Saving
face
by
Robin Gordon
Auksford
2017
In the high and far-off times, o best
beloved, before Dr Beeching cut all the railway lines he deemed
unprofitable, when every small town, and many a village, had a railway
station, and unaccompanied children could travel safely by train all
over the country without fear of being approached by unsavoury
paedophiles, a tall fair-haired boy of some fourteen summers and his
pretty little sister, three or four years younger, were on a train
travelling to meet their cousins for the first time in many years.
Their father was a colonial
administrator, and
Michael, for so the fair-haired youth was named, had been at a very
good prep-school in Kenya for the last few years and was now to join
his boy-cousins, George and Richard, at Matchingham. It
should
have been an occasion of unalloyed cheerfulness, and would have been,
had not the reason for the family’s return to England been a
sudden and totally unexpected heart-attack that had befallen their
father a few weeks earlier. He was making a good recovery,
but
there was no prospect of his return to administrative work in the
Empire. Mother was looking after him at Ablethorpe, while
Michael
and his little sister, Fran, went to stay with Uncle John and Aunt
Hilda for ten days of the summer holidays, and it was there that
Michael would meet his new housemaster for the first time, for Mr
Williamson was a friend of the family and would be paying a quick visit
to assess his new charge.
The train began to slow as it approached
Framlington, so Michael got up to get their cases from the overhead
rack. He swung Fran’s case down with ease, then
reached for
his own. He lifted it from the rack, then, with a sudden
gasp,
swung it down to the seat and clutched at his chest.
“Oh!
What’s wrong?
What’s wrong, Michael?” cried little
Fran.
“It’s not a heart attack, is it?”
“No,” said
Michael.
“It’s not that. I’ve bust my
braces. I
should have got a new pair, but there just wasn’t
time.
What am I going to do?”
“What do you mean?”
Fran asked.
“I’ve got to meet
George and Richard and
Rachel and Alice, and I’ve got nothing to hold my trousers
up.”
“You mean they might fall
down?” Fran couldn’t suppress a
giggle.
“Don’t
laugh!” cried
Michael. “You girls don’t
understand. A
chap’s trousers are very important. If a
chap’s
trousers fall down everybody laughs at him. Even you
giggled just thinking
my trousers might fall
down.”
On the platform at Framlington George,
Richard,
Rachel and Alice were waiting eagerly for the train.
“It’ll be great fun
having Michael at
Matchingham,” said Richard, “and he’s
going to be in
Williamson’s with us as well.”
“He’s supposed to be
a jolly good
spin-bowler,” said George, “and I’ve
heard he’s
a wizard with the bat.”
“Fran’s supposed to
be a sweet little
girl,” said Rachel.
“And Michael looks jolly
handsome in his
photographs,” said Alice.
“It’s a pity about
Uncle Thomas,”
said George.
“But he is getting
better,” said Rachel.
Here’s the train
now!” called Richard.
An elderly couple got out of one of the
furthermost
carriages, then they saw Michael coming out of a carriage near the
centre of the platform. He looked round, then strolled
towards
them with his hands in his trouser pockets.
“Hello,” he
said. “You must
be my cousins. I’m Michael. I say, could
one of you
give my sister a hand with the cases?”
They looked up and saw the little girl
struggling to
lift the two cases out of the train. George and Richard ran
to
help her.
“Does your brother always
leave you to do all
the work?” Richard asked.
“I like to help,”
said Fran shyly.
George and Richard took a case each and
carried them
over to the others.
“Thanks,” said
Michael and gave them a
grin.
He intended it to be a friendly
grin. Rachel
thought he had a nice smile, but beastly manners, while Alice and the
boys just thought him insufferably smug.
Their father was waiting with the horse
and trap.
“Got to know each
other?
Splendid!” he said. “How are you,
Michael.?”
“Very well, thank you,
Sir,” said
Michael, but he didn’t shake hands. He
didn’t even
take his hands out of his pockets.
“Climb aboard,” said
his uncle, and the
others could see that he was not at all pleased. Michael
didn’t seem to notice. He pulled himself into the
trap,
still keeping one hand in his pocket, and sat down.
“Let me help you,
Fran,” said George
pointedly, as he handed the little girl into the trap, extended his
hand to his sisters, then climbed in himself, followed by his brother.
“He didn’t shake
hands with any of
us,” said George.
“Not even with Dad,”
said Richard.
“And he even kept his hands in
his pockets
when he met Mummy,” said Rachel.
“He’s a smug,
self-satisfied
rotter,” said Richard.
“He’s a
beast!” said Alice.
“Perhaps he doesn’t
know how we behave
in this country,” said George. “If
he’s been in
Africa for years, perhaps he just doesn’t know.
Perhaps
that’s how they behave in Africa. Perhaps they
don’t
ever shake hands. After all the French kiss each other, which
we
wouldn’t like at all, and they’re only just over
the
channel.”
“I still think he’s
a beast,” said
Alice.
“I think there must be decent
standards of
behaviour all over the Empire,” said Richard.
“It
can’t be just that he doesn’t know.”
“Well,” said George,
“he is
our cousin, so I think we ought
to give him a chance.”
“Perhaps he was tired from
travelling,”
said Rachel, “and he must be quite worried about his
father.”
“I still think he’s
a beast,” said
Alice. “Look at the way he left his little sister
to deal
with those heavy cases!”
“Well, he’s been in
Africa for
years,” said George. “I don’t
suppose white men
ever carry anything in Africa. They just leave it to the
native
servants.”
“But Fran is his little sister,”
protested Alice.
“Perhaps it was the worry
about his
father,” suggested Rachel, not very convincingly.
“He does seem to be a bit of a
bounder,”
said George, “but I suppose we shouldn’t judge him
until we
get to know him.”
“All right,” said
Richard.
“We’ll give him another chance, but we’ll
be
watching.”
The girls didn’t get much out
of Fran.
They thought she was a nice little girl. She seemed quite
fond of
her brother and said he didn’t usually make her carry things
for
him, but was very evasive when they tried to ask her about the way he
was behaving.
The boys talked to Michael about
cricket. They
told him Williamson’s had been runner-up for the house shield
two
years in a row, and hoped they might win it next time. They
asked
him about his old school’s cricket team, and they saw his
face
light up with enthusiasm as he told them how they had won the Kenyan
prep-schools trophy.
“They say you’re a
pretty decent
spin-bowler,” said George, and they were pleased that he
replied
modestly that some people seemed to think he wasn’t bad
really. They got out of him that he had been top-scorer, and
were
pleased that he attributed it to luck and praised the rest of his team,
and that they had to ask him directly before he admitted to being
captain.
“Why don’t we go
down to the nets and
have a practice,” George suggested.
Poor Michael! There was
nothing he’d
have liked better than a bit of cricket practice. He loved
the
game, and he would have liked to show his cousins what he could do
– but he had visions of what would happen. He saw
himself
at the wicket: an easy ball, a potential four, he swung at it, and down
fell his trousers. He saw himself run up to bowl, and just as
he
swung his arm up to release the ball his trousers dropped around his
ankles, he tripped and fell, and the ball trickled harmlessly to the
side. He saw himself fielding, a low ball speeding towards
the
boundary, he dived for it, skidded across the grass, slid right out of
his trousers and left them a couple of yards behind him. All
of
these disasters would end the same way: a howl of derision from the
players, and a piercing squeal of malevolent glee from the watching
girls.
His enthusiasm disappeared.
“Not just now,” he
said, looking
desperately for an excuse. Words his mother had used came
suddenly into his mind. “I’ve got a bit
of a
headache, actually,” he said.
They were disappointed but determined to
be fair.
“Come for a walk
then,” said
Richard. “We’ll show you the
woods.”
“I think I’d better
go to my room and
lie down.” Why on earth had he said that?
It made him
sound like an elderly maiden aunt. He wandered off
disconsolately, still with his hands firmly in his pockets.
“What do you make of
that?” demanded
George.
“I think he’s a
fake,” said
Richard. “All this decent-spin-bowler stuff,
it’s all
made up to make himself look wonderful.”
“Yes,” said George,
“but we had to
drag it out of him that he was captain …”
“That just shows how clever he
is,” said
Richard. “If he’d told us he was captain
and top
scorer, we’d have known he was boasting. This way
he looks
like a modest sort of chap, a proper sportsman. I bet he
can’t bowl at all. None of us has ever seen him
play.
No-one we know has ever seen him play. We’ve heard
about him, but that’s
just hearsay,
not real
evidence at all. It’s no better than rumours, and I
can
guess who started those rumours!”
“Heaven knows what Williamson
will make of
him,” said John to his wife Hilda. “The
boys
can’t stand him.”
“Neither can the
girls,” Hilda
replied. “Alice says she can’t ever
forgive him for
leaving those heavy cases to little Fran.”
“The boys were pretty sick at
the way he just
ordered them to go and help her while he stood around with his hands in
his pockets. I suppose it’s some sort of adolescent
fad,
trying to look worldly wise and world-weary to the point of
boredom. Didn’t take his hands out of his pockets
to shake
hands with me. Just gave me a sort of condescending nod, and
I
was really cross that he didn’t even greet you
properly. In
fact the only time I’ve seen him take his hand out of his
pockets
was when the dogs came running up to him, and even then it was only one
hand, and he looked as if he was scared of them, like a prim old
spinster afraid of getting muddy paw-marks on her skirt.
Tom’s always had dogs, so why should Michael be frightened of
them. Little Fran took to them right away, and the dogs took
to
her, but after the way he treated them they just ignored
Michael.
It’s not as if they’re boisterous
animals!
Bessie’s getting old and Flossie’s just a big soft
lump. God knows what will happen if Williamson brings
Buster. I suppose Michael will squeal like a girl and sneak
off
to his room. You don’t suppose he’ll make
such a fool
of himself that Williamson will tell the school not to accept him, do
you?”
“Anything’s
possible,” said
Hilda. “The children are really fed up.
They
can’t wait for him to leave.”
“Only another couple of days
to go,”
said John. “I won’t ask the boys to go to
the station
– not if we want him to get there in one piece.
I’d
better get Harris to take him in the car. You want the car
tomorrow, don’t you?”
“Yes. I’m
going to take the girls
into town to do a bit of shopping. They both need new clothes
for
next term. Little Fran is coming too.”
“I expect she wants to get
away from that
awful brother of hers for a while.”
“She seems to like him,
strange as it may
seem. Rachel tried to ask her about him, and she insisted he
was
nice, but she was rather evasive about his behaviour. Anyway,
I’ll try and be back before Mr Williamson arrives, but I
can’t guarantee it.”
“Well, I hope you
are,” said John.
“I need some moral support if I’ve got to show
Michael to
Williamson. I shudder to think what he’ll
make of
him”
“I wish I’d made a
clean breast of it
right from the start,” said Michael. “I
should have
told George and Richard. They’d have laughed, and
it would
have been embarrassing if the girls had overheard, but one of them
would probably have lent me some braces. Now it’s
far too
late. If everyone knows I’ve been holding my
trousers up
all week, I’ll be a real laughing-stock.”
“It’s all right,
Michael,” said
Fran. “Aunty Hilda’s going to take us
girls into town
to do some shopping. I’ll ask her if I can get some
braces
for you.”
“No!” cried
Michael. “Then
the girls will hear. I couldn’t face them at all if
I knew
they were imagining my trousers falling down. I’ll
give you
some money. Try and sneak off and buy them without anyone
seeing
– and bring them straight up to me as soon as you get
back.
Mr Williamson is coming tomorrow, getting here in the late
afternoon. I’ve got to have new braces by then, or
he’ll think I’m an idle rotter. He might
not even
agree to have me in the school. I don’t know what
Dad will
say. I’ll probably have to kill myself.”
“No, Michael!
Don’t do that!”
“Try and get them without
anyone seeing, and
bring them to me as quick as you can. It’s my only
chance.”
Michael skulked in his room all the next
day.
George and Richard made one last attempt to persuade him to come out
with them, then went off into the woods.
“Our only hope,”
said George, “is
that Mr Williamson will see what a bounder he is and refuse to have him
in his house.”
“Perhaps he’ll tell
the Head not to have
him in school at all,” said Richard.
“That would be
best,” said George.
“To have a rotter like that anywhere in the school and to
have
chaps knowing he’s our cousin … well!”
“Michael skulked into the
dining room at
lunch-time and didn’t take his hands out of his pockets till
he
was safely seated at the table. As soon as the meal was
finished,
he rose, stuck his hands in his pockets, and strolled off upstairs, not
to be seen again until he had to meet his prospective
housemaster. All afternoon he was on tenterhooks, glancing at
his
watch over and over again and looking out of the window, hoping to see
the car bringing Aunt Hilda and the girls, bringing Fran, and his new
braces – if she had been able to get them. Suppose
she
hadn’t. He’d have to greet Mr Williamson
still with
his hands in his pockets. Could he manage to shake
hands?
He tried in front of the mirror, but as soon as he took his hands out
of his pockets and stood at attention his trousers sagged dangerously
and obviously. He could manage with one hand, but he had to
admit
that shaking hands with a schoolmaster, with his left hand firmly in
his trouser-pocket, looked very casual and even
condescending. It
was better than not shaking hands at all, but still not good
enough. Mr Williamson would consider him a rotter.
The afternoon wore on. He
heard a car and
rushed to the window, but it was parked too close to the wall and he
couldn’t see which one it was.
On impulse he flung himself on his knees
beside his
bed and prayed fervently that it might be Aunt Hilda, that it might be
Fran, that she might have his new braces.
His prayer was answered. Fran
burst into his
room, beaming with delight, and handed over a small package.
He
ripped it open, grinning from ear to ear.
“Hurry,” cried Fran,
“there’s another car just coming in. It
must be Mr
Williamson.”
Michael pulled off his
pullover. Quickly he
buttoned on the new braces behind, fumbled a bit, and asked Fran to
help. Then he pulled the front straps over his shoulders,
buttoned them on at the front and adjusted the clips. He
grabbed
his jacket and put it on. It was really too warm for a
pullover,
and the boys had looked at him strangely but probably thought he felt
the cold after being in Africa for so long.
“Gosh, thanks
Fran!” He
cried. “You don’t know how much more
confidant a chap
feels knowing his trousers are secure!”
Then he ran downstairs to greet his
housemaster.
“Here comes Michael
now,” said Uncle
John.
Michael joined them outside the front
door. Mr
Williamson turned towards him and offered his hand. Uncle
John
groaned inwardly, but Michael stepped forward smartly and shook hands,
standing upright, with his left hand by his side, looking every inch
the eager schoolboy hero.
“Pleased to meet you,
Sir,” he said.
“This is Buster,”
said Mr Williamson, as
his dog turned away from greeting his old friends George and Richard
and bounded up to Michael.
Uncle John sought desperately for some
excuse, but
Michael stooped and greeted the bouncing dog with enthusiasm.
Buster leapt up at him, and Michael fondled him, looking really
delighted to meet such a lively animal.
“Well, at least he’s
putting on a good
show,” thought Uncle John, as Michael turned from Buster and
hastened to pick up Mr Williamson’s case.
“Let me help you,
Sir,” he said.
George and Richard looked at each other
but said
nothing as Michael carried the housemaster’s case upstairs.
John and Hilda were surprised at the
transformation
in Michael. Instead of slouching around, slightly hunched,
with
his hands permanently in his pockets, he was walking tall and straight,
moving briskly, and eager to help whenever anything needed
doing.
When Mr Williamson reminded them that one reason he was there was to
assess Michael’s knowledge in his various school subjects,
suggested that they might devote the next morning to that, and proposed
that instead of sitting all day at a table, they should take Buster for
a good long walk through the woods and up into the hills and talk as
they walked, Michael agreed eagerly saying he was looking forward to it
as he hadn’t had any opportunity of getting out into the
countryside. Next morning he set off with Mr Williamson, with
Buster gambolling around them and jumping up to be petted.
“I don’t know
what’s come over
Michael,” said his uncle. “He’s
certainly
impressing Williamson, but why on earth was he behaving so oddly
before.”
“I imagine,” said
his Aunt Hilda,
“that it was a combination of worry about his father and
being
suddenly thrust into a strange household with people he
hadn’t
met for years. Our lot can be pretty overpowering, you
know. And now he’s settled down and got to know us,
so
he’s back to his old self.”
“Well I hope you’re
right,” said
John. “It was almost as if he were afraid of our
boys. I just hope Williamson doesn’t want to try
him out at
cricket. George is convinced he’s a complete duffer
and
that the talk of his prowess as a bowler is just talk –
boasting
in fact.”
John’s hope was in
vain. When Mr
Williamson came back he seemed impressed with Michael’s
knowledge
and intelligence, and proposed that he and the three boys should relax
during the afternoon with a session at the nets. To
everyone’s surprise Michael assented with enthusiasm, and
when
the session started he soon proved he was no duffer. Though
John
had managed to whisper to George that it would be better to go easy on
Michael, he received in reply a sound he could only describe as a
non-committal grunt, and George certainly didn’t go easy on
Michael.
Michael was first at the wicket, and he
quickly
showed his prowess as a batsman. George and Richard tried
every
different bowling trick they knew, but Michael knew exactly when to
block a ball and when to hit it for six – and when he bowled
neither George nor Richard stood much of a chance against him.
Mr Williamson was delighted.
“With your
nephew in our team,” he told John, “we’re
almost
bound to win the house challenge shield, and the school under fifteens
will be in a pretty strong position too.”
Michael and Fran left the next
morning.
Michael insisted on carrying both suitcases, and when Harris brought
the car round, he put both of them in. He shook hands with
his
uncle and Mr Williamson and with his aunt and his cousins. He
patted Bessie and Flossie and fussed over Buster as the dog jumped up
at him, then he got into the car and Harris drove them away.
On the train he thanked Fran
again.
“It’s thanks to you I was able to show them what
I’m
really like,” he said. “If you
hadn’t got these
new braces for me they’d probably still think I was some sort
of
idle rotter.”
“He’s a grade one
stinker,” said
George. “Did you see how he was sucking up to old
Williamson, making himself look good?”
“Well, we
know what he’s really like!” said Richard.
“He’s a beast!”
said Alice.
“He left poor little Fran to carry those two heavy cases when
they first arrived, but when Mr Williamson was watching he carried them
both himself.”
“He’s an idle,
self-satisfied
rotter!” said George.
“He’s a
hypocrite!” said
Rachel. “Pretending to be a nice boy, when
we’ve all
seen what a selfish creature he really is.”
“Well,” said George,
“he may fool
the grown-ups, but he won’t fool the chaps at
school.
We’ll give him a hard time, I can tell you.”
“We’ll debag
him!” said Richard.
“Richard!”
cried George. “Pas
devant
les … um
… girls.”
“Jeunes
filles,” said
Rachel. “Any way pourquoi
pas
in front of us?
What will you do when you debag him?”
“It’s just a sort of
ceremony we have to
show a real rotter that he’s not one of us,” said
George. “It’s a way of expelling him from
friendship
with us.”
“Like sending him to
Coventry?” said
Alice.
“What we do,” said
Richard, “is
this: a gang of us will grab him and overpower him, and then
we’ll pull off his trousers!”
“Oh Richard,”
groaned George, but the
girls gave squeals of delight.
“Yes! He really
deserves it!” said
Rachel.
“I know he does,”
said George,
“but it’s not polite to say things like that in
front of
you girls.”
“I don’t see why
not,” said
Richard. “He deserves to be debagged, and he
deserves to
have everyone know about it, especially the girls!”
“Write to us,” said
Rachel, “and
tell us all about it. Tell us how he takes it.
He’ll
be so humiliated! I wish we could see it.”
“Well, perhaps you
can,” said
Richard. “Listen, George, you’re
president of the
Camera Club, aren’t you, and Mr Grove doesn’t
really pay
much attention to what you do. We could buy an extra film,
and
you could take photos and develop them in the Camera Club darkroom,
then we could send them to the girls.”
It was only for the briefest of moments
that George
hesitated.
“Yes,” he
said. “He’s
a real stinker of a hypocrite, and he deserves to be debagged and have
the girls see the photos.”
As the train sped through
England’s green and
pleasant land, Michael looked out of the window. He slipped
his
hand under his jacket, fingered his new braces, so strong, stout and
dependable, and smiled contentedly.
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