A Kestrel for a Knave

A lane cut across the top of Firs Hill, forming a T junction. Billy turned left along tit. There was no pavement, and whenever a car approached he either crossed the lane or stepped into the long grass at the side and waited for it to pass. Fields, and a few hedgerow trees sloped down into the valley. Toy traffic travelled along the City Road, and across the road, in the bottom of the valley, was the sprawl of the estate. Towards the City, a pit chimney and the pit-head winding gear showed above the rooftops, and at the back of the estate was a patchwork of fields, black, and grey, and pale winter green; giving way to a wood, which stood out on the far slop as clear as an ink blot.

Porter […] was up a step ladder behind the counter, re-lining the shelves with fresh paper.

‘Evening.’

‘I told you it wouldn’t take me long, didn’t I?’

‘What did you do, throw half of ’em over a hedge?’

‘No need. I know some short cuts coming back.’

‘I’ll bet you do, over people’s property, no doubt.’

‘No, across some fields. It cuts miles off.’

‘It’s a good job t’farmer didn’t see you, else you might have got a barrel of shotspred up your arse.’

‘What for? There was only grass in ’em.’

Billy folded the bag in half and placed it on the counter.

‘Not on there. You know where it goes.’

Billy walked round the counter and squeezed past the step ladder. Porter […] watched him open a drawer […] and stuff the bag inside.

‘You’ll be wanting me to take ’em round for your next.’

‘It’s a smashing morning again.’

‘Tha’ wouldn’t be saying that if tha’ wa’ goin’ where I’m goin’.’

[…]

‘Just think, when we’re goin’ up to t’woods, tha’ll be goin’ down in t’cage.’

‘Ar, just think; an’ next year tha’ll be coming down wi’ me.’

‘I’ll not.’

‘Won’t tha?’

‘No, ’cos I’m not goin’ to work down t’pit.’

‘Where are tha goin’ to work, then?’

[…]

‘I don’t know; but I’m not goin’ to work down t’pit.’

‘No, and have I to tell thi way? …’

He walked into the kitchen and came back carrying his jacket.

‘…For one thing, tha’s to be able to read and write before they’ll set thi on. And for another, they wouldn’t have a weedy little twat like thee.’

The farmer glanced down at him and smiled.

‘I know it is. It’s nested here for donkey’s years now.’

‘Just think, an’ I never knew.’

‘There’s not many does.’

‘Have you ever been up to it?’

‘No, I’ve never fancied goin’ that high on an extender.’

‘I’ve been watching ’em from across in t’wood. You ought to have seen ’em. One of ’em was sat on that telegraph pole for ages.’

He spun round and pointed to it.

‘I was right underneath it, then I saw its mate, it came from miles away and started to hover, just over there.’

Billy started to hover, arms out, fluttering his hands.

‘Then it dived down behind that wall and came up wi’ somat in its claws. You ought to have seen it, mister, it wa’ smashing.’

Crossley marked off the remainder of the ‘present’ strokes, then changed his black Brio for red, and, very carefully, bending low over the register, tried to bend Fisher’s stroke into an 0, lapping and lapping the tiny square until he had gouged a mis-coloured egg, the focal point of the whole grid.

*

‘Hymn numbers one-seven-five, ‘New every morning is the love’.’

The navy blue covers of the hymn books, inconspicuous against the dark shades of the boys’ clothing, bloomed white across the hall as they were opened and the pages flicked through. The scuff and tick of the turning pages was slowly drowned under a rising chorus of coughing and hawking; until Mr. Gryce, furious behind the lectern, scooped up his stick and began to smack it vertically down the face.

‘Thismorning’sreadingistakenfromMattheweighteenverses…’

‘Louder, boy. And stop mumbling into your beard.’

‘Never despise one of these little ones I tell you they have their guardian angels in heaven who look continually on the face of my heavenly Father. What do you think suppose a man has a hundred sheep if one of them strays does he not leave the other ninety-nine on the hillside and go in search of the one that strayed. And if he should find it I tell you this he is more delighted over that sheep than over the ninety-nine that never strayed. In the same way it is your heavenly Father’s will that one of these little ones should be lost here ends this morning’s reading.’

He closed the bible and backed away, his relief pathetic to see.

‘I can see it in your eyes, lad, they’re glazed over. You’re not interested. Nobody can tell you anything, can they, MacDowall? You know it all, you young people, you think you’re so sophisticated with all your gear and your music. But the trouble is, it’s only superficial, just a sheen with nothing worthwhile or solid underneath. As far as I can see there’s been no advance at all in discipline, decency, manners or morals. And do you know how I know this? Well, I’ll tell you. Because I still have to use this [cane] every day.’

[…]

‘It’s fantastic isn’t it, that in this day and age, in this super-scientific, all-things-bright-and-splendiferous age, that the only way of running this school efficiently is by the rule of the cane. But why? There should be no need for it now. You lot have got it on a plate. […]’

‘You start inside first, makin’ her ump on to your glove for her meat. Only a little jump at first, then a bit further and so on; and every time she comes you’ve to give her a scrap o’ meat. A reward like. When she’ll come about a leash length straight away, you can try her outside, off a fence post or summat like that. You put her down, hold on to t’end of your leash wi’ your right hand, and hold your glove out for her to fly to. This way you can get a double leash length. After she’s done this, you can take her leash off an’ attach a creance in its place.’

‘Creance?’

[…]

‘C-R-E-A-N-C-E—it’s a long line, I used a long nylon fishing line wi’ a clasp off a dog lead, tied to one end. […]’

There was a whizzing of pages to localise F, followed by a more deliberate turning of odd pages, and a final pointing of forefingers.

‘Sir!’

‘Right, Whitbread. Read it out.’

‘Fiction. Inven-ted state-ment or narra-tive, novels, stories, collectiv, collectiv-ely collectively; Blimey.’ ‘Go on, have a go at it, lad.’ ‘Convent, convent-ion-ally, I know, conventionally accepted false-hoods. Fic-tit-ious fictitious, not genuine, imagin-ary, assumed.’

‘Good. Have you all found it now?’

They had all found it while Whitbread was reading the definition and there was silence while they confirmed it mentally.

‘Have you all got that? Fiction; invented statement, novels, stories, falsehood, not genuine, imaginary, assumed. All right?’

There was no response so he assumed that they were.

One day I wolke up and my muther said to me heer Billy theres your brecfast in bed for you there was backen and egg and bred and butter and a big pot of tea […] we lived in a big hous up moor edge and we add carpits on the stairs and in the all and sentrall eeting. When I got down I said wers are Jud his going the army my muther saide and hees not coming back. But your dades coming back in sted. […] I haven’t seen him for a long time but he was just he sam as he went away […] when I got to school all the teacher were good to me they said allow Billy awo you gowing on and they all pated me on the hed and smiled and we did interesting things all day.

‘You daren’t say that to t’teachers though, they’d say, “Don’t be insolent boy,” smack!’

Billy stood up straight and waggled his head about, looking stern. Then he smacked the space between Mr Farthing and himself. Mr Farthing laughed at his impersonation.

‘That’s what they’d say though, Sir.’

‘I’m not saying it and I’m a teacher, aren’t I?’

‘Ar, well…’

‘Well what?’

‘You do at least try to learn us summat, most o’ t’others don’t. They’re not bothered about us, just because we’re in 4C, you can tell, they talk to us like muck. They’re allus callin’ us idiots, an’ numbskulls, an’ cretins, an’ looking at their watches to see how long it is to t’end o’ t’lesson. They’re fed up wi’ us. We’re fed up wi’ them, then when there’s any trouble, they pick on me ’cos I’m t’littlest.’

‘An’ at home, if owt goes wrong on t’estate, police allus come to our house, even though I’ve done nowt for ages now. An’ they don’t believe a word I say! I feel like goin’ out an’ doin’ summat just to spite ’em sometimes.’

‘Never mind lad; it’ll be all right.’

‘Ar, it will that.’

‘Just think, you’ll be leaving school in a few weeks, starting your first job, meeting fresh people. That’s something to look forward to, isn’t it?’

Billy looked past him without replying.

‘Have you got a job yet?’

‘No Sir. I’ve to see t’youth employment bloke this afternoon.’

‘What kind of a job are you after?’

‘I’m not bothered. Owt’ll do me.’

‘You’ll try to get something that interests you, though?’

‘I shan’t have much choice, shall I? I shall have to take what they’ve got.’

It blossomed to a bubble […] and floated quietly toward the floor. He reached out to take it back. Touched it. Gone. He blew some more, but they came out small, so he let them drift and time their own oblivion. Then it came out, a jewel, hanging heavy in the air. He reached out to catch it. It bounced off the buff of air, then wavered in the suction as he withdrew his hand. He followed it, and as it fell, he placed his hand below it, allowing his hand to fall more slowly than the bubble, so that slowly, very slowly, the bubble fell closer to his hand […] until finally the bubble landed gently on the falling palm. Billy […] tilted his hand and shifted his head to catch the colours from different angles and in different lights, and while he was looking it vanished […]

Mr. Sugden was passing slowly across one end of the room, looking down the corridors and counting the boys as they changed. He was wearing a violet tracksuit. The top was embellished with cloth badges depicting numerous crests and qualifications, and on the breast a white athlete carried the Olympic torch. The legs were tucked into new white football socks, neatly folded at his ankles, and his football shoes were polished as black and shiny as the bombs used by assassins in comic strips. The laces binding them had been scrubbed white, and both boots had been fastened identically: two loops of the foot and one of the ankle, and tied in a neat bow under the tab at the back.

He dropped his wrist and blew. Anderson received the ball from him, sidestepped a tackle from Tibbut then cut it diagonally between two opponents into a space to his left. Sugden (player) running into this space, raised his left foot to trap it, but the ball rolled under his studs. He veered left, caught it, and started to cudgel it upfield in a travesty of a dribble, sending it too far ahead each time he touched it, so that by the time he had progressed twenty yards, he had crash-tackled it back from three Spurs defenders. His left winger, unmarked and lonely out on the touchline, called for the ball, Sugden heard him, looked at him, then kicked the ball hard along the ground towards him. But even though the wingman started to spring as soon as he read its line, it still shot out of play a good ten yards in front of him.

The rooms along the front of the school were lighted: rooms 1 to 6, two bright blocks divided by foyer and offices. From the road, looking through the railings across the grass, silent pictures from room to room; same story, different players: the teacher at the front, the profiles of the window row. Rooms 6 and 5, teachers seated. 4, standing at the board. The Deputy’s office, the Deputy at his desk. Foyer dim, deserted, like the Headmaster’s room next to it. The secretary in her office, straight-backed, fingers dancing on the keys. Room 3, empty, lights left on. Room 2, Billy half-way down the row. Windows closed, top panes misting over.

There were four chairs outside the medical room. A woman and a boy occupied the two nearest the door. Billy sat down, leaving an empty chair between them. The boy leaned forward and nodded at him across the front of the woman. The woman glanced round, then turned back to the boy.

‘And don’t be sat there like a dummy when you get in there.’

The boy blushed and looked across at Billy again. Billy sat staring straight ahead, top teeth working across his bottom lip, squeezing it white.

‘Tell him that you’re after a good job, an office job, summat like that.’

‘Who’s after an office job?’

‘Well what are you after then? A job on t’bins?’

The rain, millions of drops per second, some falling between the branches, some hitting the branches, where they fused and gathered underneath as heavier drops, until their weight parted them from the branches—splash—into the rotting mould. To be replaced by identical pendant drops. All over the woods, from millions of branches, millions of drops per second, pat pat pat against the background hiss of the rain falling straight through.

‘Kes! Kes! Kes!’

The one syllable of the call was echoed in the pat of the drops: a whisper all through the woods as Billy progressed. Dying under each fresh call, but picking it up immediately, more subtle, more insistent than the call itself.

Between the kerb and the pavement a strip of soil had been laid, and at regular intervals up all the thoroughfares, black iron discs, stuck into the soil, stated, in raised capitals: SEEDED VERGES PLEASE KEEP OFF. […] Some of the discs had been flattened flush with the soil like gravestones, and everywhere the soil was rutted and shiny with wear. Stuck to it were paper and cigarette packets, half bricks and dog shit, and planted in it, at fifty yard intervals, were saplings surrounded by guards of spiked railings. Few of these trees had been allowed to grow taller than the railings, and most of them were just centre spikes inside the guards. The cylinders of close fitting spikes had however been utilized as waste paper baskets, and bottles and old toys, boxes and bicycle parts had been tossed over their points to rest in tangled shadows around the bases of the trunks.