IS THIS THE PROMISED END?

Only learning lay ahead of this night, for education ended here; isolated far up on a hot summer night in the tower. We had waited for this, and as cigarette smoke filled the room with an impression of finality we considered the spent years. Far below the band finished another number, the discotheque ground and grooved to a momentary halt for the presentations. No-one looked out of the window.

We had found the key easily enough and made our way up the battered circular staircase, torn wood protracting, symptoms of the exodus, when we had left this tower to extinction. It was condemned to represent past glory by its figure and flagpole. From far below a spotlight was focused onto the second floor window where we unobtrusively gathered, silently formulating our own thoughts.

Soon the dance was moving again, swirling its pretensions thru the night. Sixty years at the present site of the school was the excuse for the occasion. Parents, friends, and boys had joined their annual functions to comprise a massive ball, with “discotheque and ballroom facilities … to which the senior boys of the school are invited, suitably attired”. And so inevitably we, the boys, had been turned away for wearing the fashions of another generation. And to us, seated on the wooden boards, the school at that moment appeared the archetype of perverted snobbery – epitomized by this display of vulgarity. I felt as though I had waited eleven long years for this night to arrive, this chance to study from a detached viewpoint the scene of so many successes and failures, now altogether inadequate. Detached because it was the end, and I was outside their jurisdiction, no reprisals could ensue from the school now; but still involved because my life had been and always would be inextricably bound up in this school. Give us a child at the age of seven! I was a boarder for life.

But what was it being a boarder. Images of stale Sundays spent pumping a deflated football around the gymnasium, of endless arguments and sweat pouring off one’s body in futile persuasion, merged with other recollections. Those of Friday evenings with no money to go out, and so relapsing into apathy and coffee, intermingled with old records and house gossip. The maxim that had been prevalent throughout my boarding life had been the old one of looking after the small things. But tomorrow, or at least next term those petty grievances would again be defined to no avail. New buildings would be put up, but not curtains. These things would not change. They were the status quo, not this annual revulsion beneath us. The circular had been wired announcing the ball ‘an evening in for everyone’ and in the dormitories surrounding the quad hardened cynics lay awake, not bothering to blot out the stereo of classical and modern music that stemmed from the loudspeakers on the grass.

Nigel was staying on, as was Roger, and it was not the end for them, they did not look out considering everything past and present in the vein of uncertainty and conclusion that we did. But they remembered, and that night we talked about most of the events, remarkably un important, unchronologically, which in the future we would disregard as in our youth. We talked together because words were still our means of communication. Elsewhere we would perhaps learn other methods. Constantly coughing in the heat of that room, for the night was warm and the smoke conjured a haze, we talked of canings, by different hse-masters and of relative strengths and styles. We reminisced about the masters, a long line of men, who had either won a certain degree of respect or had left leaving bitterness. They were mostly the victims of incommunication and differing ideals, a fact some had labeled the generation gap. The permanencies were few, they could almost be counted on one hand. It was us who were the permanent ones, for we had little choice, it had all been decided for us. But of them yearnings for revenge had faded as always with the absence of communication, only one or two individuals could rouse hate not laughter, although the whole were ingrained within me.

Together we spoke of those two summer holidays, cycling in the Pennines and on the barge in Wales. We should not of, out loud we joked amidst remembrances of single and joint misfortunes but there was a silence afterwards which adequately explained the reason for no repeat performance. Backgrounds, attitudes, ideals all played a part but ultimately we had been conditioned by the place that we had met in; nicknames were retained, that same savage but always concealed competition that is the basis of the public school had been present and had shone thru. ---- But these were happenings out of school, conditioned by the place and with schoolfriends, but unbedogged by the necessity of obedience to ritual, tradition and that dogmatic belief in the schools ideals which are imposed upon you.

Others found it possible to remember those beautiful summer days, lying out on the jumping bags under a burning sun, listening to the radio, while minute clouds spelt out lazy existence. Even their memories of winter were of goals produced out of nowhere in muddy goalmouths creating myths in their minds of self-brilliance. But I saw back to three years ago, that winter; it was only too easy to remember those dreary days spent in the old library, reading reference books, and journals long cast aside by others. Quotes still flooded to the mind, the humour and insight of Saki, the profundity of Pope. But life is built on escapism and some Saturday evenings, I used occasionally to take the train into London and walk along Shaftesbury Avenue idly reading the press cuttings and seeing the grandeur of the artistic world. It seemed far removed from the sordidity of the suburban station in whose alley were earnestly scribbled the words ‘God forgive America’. The recollections lent little humour. We were charged emotionally, bitter and sentimental, a combination that went badly together, like stale chewing gum, it had lost its novelty, we knew the taste of the place too well to enjoy it.

It was Tim who had suggested bringing the record player up and although initially I would have preferred just to sit and talk, I was glad of its background presence. Near the end someone put on a West Coast singer and I listened to it remembering times gone by. “Everybody’s going out and having fun, I’m a fool for staying in and having none”. Those evenings that had stretched eternity from tea until midnight in the study shone back, and I knew that boredom and frustration must nearly have ended. Surely it would not be the same any more, it was only at school that people are so bored; but as the song ended I had a sudden premonition that those words would flash back at me in the future years.

The wind seemed to almost sway the tower as a sudden breeze rippled the marquee covering more violently than usual. Perhaps the good weather was going to break, the door creaked loudly on the roof, the tank groaned louder, and the moon disappeared momentarily, as the spotlights split the night theatrically into a dancing sequence, focusing vivid tones of colour onto the dull brick. The light decorative canvas banners would collapse if they were to get wet. I moved away from the window and for the first time ever up there was gripped with a tense fear of claustrophobia. The close confinement of that tower in a physical sense reflected to me the mental confinement of the educational system that had slowly embittered me. I wanted to leave but instead climbed up the stairs onto the roof.

I superimposed upon the view my own favourite one from that tower. A beautiful sight, on a wet night with the South Circular stretching a flickering ring of lights around our own part of London, the bespattered homes, which were lovely in their ugliness. It was a sentimental attraction above all else. In those houses lay a million people, who were they? Pinter’s people? Always scared in a comic delusion of security. They were what we aspired to, a semi-detached in South London. And had we any right to expect any more? No, indeed, we had not. “Be thankful” was our unspoken motto, which we trod like dirt into the ground. “He that is tired of London, is tired of life”. From that tower I could never tire of the view, I was just so tired of the viewpoint. I came down again, it was the only direction.

What had the school given us, I wondered. Unity? Yes, for otherwise we would never have been in that room that night. But that was self-deception, for what use would unity be. Self-dependency was the goal that should have been set, though not like Lawrence’s ‘Man Who Loved Islands’, a goal of utter self-containment.

Up thru the morning air now came the strains of the ‘Last Waltz’. We smiled at the irony, and Simon did his imitation of the Headmaster’s wife ensnaring the youngest and most embarrassed of the masters. During his dance oddly enough the fullness of the implications of leaving came to me. Since the age of seven, and thirty-three terms ago, I had been striving towards a seemingly faraway golden moment, that ultimate time of freedom. Now I realized that the precious moment was really a fearful anti-climax for we were not going to be free. It was all a façade – we had been lied to.

There is a sadness in departure because of the nostalgia that it stirs amongst those who look back together, and the sadness and memories of friends and moments past and present kept us together and brought about a silence in that small enclosed room. And in that brief quietness we came as near to achieving the victory over language as we ever would. We were all looking elsewhere, at the scar-stained walls or out of the round blank windows. After a while however, the record player took over again. It was the last track “I’m going to give you until the morning comes, until the morning comes, until the morning comes … I’m only waiting until the morning comes”. The needle did not lift itself up automatically, but stayed lying in the groove as the record revolved methodically. Eventually Nigel picked it up, he would be coming back but his thoughts were on a parallel plane as ours. Even Pete didn’t comment on the words, and nobody laughed as we filed down the stairs bending round and round, and the steps we had taken appeared great and small. But we had passed them all now, and as I looked back into the darkness it seemed that each step was perhaps one of those happy days, sad days, disillusioned, hopeful, nostalgic, emotionless, Beatles days which had as yet been my life.

A car nosed down the drive threading its way thru eager walkers. No-one in particular waved or made any acknowledgement as another emissary of the synthetic generation turned left out of the gate on the summer holiday that was life. The car was piled up with trunk, suitcases and other assorted baggage which obscured any view thru the inside mirror. The occupant of the car forgot to cancel the indicator. He was also earnestly reflecting – upon whether this was really the moment of promise towards which he had constantly been led.