Woolly Bear had been Ruth's name for it when she had picked it off his face. Woolly Bear. Wolly as the six-year-old David had spelt it. Wolly as the twelve-year-old David had spelt it now.

Two

"MAY i HAVE permission to go into Marristone Port, sir?"

Brannigan looked in some irritation at Durrant who had knocked at his study door and been told brusquely to enter. He didn't like the boy and tended to over-react in his favour in an effort to appease his conscience. Any other boy he would have told sharply to take his request to the appropriate quarter and not presume to waste his time. He said much the same thing to Durrant but with more restraint.

"You know the procedure, Durrant. If you need to go into Marristone Port for any reason, you ask your housemaster."

Durrant licked his thick lower lip. "I can't find Mr. Hammond, sir. I don't think he's on the premises."

Brannigan glanced at his watch. It had just gone four. Hammond wouldn't be back, if he had any sense, until a lot later. He had forgotten momentarily that Durrant was in Hammond 's House. • "Why do you want to go into Marristone Port?"

"It's my mother's birthday, sir. I want to get her a card and a present."

Brannigan wondered if it were a variation of the grandmother's funeral theme and decided it wasn't. Durrani's mother didn't give a tuppeny damn for Durrant, but Durrant cared quite deeply for her. During his first year at the Grange he had found his way home twice. The first time to an empty house and he had walked the night streets of Leeds until the police had picked him up. The second time to a house which had been far from empty. His mother had returned him personally the following day. Her anger had been greater than her discretion and it hadn't been difficult to imagine what the boy had walked in on. After that he had stayed put. Whatever illusions he had left he clung to. His father, with less tenacity, had long since ditched his and taken himself off. He wrote to the boy once or twice a term and the boy wrote a duty letter back. Their relationship was polite and distant.

"When is your mother's birthday, Durrant?"

"Tomorrow, sir."

Brannigan felt the boy's anxiety coming across the room in almost tangible waves. He was expecting to have his request refused. He had probably spent a lot of time in a fruitless search for Hammond and in desperation had come at last to him. The shops closed at six.

He tried to remember Durrani's Christian name and at last it came to him. "Unless you're a lightning shopper, Steven, you're likely to miss the post."

"I have my bike, sir. It won't take me long to get into Marristone Port and I know what I want to buy."

"Something you can parcel up quickly?"

Durrani's stoop became almost more pronounced. He was five foot eleven when he stood straight, but in moments of embarrassment lost several inches. "A book of Keats' poems, sir." It came out as a mumble.

Brannigan looked down at the blotter on his desk and positioned it more centrally. When he looked up his face was expressionless, amusement quenched.

"Mr. Hammond normally acts as banker for the House. As he's not around what are you using for cash?"

Durrant shuffled his feet. "I was wondering if you could spare the time to come across to the House office, sir, and get me five pounds from my account?"

Brannigan took out his wallet. "No, I haven't time. You can return this later when you've seen Mr. Hammond." He took out a five-pound note. "Is it a small book?"

"Yes, quite light, sir."

Brannigan took out an extra pound. "If you have any change – and any time – go to the chemist and get yourself a razor… or have you already got one?"

Durrant pocketed the money. "Thank you, sir. No, sir."

Brannigan's smile, though forced, came out with a little warmth. "You haven't a full-blown moustache yet, but it's coming along. You know the rules about that, Steven."

"Yes, sir."

"Then see to it."

As Durrant turned to go he called after him. "At fifteen you're old enough to go into Marristone Port without a prefect, and you're old enough to ride that bike of yours with due care and attention. Just a warning."

"Yes, sir."

"Well, go on then, or you'll miss the shops."

And for God's sake heed the warning, Brannigan thought. It would have been easy to have refused permission, but he couldn't wrap the boys up in cotton wool and shield them from all possible hazards. It was high summer now and light until well on into the evening. The roads were reasonably quiet. There was a slight thickening of the traffic between five and six, but no real rush hour. If Durrant finished up under a bus it would be one chance in an imponderable number of chances. The odds had been the same with young Fleming. The pall of anxiety that had oppressed him since the accident settled more heavily on him.

Once off the school premises Durrant rode his bike with panache. He had no illusions at all about Brannigan's apparent friendliness towards him. He didn't like him either. He saw him as commandant of Colditz and had several enjoyable fantasies in which he, Durrant, in the role of a British officer, led an uprising against him and had him hanged, shot, or less often poisoned. Poisoning lacked drama, but it was a variation of a theme. His fantasies about his mother's lovers were more up-to-date. They were vague shadow figures not fully known and not understood. He saw them as space creatures emerging from some far nebulae – creatures of doom – to be contained and liquidated in vast chemical vats or electrocuted into oblivion.

Now, as he rode his bike towards Marristone Port, he was at the controls of an interplanetary space machine. The glimpses of the coast as the road wound downhill towards the town were Martian scenes hazed over with red. The occasional glitter of the sea was the, shine of enemy space craft approaching faster than light. The overtaking cars were capsules under his control and sent on as an advance combat force. Oncoming traffic was so much debris in space to be carefully avoided.

He looked briefly at Jenny's car as she drove it up the hill towards the school, but it didn't register in his mind as a car driven by Jenny. She raised her hand in greeting, but he stared blankly and pedalled on.

Unfriendly little beast, Jenny thought. She was glad Fleming wasn't in the car with her. After seeing the sketch all his prejudices against the school had become stronger than ever. He had phoned Brannigan requesting an interview just as soon as Brannigan could make it. Brannigan had suggested six o'clock. It was policy that Jenny should return on her own and that he should follow in a couple of hours in a taxi. On parting he had made it plain that he wanted to see her again. "You're the only person in the whole goddamned set-up who meant anything to David."

"I wouldn't say that. You can't write off all the staff like that. They're ordinary caring people."

"Then why the hell didn't they see what was happening to him?"

"But you can't be sure what was happening to him… this sketch…"

He interrupted her. "Shows six years' regression – what sort of mental agony brought that about?"

She was silent. If he were right then she would fight his battle with him, and resign from the school if that was the only way to do it. In the meantime she had to keep everything balanced and await events. Brannigan couldn't very well sack her for giving him the sketch in the first place, but he wouldn't exactly commend her for discretion. Had she known the sketch would have upset him so much she might well have withheld it. David was dead, what good did it do? But if she had withheld it, it would have been to spare him pain, not to have glossed things over for the school. One David had died. There were other Davids.