December 1990
Edwin Paine: Rowland? Are you awake yet?
Charles Rowland: Mummy...?
Edwin Paine: No. It's me. Paine. Do you feel any better?
Charles Rowland: I'm so hot... Am I really here? I had this dream. I wasn't sure where I was. Paine?
Edwin Paine: Yes. I'm here.
Charles Rowland: Hold my hand. ... I think it was a dream. But it seemed so real. Like I was really there. Blood-red worms were feeding on my arm. They didn't hurt much, but when they fell off and wriggled away, I found my arm was riddled with holes... Like something that had been under the sea for a long time. And I ran out crying into the open, but it was snowing. Only it wasn't snow. It was the skeletons of birds, falling from the sky. They crunched underfoot as I ran. And then I saw that they were trying to move. Even the ones I had crunched to bits. The whole world was covered with dead birds...trying to fly.
Edwin Paine: Don't worry, old man. You'll be well again soon. It was just a dream.
Charles Rowland: I'm so hot... I want some water.
Edwin Paine: There's no water left, Rowland.
Charles Rowland: Oh. ... Your hand...it's so cold...
Edwin Paine: Well, that's not exactly surprising, is it?
Charles Rowland: No... sorry... I...I keep thinking I can hear people singing.
Edwin Paine: You can. It's Sunday morning Rowland. It's chapel service. They're singing hymns.
Charles Rowland: Chapel? But who have they got to pray to? That's sick... Sunday? You said it was Sunday.
Edwin Paine: Yes.
Charles Rowland: Six days, then... That's all it's been?
Edwin Paine: That's right.
Charles Rowland: It... seems like a lifetime...
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Monday. Six days ago.
Narration: Even when everyone's gone away, thought Charles Rowland, the school smells the same... The smell of school is a strange, pervasive thing: it's disinfectant, wood polish and ink, chalk dust, pipe tobacco, boiled cabbage, paper, flatulence and socks. They sat awkwardly in one corner of the dining hall, while long-dead headmasters stared down at them sternly from dusty formal portraits, high above. Charles Rowland had just turned thirteen.
Theodore: So...what do you have planned for this evening, then, eh, young Rowland?
Charles Rowland: I don't know, sir. I've got to write a letter to my father. And then I'll probably just go up to the library and read. If the fog lifts I'll go for a walk.
Theodore: Mmph. Good, good. Keep yourself occupied. That's the important thing. Keep your mind off it. I'll be in my study. If there are any telephone calls for you, I'll come and--mmph-- find you.
Charles Rowland: Thank you, sir.
Narration: Rowland's father was in Kuwait.
Theodore: Even so, I must say, this is most awkward. Are you quite sure you have no relatives to whom you could be sent, for the rest of --mmmp-- school holidays?
Charles Rowland: There's no one that I know of sir. Father was going to fly me out to Kuwait, in the hols. I've always spent the holidays with him. Until now.
Theodore: Mmph.
Miss Gribble: Don't be hard on the boy, Headmaster. What I say is, it's all that Saddam Hussein's fault. Poor Mister Rowland didn't ask to be a hostage, did he? It's a good thing that we're both staying on at school over the holidays, otherwise I don't know where the lad could go.
Theodore: You're right, of course, Miss Gribble.
Miss Gribble: Of course, I am. And Rowland can keep himself occupied. Can't you, dear?
Charles Rowland: Yes, Matron.
Miss Gribble: That's right, love. If you get bored, come on up to the San.-- I'll make you a cup of tea, and we can have a bit of a natter.
Charles Rowland: Yes, Matron.
Miss Gribble: Right. Now, you run along. Don't worry about the plates. Alfred will clean up later.
Charles Rowland: All right. Thank you, Matron. Thank you, sir.
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Narration: Outside, it was cold: the damp winter air hung in a wet mist over St. Hilarion's School for Boys. Over the world. Charles Rowland shivered. Founded in 1802, a boarding school for the sons of army officers... The school now offered education to anyone who could afford it; particularly to those who lived abroad but wanted their sons educated on British soil. Charles Rowland had been here for a year and a half; since his father left the country. His father was an architect, a tall, nervous man, who designed hospitals. His mother was long dead. He walked over to the empty library, composing a letter in his head, to his father. It was the same letter he had wanted to write for a year and a half, and never had. "Please, Daddy. Take me home."
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Charles Rowland: (Reading aloud from The Scarlet Pimpernel) "She looked through the tattered curtain, across at the handsome face of her husband, in whose lazy blue eyes, and behind whose inane smile she could now so plainly see the strength, energy and resourcefulness----which had caused the Scarlet Pimpernel to be reverenced and trusted by his followers."
Miss Gribble: Rowland? Charles? I know there aren't any lights-out bells, with everyone away, but still, spit-spot, time for you to get some sleep, young man.
Charles Rowland: All right, Matron.
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Narration: Even when it's empty, thought Charles Rowland, you're never alone in a school. It belongs to all those dead people. All the other kids. The ones who sat at your desk, or slept in your bed, or ran down the corridors a hundred years ago. They never go away. Even when you're alone-- --you're not alone.
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Charles Rowland: ...Paine? What was it like? After you died?
Edwin Paine: Not very nice. I went to Hell. I think it was Hell. It was like a nightmare. The kind where you know it's a nightmare but you still can't wake yourself up. It was just corridors. "And I was hurrying down these corridors because I knew I was late for something, but I couldn't quite remember what. And then I realized that there was something behind me. Something horrible. But it was always one or two bends of the corridor behind. And even though it wasn't making any noise I knew it was always there. And if I started to run it would get me. So I just kept walking, as fast as I could, down these corridors. With something silently walking behind me. Something sad and lonely and terrible. Something that had all the time in the world...
Charles Rowland: How... how long did this go on for?
Edwin Paine: What year are we in now?
Charles Rowland: 1990.
Edwin Paine: About 75 years, I suppose. But it seemed far longer.
Charles Rowland: ...Paine?
Edwin Paine: Yes.
Charles Rowland: I'm...I'm not afraid of dying.
Edwin Paine: You should be.
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Tuesday. Five days ago.
Narration: Charles Rowland went down for breakfast, but there was nobody there, and no breakfast in sight. Puzzled and hungry, he went to his locker and got out his last packet of chocolate digestive biscuits. Then he walked outside and sat on the war memorial, and ate the whole packet. The mists still hung low around the school; they had swallowed the playing fields, and the pavilion, and the art rooms. Rowland was cold, and his hair and skin felt damp. At lunchtime, when no one appeared in the dining hall, he went up to the headmaster's study.
Theodore: Come!
Charles Rowland: Er...hello.
Theodore's Mother: Hmmph. Theodore, who's your little friend?
Theodore: Ah. Rowland. Yes. Rowland, this is my mother. Mother, this is Rowland.
Theodore's Mother: How do you do young man?
Charles Rowland: Very well, thanks. Um, how are you?
Theodore's Mother: Dead. I died in January, 1942. Upon my death, I found myself in hell. This did not come entirely as a surprise to me. Theodore's father, who outlived me, had quite ruined my nerves and constitution by compelling me to submit to certain Hunnish practices in the marital bed. I suppose I could have asked for a divorce. But how would that have looked? I could not have stood up there and told a judge the revolting things that Theodore's father forced me to do. I banned him from my bedroom, and he slaked his unnatural lusts upon the housemaid. As I said; I went to hell. Where I was punished painfully, and at length. Punished and punished and punished. Theodore? What do you think you are doing? Revolting habit!
Theodore: Hmmph. Mother, I am headmaster.
Theodore's Mother: You are nothing of the kind. You're mother's little boy.
Theodore: That's right, mother. Sorry, mother.
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Narration: Strange people thought Charles Rowland. He found himself wondering about insanity, but adults were strange, and he had few criteria by which to judge them. Troubled, he headed for the sanatorium, to talk to the matron.
Miss Gribble: Charles? Hello, dear. Come in. I've got some children to introduce you to. I haven't seen them for so long... Well, one of them I never really saw at all. Now, this is Veronica. She died a long time ago, she was a cot death, my little darling. And we put her in the ground. But I knew she'd come back to her mummy. To her mummy and her baby brother...
Charles Rowland: Brother?
Miss Gribble: I...I think it's her brother. It... it never actually got born. I was only sixteen. I caught German measles... and... say hello to Charles, baby.
The Baby: Hello... Charles...
Miss Gribble: Charles? Don't you want to play with my babies? Charles?
Narration: Charles Rowland returned to the dormitory, hungry and scared. That evening he stared at the mist, as night fell. He watched as Alfred, the school groundsman, ran past, wailing softly, pursued by a woman and a child. The mists swallowed the three of them; he saw none of them again. He sat up in bed that night, hungry and frightened; nobody came to turn off the lights. He let them burn. And eventually, Charles Rowland fell asleep.
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Charles Rowland: Why are you... up here? I mean, why did you hide in the attic?
Edwin Paine: Because my bones are up here. In that trunk. See? This is where I died. They hid it here. No one ever found out. Honestly-- I don't think they could have looked very hard! All their stuff is still here. They hardly even covered their tracks. You can still see the circle they drew on the floor over there... this was where they used to come, you see. At night. Trying to raise devils that never came. They'd dress up, and they'd do stuff. They'd kill frogs and rabbits and cats...
Charles Rowland: And you.
Edwin Paine: And me.
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Wednesday. Four days ago.
Skinner: God, it's a bug!
Cheeseman: Yuck! A bug.
Barrow: Wake the bug up, Cheesey.
Charles Rowland: AHHH!
Cheeseman: What's your pathetic name, bug?
Charles Rowland: Ow!
Cheeseman: God, what a sub-human moron. Come on, scumbug. What's your name?
Charles Rowland: Ow! Please! It's Charles Rowland.
Cheeseman: That's better, bug. I'm Cheeseman.
Barrow: I'm Barrow.
Skinner: I'm Skinner. We're old boys.
Barrow: Very old. Hee hee hee.
Rev. A.N. Parkinson, M.A.: You three! You silly boys! I know you three, don't think I don't! Get away from that boy. Barrow, Cheeseman, and... hmm, Skinner, isn't it?
Cheeseman: Yes, headmaster. Sorry, headmaster.
Rev. A.N. Parkinson, M.A.: I never trusted you three. You did something to that boy, didn't you? The one who disappeared.
Barrow: Not us, sir. No, sir.
Rev. A.N. Parkinson, M.A.: Liars. Still, it's all history now. Assembly in ten minutes in the main hall. And you-- live boy!--clean yourself up!
Charles Rowland: Y-yes, sir.
Skinner: We can wait, little bug. We can wait.
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Rev. A.N. Parkinson, M.A.: ...for those boys before or after my time, my name is Parkinson. I was headmaster here from 1901 until my death in 1916. And I am headmaster here today. We exist, as the Orientals would have it, in interesting times... However, despite any tribulations we might have experienced, we are all now back at school. At the old school. And I will not tolerate slackness, or lack of discipline, from any of you. Evil little boys. You all died here. Or had no place else to which you could return. It seems that I am the only master who has resumed his duties at St. Hilarion's. Very well, evil little boys. I am the only master. I will teach you what I learned. In Hell, I learned so many things. You, boy. The boy blubbing. Front row. What's your name?
Simon Mould: Mould, sir. Simon Mould, sir.
Rev. A.N. Parkinson, M.A.:When were you here?
Simon Mould: I died in 1953, sir. I hung myself, sir. I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean to, sir.
Rev. A.N. Parkinson, M.A.: Of course, you meant to, you silly little boy. Now, stop blubbing, or I'll give you something to blub about. I will spend today drawing up a timetable for the school; so this day will be devoted to silent study. I'll want to hear silence from all of you.
Peter Hinchcliffe: What's the point? I mean, what are we going to study? Dead languages? AHHH!!!
Rev. A.N. Parkinson, M.A.:You will mind your manners, boy. Who are you?
Peter Hinchcliffe: Peter Hinchcliffe, sir. I choked on my own vomit in 1977, sir. Booze and pills.
Rev. A.N. Parkinson, M.A.: Get your hair cut, Hinchcliffe. You are schoolboys. You are at school. You come to school to study. Therefore, you will study. Mens sana in corpore mortua. Eh, boys? "A healthy mind in a dead body..."
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Narration: Charles Rowland sat, hungry, in a room surrounded by dead boys, and tried to focus on his text-book. After a while, he became aware that no one else in the room was breathing.
Rev. A.N. Parkinson, M.A.: Carpe Diem!
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Narration: In the afternoon, the new headmaster sent the boys down to the school lake, to bathe. Charles felt his lips turning blue. His fingers and toes became numb. No one else seemed to notice the cold.
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Narration: There was no food that night. After lights out, when the other boys were laid out in their beds, Charles crept out of the dormitory, driven by hunger.
Barrow: Well, look who's sneaking out of the dorm after lights-out, Cheesey. It's the new bug.
Cheeseman: We said we could wait, new bug.
Barrow: We don't like you, new bug. We think you're pathetic.
Skinner: We're going to make you sorry you were ever born..
.
Charles Rowland: Three against one's not fair.
Skinner: Fair? What's fair? Cheeseman was killed in the trenches after he was expelled. He was only seventeen. Barrow and I had already died of diphtheria. Was that fair? We were only kids.
Cheeseman: We sacrificed a boy. All three of us. To the devil. We did stuff from old books. We did things you wouldn't believe.
Barrow: But when we went to hell ...they didn't care. They hadn't even known. They--they laughed at us.
Cheeseman: That's not what I call fair. All the trouble we went through with the little brat. Drinking his blood. Hiding the corpse. Stealing the host from the chapel... and nobody in hell gave a toss. We burned anyway. Just like you're going to, bug.
Charles Rowland: AHHHHH!!!!!!!
Cheeseman: Say "I'm just a pathetic snotty little bug, not fit to lick the shit from your arses," go on. Say it.
Charles Rowland: Let me--go--you-- bastards. When the--headmaster-- catches you--you'll be-- in trouble...
Skinner: What's he going to do to us, then, bug? Eh? Kill us? Now, say it.
Charles Rowland: AHHHH!!!! I'm a... I'm a... uhn...
Cheeseman: Bloody hell, fellows. He's out cold already. We'd hardly started.
Skinner: In our day a good new bug would last for much longer than that. Remember Somerville? Or Bartlett-Jones? Or the Yates twins?
Cheeseman: Those were the good old days.
Barrow: Happiest days of our lives...
Edwin Paine:... Come on, old fellow. Come on. You've got to get up.
Charles Rowland: Please. Please... don't hurt me... not any... more...
Edwin Paine: It's all right. Buck up, now. Nobody's going to hurt you. Honest.
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Thursday
Narration: Charles Rowland spent the next day unconscious on the floor of the attic, one of many to be found beneath the roofs of the old school.
Friday.
Narration: Charles Rowland was delirious; he talked to people who were not there, muttered snatches of gibberish and fragments of nursery rhymes. His rescuer, Edwin Paine (1901-1914), tended him as best he could.
Saturday
Narration: Rowland regained consciousness, although he was weak and in pain. The skin on his back was peeling, and his sweater was matted with pus. Paine offered to move him to the sanatorium, but he didn't want to go. And on Sunday...
Charles Rowland: Paine?... Have they stopped singing?
Edwin Paine: Yes.
Charles Rowland: That's good... I thought maybe... ...it was me...
Narration: On Sunday, Charles Rowland died.
Death: Hello, Charles. Time to go.
Charles Rowland: Is that me? Gosh. I look terrible.
Death: Nah--your body doesn't look that bad. I've seen much worse. Okay, Charles. Enough sightseeing. We have to go now.
Charles Rowland: What about Paine?
Death: It's you I'm here for, Charles. Not him.
Edwin Paine: It's fine, Rowland. Don't worry about me. You go.
Death: I took him already, Charles. And he's still dead. Now it's your turn.
Charles Rowland: No. If he's not going, then neither am I. He's my friend.
Death: I don't have time to argue, Charles, there's too much going on right now... Look. You're coming with me. He stays. Take my hand, Charles.
Charles Rowland: I'm not going anywhere. Not without him. I'm sorry. I'm just not going.
Death: Charles... Okay. Okay. Fine. Stay. There really isn't time to argue about this-- and I just don't have the energy, I've got too many other things to worry about. Stay if you have to. I'll catch up with you later.
Charles Rowland: Um. Thank you. I really mean it. Thanks.
Death: Yeah. Well, I'll pick you up as soon as things are less crazy, Charles. Take care of yourselves.
Edwin Paine: So what are we going to do now?
Charles Rowland: I'm not sure. But I can tell you what we're not going to do. We're not staying here any longer.
Edwin Paine: Huh? Leave the attic? But we can't. I mean, my bones are up here.
Charles Rowland: Well, so are mine. Not to mention my flesh and hair and stuff. But I don't see why that means I have to sit around up here until she comes back for us. Anyway, I don't feel ill any more. I feel fine. Dead, but fine. Come on.
Edwin Paine: Rowland. I'm scared.
Charles Rowland: Look at it this way: do you want to be a ghost in an attic all your life?
Edwin Paine: Yes. You're right. It's part of growing up, I suppose ... you always have to leave something behind you.
Edwin Paine: What about all the rest of them? Do you think they'll ever have to go back to hell?
Charles Rowland: Go back? I don't know. I think hell's something you carry around with you. Not somewhere you go.
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Theodore's Mother: Now then, Theodore. Mother's going to tell you some more of the horrid things your father did to her. After all, we don't want you growing up like your father, do we?
Theodore: No, mother.
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Barrow: Ow! Cheeseman! You brute! Stop it!
Cheeseman: Sorry, Barrow, old man. But with none of the little tarts to fag for me and Skinner, it's going to have to be you. We have to have our little fun.
Barrow: Yaargh! You...
Skinner: Language, Barrow. Language.
Charles Rowland: (OS) They're doing the same things they always did. They're doing it to themselves. That's hell.
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Rev. A.N. Parkinson, M.A.: Cogito ergo sum, Descartes' maxim, was unphilosophical in the extreme. Why? Because he assumes the existence of the thinker. --Stop that, Connelly!-- He might as well have said that a rose is red, and therefore it exists. "Higher than himself can no man think," -Tupper!-- as the learned Protagoras once said. Manson put that away! Just because I'm not looking doesn't mean I can't see you!
Edwin Paine: I don't think I agree. I think maybe hell is a place. But you don't have to stay anywhere forever.
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Edwin Paine: So where are we going now?
Charles Rowland: I don't know. Away from here. I'm sick of this place. There's a whole world out there. I bet we've got a while before they sort this mess out, and she comes back to get us.
Edwin Paine: I'm game if you are. Err. You can call me Edwin, you know. If you want to.
Charles Rowland: Oh. Fair enough. I'm Charles.
Edwin Paine: Charles? What will your father think about you being dead?
Charles Rowland: He'll probably be relieved. I don't think he ever liked being a parent. And my mum won't mind, she's dead already, so she won't be prejudiced.
Edwin Paine: How long do you think we've got? Until she catches up with us again?
Charles Rowland: I dunno. But we might as well make the most of it. Just take it as it comes.
Edwin Paine: Death, you mean? Or life?
Charles Rowland: Either. Both. Anyway, I think we've learned all we're going to at school. Now: let's see what life's got to offer us...
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