stoop to conquer.
Added to this was the fact that I was basically a loner. Other than Doc, and when I was small, Granpa Chook, I’d never been in the position of having a partner and I’d never really had a best friend who was my own age. Having an immediate friend in this strange new environment sounded nice, but it also made me feel vulnerable.
‘Have you honest and truly only got one name?’ Hymie asked suddenly.
‘Well sort of, you see I’ve only ever used one name. One name is me.’
‘They won’t let you get away with it you know, the system can’t handle things like that.’
‘It’s just going to have to,’ I replied, sounding a lot braver than I really was. I longed suddenly to ask Doc what he would advise under the circumstances, though I already knew the answer. He would simply have said that a man has the right to any name he wants to give himself; if a man is saddled with a name he didn’t choose, how can he possibly be free for the rest of his life? ‘We got to be who we got to be. Absoloodle!’ he’d conclude after we had carefully and fully discussed the matter. Doc was not a man to make compromises on important issues such as determining who a person really is in his own mind.
‘I bet you’re good at sport. Me, I’m rotten,’ Hymie said.
‘I’m okay.’
‘What’s your best sport,’ Hymie asked, humouring me, ‘rugby?’
‘No, I box.’
Hymie jerked back in his seat, plainly shocked. ‘You what?’
‘I’m a boxer.’
‘Yeah, that’s what I thought you said. Why man, that’s positively Neanderthal.’
‘You could get badly hurt saying that to the wrong boxer,’ I grinned.
Hymie reeled back in mock terror, ‘Careful, man, in a court of law a boxer’s hands are considered lethal weapons.’ He was suddenly serious again. ‘I tell you what, I’m a gambler and you’re a boxer, that’s yet another reason why you and I have to stick together, Peekay.’
‘What do you gamble on?’ I asked.
Hymie sighed. ‘I’m a Jew. People expect Jews to be good with money. So what do Jews do? They oblige. My old man is filthy rich and he’ll give me all the money I need. But that’s the very problem, you see. I have to make my own, it’s an intellectual thing not a greedy thing. I’m not really a gambler, gamblers are stupid, making money is simply a way of keeping myself mentally fit, can you understand that?’
‘No.’
‘Are you rich, Peekay? I mean your parents?’
‘Hell no, I won a scholarship here. My mum’s a dressmaker.’
‘Well, that’s why you don’t understand. For me money is like boxing is for you, it’s my way of getting even with the world. For a rich Jew money is a weapon, unless I know how to make it on my own I will be defenceless.’
I was suddenly fascinated. It wasn’t that Hymie’s philosophy was the antithesis of all I’d been taught, although I knew the Lord was against money and definitely in favour of the poor. It was just that, well, Doc and Mrs Boxall, or even Miss Bornstein, had never mentioned money or its importance in the scheme of things. I’d been forced into thinking about money for the first time when the list for my school clothes had arrived and I had already worked out that not having any at a boarding school for the sons of the rich was pretty well going to shape my school career.
‘Are you very good at making money?’ I asked Hymie.
‘About as good as you are at boxing,’ he replied.
‘You’ve got yourself a partner, Hymie. Money is something I have to learn about.’
Hymie grinned, ‘It’s a deal, Peekay. I had a feeling you were a bloody good boxer.’
I was by nature a fairly quiet sort of a guy and had no trouble getting on with things. As a new boy I was at the bottom of the heap but was fortunate enough to be selected as the fag for the head of the house, Fred Cooper, who was also the second prefect of the entire school and the captain of the First XV Rugby. This immediately gave me some extra status amongst the other new boys all of whom, like me, were allocated to a school or house prefect.
Fagging was hard work and we were on standby for the school and house prefects from first bell at six a.m. until lights out at nine-thirty. No chore was thought too menial and a prefect had only to yell from his study and all the fags within hearing distance would have to come running. Last new boy to arrive did the chore. In addition to this, each fag had a list of duties he was obliged to perform for his personal prefect. He made his bed, shone his shoes, cadet and rugby boots, washed his rugby togs or during the summer blancoed his cricket boots, and if he was an officer in the cadet corps polished his Sam Browne and brasses, laid out his clothes, tidied his study, ran his messages and made trips to the tuck shop on his behalf.
The first tanning I received was for scooping the tiniest dab of cream off the top of a cream bun I was delivering to Fred Cooper. At least it started with the tiniest scoop and then, in an attempt to smooth the scooped part, I took one or two more small scoops on the end of my finger. By the time I arrived at Fred Cooper’s study, the bun looked somewhat re-arranged.
‘You rotten little bugger! You’ve been norking my cream bun,’ Cooper yelled at me.
‘My hand slipped over it and I had to lick it off sort of, sir,’ I explained, not quite willing to tell an outright lie.
‘Shit! Did you lick my bloody bun, Peekay?’
‘No, sir, just my hand.’
‘Close the door, boy. We have an excellent way to train slippery hands.’ Cooper reached for the cane which hung behind the door. ‘How many times do you reckon it slipped?’ he asked.’
‘Not many, sir,’ I said fearfully.
‘Not many is once or twice or three times, tell me, man?’
‘Once?’ I said hopefully.
‘Right, bend down.’ I bent down holding my knees and proffering my arse. Whack! ‘That’s one for your slippery hand.’ Whack! ‘That’s one for your slippery tongue.’ Whack! ‘And that’s one for your poor memory.’ Cooper returned the cane to the back of the door and pointed to the cream bun on his desk. ‘Eat it! And go and get me another one with your own money.’
I stood looking at the cream bun with its shiny brown top and cream-filled centre. This was my first major crisis. ‘I… I don’t have any money, sir.’
Cooper turned back to his book. ‘Use those slippery fingers of yours to find some,’ he said, dismissing me.
I left his study holding the offending cream bun gingerly in my hand. Pocket money was drawn every Wednesday after lunch and every Saturday morning, but as I hadn’t been given any for the term, the fact that it was Tuesday meant two things: none of the other fags would have any money this late in the week and even if I could borrow some I had no possibility of paying it back.
My arse stung like hell, but I hardly noticed it in my anxiety. Hymie Levy was waiting at the end of the corridor which led to the sixth form studies.
‘Christ, Peekay, I could hear it from here, that bastard sure blasted arse!’
‘I’m in deep shit,’ I told him. ‘I’ve got to buy Cooper another cream bun and I haven’t got any money.’
Hymie shrugged, ‘Easy, man, I’ll give it to you.’ Then he pointed to the bun in my hand, ‘What’s that? That’s a cream bun!’
I explained to him what had happened. ‘Sorry, but I can only accept a loan if you’ll let me do something to pay it off,’ I added.
‘Don’t be stupid, Peekay. Pay me tomorrow after pocket money.’
It was the first time I had had to admit that I had no money whatsoever.
‘You mean nothing? No money at all?’ Hymie was clearly astonished. He dug into the change pocket of his grey flannels and produced a two-shilling piece. ‘Here, take it, you can pay me back when you leave school.’
‘Bullshit, Hymie, that’s in five years.’
Hymie grinned, ‘I’m a Jew, remember, we’re supposed never to forget.’
‘You’re also a pain in the arse, Levy. Keep your two bob, I only need threepence anyway. Bugger it! I’ll go and
