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524 William Trevor
'Don't you like Miss Fanshawe's hat?' Carruthers smiled, point-
ing at Miss Fanshawe, and when the waiter said that the hat was
very nice Carruthers asked him his name.
Miss Fanshawe dipped a spoon into her soup. The waiter offered
her a roll. His name, he said, was Atkins.
'Are you wondering about us, Mr Atkins?'
'Sir?'
'Everyone has a natural curiosity, you know.'
'I see a lot of people in my work, sir.'
'Miss Fanshawe's an undermatron at Ashleigh Court Prepara-
tory School for Boys. They use her disgracefully at the end of term
- patching up clothes so that the mothers won't complain, packing
trunks, sorting out laundry. From dawn till midnight Miss Fan-
shawe's on the trot. That's why she's tired.'
Miss Fanshawe laughed. 'Take no notice of him,' she said. She
broke her roll and buttered a piece of it. She pointed at wheat rip-
ening in a field. The harvest would be good this year, she said.
'At the end of each term,' Carruthers went on, 'she has to sit with
me on this train because we travel in the same direction. I'm out of
her authority really, since the term is over. Still, she has to keep an
eye.'
The waiter, busy with the wine, said he understood. He raised
his eyebrows at Miss Fanshawe and winked, but she did not en-
courage this, pretending not to notice it.
imagine, Mr Atkins,' Carruthers said, 'a country house in the
mock Tudor style, with bits built on to it: a rackety old gymn and
an art-room, and changing-rooms that smell of perspiration. There
are a hundred and three boys at Ashleigh Court, in narrow iron
beds with blue rugs on them, which Miss Fanshawe has to see are
all kept tidy. She does other things as well: she wears a white over-
all and gives out medicines. She pours out cocoa in the dining-hall
and at eleven o'clock every morning she hands each boy four
petit
beurre
biscuits. She isn't allowed to say Grace. It has to be a master
who says Grace: "For what we're about to receive . . . " Or the
Reverend T. L. Edwards, who owns and runs the place, T.L.E.,
known to generations as a pervert. He pays boys, actually.'
The waiter, having meticulously removed a covering of red foil
from the top of the wine bottle, wiped the cork with a napkin be-
fore attempting to draw it. He glanced quickly at Miss Fanshawe
to see if he could catch her eye in order to put her at her ease with
Going Home
525
an understanding gesture, but she appeared to be wholly engaged
with her soup.
The Reverend Edwards is a law unto himself,' Carruthers said.
'Your predecessor was intrigued by him.'
'Please take no notice of him.' She tried to sound bracing, looking
up suddenly and smiling at the waiter.
'The headmaster accompanied you on the train, did he, sir?'
'No, no, no, no. The Reverend Edwards was never on this train
in his life. No, it was simply that your predecessor was interested
in life at Ashleigh Court. He would stand there happily listening
while we told him the details: you could say he was fascinated.'
At this Miss Fanshawe made a noise that was somewhere be-
tween a laugh and a denial.
'You could pour the Beaune now, Mr Atkins,' Carruthers sug-
gested.
The waiter did so, pausing for a moment, in doubt as to which
of the two he should offer a little of the wine to taste. Carruthers
nodded to him, indicating that it should be he. The waiter complied
and when Carruthers had given his approval he filled both their
glasses and lifted from before them their empty soup plates.
'I've asked you not to behave like that,' she said when the waiter
had gone.
'Like what, Miss Fanshawe?'
'You know, Carruthers.'
'The waiter and I were having a general conversation. As before,
Miss Fanshawe, with the other waiter. Don't you remember? Don't
you remember my telling him how I took forty of Hornsby's foot-
ball cards? And drank the communion wine in the Reverend's cup-
board?'
'I don't believe —'
'And I'll tell you another thing. I excused myself into Rider Mi-
nor's gum-boots.'
'Please leave the waiter alone. Please let's have no scenes this
time, Carruthers.'
'There weren't scenes with the other waiter. He enjoyed every-
thing we said to him. You could see him quite clearly trying to
visualize Ashleigh Court, and Mrs Carruthers in her awful clothes.'
'He visualized nothing of the sort. You gave him drink that I had
to pay for. He was obliged to listen to your fantasies.'
'He enjoyed our conversation, Miss Fanshawe. Why is it that
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