among them, ordering one to stand and explain the state of his singlet, another to account for the hole in his shoes. ‘Sloppy, Pickering, sloppy. Parents got no pride?’ Grinding the keys in the pocket of his tracksuit, he stood over David Kingsley. ‘Oh come on, Kingsley. This is pathetic. My grandmother could do better.’ He spun round to shout at Roy Pickering: ‘You seem to think you could do better, Pickering. Ten extra press-ups. Yes. You. Now. Get to it.’
Mr Owen wiped his hair; the flesh above his mouth flinched as if he had toothache. ‘Right, then,’ he said, in the doom-laden tone that always signified the same thing. ‘Your favourite game. Captains Allerton and Fletcher. Come here.’ Neil Allerton swaggered to his place on Mr Owen’s right hand, rotating his arms as if swinging Indian clubs; Dennis Fletcher stood on his left, regarding his classmates with a compromised look. ‘Allerton first,’ said Mr Owen, and so Allerton and Fletcher took turns to choose the members of their teams. Only Lionel Griffiths and John Halloran were left after Alexander had been selected for Allerton’s squad.
Mr Owen had left the gymnasium while the captains made their choices, and now he returned, cajoling a football along the floor with dainty taps of his instep. He inspected the teams. ‘No, no,’ he decided. ‘Too many weeds in this brigade. MacIndoe, go to Fletcher. You too, Malinowski. I’ll join Allerton’s mob. Form up.’
They adopted their skittle formations at opposite ends of the hall. Mr Owen nudged the ball towards Fletcher’s team, then pushed his way into the midst of Allerton’s. ‘Fletcher, your man,’ said Mr Owen.
Paul Malinowski, from his place at the point of the triangle, chipped the ball softly into the midst of the opposition. The boy whom the ball had first struck stepped out of the formation, taking care that his gratitude was not apparent. ‘Ten squats, ten press-ups, ten sit-ups,’ Mr Owen ordered. The boy withdrew to the sector of the gymnasium where the eliminated players did their penance, while Malinowski went back to his position.
Allerton’s front player kicked the ball hard and low into Fletcher’s formation, dislodging Malinowski. A member of Fletcher’s front line retaliated with a powerful strike, and thus the game proceeded until Alexander, the last survivor of his row, faced Mr Owen. Alexander would remember the way Mr Owen put the ball softly on the circle of blue paint in the middle of the floor, then turned it two or three times, as if locking a manhole cover. He would remember seeing the wet leaves swabbing the glass of the windows to Mr Owen’s left, and noticing for the first time the pelt of dust on top of the rafter closest to the door, while in the periphery of his vision Mr Owen took a pace backwards. Then he realised that Mr Owen was taking more than a single pace. He saw Mr Owen look at the ball, at him, at the ball, again at him, and dash forward, his face still up.
There was no pain to the blow immediately, just a sound like the sizzle of lard in a hot pan, and a warm dribble over his lips. His head felt too heavy on the floor. A long way away, Mr Owen’s feet were splayed like a penguin’s; there were other feet close by, rocking from heel to toe. No one approached him. The ball was at rest against his arm; he placed his hand on it, and felt the texture of the matt leather, the rib-like laces and the yielding rubber nipple between them. With no thought of what he was doing, he scooped the ball into his lap and lifted it. He stood up dizzily, and then he dropped the ball and kicked it on the half-volley. Indifferently he saw Mr Owen double over. He could feel the air congeal about him.
Mr Owen unfolded himself and looked pensively around the gymnasium. He contemplated the cages that protected the light bulbs on the walls; his gaze skimmed over the boys’ faces, and his head nodded in agreement with himself. When at last he spoke, his voice was precise and low, and pleasant. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Continue this game without me. Then the same teams for an end-to-end relay. Then out on the field for a few laps. Allerton, keep order.’ He fetched the ball from the corner of the room and handed it to Allerton. ‘MacIndoe. You come with me.’
Mr Owen led him through the changing rooms and out into the corridor, where he opened the outside door. ‘Please,’ he said, ushering Alexander into the rain. ‘If you’d oblige,’ Mr Owen requested, indicating that Alexander should move farther away. Alexander took a backwards step, into the puddle that was spreading from the drain; the cold water flowed over the tops of his plimsolls. From the shelter of the doorway Mr Owen looked at Alexander with the expression of someone trying to understand why the shivering boy had chosen to stand in ankle-deep water. ‘Now, Monty,’ began Mr Owen solicitously. ‘We have a choice. We could proceed forthwith to the headmaster’s office. It is my belief that a measure of corporal punishment would ensue from this course of action. A report to your parents might follow. To be frank, Monty, I would stake my job on such an outcome. In fact, not to beat about the bush, I would make damned sure of it.’ He stooped forward to inspect the sky and made a snort of satisfaction. ‘Or we could resolve this matter now and have done with it. What do you say, Monty? The choice is yours.’
Water dripped from Alexander’s fingertips; blood dripped from his chin. Watching Mr Owen’s hands squirming in his tracksuit pockets, he realised that he could hold an adult in contempt, and the chill of his flesh seemed to increase his exhilaration at his discovery. It was his intention to say nothing, so he was taken aback to hear himself say: ‘I don’t mind, sir.’
One of Mr Owen’s feet made a movement as if crushing a cigarette. ‘I suggest the latter course of action,’ he said.
‘Whatever you say, sir,’ Alexander replied.
For half a minute Mr Owen blankly regarded Alexander, and then, like a man preparing for an arduous task, he pulled the hood of his tracksuit slowly over his head. ‘We shall proceed to the playing field. On the double. Now.’
On the slope above the cricket nets Mr Owen overtook him and stopped him with a straight arm. ‘Give me those shoes,’ he demanded, and he cracked the soles against the back of Alexander’s legs six times. ‘Now you’ll run around that field until I tell you to stop. Do you understand? And if you ever do anything like that again, ever, ever,’ he repeated, with the tendons of his neck straining, ‘I’ll have you running on roads in your bare feet until the bones come through. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Alexander.
‘Do you understand?’
‘Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir.’
The pain of Alexander’s beaten skin seemed to dissolve into his body, and as it weakened he experienced a clenching of his mind against Mr Owen. It was not a hatred he felt now, but an adamant exclusion, and the pain in his ribcage enclosed him perfectly. Armoured by his discomfort he ran over the cold, clutching grass; the rain tingled on his tongue.
‘Don’t slacken, MacIndoe,’ shouted Mr Owen from the embankment, flapping a plimsoll.
‘No, sir,’ Alexander replied, assuming for Mr Owen’s benefit a rictus of agony.
Alexander’s classmates were appearing on the path above the playing field. ‘Right, MacIndoe,’ called Mr Owen when Alexander came back on to the straight. ‘Back to the gym with you. A dozen more press-ups, I think.’ He lobbed the sodden plimsolls towards him, so they landed short, in the waterlogged long-jump pit. ‘Eyes right!’ ordered Mr Owen as Alexander neared his approaching friends. They all looked away from him, and he from them, but as he trudged down the line Alexander heard them chanting quietly: ‘One day. One day. One day.’
Before the day was over Alexander MacIndoe understood that he had been transformed into a new character. Mick Radford, who had often thrown a punch at him whenever they had met in a place where there was no teacher to observe them, ambushed him in an empty corridor. The fingers of Mick Radford’s right hand furled into a fist, then opened out again as he cackled. ‘An hero, Monty,’ he said. ‘Proud of you, pal.’
Mr Owen did not return after the summer holiday, and by many of the boys it was taken as a fact that his departure was due to his punishment of Alexander MacIndoe. ‘That’s what made the boss twig he was a loony,’ said Lionel Griffiths on their first day back. ‘It’s obvious.’ A note in Paul Malinowski’s handwriting was glued to the underside of his desk’s lid: ‘By his sacrifice we