The Judas Tree, page 19
‘That’ll be six-fifty, mate.’
Will took his eyes off Alastair and slid his credit card out of his wallet.
‘Want to start a tab?’
Will nodded absently, his mind focused on trying to hold things together. He handed the barman his credit card, which the man put with the till receipt into an empty pint glass behind the bar. Will thanked him and picked up his crisps and wine, took a moment to compose himself, then walked towards the table.
‘Alastair?’ he said, as he drew level with him.
The man looked up in momentary surprise, as if he’d forgotten he was there to meet someone, then hurriedly put his phone down and stood. He held out his hand.
‘Will English! Well I never.’
Will shook his hand. A shiver ran up his arm as their hands touched. ‘Alastair.’
‘Call me Al. Nobody calls me Alastair these days, except for my mother, but only when she’s cross with me, of course.’ He guffawed with laughter. He was plumper than he’d been in the photos, his hair cut close to his head to make light of the baldness. His skin had that reddened quality which betrayed a fondness for plenty of booze. His eyes were surrounded by deep laughter lines and his lips were so dark they were almost the colour of purple plums.
Will gestured at Alastair’s pint glass which was three-quarters full. ‘Do you want another before I sit down? I’ve left a card behind the bar.’
‘I’m good for the moment,’ Alastair said genially as he sat down. ‘Don’t want to get into trouble with the wife.’ He winked at Will, who managed a tight smile as he sat down opposite him, heart racing. This was even harder than he’d imagined it would be.
‘So what’s it been?’ asked Alastair brightly, showing no nerves at all. ‘Twenty years? Must be. At least.’
Will plastered his face with a smile. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘At least.’
‘So go on then, what do you do?’
‘I’ve a wine shop,’ he said. He stared at Alastair’s face, eyes drawn to the scar that ran down his cheek.
‘Ah, wine. Nice. I’m a bit of claret man myself. Do you sell much claret?’
‘Yes.’ Will dragged his eyes from the screaming scar. ‘Quite a bit. How about you?’
‘Accountant, I’m afraid.’ He smiled at Will. ‘Bit of a buzz-kill, that one. Yawn yawn.’ He lifted his beer and drank. ‘Married?’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘She’s all right, is she?’
‘All right?’
‘A good catch?’
Will stared at him for a moment or two then Alastair laughed loudly. ‘Mine’s a bit of a dog, if I’m honest. I bet yours is lovely. Lucky bugger.’
Will moved his wine glass to the side and leant forward. ‘I need to talk to you about what happened.’
Alastair looked puzzled.
‘At school,’ Will said. ‘You see, when I read your message the other night, I thought it was strange you weren’t more apologetic.’
‘Apologetic? For what?’
Will laughed in astonishment. Indignant rage flared inside him.
‘For what?’ Will repeated. ‘For being a fucking cunt, that’s what.’
Alastair’s joviality fell away and he glanced nervously over his shoulder. ‘Steady on,’ he said, keeping his voice low. ‘That’s a bit much.’
‘A bit much?’ Will needled his eyes into Alastair’s puffy face. ‘You’re joking, right?’
‘This is about school?’
‘Of course it’s about school!’ Will shook his head and stared at the man, unable to comprehend how he wasn’t getting it. He sat back in his chair. ‘You do remember what you did, don’t you?’
Alastair’s face broke into a smile. ‘Will, come on, chap. We were at public school. That kind of thing happened all the time. It’s just banter. Mucking around.’ His smile broadened. ‘You know that. That’s what went on. Still does today. There isn’t a boarding school in the country that isn’t the same. There’s no need to get worked up about it. Like I said in my message, I was a bit of a cock at times, I know that. But that’s the way it was.’ He reached for his beer and drank. ‘It was just banter.’
Will’s blood boiled with over two decades of bottled-up rage. He wanted to punch him. That would wipe the stupid smile off his fat, ugly face, wouldn’t it?
‘Banter?’ he said instead. ‘No, banter is joking around, playing. It doesn’t hurt anyone. What you did – beating up young boys, scaring the shit out of them, and doing …’ He hesitated. ‘… doing God only knows what – you can’t call that banter. It’s bullying. Bullying at best, abuse at worst.’
Alastair’s features hardened and Will saw a flash of the boy who had terrified him, beaten him and pushed his face into the ground until he thought he might suffocate, and an old fear rose up, a fear he hadn’t felt in a very long time.
‘You’re wrong,’ Alastair said, his voice cold and low. ‘I can call it banter. Because that’s what it was.’
They stared at each other. Then Alastair ran his hand over his head and rubbed the back of his neck. He leant forward, turning his face so his scarred cheek faced Will, and jabbed his finger hard against it a couple of times. ‘You see this? You see it?’ he said, through gritted teeth. ‘Am I moaning about this? Am I begging for an apology? No, I’m not. Because it was just mucking around. It was banter.’ He sat back and gave a dismissive shake of his head. ‘Jesus Christ, English, grow some bloody balls. That stuff is what went on. At Eton, at Harrow, at Gordonstoun, and at bloody Pendower Hall. And it bred men. Real men who took it on the chin and grew stronger. Bloody hell, some of this country’s greatest leaders would have seen the back of an older boy’s hand. Do they sit there like you, licking their wounds, feeling sorry for themselves, and asking for bloody apologies?’
Will couldn’t believe what he was hearing. It was like listening to his father all over again. All that repellent claptrap about how boarding school bred real men, men who ran the world, men who built the sodding Empire, men for whom this type of thing was character-building and expected.
‘It happened to all of us,’ Alastair continued. ‘It happened to me when I was in the bottom years, and the boys who had their fun with me had the same done to them. Yes, some got it worse than others, but that’s survival of the fittest. You might not like it. It might not stand up against all that namby-pamby, woke rubbish we’re forced to suck on today, but that’s the way it was. Some of us are on top of the pile and some, like you, at the bottom. Like it or not, the system works.’ He reached for his drink, sniffing loudly, then rolled his shoulders a couple of times as if limbering up for a boxing bout. ‘You got children? A son, maybe?’
Will stayed silent and didn’t move a muscle. It was like being stuck in a parallel universe, surreal and nightmarish. He thought of Harmony, of how lovely it would be if he was sitting with her, sharing the packet of crisps that sat unopened on the table, chatting about everything and nothing. He pictured her smile and the way she toyed with her necklace, the look in her eyes before she kissed him.
‘I’ve got a son. Good kid. Bright. Tough. He’ll go far. He pulls the legs off beetles and the wings off flies. He punches his friends and they punch him back. For fun. For exercise. Because that’s what boys do to amuse themselves. And it’s not just Charlie. They all do it. How old were you when you started at boarding school?’
Will didn’t answer.
‘I was six. Thrown in at the deep end with twenty other six-year-olds. No parents anywhere near us. It was Lord of the bloody Flies and you know it. Most of the masters were wankers. They knew what was going on and it amused them. Those that didn’t like it turned a blind eye.’
Will pictured Drysdale then, that sick look of pleasure which settled over his face as he flexed the cane a couple of times to ‘loosen her up’.
‘And now here you are, sitting there like a saggy-titted feminist wanting to …’ He bent his voice into whiney sing-song, ‘… talk about what happened.’ He leant forward, mouth turned down, eyes narrowed and cold as ice. ‘You want to know what happened?’ he spat. ‘I’ll tell you what happened,’ he continued, not allowing time for Will to answer his question. ‘Nothing. Nothing bloody happened, you pathetic, whiny little shit.’
Will stared at his round face, polished puce beneath a thin sheen of sweat. ‘No, Alastair, something did happen.’ He kept his voice low and calm. ‘You know what you did.’
Alastair Farrow’s face darkened like a storm cloud. Will’s heart started pumping again as the terror he’d felt on that late afternoon began to creep up on him. The noise of his panting breath loud in his ears as he’d turned to run. The jeering. Luke’s screams echoing in the trees.
‘I was there, English.’ Alastair stared hard at Will. ‘I was there when you told Drysdale nothing happened. Don’t go making stories up now because your life isn’t quite what you’d hoped and you want someone to blame.’ He shook his head, reached for his glass and drained the remainder of his beer. Then he picked up his phone and made to leave. ‘I don’t know why I agreed to meet up with you,’ he said, with poisonous contempt. ‘Forced to listen to you bleating on and on. You know how it was back then. It was kick or be kicked, and keep your mouth shut.’ He looked at Will then like he was shit on the bottom of his shoe and gave a derisive laugh. ‘No wonder wankers like you got the crap beat out of them.’ Alastair shook his head again as he looked down his nose at Will. ‘Moaning and complaining. Full of self-pity. Poor me, what a shitty time at school I had, cry, cry, cry. I bet you think about what your life might have been like if only you’d skipped happily through childhood getting cuddles and love. You know, English, if you and those other wastes-of-space had just played the game, showed some bloody backbone, then maybe you’d have had an easier time. Maybe it was your fault all along.’
‘Played the game?’
Alastair smirked and stood. ‘It was good to catch up,’ he said. ‘Don’t bother trying to contact me again.’
Everything inside Will erupted then. Every part of his body inflated with angry loathing. His hand shot out and grabbed Alastair by the neck. Alastair fell against the table, knocking both glasses over. One rolled and smashed on the floor. There was a loud shout from the barman. Two men nearby jumped to attention; one of them rested a hand on Will’s arm, the other told him to calm down: ‘Easy now, take it outside.’
But Will squeezed harder, a red mist blurring his self-control. Alastair’s eyes widened and he lifted his hands, trying to free himself from Will’s grip.
‘I could fucking kill you. You’re the waste of space. You, Alastair. Not us.’
‘Come on now, mate,’ said the man beside them. ‘Let go of him. We’re all having a nice quiet drink here. Nobody wants this.’
Will glanced at the man, and caught sight of the barman walking over with a set grimace. Others around them looking concerned, unsure whether to step in and help or let it unfurl.
Christ. What was he doing? What was this achieving? Nothing. People like Alastair Farrow could never be changed. Their morality – their immorality – was written into their DNA. This man would never admit he’d done anything wrong because he didn’t see it as wrong. Attempts to make him see that were futile.
Will let go of Alastair with a final push and he fell back onto the chair, rubbing his neck and swearing under his breath. The barman and one of the men nearby grabbed hold of Will.
‘You OK, Al?’ the barman said, his fingers digging into Will’s arm.
Alastair nodded. ‘I’m fine. Just a misunderstanding. My friend’s leaving now.’
‘People like you make me sick,’ Will growled, shrugging the two men off him.
‘You’re pathetic.’
The words cut into him. No. It wasn’t him who was pathetic. It was Alastair. Alastair Farrow, a pathetic bully with an overinflated sense of self-importance living an empty, pathetic life. Will glanced at the two men either side of him who were poised and ready to grab hold of him if they had to. He turned back to Alastair and shook his head.
‘You’re not worth it,’ he said, through gritted teeth.
Will turned and walked out of the pub. He jogged through the rain and climbed into his car. He closed the door and rested his head against the steering wheel. He shook as he thought of Alastair’s smug face and his incomprehensible lack of remorse. There were so many things he wished he’d said to that snarling, nasty piece of work.
‘Fuck!’ he shouted, lifting his head and banging his hands against the steering wheel. ‘Don’t do this to yourself!’
He saw himself back in the prep room, desperately trying to concentrate on his English essay. Saw his housemaster, Mr Fraser, walking over to him. Mr Fraser, a short man with tufts of grey hair that fringed a shiny bald pate, who though firm was decent and popular with the boys.
‘English, you need to come with me.’ His voice was quiet, almost apologetic, and his eyes seemed unable to meet Will’s. ‘Mr Drysdale needs to see you.’
Will’s stomach had turned over. ‘Why, sir?’
The housemaster seemed reticent. ‘Best just get to his office.’
‘Am I in trouble, sir?’ Will asked as he closed his exercise book and put the lid on his fountain pen.
Mr Fraser had rested a hand on his shoulder. ‘Tell the truth and you’ll be fine.’
Mr Fraser had lied.
All he’d ever wanted was to bury Alastair Farrow and the rest of it, but he knew now it would never happen. He sat up, turned the engine on, pushed the car into gear, and drove out of the car park without a backward glance. Will sped along the roads, his mind full of Farrow’s barefaced denial, and his unshakeable belief that what happened was acceptable.
When he got to the main road he pushed his foot to the floor, feeling the engine strain, feeling like he wanted to drive faster and faster. The windscreen wipers worked overtime against the heavy rain. As he gained speed, his anger and frustrations boiled over and he began to shout, loud and guttural, banging the steering wheel with one hand as hard as he could, until it stung. When, finally, he couldn’t shout any longer and his pent-up rage had begun to dissipate, he eased off the accelerator and breathed heavily, emotionally spent and desperate to be at home.
He walked into the flat and closed the door and found Harmony on the sofa, watching the news, feet up, hugging a cushion. She was wearing a pair of leggings and an old baggy T-shirt, her hair loose, a little straggly. She gave him a weak smile when he came in.
He sank heavily into the armchair opposite her. He wanted her to pat the sofa beside her like she usually did, gesture for him to sit with her, but she didn’t move. He closed his eyes, resting his head against the back of the armchair. He was exhausted; his limbs felt cast in concrete, as if he’d never be able to move them again.
Just then her phone rang. He opened his eyes and watched her pick it up. She turned it off without answering it and put it back on the coffee table. Her mouth twitched like it did sometimes when she was angry. At that moment, the pressure of keeping everything inside him finally became too much. It was like he was about to explode into a million pieces.
‘I saw that guy earlier today. The one Luke mentioned. Alastair Farrow.’ His voice cracked as he spoke.
‘The one from your school?’
Will nodded.
She picked up the remote and turned off the television; her eyes had softened and she fixed them on him, waiting.
‘Oh God. It was awful.’ He pushed the heels of his palms against his eyes. ‘I lost my temper. I shouted at him in the middle of a crowded pub. Christ, I grabbed him by the bloody neck.’ He sighed heavily and looked at her. ‘I thought he might show some sort of remorse, might at least seem ashamed, but he couldn’t have cared less.’
‘What did he do to you?’ she asked softly. ‘At school, I mean. Why did you expect remorse?’
Will hesitated. It felt alien to be talking about this. He’d made such an effort to keep it buried. But what good had that done? ‘He made people’s lives hell. For fun. He was – is – a vile bully.’ He broke off. He knew he had opened the box now, that he was going to tell her everything.
He took a deep breath and braced himself.
‘There was this one afternoon,’ he said, starting slowly. ‘The day before Luke was expelled. He and I were in the woods, up by that tree we used to climb. It was late October. We’d had supper and were supposed to be in prep, you know, doing homework. But we’d crept out, bunked off. I had my Polaroid camera and was taking photos of stuff and Luke was trying to make a harpoon with the Swiss Army knife my dad gave me, but these older boys, proper nasty bastards in the sixth form, found us. Farrow was one of them.’
The incident he described had been stored away for twenty-five years, but as he recounted the story to Harmony, every single detail played out in his mind as if it were happening there and then.
‘They asked what we were doing in their smoking room, said this part of the wood with the Judas tree was for sixth form only. They said we were trespassing.’
