Here Be Monsters

'Oh, but you are, dear boy, you are!' The old man searched for his glass on the flagstones, and then sipped from it. 'Lucky in love - to have such a beautiful and understanding wife, and intelligent to boot… and a daughter who takes after her mother, not her father.' He set down the glass carefully. 'Lucky to be a round peg in a round hole - or whatever shape it is, it is your shape, at all events.' He looked at Elizabeth. 'Lucky in this instance too, to have so loyal and persuasive a colleague - undeservedly lucky there indeed, as in those other regards.' He smiled at Elizabeth. 'And he was lucky in war, also. For I vividly recall - all too vividly still! - having occasion to trace the route of his armoured regiment across the Norman bocage, shortly after its passage therein… Purely by chance, you understand, Elizabeth. For I had other fish to fry… But it was not difficult - it was well-marked with burnt-out tanks and the fresh graves of their occupants. So many, in fact, that I gave up stopping to check identities after a while, where there were identities, as the odds on finding his name shortened. For I wasn't so sure that he was so lucky then, you see.' He switched to Audley suddenly. 'Forty years to the day now, that would be, almost - eh, dear boy!'

And the Pointe du Hoc too, give or take a week or two, thought Elizabeth as she switched also.

Audley's face was a blank mask. 'You said you were getting something, Willy. But I don't see anything. And I'm hearing nothing whatsoever of interest.'

Mr Willis raised a mottled hand. 'Season your impatience! ' Comes the deer to my singing -

Comes the deer to my song' - you remember that Red Indian poem we found, about the hunter lying in wait? You have sung your song, so now I have sung mine, over the telephone just a moment ago. And you are still most undeservedly lucky, because this deer is getting into his Jaguar car not far away - very close, indeed - and coming, because I have asked him to do so… And that he is even here, in his little house across the hill, is further proof of your outrageous luck, when he could have been the other side of the country, in his new factory in the Cambridge Science Park. Although, I do admit that I did ask him to dummy2

stay, after you telephoned me this morning.'

'Who, Willy?' Audley interrupted him sharply.

'Wait and see. Meanwhile I shall use these unforgiving minutes to tell you what you don't know about Waltham School.' He reached down for his glass, but raised his eyes to Elizabeth as his hand closed on it. 'Or perhaps you do, eh?'

The eyes were sharp and bright, belying the rest of the face. 'It's a very good school, I believe, Mr Willis.'

That's not the half of it, my dear.' He let the hock-and-Seltzer moisten his lips. 'Waltham is that rare perfect blend of pretension and common sense: it is that rare public school - or private independent school, in the modern jargon - in which any sensible child would like to be a pupil, or any fortunate teacher would like to be a master… or even an ancillary hanger-on - ' He watched her carefully ' - yes?'

If he was testing her then she might as well pass his test. 'It does take girls in its sixth form though, doesn't it?'

'Only as an experiment.' He twinkled with satisfaction. 'But my spies tell me that the experiment is shortly to be abandoned, in any case. Does that please you?' He waited only long enough to accept her nod. 'And to what do you attribute Waltham's excellence, eh?'

Enough was enough. 'You tell me, Mr Willis, I'm not an educationist.'

'Money, Elizabeth, money!' He slapped his knee, delighted with the outrageousness of his answer. 'Enlightenment based on hard cash - the wickedly acceptable face of multi-national capitalism is its sure foundation.' He challenged Audley in turn with this sudden departure from liberal conscience. 'Did you know that, dear boy?'

If Audley knew it, he didn't show it. 'I'm not an educationist either, Willy. I'm a heptagonal peg in a heptagonal hole - remember?' The old man pointed at him. 'Immingham is what you are - St Martin's School, Immingham: a very minor public school, with much more pretension than common sense… even though it did get you into Cambridge, David.'

'We beat Waltham at rugger. And you taught there, Willy.'

Mr Willis pointed at him. 'We beat Waltham because I coached the 1st XV - and because the headmaster regarded rugby as a form of Christianity. And there is no disgrace in giving one's whole loyalty to a second-rate battalion.' He gave Elizabeth an old-fashioned look.

'Besides which, I doubt if Waltham would have taken a second-rate classics master, dummy2

Elizabeth.'

Audley had the agonized expression of a man who wanted to say something agreeable, but couldn't quite bring himself to do so.

'But at least those were the days when the classics still mattered, before Oxford and Cambridge had sold their birth-right, and the pass with it.' Mercifully, the old man was still staring at her. 'You know what they used to say about a classical education, my dear?'

It was not the moment to recall her brief career as fifth-form Latin mistress, acting, temporary, unpaid and only prepared one lesson ahead. 'No, Mr Willis.'

'Hah! It enables us to look down contemptuously on those who have not shared its advantages. And it also fits us for places of emolument not only in this world, but in that which is to come.'

Elizabeth could no longer pretend she wasn't looking at Audley, because he was growling now.

'Take no note of him, Elizabeth,' the old man pulled her back to him. 'That is an apocryphal rendering of a remark allegedly made in a Good Friday sermon in Oxford Cathedral. And it is no longer true, alas - although it once was… except at Waltham School, perhaps. For there the classics still have status, thanks to the tradition established by the Haddock who was senior classics master there for many years.'

Audley had finished grinding his teeth. 'You were talking about money, Willy, I thought?'

'Money and the classics, dear boy.' Mr Willis was unabashed. 'And eventually the Haddock.'