Tell Tale: Short Stories Read online

  I really didn’t mind the fact that his school uniform was so much smarter than mine, and that his shoes were handmade escaped me altogether. However, I was aware that he was taller and better looking than me, and clearly brighter, because he was offered a place at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge (pronounced Keys—something else I didn’t know at the time), to read modern languages.

  I actually spoke to Bairstow for the first time when I entered the lower sixth, and he had been appointed school captain, but then only because I was a library monitor and had to report to him once a month. And indeed, if we hadn’t gone on holiday together—well, I shouldn’t exaggerate …

  Fred Costello, the senior history master, was organizing one of his annual school excursions to the Continent, as it was known before it became the Common Market, or the EEC, and as I was studying history and hoping to go to university, my parents thought it might be wise for me to sign up for the trip to Germany.

  When we all clambered on board the train at Leeds Central to set out on the journey, I was surprised to see Mark Bairstow was among our party. Well not quite, because he sat in a first-class carriage with Clive Dangerfield, who was also going up to Cambridge, so we didn’t see them again until we all pitched up at our little hotel in Berlin. I shared a room with my best friend Ben Levy, while Bairstow and Dangerfield occupied a suite on the top floor.

  There were fifteen of us in the party, and I spent most of my time with Ben who, like me, supported Leeds United, Yorkshire, and England, in that order. It was our first trip abroad and therefore one we weren’t likely to forget.

  Mr. Costello was an enlightened schoolmaster who had served as a lieutenant in the Second World War and seen action at El Alamein, but believed passionately that Britain should join the Common Market, if for no other reason than it would ensure there wouldn’t be a third world war.

  My abiding memory of Berlin was not the Opera House, or even the Brandenburg Gate, but a concrete monstrosity that stretched like a poisonous snake across the center of a once united city.

  “I want you to imagine,” said Mr. Costello, as we stared up at the Wall, “a twelve-foot barrier being built from the Mersey to the Humber, and you never being able to visit any of your family or friends who live on the other side.”

  The thought had never crossed my mind.

  After a few days in Berlin, we boarded a charabanc for Dresden, but never once left the coach as we stared out of the windows in disbelief to see what was left of that once historic city. It made me feel that perhaps at times the British had also behaved like barbarians. I was pleased when the coach turned around and headed back to Berlin.

  The following day was a schoolboy’s dream. After driving to Regensburg, we spent the morning on a coal barge trudging sedately up the Danube, billowing black smoke as we made our way to Passau. After lunch, we took a train to Munich, where we spent three days in a youth hostel with young women actually sleeping in dorms on the floor below us. The next morning we explored the capital of Bavaria, and there wasn’t much sign that this had once been the birthplace of the Nazi party. I much admired the Residenz, the vast palace of the Wittelsbachs, where Mark Bairstow looked so relaxed he might have been visiting an old friend at home.

  In the evening, we went to the Cuvilliés Theater to see La Bohème, my first introduction to opera, which was to become a lifelong passion. It would be years before I appreciated how much I owed to Mr. Costello, a teacher whose lessons stretched far beyond the classroom.

  The following day, we visited the Alte Pinakothek, and I can’t pretend I was able to fully appreciate Dürer or Cranach, as I couldn’t take my eyes off a group of girls who were being shown around the gallery by the same guide. One in particular caught my attention.

  My extracurricular activities in Bavaria included my first experience of beer, frankfurters, attending the opera, and being kissed good night by a girl, although I don’t think she was overwhelmed. I just wished we’d had another week as she was clearly in the class above me.

  On our final day, Mr. Costello brought us all back down to earth when we boarded a bus that didn’t announce its destination on the front. We must have traveled some fourteen miles north of Munich before we reached a small town called Dachau. Of course, I knew my closest friend was Jewish, but I only thought of him as a classmate, and we never quarreled about anything except who should open the batting for Yorkshire. And when Ben once told me that his grandmother kept a packed suitcase by the front door, I had no idea what he was talking about.

  When the bus came to a halt outside the entrance of the concentration camp, we all got off in an uneasy silence and stared up at the uninviting rusty gates. I didn’t want to go in, but as everyone else trooped after Mr. Costello, I meekly followed. Our first stop was at a vast black wall, where a thousand names had been chiseled into the marble to remind us who had been there only a few years before, and not during a holiday excursion with a tour guide. I saw Ben weeping quietly as he stared at the thirty-seven Levys, three of whom hadn’t lived as long as he had. I looked across to see Mark Bairstow looking thoughtful, but apparently unmoved, while the rest of the group remained unusually silent.

  The young German guide then took us through the huts that had remained untouched since their occupants were liberated by the Americans. Row upon row of four-tiered bunks, with inch-thick mattresses and no pillows. At one end of the hut, a half-filled bucket of water that had been the lavatory for the fifty-six occupants, emptied once a day. But worse was to come, because Mr. Costello had no intention of sparing us.

  We climbed back on the bus and took the journey to Hartheim, where our young guide led us into a large soulless concrete building, where we entered a cold eerie room where time had stood still. He pointed to the holes in the ceiling where, he explained, the gas was released into the chamber, but only after the prisoners had been stripped and the doors locked. I felt sick, and didn’t have the courage to enter the final room to view the vast ovens that our guard told us had been built in 1933 soon after Hitler had come into power, and where the bodies of his innocent victims were finally turned into dust.

  When Ben eventually emerged, he fell to his knees and was violently sick. I thought of his grandmother, and for the first time understood the “packed suitcase.” I rushed across to join my friend, surprised to find Mark Bairstow already kneeling beside him with an arm around his shoulders, trying to comfort a boy he’d never spoken to before.

  * * *

  I was delighted to follow Mark Bairstow as school captain, even if I couldn’t hope to emulate his style and panache. I worked diligently during my final year and, with the conscientious help of Mr. Costello, was offered a place at Manchester University to read history. I accepted the offer, even though for a Yorkshireman to cross the Pennines into Lancashire in order to further his education was tantamount to high treason.

  By the time I graduated, I didn’t need Mr. Costello to tell me the profession I was best suited for. And if this tale had been about a schoolmaster, and the years of fulfillment he gained from being a teacher … but it isn’t.

  * * *

  I was teaching at a grammar school in Norfolk when my wife became pregnant, and I had to explain to her why she would have to travel up to Yorkshire to give birth to our son otherwise the lad couldn’t play for the county. Not that she had any interest in the game of cricket. It turned out to be a girl, so the subject was never mentioned again. However, I took advantage of being back in Leeds to look up my old friend Ben Levy, now a local solicitor, to suggest we spend a day at Headingley and watch the Roses Match.

  Being Yorkshiremen, we were in our seats long before the first ball was bowled, and by the morning break the county were at 77 for 2. “A spot of lunch?” I suggested as I rose from my place in the Hutton stand and glanced up at the President’s box to see a face I could have sworn I recognized, despite the passing of time. But he was wearing a dog collar and purple shirt, which threw me for a moment.

  I touc