of three or four ‘public schools’ in or around the capital. If you were at a certain ‘public school’ then you had probably come from one of half a dozen prep schools which supplied that school with its annual intake. In this pecking order Bellcroft House came close to the bottom. It was one of the reasons why Angus Pendreich could afford it. It did not, generally speaking, turn out high-academic performers and even when it did there was no guarantee of admission to one of the ‘top’ schools. There existed, however, a ready-made receptacle for the products of Bellcroft House: located a dozen miles deeper into the wilds of Perthshire, it was called Kilsmeddum Castle. At Bellcroft, the underlying ethos was benign. Kilsmeddum was a crumbling, damp, cultureless hellhole infested with mice, where greed, selfishness, snobbery and bullying were the order of the day. The Oxbridge third-raters who posed as teachers, far from feeling thankful for having found sanctuary from the world, as Mr Veitch did at Bellcroft, resented being there and took their resentment out on their charges. In every respect, Kilsmeddum Castle was the last place a loving parent would deposit a loved child.
Within a few days of arriving there Michael detested the place and never wavered from this antipathy. He put up with it because by then there seemed little point in objecting – and because Angus did, albeit sporadically, come to rescue him.
Freddy Eddelstane was there too, as his brother had been. Michael didn’t get this. Why, with their background, weren’t they sent to a more prestigious school, possibly one south of the Border? Freddy said his father was a cheapskate, but even if he weren’t it wouldn’t make any difference. ‘We’ve got loads of house,’ he said, ‘rooms and rooms and rooms of it, but no money.’ But, Michael wondered, what did ‘no money’ mean when your father was a ‘Sir’?
They stayed friends, kind of, but more and more Michael learned to rely on his own resources, distancing himself from the crass obscenities and boorishness of the mob. Whatever it was he wanted, he knew it wasn’t that. Some of the mob grew suspicious and cornered him. ‘Are you a poof, Pendreich?’ He realised that how he responded would determine how, or whether, he continued to survive. For the first and only time in his life he punched someone in the face. A bright red stream spurted from the boy’s nose and he started to cry. Michael was as surprised as any of them at what he had done but managed to conceal it. They left him alone.
Later, Freddy caught up with him. All the slight exaggeration of features that had made the child Freddy ugly had burst forth at adolescence into loose-fleshed, ogre-like coarseness. He was a kind of human toad. As such he was regularly set upon by the mob, but had learned to deflect the aggression by becoming a self-mocking court jester to the ringleaders. So he had to be careful about displaying any loyalty to Michael.
‘I heard what happened,’ he said. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Nothing happened.’
‘Yes it did.’
They were in a corridor, with other boys coming and going. Freddy dragged him to the changing rooms, where they were alone among the rows of pegs, each loaded with its boy-shaped, sweat-and-mud-streaked collection of tracksuits and rugby shirts. The place was rank with boy smell.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked again.
‘I’m fine.’
‘What happened?’
Freddy was impressed by Michael’s hitherto unrevealed capacity for violence, but what interested him more was the psychological element of the confrontation.
‘Well, are you a poof?’
‘What?’
‘Something made you hit him.’
‘Well, I’m not a poof. Are you?’ Michael really didn’t want to have to punch Freddy too.
‘No.’
‘Fine. That’s that settled then.’
Michael wanted to get away, and started walking towards the door. Suddenly Freddy said, ‘But I think my brother is.’
This was