Read Online Sail Upon the Land by Josa Young - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Josa Young
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more than a term of it Bert was used to the slaps and jibes about his previous schooling, but he still wasn’t used to Greek. It was a passion for Eggy who couldn’t bear to be ignored when teaching his pet subject. Incomprehensible squiggles instead of the usual Roman alphabet had simply switched off Bert’s attention.
Bert found Eggy to be a peculiar man, but he had an accepting nature. He wasn’t particularly used to men at all, not having a father, and Eggy seemed always to be about to explode, his face red, his eyes watering. Hoping to keep out of Eggy’s way, Bert just kept his head down and did nothing to attract attention. The inmates of Reynolds House split neatly into two groups: a minority of sporty boys who hated and despised Eggy as a jumped-up little social climber (Bert thought he wasn’t in a position to judge) versus those who revered his classical scholarship and wanted to follow him to Oxford. Reynolds boasted a disproportionate number of Oxford Greats entrants due to Eggy’s dubious but unrelenting efforts.
Eggy loathed any kind of sport and tried to force the classics into all members of his little fiefdom, promoting his pet scholars as prefects and heads of house. Set apart from the main block, Reynolds House had a reputation for being peopled by swots and was thus ignored by the rest of the school.
Bert didn’t fit into either group. He wasn’t particularly sporty. He could hold his own at both football and cricket, although he disliked rugby. But it was too late for him to develop a passion for the classics. He much preferred history. Quite soon, he realised that he had been assigned to an unpopular house, replacing a boy who had left in the middle of the Lent term.
The abrupt disappearance of Tomkins had been preceded by a perfect hailstorm of slaps, according to Bert’s new housemates. When Eggy erupted, which he frequently did, boys jumped out of the way. Beating was falling out of favour, but that didn’t prevent an atmosphere of barely suppressed violence. Eggy had one redeeming feature, his plump and gentle wife Marjorie. She provided a haven of tea and ginger biscuits and organised a ‘house-father’ programme, where she picked a boy in the year above to help all new boys find their feet.
Bert had arrived at the beginning of the summer term. He'd been invited to get there early to meet his house-father and settle down a bit before the rest of Reynolds House barged in, high on testosterone and holiday-flavoured boasting. Mrs Featherstone had assigned as house-father to Bert a boy called Richard Payge. Payge had comparatively liberal leanings and a benign nature. His mother was an artist and his father a vague and dilapidated landowner of ancient lineage and few material assets. There was in the Payge family none of the rampant snobbery that infected public schools like a rash. Mrs Featherstone had waited for Bert in the hall when he first arrived and greeted him kindly, introducing him to fourteen-year-old Payge who was hovering behind her well-briefed and ready to do his stuff.
The taxi driver, who had brought him up to school on his first day, having deposited his new trunk in the front hall, came back to help him carry his cumbersome food hamper into the House Study. Glancing round, paralysed with shyness, he saw in every cubbyhole a wooden box, some pristine and new, some shiny with use and engraved with graffiti, all with black metal hasps and corners. He remembered, from being shown round with his mother, that these were called ‘tuck boxes’ and contained the boys’ treats. No one else had a hamper. He felt uneasy and exposed by this difference, when all he wanted to do was fade into the scarred panelling.
‘What’s that you’ve got, Hayes?’ enquired Payge immediately.
Sugar rationing had ended, and the bulging hamper contained a large fruit cake, tartan biscuit tins of shortbread, a can opener to deal with all the ham, turkey in jelly, condensed milk and fruit
Bert found Eggy to be a peculiar man, but he had an accepting nature. He wasn’t particularly used to men at all, not having a father, and Eggy seemed always to be about to explode, his face red, his eyes watering. Hoping to keep out of Eggy’s way, Bert just kept his head down and did nothing to attract attention. The inmates of Reynolds House split neatly into two groups: a minority of sporty boys who hated and despised Eggy as a jumped-up little social climber (Bert thought he wasn’t in a position to judge) versus those who revered his classical scholarship and wanted to follow him to Oxford. Reynolds boasted a disproportionate number of Oxford Greats entrants due to Eggy’s dubious but unrelenting efforts.
Eggy loathed any kind of sport and tried to force the classics into all members of his little fiefdom, promoting his pet scholars as prefects and heads of house. Set apart from the main block, Reynolds House had a reputation for being peopled by swots and was thus ignored by the rest of the school.
Bert didn’t fit into either group. He wasn’t particularly sporty. He could hold his own at both football and cricket, although he disliked rugby. But it was too late for him to develop a passion for the classics. He much preferred history. Quite soon, he realised that he had been assigned to an unpopular house, replacing a boy who had left in the middle of the Lent term.
The abrupt disappearance of Tomkins had been preceded by a perfect hailstorm of slaps, according to Bert’s new housemates. When Eggy erupted, which he frequently did, boys jumped out of the way. Beating was falling out of favour, but that didn’t prevent an atmosphere of barely suppressed violence. Eggy had one redeeming feature, his plump and gentle wife Marjorie. She provided a haven of tea and ginger biscuits and organised a ‘house-father’ programme, where she picked a boy in the year above to help all new boys find their feet.
Bert had arrived at the beginning of the summer term. He'd been invited to get there early to meet his house-father and settle down a bit before the rest of Reynolds House barged in, high on testosterone and holiday-flavoured boasting. Mrs Featherstone had assigned as house-father to Bert a boy called Richard Payge. Payge had comparatively liberal leanings and a benign nature. His mother was an artist and his father a vague and dilapidated landowner of ancient lineage and few material assets. There was in the Payge family none of the rampant snobbery that infected public schools like a rash. Mrs Featherstone had waited for Bert in the hall when he first arrived and greeted him kindly, introducing him to fourteen-year-old Payge who was hovering behind her well-briefed and ready to do his stuff.
The taxi driver, who had brought him up to school on his first day, having deposited his new trunk in the front hall, came back to help him carry his cumbersome food hamper into the House Study. Glancing round, paralysed with shyness, he saw in every cubbyhole a wooden box, some pristine and new, some shiny with use and engraved with graffiti, all with black metal hasps and corners. He remembered, from being shown round with his mother, that these were called ‘tuck boxes’ and contained the boys’ treats. No one else had a hamper. He felt uneasy and exposed by this difference, when all he wanted to do was fade into the scarred panelling.
‘What’s that you’ve got, Hayes?’ enquired Payge immediately.
Sugar rationing had ended, and the bulging hamper contained a large fruit cake, tartan biscuit tins of shortbread, a can opener to deal with all the ham, turkey in jelly, condensed milk and fruit
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