Kate found it not quite so impossible. Jessica’s roommate had continued to complain about Jessica whenever she and Kate happened to talk—how Jessica ignored her and refused to respond to the name Jessica, saying instead that her name was Misty. In Spanish, though, the girl was turning out to be the best in the class.

Hawthorne was running in for another layup and Bennett was trying to catch up, sprinting across the court as several students got out of his way. Hawthorne jumped and Bennett jumped after him, attempting to block the shot, but he was too late and the basket scored. But in jumping Bennett collided with Hawthorne in midair, knocking him sideways so he fell. Bennett landed on his feet but Hawthorne was twisting, trying to regain his balance. He went down, slid on the blacktop, and rolled onto his back. Kate could see he was in pain, then she noticed that the fabric of his khaki pants was torn at the knees. He sat up, holding his legs. Bennett stood for a moment, watching, then he and Tank leaned in closer to him. The nurse, Alice Beech, was in the small crowd of onlookers and she ran onto the court, as did the assistant cook. Hawthorne was pulling up his pant leg and Kate thought she could see blood, but she was too far away to be sure. The game had stopped. The students were talking among one another and looking uncomfortable, as if they were afraid of being yelled at. Hawthorne’s face was white. Gravel must have gotten embedded in the cut because he was picking at a spot on his left knee. Alice Beech knelt down beside him. The cook was saying something and helping him roll up his other pant leg. Bennett was talking to Ted Wrigley. His face was very earnest.

Kate glanced over to where Skander was standing. The afternoon sun reflecting against the windows of Emerson cast back its light to the windows of Douglas Hall, making them shine. Skander was chuckling. At first Kate thought she must be mistaken and she moved to the right, trying to see him more clearly. But he was grinning, she was sure of it. Kate looked down at the basketball court. Now both Hawthorne’s pant legs were pulled up above his knees. The cook was helping him to his feet. Bennett was helping as well. When Hawthorne was standing, the two men each held one of his arms. Tank was arguing with one of Bennett’s teammates. Then Hawthorne and the others began to hobble off the court. Judging by their direction, Kate guessed they were going to the infirmary. She looked again at Skander. There was a cheeriness to his grin, a lightheartedness, as if he had just heard a funny story. He was rubbing his chin and beaming. Then, as if he sensed he was being observed, he glanced up and saw Kate watching him. Kate stepped back, then waved, rather ineffectually. She felt she had to make some response. Skander didn’t wave back.

–

Wednesday evening after dinner Frank LeBrun was hurrying out the back door of the kitchen to meet Jessica when his cousin called to him. Frank slid on the tiles, stretched out his arms, and wobbled, making a little joke of it. Larry didn’t seem amused. They stood by the back door looking out on the Common, which was dark except for the lights along the walkway. Frank had taken off his white jacket and wore his brown winter coat.

“Where you going?” asked Larry. His voice was quiet and serious.

“Out for a smoke. Why d’you want to know?”

“You’re up to something. I can tell. What’s going on?” Larry wore his white jacket. His anger made him especially red in the face. He was taller than his cousin and stood calmly while LeBrun always seemed agitated.

“Meaning what?” LeBrun leaned back against the doorjamb. He put a cigarette in his mouth but didn’t light it. The cigarette waggled between his lips when he spoke.

“You called me looking for a job. I didn’t mind helping you, even on short notice. And I didn’t make a fuss when you wanted me to tell everyone that your name was LeBrun. I figured you needed the work and Skander came up with the money. Now I think it’s something else. You didn’t come here just for a job.”

“Then what am I up to, smart guy?”

“Like why’d you put those tacks in the bread?”

LeBrun grinned. “What makes you think it was me?”

“You’re the only one who touches it.”

“Somebody could have snuck in.” LeBrun took the unlit cigarette from his mouth and looked at it as if it didn’t taste right. He put it back in his pocket.

“Don’t give me that shit.”

LeBrun’s smile faded. “I put a tack in a chunk of dough and I put in a piece of chocolate. It was an experiment. You don’t hear anyone bitching about the chocolate, do you? They find a tack, they let everybody know. They find some chocolate, they keep it to themselves. What’s that say about human nature? It teaches you something, that’s what I like about it.”

“It could have hurt somebody.”

LeBrun made a wry face, then winked. “Nah, a little prick, that’s all, a little cut on the tongue. Nothing serious. You hear the joke about the Canuck who studied five days to pass his urine test? Sounds like you a little, doesn’t it?”

Gaudette didn’t respond. “Why’re you hanging around that girl?”

“She’s friendly, I’m friendly, we chat.”

“I don’t want you talking to her.”

“I don’t mean any harm by it. Come on, man, don’t be so uptight.”

“If one more tack shows up, I’m going to Dr. Hawthorne. As for that girl, stay away from her.”

LeBrun pushed open the door. A cold breeze poured into the kitchen. “Hey, Larry, I’m just having a little fun. No more tacks, I swear.” He put his hand on his cousin’s shoulder but the other man pulled away. LeBrun turned and went out into the dark.

–

It was Chip Campbell’s habit to check the rest rooms after lunch to see if he could find anyone smoking. It was a pleasure not far removed from gambling or playing cards. And this Thursday he was especially eager because lunch had been terrible—the first of Hawthorne’s meatless Thursdays, meant to save the school thousands each year, money Chip felt sure would wind up in Hawthorne’s pocket. So they had all sat down to black beans and rice—peasant food. Chip would have complained but, having missed Tuesday’s faculty meeting, he was trying to avoid the headmaster. In fact, he planned to cut today’s meeting and all the meetings to come until Hawthorne forced him to attend or canceled them. He just didn’t have time for that dipshit psychobabble. And hadn’t Hawthorne nearly missed Tuesday’s meeting, getting his knees bandaged by the nurse after having been tripped up playing basketball? Chip laughed. Served him right, that was what Chip thought. He’d buy Bennett a beer for what he’d done. Not that he otherwise had much use for Bennett and he couldn’t stand the chaplain. It was like they had gotten their masculine and feminine roles fucked up and didn’t know who they were.

Chip had checked four boys’ rest rooms without success but now he was up on the third floor of Emerson heading toward the toilet at the far end of the hall and therefore the one where some boys felt safest. But Chip didn’t want to find just any boy; he wanted to find Scott McKinnon, who liked to cut up in history class. There was always the smell of cigarette smoke on the boy’s sweater, not regular smoke but some foreign tobacco that was particularly strong and that Chip found particularly insulting, since its very obviousness was a taunt. Clearly, Scott was ducking out someplace. Today there was a cold autumn rain, and Chip knew that Scott wouldn’t have made a run for the woods. And because Scott was lazy, he’d get caught.

It was ten minutes before one, the end of lunch hour. Soon the bell would ring and classes would resume. Maybe Scott had gone to another building for his cigarette, but Chip doubted he would take the trouble. If he caught him, well, smoking was against the rules and the law didn’t permit smoking on school grounds. Even the faculty and staff couldn’t smoke in the buildings, though some broke the law, like that fag Evings.

Chip stood by the door to the rest room and listened. He wore a brown tweed jacket over a blue school sweatshirt. The hall was empty and he heard a window rattling in the wind. Quietly, he pushed open the door and sniffed. He didn’t quite smile but one side of his mouth rose a little. The pungent smell of the foreign tobacco seemed to fill the bathroom. How stupid, thought Chip, to smoke something so obvious. It made him feel justified in despising the boy. Gathering himself, Chip slammed open the door and ran forward. Before he’d gone five feet, he heard the flushing of the toilet. None of the four stalls had doors. Scott sat in the last stall with his pants at his ankles, smiling.

“Hi, coach,” he said.

“You’re smoking.”

“Not me, coach, I’m just taking a dump.”

“I can smell it.”

“That’s my dump you’re smelling, coach. Pretty nasty, isn’t it?”

“You’re lying. And don’t call me coach.”

“Chip, is that what you want? Should I call you Chip, like ‘Chip off the old block’?”

Chip reached forward, grabbed the boy’s red sweater, yanked him up, and then let him go. Scott stumbled out of the stall with his pants around his ankles, trying to regain his balance, spinning around, then crashing against the sinks and falling to the tile floor.

“Where’re the cigarettes?”

“Not me, Chipper. I don’t smoke.” Scott lay on his back, pulling up his pants.

Chip reached down and jerked him to his feet. He could smell the smoke on the boy’s sweater. Quickly, he searched the boy’s pockets. He found a pack of matches but no cigarettes. Scott must have had just one that he flushed down the toilet. He let the boy go roughly so he fell back to the floor, knocking his head against the tiles.

Scott finished pulling up his pants. He looked frightened but it didn’t make him shut up. “You like feeling up boys in their underwear, Chipper?”

Chip grabbed hold of Scott’s arm and took a swing at him with his open hand. Scott twisted away. Chip grabbed him again and shoved him toward the door. Scott crashed against it with a booming noise and bounced off—after all, Chip outweighed the boy by a hundred pounds. Chip opened the door and pushed Scott into the hall. The boy tripped, stumbling against the far wall, then fell again. Chip rushed out after him—and stopped abruptly. Standing in the hall with surprised faces were Hawthorne and Ruth Standish, one of the mental health counselors. Hawthorne was using a cane because of his injury on Tuesday. He went to Scott and helped him to his feet.

“He was smoking,” said Chip, “and he was insulting me.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t just shoot him,” said Hawthorne, holding the boy’s arm.

Scott laughed.

“Do you have a class now?” Hawthorne asked. “You better get to it.”

“Don’t you want to hear my side of the story?”

“Just go to class.” Hawthorne pushed his glasses up his nose.

Scott started to hurry down the hall, then he slowed down and began to walk with an exaggerated swagger. He glanced back over his shoulder and grinned.

“I’ve had trouble with him myself,” said Ruth Standish somewhat nervously. “He’s always talking back. He doesn’t care what he says.” She seemed undecided whether her allegiances lay with Hawthorne or Chip. She was a heavyset woman of about thirty-five, wearing a red checked dress that made her appear even heavier than she was.

“I want you to get your stuff and go home,” said Hawthorne to Chip, matter of factly. “Didn’t we talk about this? What in the world were you thinking of?”

“Are you firing me?” Chip stood with his fingers bunched into fists.

“I can only suspend you. But the board can fire you and I’m going to insist that they do. I don’t want you here anymore.”

“You’re doing this because I won’t come to those stupid faculty meetings.” Chip’s tone was scornful and defiant.

“I’m doing it because you don’t know how to treat these kids.”

“This is crazy. I’ve been here a dozen years.”

“Surely you can give him another chance,” said Ruth.

“He’s had another chance.” Hawthorne leaned on his cane and stared at the floor. Then he raised his voice. “How can I have a faculty member who physically abuses the students! Are you mad?” He caught hold of himself. “I’m sorry, but you make me angry. Get your stuff and go. I don’t want you on school property.”

“You son of a—” Chip clenched his jaw and stopped himself. He glanced furiously at Ruth, then walked down the hall, the rubber soles of his shoes squeaking.

After a moment, Ruth said, “Can’t you make it a temporary suspension?”

“He abuses students. I’ve seen him do it twice and I’ve heard of him doing it other times. What signal would it send to the students if I didn’t dismiss him? They’d see everything I’ve told them as being a lie. I’d be just one more adult they couldn’t trust.”

“Are you sure you’re not firing Chip so they’ll like you?”

“I’m firing him because that’s my duty.”

Ruth’s expression was one of perplexity mixed with benevolent concern, as if she had come across a strain of mildly aberrant behavior that was new to her. “Do you think you’d be behaving like this if your knees weren’t painful? You know it’s probably affecting you. As for those meetings—”

“This has nothing to do with my knees and nothing to do with the meetings.” Hawthorne gave each word the same emphasis, creating a staccato effect. “Now what were you saying about candles in the dormitory?”

Ruth was in charge of Smithfield, Jessica’s cottage, and she had come to Hawthorne with a complaint from Helen Selkirk that her roommate was burning candles and using foul language. Because of the danger of fire in the wooden buildings, candles were not allowed. Ruth had already spoken to Jessica about this several times.

“Jessica keeps burning a candle in her lower bunk. Helen’s been very worried. When I speak to Jessica, she’s rude to me as well. We can’t let students use candles. Smithfield would go up like a tinderbox.” Ruth glanced at Hawthorne’s right arm, then looked away.

Hawthorne, following Ruth’s glance, looked at it as well. He flexed his fingers, then relaxed them. Hawthorne’s eyes reminded Ruth of caves of blue water. She tried to see if there was sadness, even fear. But she could see no emotion at all, only resolution. Later, however, she would tell friends that she had seen not only sadness and fear but also something unstable, something that she couldn’t really put a name to but that frightened her.

“Tell the girl to come and see me. Who was it again?”

“Jessica Weaver. She’s new.”

“Oh,” said Hawthorne, “that one.”

–

Clifford Evings tried not to smoke in his office but sometimes he really couldn’t help it. “Do you mind?” he asked Ruth Standish as he reached into his coat pocket. Officially he was Ruth’s superior, but he had always been a little afraid of her. Her very bigness was offputting and she seemed so sure of herself, while he had so many doubts.

“If you have to.” She made a disapproving face.

“I have a little air purifier. Nobody will know.”

Ruth didn’t answer. It was Friday morning and she had come to Evings from the teachers’ lounge, where everyone was talking about Chip’s being fired.

“I must say I was shocked by how fast Jim acted. Most people are given more chances, especially someone with Chip’s history at the school. I’m sure the boy provoked him.”

“And he fired him just like that?” Evings was appalled. “Bennett said something about it at the faculty meeting, but I just didn’t believe it.”

“Technically he’s suspended, but Jim said he’d insist that the board dismiss Chip.”

“I had no idea he disliked him so much.” Evings lit his cigarette, squinting a little and tilting his head to keep the smoke from his eyes. Then he blew the smoke up toward the ceiling. They sat in the two wing chairs before the fireplace. The portrait of Ambrose Stark stared down crossly.

“I don’t believe he has anything against Chip in particular. He probably thought he had to set an example: emphasizing the principle over the person. And of course Chip has missed every single faculty meeting. But I can’t help feeling that Jim’s injury has something to do with it. I saw him go into the infirmary. You know how it is when you’re hurt. Everything gets affected and you’re in a bad mood. And now he has this cane.”

“Roger did it on purpose?”

“No, no, Ted Wrigley swears it was an accident. He was simply clumsy.” Ruth described what she had heard about the basketball game. Her tone suggested that if headmasters were going to play games with students, then they were asking for trouble. “Dr. Pendergast certainly wouldn’t have played basketball,” she concluded. “He wouldn’t play anything. Not that he was perfect, of course.”

“I’m told he’s writing a book about us.”

“That’s what people are saying—he’s doing one of those psychological dissections, the sort of thing I had to read in graduate school.”

Evings thought of Hawthorne’s visit the previous week with dismay. “He came in here last week with some wild story about a hanged cat. I couldn’t make any sense of it. I thought of course that he came in to see what I was doing. And I wasn’t doing anything. I mean, nothing he’d object to. Like smoking, though I’m not the only one. Who smokes, that is. I expect none of us are safe. He’s already talking about hiring another psychologist.”