Читать книгу Mr Alfred, M.A. - James Kennaway - Страница 14

CHAPTER SEVEN

Leaving school on a fine spring evening Mr Briggs had to go home by public transport. His car was laid up. There was something wrong with the clutch. He felt devalued. It was a long time since he last stood in a bus queue with ordinary people, some of whom in this case would be merely assistant teachers on his own staff. He was in a mood to find fault with the universe. Opportunity to let off steam was waiting ahead of him. En route to the bus stop he passed the Weavers Lane. A fankle of weedy boys loitered there in a state of manifest excitement. Mr Briggs was quick to appreciate the situation. There was something in the wind, and it wasn’t the smell of roses. Obviously a fight had been arranged and was due to begin as soon as the coast was clear. The guilt in the shifty eyes of his pupils showed they hadn’t expected him to come along. He stopped and scowled. He knew them all. His habit of checking against his index-cards whenever a boy came to his notice had made him familiar with their names, their intelligence quotient, their father’s occupation if any, and their address. He knew the good boys from the bad boys, though sometimes he believed the former category was an anomaly, as if one should speak of a square circle.

There they were. All the rascals. A dingy mob in jeans and donkey-jackets. Black, Brown, Gray, Green, White. With McColl, McKay, McKenzie, McPherson. He recognised Taylor, Slater, Wright and Barbour, Baker [and Bourne], Hall [and Knight], Latta [and MacBeath], Lid- del [and Scott], Ogilvie [and Albert], Gibson, Holmes, MacDougall and Blackie. A nightmare of classroom names. And lounging blondly, somehow the centre of the shapeless crowd, was Gerald Provan. He grinned, hands in the pockets of his tightarsed jeans, kicking the kerb, radiant with the insolence of an antimath idling out his last term at school.

Sure of his power, speaking in loco parentis, since after all they were barely outside the limits of his bailiwick and the bell releasing them from his jurisdiction had barely ceased vibrating across the gasworks, he demanded the why and wherefore of their hanging about. He waited for an answer. None was offered. Sternly he ordered them to disperse.

‘Get home! All of you! At once!’

Curt. Staccato.

Slowly, grudgingly, they went. He stood till they were all on the move.

He went for his bus, pleased with himself. Perhaps the universe wasn’t so unjust after all. He wished some of his teachers would learn to put into their voice the same ring of authority as he had done there. The bus was prompt, he got a seat at once, and within half-an-hour he was safe and sound at home. He had a sandstone villa, with garden and garage, outside the city. Over dinner he told Mrs Briggs all the events of his day and what he had done about them.

But no sooner was he round the corner from the Weavers Lane than the scattered boys reassembled. Like birds chased from a kitchen garden they hadn’t flown far.

Last to leave the school, Mr Alfred took the same route to the bus stop as Mr Briggs. He had lingered longer than usual in the staffroom to give Mr Briggs plenty of time to get away. He always found it a bore having to make conversation on the bus, especially with someone who talked shop as loudly as his headmaster.

When he came to the Weavers Lane he heard a lot of shouting. He stopped and listened. He wasn’t even tempted to walk away. He was oldfashioned, and he believed without doubting it was his duty to break up any riotous assembly of schoolboys, whether in school or out of school, during hours or after hours. And anyway he was in no hurry. If he put off time he would be in the city centre when the pubs were opening. Then he could have one or maybe two before going on to his digs. For the evening he had already planned a route that would take him round some pubs he hadn’t been in for a month or so.

He put on a grim face and went deep into the lane. What he saw wasn’t a storybook fight with bare fists. It was a battle with studded belts that had once been part of what the army called webbing equipment. His belly fluttered at the madness of it. He was as scared as if he was in there taking part. So excited were the spectators, encouraging Cowan and Turnbull with a good imitation of the Hampden Roar, that Mr Alfred was left standing behind them in the same situation as the three old ladies locked in the lavatory. Nobody knew he was there.

Besides swinging the heavy belt in a highly dangerous manner Cowan used an unpredictable skill, not without its own vicious grace, in getting inside the range of Turnbull’s equally heavy belt and endeavouring to kick his opponent in the testicles.

In one of those attempts he lost his balance, the belt arched from his hand, and he fell unarmed to the ground. The recoil of evasive action brought Turnbull over his prostrate foe. Naturally he kicked him. Then things happened so quickly Mr Alfred was never quite sure what he saw.

It appeared that Gerald Provan moved out of the mob behind Turnbull, raised his knee swiftly in a politic nudge, sent Turnbull sprawling beside Cowan. The two fighters scrambled up clinching. They wrestled into the crowd, and the crowd pushed them back into the ring. In that surge and sway Gerald Provan thrust a knife into Cowan’s hand and then shoved him off to continue the duel.

At that point Mr Alfred broke out of his paralysis. Partly he had been curious to see just what the two boys would do, partly he was afraid of raising his voice too soon and not being heard above the howling of the fans. But when it was seen that Cowan had a knife there was a breathless hush in the lane that night and Mr Alfred knew his moment was come. Cowan lunged, Turnbull dodged, and Mr Alfred spoke out loud and clear.

‘Stop that!’

His voice scattered most of the onlookers. They had no wish to be involved. Turnbull froze. Cowan threw the knife away and with coincident speed dissolved into the melting crowd. Provan tried to make a quick getaway by diving behind Mr Alfred. It was a blunder. Mr Alfred caught him on the turn and held him by the collar. Gerald wriggled.

‘Hey, mind ma jacket, you! Ma clothes cost good money, no’ like yours.’

Mr Alfred shook him and threw him away.

‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ he said.

He saw the knife lying on top of a docken on the margin of the arena. He picked it up and put it in his pocket. He thought it was evidence.