Page 77 of The Unlikely Pair

My father has never been one for overt affection, but he’d emerged from his study and come straight to me, clasping my shoulder tightly, and I knew how rattled he was by everything that had transpired.

“We’ll make sure they pay. You have my word.”

“What was the inquiry about?” Toby asks.

I put down the multitool so I can rub my forehead.

“It was about the abusive treatment of students by the headmaster and teachers.”

Toby watches me, waiting for me to continue.

“My father had been at Dentworth under a normal headmaster. But the headmaster who was there when I was there…” I swallow the thick feeling in my throat. “He wasn’t so normal. A lot of abuse happened.”

How to describe Angus Pritchard? He looms large in my memories, like a giant.

“What age did you go to boarding school?” Toby asks.

I clear my throat. “I was six.”

Memories slide back into my head. The candlewick bedspreads. The smell of disinfectant mixed with the sweat of young boys. The code of silence that was preached to us:never complain.

“That’s a really young age to send your child away from home,” Toby says quietly.

“Yes, it is.” I look over at him. “But it’s what’s been done to children of the aristocracy for generations.”

Only two days ago, I’d told Toby I didn’t want to talk about boarding school. But now that I’ve started, I can’t seem to stop the words from pouring out of me.

Maybe it’s because the appearance of wolves reminded me of how precarious our situation is. Maybe it’s because Toby is staring at me in the flickering firelight in a way that makes me feel seen. And some part of me seems to desire being seen by this man.

So I tell him.

I tell him about the prefects, only boys of nine or ten, and the ever-present threat from them to whip you with their belts.

I tell him about the forced endurance trials in the middle of winter, how we had to go out in the freezing weather and run around barefoot, and if you dared to show you were hurting, you were punished for your weakness.

I tell him about the gauntlet run, where the younger students had to run through a gauntlet set up by older students where they would douse us with freezing water, throw rotten food at us, and even use us as human targets for their archery practice. The humiliation was unbearable, but we had to endure it with gritted teeth and a stiff upper lip. To complain, to protest, to even whimper, was to invite ostracism and ridicule from our peers and our tormentors alike.

Toby keeps his weight pressed against me as I talk, as if he understands how important it is for me to have physical contact right now as I stumble through my memories.

But although he remains silent, I can tell by the hitching of his breath at certain points how my stories affect him.

I tell him how the whole school could get caned for one person’s offenses and how assembly every week turned into a public shaming ceremony, where the principal would not only list the crimes people had committed but also describe how they had taken their punishment. Any emotion shown was ridiculed. The headmaster would say things like, “Alistair and Frederick took it like upstanding men, but Timothy blubbered like a little girl who’d lost her teddy bear.”

Toby’s expression grows even more horrified. “But wasn’t caning made illegal by then?”

“Corporal punishment was banned in state schools in 1987 but wasn’t banned in all private schools until 1998,” I say in a flat voice. “Private schools didn’t face the same scrutiny as state schools. So much of the abuse was swept under the rug.”

I poke at the fire with one of my sharpened sticks, prodding at the logs burning at the bottom.

“I think part of the trauma came from the knowledge our parents actually paid for us to be there,” I say.

I lift my gaze to his. “I know what you’re thinking, poor little rich kids, right?”

Toby's throat works. “That’s not what I’m thinking, actually. I’m just finding it hard to understand how none of your parents kicked up a fuss.”

“It’s difficult to explain the code of silence. They screened all the letters, and it was constantly preached that what happened in school stayed in school.

“One time, we returned from a half-term break and discovered one of my classmates had complained to his parents, and we were all punished. And the headmaster was clever. He knew exactly how to push the boundaries so what was going on sounded similar to the usual traditions but with his own sadistic edge.”