now, nearly six foot, his fat turning to heavy muscle. He was loud and swaggering and he led, as always, a little bunch of cronies. One day, as Frank passed his group in the corridor, Lumsden leaned forward and, without a word, punched him hard in the stomach, as he had that day long ago when Frank let fly at him. Frank doubled up, gasping desperately for breath. Lumsden and his friends laughed and walked away.
Lumsden wouldn’t let him alone after that. He and his friends would come up to Frank and swing their arms low, do the monkey routine. Then one day Lumsden placed himself in front of Frank in the corridor, and asked why he was such a fuckin’ useless grinning spastic chimp, why didn’t he bloody say something for himself? He wanted a response; he wouldn’t be satisfied with Frank’s usual silence. Frank looked up into the bully’s eyes; they were large and bright blue behind his glasses, they seemed to spark and flash with rage.
‘Please,’ Frank said. ‘I haven’t
‘Why the fuck should we leave you alone?’ The big boy frowned, genuinely angry. ‘Ye silly, grinning wee idjit, ye’re a disgrace to the school, crawling round the place like a daft monkey. Are ye not?’
‘No! Just leave me alone.’ And then, losing control, Frank shouted out, ‘You’re evil!’
Lumsden grabbed Frank’s arm with a damp, meaty hand, swivelled him round and twisted the arm behind his back. ‘Ye’re a fuckin’ grinning wee chimp! Aren’t ye?’ He twisted harder, making Frank cry out with pain. ‘Go on, say it!’
Frank looked desperately round at Lumsden’s friends; they were smiling, eyes bright as their leader’s. He said, gasping out the words, ‘I’m – a grinning – wee chimp!’ There was laughter. One of Lumsden’s friends said eagerly, ‘The wee spastic’s going t’cry!’
One of the other boys whispered, ‘Teacher!’ A black-gowned figure could be seen, approaching from the other end of the corridor. Lumsden let Frank go. As he staggered away he spat a threat. ‘Evil, eh? We’ll show you fuckin’ evil, Monkey, don’t you worry about that.’
He came to himself with a jump; the door to the main ward was half closed and from outside he heard the crash of glass, then cries and running feet and a scuffle. Frank was scared.
Moments later the door opened and Ben came in. He had been frowning but when he saw Frank his face relaxed into a smile. ‘Och,’ he said. ‘You’re in here again.’
Frank shrank into his chair. ‘What’s happening in the ward?’
‘Nothing to worry about. The new patient, Copthorne, put his fist through the glass. Tried to slash his wrist.’ Ben spoke casually; suicide attempts often happened in the asylum despite all the precautions against them.
‘Why?’ Frank asked.
Ben shrugged. ‘No’ sure. He’d been to the church service; maybe something in the sermon upset him. Anyway, listen, your pal will be here in a few hours. You can see him in here if you like, I’ll keep other folk out.’
‘Thanks.’
Ben looked at him closely. ‘You seem a bit woozy. Not quite with us.’
‘I’m okay.’
Frank was conscious that the room was cold, the central heating radiator in the corner giving out only its usual low heat. His bad hand ached. He rubbed it.
Voices sounded from outside. Frank thought he heard Dr Wilson’s. ‘I’ll have tae go,’ Ben said. ‘The big brass will want to know all about Copthorne. You’ll be going round the airing courts after lunch, try and get your head clear for your friend coming, eh?’ Frank looked up into Ben’s sharp brown eyes and thought again,
During that terrible autumn term at Strangmans Frank felt in danger all the time. If Lumsden’s group passed him in the corridor or sat anywhere nearby in the dining room, they would give him deadly looks. Once, from a couple of tables away, Lumsden drew a finger menacingly across his throat. Frank felt safer when the day boys had left and he was in the bug-hut. They had a quiet study room there, usually with a master on duty, and it was the safest place to spend the evenings. It was in the afternoons, when many of the day boys stayed behind to play rugby or train with the school cadet force, that Frank was most afraid of running into danger.
A red-and-white bus from Edinburgh ran past the school gates, bringing the day boys out from the city in the mornings and back in the afternoons. Its terminus was some way to the south, in the foothills of the Pentland Hills. In the afternoons, once classes were over, Frank took to going out of the gates and catching the near-empty bus, riding to the terminus and back again. It took half an hour or so each way. He would take a book and read. Sometimes he would make the return journey twice in one afternoon. The conductors gave him curious looks and once or twice asked why he kept travelling to and fro. He said he just liked the ride. He always had his penny ready for the fare.
The terminus was a little lay-by, the hills all around. The bus waited for twenty minutes before turning back, the driver and conductor sitting in a little wooden shelter drinking tea from Thermos flasks and smoking. Sometimes Frank would go for a little walk down a footpath, towards the hills. If it was one of those windy days when clouds scudded across the sky, the alternating light and dark on the hills was beautiful. Sometimes he thought of just continuing to walk, on and on into the Pentlands, until eventually, sometime in the night, he would drop from exhaustion. But as autumn turned to the early Scottish winter, and there were days of cold rain and sometimes streaks of snow high in the hills, he thought defiantly, why should I let the bastards make me go and die out there in the cold?
At the last assembly before the Christmas holidays, the headmaster announced that cross-country runs would take place on Wednesday afternoons next term, unless there was heavy snow. Over Christmas Frank’s mother had to buy him running shoes, complaining at the cost.
Frank hoped that snow might prevent the runs but when he returned to school in January the weather was mild and damp. And so, on the first Wednesday of term, Frank found himself in the big changing room next to the gym that reeked of sweat and old socks. As he had feared, Lumsden was there with a couple of his friends; as he changed into his singlet and shorts Frank avoided their eyes. He would try to stay near the teacher who was going with them.
They set off, a hundred boys trotting out of the school gates and into the hills. The gym teacher, an enormous former Scotland rugby player called Fraser, shouted to the boys to keep moving to stay warm, set a good steady pace and they’d be fine.
Frank did his best to keep up with Fraser, but a life sitting in classrooms, on buses and hiding under the chairs meant he was unfit. The new running shoes were tight and soon began to pinch his feet. The long line of boys became more strung out, the bigger and fitter ones at the front, laggards like Frank at the back. Mr Fraser ran near the front, looking behind him only occasionally, and Frank fell further and further to the rear, though he was relieved to see that Lumsden and his two friends were well ahead.
As they ran up the first hill more and more boys fell behind. Mr Fraser didn’t realize, or didn’t care, that many of them couldn’t keep up the pace he set. By the time a panting Frank reached the top of the first hill Mr Fraser and the leading boys at the front were out of sight over the crest of the next one. One boy just ahead collapsed onto the wet grass with a groan, clutching a stitch in his side. A little afterwards two others, realizing the teacher was well out of sight, stopped running and sat down, too.
Frank pressed on, towards a clump of bushes and rowan trees nestling in the dip between the two hills. He was the last one now. He thought, I can hide in there. He felt a little dizzy, his heart was racing and his feet were very sore. There was a narrow path through the trees and here, out of sight, he sat down with a gasp on a carpet of damp leaves, his back against the trunk of a rowan. He pulled off the running shoes with relief, his feet throbbing, and closed his eyes. His breathing gradually returned to normal. He became conscious of the leaves under his bare legs, cold sweat drying on his body. Then he smelt something, a familiar smell, rich but sharp. He sat up suddenly, heart pounding. Lumsden and his friends, each smoking a cigarette, were standing looking at him from a few yards away, their arms and legs red and blotchy from the cold. Lumsden was smirking. His eyes, fixed on Frank’s, were coldly predatory, like a cat’s.
‘Look at this,’ he said. His voice was very sharp and clear. ‘The babe in the woods. The monkey, anyway.’ The three boys walked towards him. Frank scrambled up but Lumsden gave him a heavy push that sent him staggering back against the tree.
‘We’ve no’ seen ye for a wee while, Monkey,’ said McTaggart, a tall, rangy boy with black hair. His tone was friendly, but with an edge of menace to it.
‘Uh-huh,’ the third boy agreed. ‘It’s as though he was avoiding us, ye’d think he didn’t like us.’
