had to know the whys and wherefores. For instance, it wasn’t enough for him just to know the date of the South Sea Bubble or the Treaty of Utrecht or the Bill of Rights or the War of Jenkins’ Ear, he would go on questioning until either the teacher became irritated or until he was satisfied. As a result he would never write the regulation five lines on anything. His account of the Wars of the Roses covered two sides of paper and yet he seemed to do it in the same time it took Toby and the others to write their five lines. The teachers put it down to inexperience, to lack of early training at his Council school. He would catch up, in time.
But in divinity it was quite evident that he had no catching up to do at all. The local vicar, the Reverend Jolyon – ‘Holy Jo’ the boys called him – came in every Friday and Tuesday morning to teach divinity. Always nervous and uneasy in front of the boys, they knew it and ragged him mercilessly, even calling him ‘Holy Jo’ to his face. In all the time Toby had known him he had never once lost his temper and Toby admired him for that. But now with Christopher in the class Holy Jo became a changed man, for it was soon clear to him and to everyone else that Christopher knew his Bible through and through. He knew all the parables and what’s more he understood what they meant. He could quote the prophecies of Isaiah and many of the Proverbs. He knew Psalm 23 and the Sermon on the Mount by heart. Holy Jo grew visibly happier and more relaxed as each lesson demonstrated yet greater depths of Christopher’s knowledge and understanding.
Toby was there when Holy Jo called Christopher to his desk after the lesson was over. ‘Christopher,’ he said, ‘is your father a vicar by any chance?’
‘No,’ said Christopher. ‘He’s a carpenter, makes doors, windows and things.’
‘Well I’m amazed,’ said Holy Jo, shaking his head. ‘Utterly amazed. We must talk more, we must talk more.’
Rugby was every afternoon, whatever the weather, except Sundays and Tuesdays. Tuesday was cross-country running. Christopher’s trunk hadn’t arrived until the second week of term and when he first turned out on the rugby pitch he looked very fragile in his shorts. Toby saw him wandering on to the pitch and he seemed to be in a world of his own. Pricey asked him if he’d ever played rugby before and he shook his head. ‘I’ve played football,’ he said. ‘What do you have to do?’ Everyone laughed at that.
‘Well it’s quite simple really,’ said Pricey. ‘You just pick up the ball and run with it. You run all the way down the pitch and you touch it down over the line. And anyone on the other side – you’ve got a blue shirt on, so that means the reds – anyone in a red shirt will try to tackle you and if you see anyone in a red shirt with the ball then you tackle him. We’ll show him Hunter, shall we?’ Hunter threw the ball to Porter, who tried half-heartedly to run past him. No one runs past Hunter. The tackle came in hard and low and Porter was lifted into the air before he crashed to the ground, the breath knocked out of him. ‘See?’ Pricey laughed. ‘Like that.’
But Christopher seemed already to have lost interest.
Pricey put him on the right wing for that first game so he wouldn’t get hurt and he had a quiet word with the reds to take it easy. ‘Let him in gently,’ he said, which of course was not at all what the reds had in mind.
Whenever Toby looked up from the base of his scrum Christopher was standing, hands behind his back, often facing the wrong way, often offside. Toby told him time and again that he had to keep behind the ball, but Christopher was not listening. He kept gazing up at the clouds, as if he was looking for a plane, Toby thought. Then Runcy sliced a kick and the ball bounced across the field and came to rest at Christopher’s feet. He looked down at it as if it was some kind of intrusion. Pricey shouted at him. They all shouted. ‘Pick it up! Pick it up!’ Christopher bent down and picked up the ball in both hands. ‘Run, run!’ Toby shouted. He seemed not to know which way to run. ‘That way!’ Toby cried, haring across the pitch towards him and pointing to the goal posts. For a moment Christopher stood looking at the red shirts as they came at him. Then he started running slowly, tentatively, sideways across the field. They were screaming at him to pass it. If he heard them, he didn’t appear to understand. Hunter was running alongside him. ‘Here, here! Pass it!’ And then Christopher stopped dead in his tracks and turned to face the pack of converging red shirts.
Toby expected, and everyone expected, that he would just throw the ball in the air or drop it. He did neither. Instead he tucked the ball under his arm and ran at them. He sliced his way through them, going like the wind for the corner flag. When the cover came across to tackle him he simply bounced off his outside foot and wrong-footed them all, including Porter who was left floundering by the touch-line. Christopher touched the ball down between the posts and stood wiping the mud off his hands. There was no whistle. Pricey was so stunned he had forgotten to blow it. The boys stood gaping and silent except for Toby who ran up and clapped him on the shoulder. He felt suddenly very proud of Christopher and very fond too. ‘Well done!’ he said, picking up the ball. He noticed that Christopher was hardly breathing. He’d just run fifty yards and he was hardly breathing.
In the communal bath afterwards Toby and Christopher sat side by side, chest deep in hot brown water, scrubbing the mud off their knees. The bath was the size of a small swimming-pool. From the other end Porter was glaring at them. ‘Hey you! New bug!’ The bath fell silent.
Christopher was splashing water over his face. ‘Me?’
‘Yes, you. I was watching you. You never tackled, not once. Anyone can run.’
‘I suppose so,’ said Christopher, stepping out of the bath and picking up his towel.
‘Bit of a coward then, are you?’ Porter had his blood up. Toby knew how it would end. He got out too and tried to lead Christopher away. But Christopher would not leave.
‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s not that. I just don’t want to tackle, that’s all. There’s no point in hurting someone, not if you don’t have to. Doesn’t help.’
‘Doesn’t help what?’ Porter was out of the bath now and advancing towards Christopher, flicking his towel at him.
‘Leave him be,’ said Toby, surprised at his sudden surge of courage, ‘he hasn’t done anything.’
Hunter tried to restrain Porter from behind but Porter shook him off. They were nose to nose now, Runcy egging Porter on. ‘Fight! Fight!’ The cry went up from all around the changing-rooms and the wash-room filled with boys, silent with eager anticipation. Christopher stood, his towel around his waist and looked back at Porter, unflinching.
‘It’s always the same with your kind,’ Porter sneered. ‘You’re an oik, aren’t you?’ and he pushed Christopher in the chest. ‘Come from an oik’s school, didn’t you?’
‘Using force is a sign of weakness,’ Christopher replied coolly. ‘Think about it. Just because you knock someone down, doesn’t make you right, does it? You can hit me if you like. Whatever you do I won’t hit you back, so there really isn’t any point in starting anything, is there?’ And he walked away.
Porter blurted a few words of vicious invective, stabbing his finger at the departing Christopher. ‘Next time, oik!’ he bellowed. ‘Just you wait. Next time!’
Toby followed Christopher out. ‘Jesus,’ Toby said, whistling through his teeth. ‘You got lucky.’
Christopher stopped suddenly and turned on him. ‘Please don’t blaspheme,’ he said quietly. ‘And understand this, Toby, with me nothing is lucky, nothing is unlucky. Everything is meant.’
Each day at school was a ritual of meals and lessons
