Memoir

Hymns Ancient & Modern

How one book came back to haunt me

The white minibus shuddered to a halt in the empty quarry car park. The stone was grey, the sky was grey, even the pine forest was grey. Smyth counted the boys as they trooped out of the minibus onto the frozen ground and slammed the door firmly behind them. Three hours freezing to death in a disused Welsh slate quarry, while their housemaster sat in the warmth of the minibus reading the paper, was not the boys’ idea of fun.

But as it was their only escape from the confines of the school before another miserable week began, they accepted the bleak backdrops to their Sunday afternoon excursions and made the most of them.

‘Can’t we go to Lake Bala instead today, sir?’ Evans had grumbled to Smyth before they left for the quarry. Lake Bala being one of the few vaguely exciting places Smyth took them on their Sunday trips between the midday and evening roll calls.

‘Perhaps, we’ll go there next Sunday,’ Smyth replied. ‘Only there’s an awful lot of leaves in the quadrangle. Next Sunday might be a good day to sweep them up, don’t you think, Evans?’

Evans sat alone on a ledge halfway up the quarry wall looking at the lunar-like landscape below, wondering why his father had sent him to a crumbling boarding school on the Welsh/English border. What had he done that was so wrong?

Some of the boys disappeared into the pine forest, while the others amused themselves by hurling lumps of slate down the scree slope and watching them break apart as they tumbled to the bottom. Evans didn’t fancy any of it. He was quite happy to sit alone on his ledge until it was time to return to school and the dreaded Sunday evening roll call.

At the beginning of each academic year, Smyth appointed an upper sixth-form border to be his right-hand man. The feared head-of-house was a boy who had shown good leadership throughout his time at the school. A boy who had been through the system, and who, therefore, understood the benefits of discipline and punishment.

‘Barton,’ yelled out Asquith in the boarder’s common room later that evening.

‘Yes sir,’ replied Barton nervously.

‘Borthwick.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘See me after, Borthwick.’

‘Compton.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘See me after, Compton.’

An asterisk by a boy’s name in the Sunday evening register meant he had committed some minor offence over the weekend and would therefore spend his entire Sunday evening writing out vast sections of Hymns Ancient & Modern under Asquith’s demonic supervision.

Twenty hymns for getting up late, thirty for speaking in Chapel, forty for being late for roll call, fifty for swearing and so forth. Those who had been at the school long enough could recite the whole hymn book off by heart.

‘Davis,’ Asquith barked.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘See me after, Davis. Evans. Evans?’

Asquith’s eyes shot around the room.

‘Evans!’ spat Asquith for a third time.

Evans the rebel, the loner, the madman, the dead man, just sat there looking at the floor. He didn’t care any more. They could all go to hell as far as he was concerned, his father included.

Smyth stood motionless by the door, skilfully concealing his unease at the developing situation. In his own manual of school discipline, when it was clear a boy was going to be difficult, it was far better to move on and deal with the agitator later in private, than create a stand-off.

After another couple of seconds of silence, Asquith finally etched a thick, black tick next to Evans’ name and swiftly moved on. But not before informing the boys that they had all been cordially invited to a night of hymn writing courtesy of Evans. They were to meet in the prep hall immediately after roll call.

As the boys filed miserably out of the room glaring at Evans, Smyth nodded approvingly at his head-of-house, satisfied he could leave his beloved boarding house in his careful hands while he headed off down the pub for a well-earned drink.

That evening as the boys sat in the prep hall writing out hymns, poor Evans took more raps from Asquith’s key chain than any boy could ever remember. They could only squirm in their seats listening to his muffled yelps as the thick bunch of keys crashed down onto Evans’ young skull.

They came for me at midnight. Three of Asquith’s henchmen dragged me from my bunk and carted me out of my dormitory. I knew from bitter experience that struggling or shouting would only make things worse, especially if Smyth was awoken from his drunken slumber.

After about five minutes of being hauled through the school’s dark corridors, we finally arrived at the ominous black door.

M. L. C. Asquith, Head-of-House, read the gold plaque on the wall. They opened the door, threw me on the sofa inside and quickly exited, leaving me to bury my head under the cushions and wait for the blows.

But nothing happened. No whips from a cadet belt, no stabbing punches to the kidneys, no flicks from a wet rolled-up towel. Furthermore, the room felt warm, almost too warm. Normally at this time of night every room in the boarding house, except Smyth’s flat, of course, was as cold as ice. I could only guess that Asquith had somehow been afforded the luxury of an electric heater.

I slowly removed the cushions from my head and saw Asquith sitting behind his desk dressed in a pair of black corduroy trousers and a blue shirt, a cigarette burning in his left hand.

‘Relax, Evans,’ he said in a calm, controlled voice. ‘I’m not going to hurt you. I want to chat. See what all that nonsense was about at roll call earlier on.’

‘So you’re not going to beat me then?’ I nervously asked.

‘Why should I want to do that?’

‘Because you always do.’

Asquith dropped his cigarette into an empty beer can and came over and sat next to me. I recoiled. ‘Come on, Evans. Relax. It’ll be fine,’ he said, leaning towards me, gently putting his hand on my head and slowly running it down my back.

‘If you’re not going to beat me, can I go?’ I weakly ventured.

‘Later, Evans.’ Asquith moved his hand across my chest and started unbuttoning my pyjama top.

‘I’m not going to hurt you. It’s better than a beating. You might even like it.’

There was nothing I could do. Asquith was rubbing my chest. I could feel his breath on my face.

‘Relax, Evans.’

I simply looked ahead, not daring to look into his eyes. The tears began to roll down my face as Asquith’s hand slid into my pyjama bottoms. Then after a few minutes, he unzipped his trousers, knelt over me and pushed his erect penis into my mouth.

The heavy door of the surgery swung open. Left in the space was a nurse cocking her head moronically to one side.

‘Yes?’ she curtly asked.

‘I’m here to see Dr Asquith,’ I said.

‘I’m afraid surgery is closed.’

‘I’m not ill,’ I politely informed her. I breathed in deeply. ‘I’m an old school friend.’

‘Oh, right,’ she said. ‘Well, I’ll see if he’s still here.’

‘He is,’ I insisted. ‘His car, the red BMW, it’s in the car park.’

She paused as though she had forgotten her lines. ‘Erm, who shall I say is asking?’

‘Evans.’

The nurse picked up the phone from the reception desk and dialled a number.

‘There’s someone here to see you,’ she spoke into the handset a few moments later. ‘Yes. I told him that. He says he’s an old friend. Evans.’

The nurse stood motionless waiting for a reply.

‘Dr. Asquith. Are you still there?’ There was another pause. ‘OK,’ she finally said and replaced the phone.

‘Well?’ I asked.

The nurse looked confused. ‘Yes. He says he’ll see you. But can you give him five minutes or so.’

I smiled and sat down in the waiting room gazing at the glossy faces of the models on the front of the women’s weeklies.

After ten minutes the nurse informed me that I could go in. First door on the left. I thanked her and walked down the corridor to Asquith’s surgery. As I stood in front of his door I tried to remember what they had told me at the clinic.

‘It’s not your fault. You have no guilt. You were not responsible.’

I quickly turned the handle and opened the door.

His face was the same. But puffier. Like it had been inflated with a couple of pounds of air from a hydraulic pump. His hooknose was still prominent, and so were his green eyes that caught the light like emeralds. His hair was styled the same. Combed in a severe left-to-right side-parting like a 1950s Hollywood writer.

His clothes didn’t fit the image though. His baggy white shirt with gold cufflinks and a maroon Windsor-knotted tie, made him look like an overweight barrister than a screenwriter. On his desk was a photo of a blond-haired woman with tight white skin stretched across her face. Flanking her on either side, sat two rather strange-looking girls, who reminded me of a pair of tapirs I’d once seen in a zoo.

He spoke first. ‘Hello, Evans. How are you?’ he greeted me as though I was just another patient. ‘It’s been a while.’

It wasn’t a bad performance considering I’d had fifteen years to rehearse what I was going to say. Compared to the ten minutes I’d given Asquith.

But despite my years of preparation, I knew as I walked into the room that we were both about to act out part of a play neither of us had ever read before.

‘I’m fine thanks,’ I abruptly said when I reached the corner of his desk.

Asquith looked at me squarely. ‘What do you want, Evans?’ His calm demeanour now gone. ‘I assume you haven’t come here because you’ve got a cough.’

He was on the defensive. He had to be. He had too much to lose. I said nothing and instead took a book out of my bag and threw it on his desk.

‘What’s this?’

‘A present.’

‘I don’t need it thanks, Evans,’ said Asquith, shrugging his shoulders and pushing the book to one side.

My calmness evaporated instantly as I rushed around to his side of the desk and grabbed his neck, ramming his head against the bookcase behind him.

‘Evans!’ he gagged as I squeezed his neck. ‘Please, not here.’

‘Why not?’ I growled into his ear.

‘Because it’s a surgery,’ he croaked, his voice barely audible.

I squeezed harder. ‘I could kill you now, Asquith!’ I shouted. ‘It would be so easy. Like snapping the head off a doll.’

‘Please,’ Asquith sobbed.

I released my grip and Asquith collapsed onto his desk clutching his throat. There had been a knock at the door.

‘Is everything alright, doctor?’ came a voice from the other side.

‘Yes, yes, I’m fine,’ said Asquith, desperately trying to make his voice sound normal.

‘I thought I heard noises,’ she continued.

‘Tell her to fuck off home,’ I whispered into his ear.

He did and within a few minutes, we were alone.

‘OK,’ said Asquith. ‘You’ve made your point. What do you want? Money, a confession?’

I looked at him and then at the book on his desk I’d given him. For a second he looked baffled, but then it finally clicked.

‘You’re joking, aren’t you? We’re not still at school, Evans!’

I looked him dead in the eyes. ‘You may have gone off on your lovely life doling out pills and potions to anybody who wants them. But some of us didn’t get that chance, some of us are still at school wondering what happened to our lives. So this is what we’re going to do.’

‘I’m not writing out fucking hymns, Evans, it’s fucking insane. We’re adults!’

‘Are we?’ I punched him squarely in the face knocking him to the floor. ‘Maybe you are, Asquith, but I’m not, I’m still a child.’ I wanted to punch him again and again, bludgeon him to death.

I took a step back.

‘I’m still that kid you abused all those years ago, Asquith, so you’re going to do exactly as I say, otherwise I’ll kill you. I mean it, Asquith. What I’m asking you to do is nothing. You’re getting off lightly, so stop being such a spoilt little shit and get writing.’

Asquith slowly climbed back onto his chair. ‘How many?’

I grabbed the copy of Hymns Ancient & Modern, opened it to the first page and slammed it down in front of him.

‘All of them, Asquith. What was it again? Twenty hymns for getting up late; thirty for speaking in Chapel; forty for being late for roll-call; fifty for swearing. So let’s call it, the whole book for sexual abuse.

It was the longest night of my life. Looking at myself as a young boy writing out hymns, remembering all the horrors I went through at school. When the emotions, the demons, and the pain got too much, I simply hit him, just as he had done to me all those years ago with the key chain.

But he kept going. After every blow, Asquith kept on writing. And as the night wore on, the pain I’d kept hidden inside me for all those years fell away as Asquith’s blood dripped onto the handwritten duplicate of Hymns Ancient & Modern.

By the time the dawn sun filtered through the window, with Asquith barely conscious, broken and humiliated, his nice barrister-style shirt, now red like the smock of a matador, I felt something approaching joy.

Happiness, I’d never felt before. Like I’d finally conquered Mount Improbable after a lifetime of trying. And now at the top, I could see the view. The calm hills, the wooded valleys, the gentle stream running far below.

I looked back at Asquith. I looked at his wife and kids in the photo, a spot of blood running down the side of the frame. What a joke! I thought and laughed out loud.

‘What are you laughing at?’ he asked.

‘Your family. Did they know you were a pervert? Are you fucking your daughters as well?’

Asquith bowed his head. ‘Please, Evans,’ he begged, as he reached for a glass of water.

I picked up my bag and headed towards the door. Then turned around to look at him. He was shaking. Tears filled his eyes, and I knew it wasn’t his fault. That he was just repeating an act someone had done to him years before. It didn’t excuse what he’d done to me, but I felt sorry for him all the same. And it’s difficult to feel sympathy for someone you hate so much. Take it from me.

‘Do you want anything?’ I asked.

‘No,’ he replied.

I opened the door.

‘Just one thing, Evans,’ he said before I left. ‘Is that it?’

I squeezed the doorknob, leaving a handprint of blood on the wood, and looked at him one last time.

‘Yes. Goodbye, Asquith.’

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