Read Online The White Devil by Justin Evans - Free Book Online
Authors: Justin Evans
Tags: Fiction
Ads: Link
picked up the clues:
Both adults wore black—black raincoats, black suit, black dress.
The woman looked expensive but wore no jewelry.
Sorrow fogged over their faces. Their eyes were watery. Their frowns deep. Watching them, you had the sense that the funniest joke, the wildest adventure, could not rouse in them a speck of joy, not if you tried for weeks.
And there was something else. It pulsed from the two grown-ups as they stood staring at the boys.
Bitterness. Envy. Resentment at the living. They clearly had not expected to see such a crowd, and the sentiment just slipped out of them. Hot blood coursed through all these boys’ veins . . . while their son Theo lay refrigerating in some London funeral home.
The crowd of damp boys hung back. Fawkes motioned for the couple to move toward the stairwell. They were on their way to Theo’s room to retrieve his belongings. But the standoff continued. Mr. and Mrs. Ryder were transfixed by the vision of all these uniformed copies of their son.
Rhys Davies broke the spell. He strode across the foyer and extended his hand to Mr. Ryder, then to Mrs. Ryder.
“Theo was the best of us,” he said.
One by one, and then in small groups, all the boys, the Sixth Formers and the smallest Shell, followed Rhys, crossing to the grieving couple and shaking their hands. They expressed their condolences or just smiled briefly and sympathetically and moved on. Fawkes watched, surprised but gratified. The parents smiled to the extent that they could. They shook hands; they murmured politely and nodded. The father was a great sunburned ape, with feathery blond hair and heavy lips, and to their surprise it was he, not the mother, who began to blubber. He was too overwhelmed and too polite to pause and find a handkerchief, so he kept on shaking hands and nodding and thanking the boys while tears slicked his face.
MATRON OPENED ANDREW’S door some time later, huffing as usual.
“I’ve been looking for you,” she said. “This came for you. From Sir Alan Vine’s daughter.”
Her vinegary tone left no doubt that she questioned what business Andrew had communicating with Sir Alan Vine’s daughter. She held out a small purple envelope.
Andrew Taylor , the envelope announced in girlishly looping blue ink. Matron retreated. He ripped it open.
Andrew,
Pick me up at Headland after supper tomorrow and we’ll surprise Piers with his new Byron.
Persephone
PS If possible please learn to act before then.
PPS Sorry about your friend.
He smiled his lopsided smile in spite of himself. Just what he needed, he thought. More drama.
4
A Play About a Caterpillar
THAT FUCKING JUTE.
Piers Fawkes burst through his own door, sweeping with him wind, rain, elm leaves in a whirl, hands shaking with anger and alcoholic craving.
Enduring his crap, that’s what it was— enduring . It had been Fawkes, after all, who had driven in the ambulance to the morgue, with the gurney holding the body bag jostling his knees on the turns. It was he who had accompanied the body to the dungeons of the hospital (and who had then burst from its doors and hiked a half mile to some random suburban hotel—with, mercifully, a pub—to down two pints and suck countless cigarettes in an attempt to wash away that image of the stainless steel tables—like oversize kitchen sinks, he could not help observing; designed to drain fluids). After the postmortem, he had signed the death certificate. All the requirements of a housemaster, a lone man in loco parentis, suddenly transformed from the caretaker of sixty boys to the Factotum of Death for one. God, what a nightmare.
And after all this, because of that ridiculous school meeting, the headmaster had the gall to chew him out. Badly. For an hour. Taking it out on him.
Had it really been Fawkes’s idea to invite the doctor? He didn’t even remember, frankly. ( Let them hear it for themselves . Had he said that, or Jute?) But Jute pinned it on him. The boys respect
Both adults wore black—black raincoats, black suit, black dress.
The woman looked expensive but wore no jewelry.
Sorrow fogged over their faces. Their eyes were watery. Their frowns deep. Watching them, you had the sense that the funniest joke, the wildest adventure, could not rouse in them a speck of joy, not if you tried for weeks.
And there was something else. It pulsed from the two grown-ups as they stood staring at the boys.
Bitterness. Envy. Resentment at the living. They clearly had not expected to see such a crowd, and the sentiment just slipped out of them. Hot blood coursed through all these boys’ veins . . . while their son Theo lay refrigerating in some London funeral home.
The crowd of damp boys hung back. Fawkes motioned for the couple to move toward the stairwell. They were on their way to Theo’s room to retrieve his belongings. But the standoff continued. Mr. and Mrs. Ryder were transfixed by the vision of all these uniformed copies of their son.
Rhys Davies broke the spell. He strode across the foyer and extended his hand to Mr. Ryder, then to Mrs. Ryder.
“Theo was the best of us,” he said.
One by one, and then in small groups, all the boys, the Sixth Formers and the smallest Shell, followed Rhys, crossing to the grieving couple and shaking their hands. They expressed their condolences or just smiled briefly and sympathetically and moved on. Fawkes watched, surprised but gratified. The parents smiled to the extent that they could. They shook hands; they murmured politely and nodded. The father was a great sunburned ape, with feathery blond hair and heavy lips, and to their surprise it was he, not the mother, who began to blubber. He was too overwhelmed and too polite to pause and find a handkerchief, so he kept on shaking hands and nodding and thanking the boys while tears slicked his face.
MATRON OPENED ANDREW’S door some time later, huffing as usual.
“I’ve been looking for you,” she said. “This came for you. From Sir Alan Vine’s daughter.”
Her vinegary tone left no doubt that she questioned what business Andrew had communicating with Sir Alan Vine’s daughter. She held out a small purple envelope.
Andrew Taylor , the envelope announced in girlishly looping blue ink. Matron retreated. He ripped it open.
Andrew,
Pick me up at Headland after supper tomorrow and we’ll surprise Piers with his new Byron.
Persephone
PS If possible please learn to act before then.
PPS Sorry about your friend.
He smiled his lopsided smile in spite of himself. Just what he needed, he thought. More drama.
4
A Play About a Caterpillar
THAT FUCKING JUTE.
Piers Fawkes burst through his own door, sweeping with him wind, rain, elm leaves in a whirl, hands shaking with anger and alcoholic craving.
Enduring his crap, that’s what it was— enduring . It had been Fawkes, after all, who had driven in the ambulance to the morgue, with the gurney holding the body bag jostling his knees on the turns. It was he who had accompanied the body to the dungeons of the hospital (and who had then burst from its doors and hiked a half mile to some random suburban hotel—with, mercifully, a pub—to down two pints and suck countless cigarettes in an attempt to wash away that image of the stainless steel tables—like oversize kitchen sinks, he could not help observing; designed to drain fluids). After the postmortem, he had signed the death certificate. All the requirements of a housemaster, a lone man in loco parentis, suddenly transformed from the caretaker of sixty boys to the Factotum of Death for one. God, what a nightmare.
And after all this, because of that ridiculous school meeting, the headmaster had the gall to chew him out. Badly. For an hour. Taking it out on him.
Had it really been Fawkes’s idea to invite the doctor? He didn’t even remember, frankly. ( Let them hear it for themselves . Had he said that, or Jute?) But Jute pinned it on him. The boys respect
Similar Books
