Terms of Innocence

By Gerald H Thornhill

It is the 1950s. A small seaside town in Suffolk, England. Chris, a young boy just entering manhood, together with his friend, witness a couple making love in a field. A girl is later reported missing and the police attend the boys school appealing for help.
His friend persuades Chris they should not report what they had seen. The disappearance develops in to a murder investigation and to Chriss distress the police arrest the wrong man.
The impending break-up of his parents marriage and his mothers mental breakdown, are the background to Chriss awakening interest in the opposite sex. His increasing guilt over the failure to report what he knows to be vital evidence in the murder investigation finally brings about a violent dnouement.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Nov 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496994486

Gerald H Thornhill

Gerald H Thornhill left school at the age of fifteen and worked in the wholesale cotton industry in Manchester. After two years in the R.A.F. serving in Cyprus during the EOKA campaign and the Suez Crisis, he returned to Manchester. In 1967 he joined the British Airports Authority and worked in the Operations Department at both Stansted and Gatwick airports. He left the BAA in 2001 to start a video business making training, instructional and promotional films for the aviation industry. After retirement he turned to writing – a lifetime’s ambition. He lives with Heather, his wife, in Sussex, England. “Terms Of Innocence” is his second novel.

Book preview

CHRISTMAS TERM

ONE

IT WAS BEFORE I got to know about sex. Know about it properly I mean, not just the rumours about it or what the other kids said about it, most of which was nonsense as it turned out.

It was before the play, before the Dance Club, before I got to know Joanna. It was before the murder and the attempted suicide.

The first day of Third Year that’s when it started – that’s when it started for me, anyway. They knew each other before then, of course, or at least had met each other, at a dance at the Spa Pavilion they said at the trial. But for me the beginning of it all was that first day of Third Year.

5th September it was. Mick Kingston and me meet up in the school hall; he’s a really good firm friend. I have known him for years, well, since First Year, anyway. So, we meet up in the school hall; it’s the start of school year so all the admin has to be sorted out. There’s the typical start of term noise and babble, everybody talking at once amid the usual air of confusion you expect at the beginning of term. The teachers ignoring the hubbub; passing bits of paper between themselves, talking to each other, sometimes shouting; working out who is in which class, especially the First Years – they must be the most difficult to sort; and they also have to assign them to their respective ‘Houses’ – Cavendish, Constable, Felix, or Wolsey. The best House is Cavendish, of course, which Mick and me happen to belong, to as it happens. Each House has its own sports teams: football, hockey, cricket, netball, etcetera, not that that affects us much as we are both more or less failures when it comes to football and cricket. Athletics? Well, we are reasonably accomplished there – we both get involved on Sports Day. In fact Mick came second in the eight-eighty yards last summer, which isn’t bad considering his stature. I mean he’s not very tall so it’s surprising he can run so far so fast.

It’s getting close to the start of Morning Assembly now and Mick and me check we are still in the same class – though it’s pretty obvious we will be, we were both in the top six at the end of year exams in July so why wouldn’t we? Though I did have this nagging worry that one of us could be put down in to the ‘C’ stream but, like I say, it was unlikely. I’m just a natural worrier, I suppose.

While the teachers are doing all their admin stuff, fiddling with their fountain pens, sucking on the end of pencils, peering at forms, shouting out names and doing what they do on the first day – while they are sorting everything out, me and Mick are standing over in a corner by the stage catching up, since we haven’t seen each other for a couple of weeks. It’s bright outside; the sun shining down from a blue September sky and for a few seconds, in my head, I am back down at the beach diving off the wooden platform they put out in the bay this year; but the long summer holidays are over so I know there’s no point in wishing and, anyway, ‘You can’t put the clock back’ as mum said this morning when she was going on about dad.

The school has the same familiar unique smell; it’s the first thing I noticed when I walked through the Boys Entrance this morning. It’s a mixture of books, blackboard chalk, school dinners and floor polish – it’s just like the Central Junior School, only more so which means it’s not unique, I suppose, but anyway, it’s a ‘school’ smell – you know? Like a hospital, or a cinema maybe; they have there own distinct smells, don’t they? And Maidstone Road Secondary Modern has one too.

I just said it’s ‘just like the Central Junior School’ but I was talking about the smell of the place – the ‘school’ smell and that’s the only similarity Maidstone Road School has with the Central Junior. Maidstone Road is very modern; I suppose that’s why it’s called ‘Felixstowe Secondary Modern School’. So it’s not a bit like the Central Junior, which is really old-fashioned looking, and gloomy inside – some of the windows have been bricked up because of some light tax they had in the past and it doesn’t have a playing field. It was built in 18-something, at least a hundred years ago. That makes it Victorian I suppose. Where as Maidstone Road School was built just before the war, I think, and has a really modern look; it has red brick walls, an upper storey with a kind of brick tower at each end of the front and two wings coming off at the back, one wing all classrooms and the other housing the school hall and gymnasium. It’s roughly ‘E’ shaped without the center stroke. It has lots of metal-framed windows, and the gym has wall bars, and ropes and beams and a sprung floor – and dressing rooms with hot showers. Not that I like gym too much. Anyway, there are wide corridors and the school hall holds four or five hundred with a large stage and there’s a really big playing field at the back, so it can’t be compared, architecturally, with the Central Junior – I just thought I had better make that clear.

So, as I was saying – it’s the first day of Third Year. After a while the teachers break away from their groups and things start to get organised. There is a lot of shouting and shuffling and moving about but we are soon lining up in our classes, boys and girls in alternate rows, First Years at the front, just below the stage, then Second Years, then Third Years, then Fourth Year Girls and finally Fourth Year Boys right at the back under the clock. The teachers standing on the left hand side of the hall each next to their own class and each peering at the forms in their hands, although there’s not a teacher near us I notice. The hall is filled with the buzz of hundreds of voices all talking at once but we are not told to quieten down, we are just ignored, until Mr Culloden – ‘Beaker’ we call him because of his nose – comes in through the right hand double doors at the back and walks down the right side of the hall and then there’s a lot of Quiet now’s! And Simmer down’s! But nobody seems to take any notice until Beaker is mounting the six steps to the stage, and the noise begins to subside and as he’s walking to the lectern in the center it gets quieter and quieter. It’s like someone is turning a volume control so by the time he reaches the stand there is silence except for a cough here and there. Now he’s standing at the lectern, looking out at the sea of faces and letting a few seconds go by; now shuffling his papers while there are a few more coughs and he’s looking down, glancing across at the teachers and then regarding the First Years for a few seconds.

He’s medium height, greying hair, thin face, wears rimless glasses; he’s not fat, nor thin – kind of ‘stocky’ I think you would describe him. He doesn’t smile much, shouts a lot; I don’t know how old he is – fifty? Sixty? It’s difficult to tell a grown-ups age. He looks old, anyway. He always wears a grey suit, with a dark tie and a dark blue handkerchief peeping out of the top pocket. He’s a bit… well, frightening is the only word. I find him so, anyway. I saw him lay in to three Third Year boys last term. I had been sent to pick up some exercise books, and, I’m just about to go in the school office to collect them, when Beaker’s office door is suddenly snatched open and he comes storming out in to the lobby, where these three Third Years were waiting, and starts hitting them around the head and punching them and shouting something about ‘appalling behavior’ and ‘I’m not having it’ and the three kids were ducking and covering their heads and crying. I’ve no idea what they had done. He bundled them in to his office and slammed the door. Like I say, he’s a bit frightening.

Good morning to you all, he says eventually and there is a kind of scraggly Good morning Mr Culloden, back from most of us, our voices not in unison, some in front of others, some behind, so it sounds like there is an echo bouncing around the ceiling.

Beaker stares down at us and barks, ‘I said good morning to you all’ – now let me hear a proper response!

So we’re all saying it again and this time it’s a bit more together, though not quite, and he glares down at us again for a few seconds in silence and then says, quietly, Yes, better.

He’s placing his papers on the stand now, pushing his glasses up his nose, tapping the papers together and looking down at the First Years again.

He says, I welcome each of you young people on your first day at Maidstone Road Secondary School. Today is a significant step in your education. Today is the first day of your search to discover what each of you will become when you finally complete your education in four years time. Those ahead of you, in the second and third years, are already travelling down that road, our fourth year pupils, in their last year with us, will have already decided, or be researching, their chosen careers.

He pauses. It’s what Miss Grieves, who teaches English, would call a ‘theatrical’ pause because now he’s looking around the hall slowly, making us wait before he continues. I glance at Mick, who is standing next to me, and dig him in the ribs and whisper, Bet he tells us these are the happiest days of our life.

Now, Mr Culloden, placing both hands on the lectern and leaning forward slightly says, These days, these few years, are amongst the most precious of your life, these days should not be squandered, wasted in idleness, spent in frivolous pursuits, they are priceless days you should treasure and enjoy; they will not be repeated. You should grasp the opportunities these few years give you to lay the foundations of a good, stable and full Christian life. You may have heard the phrase ‘School days are the happiest days of your life,’ well, that may be the case – that should be the case – but school days are not days any of you should be squandering. These days will not be repeated…

I dig Mick in the ribs again and whisper, Told you! He said it last year and the year before it’s the same –

Suddenly there’s a stinging pain in my left ear – it really hurts – and a voice is hissing in to it, Pay attention, Brownlow, the headmaster is attempting to allot some of his wisdom to you.

Mr Oulton. He takes gardening and maths, is the senior male teacher and is class teacher for Fourth Year Boys. I’m not looking forward to next year when we move into his class because he’s really tough. Somebody said to me last term ‘he doesn’t take any prisoners’ so you can see what I mean.

If I catch you talking during his address again, he whispers in to my ear, which is still hurting because he has it grasped between his fingers, I shall allot some of my particular form of wisdom to you personally. Got it? And he lets go of my ear and bangs the back of my head with the heel of his hand. There are some suppressed giggles from the girls behind.

… This is the time – these few years, at this school. Beaker is saying, When you should, with the help of your teachers, be building the foundations of your future. Now is the time…

Yeah, the same speech as last year; I remember it, because it went on and on.

Boring, boring.

In a minute he’ll be talking about how we are going to be helped with our choice of career, as if there is a catalogue somewhere we can look into and pick out what we want to do. ("Yes sir, I’ve decided to be a brain surgeon, it’s on page 63.")

As if.

I mean this is rural Suffolk. Many of the boys will become farm labourers, tractor drivers, cow men, that sort of thing, or apprentice fitters at Ransoms, the big engineering place in Ipswich; the girls will be shop assistants or office girls making tea all day, hairdressers maybe, or assistant cooks in a canteen somewhere. None of us are going to be solicitors, or doctors, or, well, brain surgeons are we? Nor school teachers. Grammar School pupils have careers; Secondary School kids just get jobs. I’ve learnt that here, anyway.

The thing is I don’t know what I want to do when I leave – not be a farm labourer that’s for sure, or a fitter in a garage somewhere – I mean I’ve just got no idea. It’s a bit worrying, really, or should I say another worry to add to the list, along with not being able to cut joints in woodwork, solder in metalwork, or understand logarithms.

Anyway, Beaker has finished his start-of-school-year spiel now and Miss Hariss, who’s the music teacher, strikes up on the piano and now we’re all singing ‘There Is A Green Hill Far Away.’

While we’re singing I’m thinking about what Mum said to me this morning. She told me Dad wouldn’t be coming home any more, so I said to Mum, What difference does that make? And she looked a bit shocked, but the fact is he is hardly ever home. During the war, when I was little, and we lived in Portsmouth, I never saw him – a few days here, a weekend there and since the war it’s been the same. He works for the Air Ministry and he’s stationed at R.A.F. Bawdsey but he is sent to different RAF Stations for inspection visits or something – don’t ask me what he does exactly. Mum says he’s a ‘Boffin’ and it’s all very hush-hush as they used to say in the war. Though why it should be now – hush-hush that is – heaven knows, the war has been over for ages.

When he does come home, on those rare occasions, the only thing he seems to do is complain and criticize; forever harping on about me failing the Grammar School exam and ending up at, "That second rate secondary modern," as he always refers to it as in a right sneering tone. And he criticizes Mum’s cooking, you know: What’s this supposed to be? That kind of thing, or she doesn’t get the right kind of wine for dinner, that’s another one. Anyway, when she told me he wasn’t coming home any more I didn’t think to ask why to be honest, I just felt pleased.

Well, now the hymn has been sung, prayers said and we’re all filing out of the hall and into the corridors to our classrooms. Fourth Year first, First Year last. Lots of noise; a right brouhaha (like that word – just looked it up.) Teachers shouting, No talking. Be Quiet! No running!"

Last year we had been 2F but now we are 3J. The only difference being there are more of us, thirty-two instead of thirty, we’re in a different classroom and we’ll have a different class teacher. ‘Goofy’ Smithson has been ‘re-streamed’ in to our class for some reason - done well in the end of year exams in Second Year, I suppose. He walks in to our new classroom, which is the where the Art classes are held, on the ground floor, next to the woodwork room and he’s blinking through the thick lenses of his glasses, grins at everyone and says, I’m with you lot, now.

Trevor Davies, who’s a little squirt, but thinks he’s really tough and always throwing what little weight he has around and looking for a fight (I have noticed that small people often seem belig…beliger-something, act tough anyway – in an effort to make up for the fact they are small,) anyway, little squirt Trevor Davies says, Christ! We’ve got to put up with one of the dense sods from ‘C’ stream? But Goofy Simpson ignores him, which is usually the best thing to do.

The other addition is a new girl. She has dark brown hair, and it’s in two long plaits that go right down her back, nearly to her waist, the sort that, if you sit behind her, you could dip the end of each into the ink-well on your desk – like we’ve done to Sadie Pearson a couple of times – who also has long plaits, though hers are blond – almost white – and she’s for ever pulling them forward in a show-off way and saying things like ‘Boy, you’re daft,’ and ‘I don’t talk to yokels like you.’ Which is why she gets her plaits dipped into the inkwell, I suppose. Anyhow, this new girl’s hair is a really dark brown and her skin is dark too – she’s not black, I don’t think there are any black kids at the school, but her skin is a kind of milky coffee colour, like a good sun tan and I suppose that’s what it could be, now I think about it.

It’s really noisy in the classroom because there’s no teacher here yet. We’re all a bit excited, talking about the holidays, where we’ve been, what we’ve been doing; re-newing friendships, alliances. The girls in small groups, whispering and giggling; there’s a lot of banging of desktops after checking last term’s occupier hasn’t left anything inside. Some of us a bit worried about what the new school year will bring – will we be able to keep up? That kind of thing, some not caring one way or the other. Mick and me claim a desk in the middle about half way back and we’ve just sat down when the teacher walks in. He’s new, never seen him before, smallish, has a nervous kind of smile, dark eyes, dark hair, some would call him handsome I suppose; has a bit of a Tyrone Power look about him. He stares at one of the groups of girls, his eyes sliding across a few of the boys. He puts his brief case down on the teacher’s desk at the front and fiddles around in it for a while. Then he straightens up and turns to face us.

Thank you, come to order! He says, in a voice that is much deeper than you expect it to be. He sounds a bit posh but not too bad and nobody takes any notice and then he clears his throat and says it again, but much louder this time, I said ‘Come to order!’ Please sit at your desks.

Then he smiles, a strange sort of smile, maybe it’s more of a smirk than a proper smile. We slowly stop talking and the groups of girls split up and go to their desks. He stands there with this leery smile on his face and then says, My name is Mr Osborne. I am your class teacher for Third Year and will also be the school’s art teacher.

I notice he has leather patches on the elbow of his dark jacket and his grey trousers need pressing.

As you have probably realised, I am new to this school, he is saying, and I am feeling a little strange, so I hope you will be kind to me. He gives a little strangled chuckle and then says, Especially you young ladies. I have not taught the female of the species before so this will be a new experience, and I have never taught in this kind of school before, my teaching career up to now has been with public schools, so, in fact, today everything is rather novel for me.

Now he asks, Who can tell me what a public school is?

Fee paying, the top schools in the country are Public Schools – Eton, Rugby, Harrow – those sort of schools, says Jonathan Colindale, who is a bit of a know-all type.

A place for stuck up posh rich kids! Dick Cobbold, the fattest boy in the class, sitting at the front, shouts out. And someone else shouts, Yeah! And one or two of us laugh and Mr Osborne is looking a bit taken aback.

Put your hand up if you wish to say something or answer any of my questions. He barks, glaring at both Collindale and Dick Cobbold. Pointing at Dick Cobbold he says, What’s your name? Dick Cobbold tells him and he nods and then says more quietly, Yes, I suppose some people would describe a public school in that way.

He takes out a notebook from his inside pocket, carefully opens it. There are a few giggles and shuffles from us. We are all watching him closely, wondering what he’s going to be like. Strict? Friendly? Distant? Funny? Serious?

Now, I am given to believe there is someone else new here this morning. He is peering round the class with this strange smile again, Joanna Blackburn, will you stand and introduce yourself, please.

The new girl is sitting right at the back so most of us are twisting round as she stands up so we can get a good look, including Mick and me. It is obvious she does not like this sudden attention from us all, she is shuffling her feet and looking down and her face has become flushed.

My name is Joanna Blackburn, she says, almost whispering her words and still staring down at the floor and looking really, really, embarrassed.

I feel a bit sorry for her having to do that, her first day in a new school, in front of thirty-odd strangers. She sits down after about a minute of talking – well, whispering is a better description, and she’s told us her dad is sergeant-major in the army and has just been transferred from Colchester to Brackenbury Fort in Old Felixstowe.

Mr Osborne says, Thank you Joanna, now, perhaps I should introduce myself, and he says it in a way that means ‘I’ll show you how it should be done’ and he glances at the new girl in a superior kind of way and smiles round at everyone.

He tells us again how his teaching career so far has been in public schools, and he mentions their names – not Eton, Rugby or Harrow – though he acts as if we should be familiar with them but, of course, we’re not, and he goes on about how he sees his move to a Secondary Modern school as a ‘new challenge,’ because, amongst other things, The type of pupil at a state school is a vastly different personality to the young person who attends a public school.

How does he know that? I ask myself since he’s just told us this is his first day at a secondary modern. Then he tells us his specialist subject is art and we should see this new school year as a blank canvas on which he will be helping us to paint the outlines of our future – there’s a lot of stuff like that and we’re all bored stiff after three or four minutes of it but eventually he dries up and hands out the new timetables, takes the register and then, after some more talking from him, I can’t even remember what it was all about it was so boring, the bell goes for playtime.

Miss Grieves is on playground duty this morning and she stands on the steps by the girls’ entrance surveying the scene. I like her; she is the English teacher and not as old as most of the others. She was our class teacher in Second Year and she always wears a wide woolen skirt, usually brown coloured, and a white blouse and she has auburn hair, almost the exact same colour as my mum’s, and it goes down to her shoulders – also like mum’s. Last term she got me to read the lesson in front of the whole school at morning assembly – it was that bit from Corinthians: ‘When I was a child I thought as a child, I spoke as a child.’ Can’t remember the verse numbers but I do remember it was quite scary – reading it, I mean, not the actual words – but I managed it and afterwards she told me I had done well and I had a ‘good speaking voice’.

Anyway, I noticed her, standing on the steps by the girl’s entrance. Not sure that’s got anything to do with any of this, it’s just I remember it.

In the playground it’s the usual thing. The First Year kids looking a bit lost because this is their first day at the ‘big school’ and most of them are apprehensive about it all. They are no longer the big kids lording it over the infants like they were a couple of months ago, but are just ‘First Year’s’ and will soon learn to keep out of the way of the Fourth Years and the prefects, like I did when I first arrived here.

Most of the girls congregate at one end of the playground and the majority of boys at the other, except for the Fourth Year’s, they tend to mix a bit. A group of boys are playing cricket with a tennis ball and what looks like a bat from a Woolworth’s cricket set and they’ve chalked some wickets on the boys’ lav wall. A group of First Year girls are skipping. They are using a long rope with a girl at each end turning it and one of the group runs in as the others chant:

‘On the mountain stands a creature – who she is I do not know –

All she wants is gold and silver – all she wants is a nice young man,

So call in my Margaret dear, Margaret dear –’

And Margaret runs in to join the first girl and they keep repeating the chant until they have five or six all skipping together. It’s real girls stuff. It should be a boy that’s called in, I suppose, it would make more sense, but no boy would be seen dead skipping with a bunch of First Year girls.

Not far from the skippers are some Fourth Year boys standing in a group with a couple of Fourth Year girls and the girls are standing astride a puddle of water swaying about and giggling while the boys are grinning and looking down. I get curious and sidle up to them to see what they are doing but one of the boys says, Piss off Brownlow, this ain’t a little kids area.

Then I notice Miss Grieves is walking toward us and the two girls standing across the puddle see her too and run off across the playground laughing and the boys walk away in different directions, but Miss Grieves keeps walking toward where I am standing and as she gets nearer she says, I would like a word, Brownlow.

I wonder what’s coming because I can’t think of anything I’ve done wrong unless she thinks I was with the Fourth Year’s looking at the girls’ knickers in the puddles reflection. But it’s not that because when she stops in front of me she says, I have taken over the Walton Drama Group from Miss Cecily Longton, who has been running it for years but has now moved to pastures new, and I thought perhaps you and your friend Kingston may like to join us. You are both reasonably articulate and there is a couple of parts I think would suit each of you. We are going to do ‘The Guinea Pig’. It’s about a young cockney boy who is given the opportunity to attend a Public School and how the experience affects him and those around him and –

That’s a picture, I answer, and I’m wondering what ‘articulate’ means – and maybe I should look it up – and thinking that Mr Osborne has just told us he’s come from a Public School so it must be the other way round for him – coming to a Secondary Modern. It was on at the Ritz the other week, I add.

Yes, she answers, I believe that is so, but that was a film adapted from this play. I am trying to get permission to stage it here at the school. Now, if I do get permission, what do you say? I think you will enjoy it."

Has Mick said he will? I ask.

Well, I’ve not spoken to him yet, but I am sure he will want to – he’s very outgoing, isn’t he?

More than me, I think, but don’t say. Okay – if Mick does, I add.

Don’t say ‘okay’ Brownlow, it’s very American. I am having a read-through on Friday after school in the hall, will you come along?

I nearly say ‘okay’ again but stop myself and say, Yes Miss.

She walks away, I feel good to have been asked because it means she must have been studying me and it’s sort of flattering.

Then I see Mick coming out of the boy’s entrance and I go over to him and he says, Watchyer!

And I say, Don’t say that, Kingston – it’s very American! And I laugh because I think it’s quite funny, but of course he doesn’t get it and looks at me all puzzled and then I ask him about this Guinea Pig thing and he says, Yeah, s’okay with me, could be fun, who else is in it?

I tell him I don’t know but we’ll find out at the read-through on Friday.

The new timetable is much like the old one except we’re doing all the subjects on different days and different times. English first period on Mondays and second period on Tuesdays. Gym twice a week, games – which means football for the boys, hockey for the girls, once a week, gardening, which me and Mick both hate, all afternoon on Thursdays, for the boys that is, needlework for the girls; one period each of science, history, drama, religion. On Fridays we get boring metalwork all morning and even more boring woodwork all afternoon – the boys that is, the girls get needlework all morning and cookery all afternoon – except it’s now called ‘Domestic Science.’ I suppose it makes it sound more important.

TWO

CAN’T REMEMBER MUCH about the rest of that first week of term. I did my paper round each morning, cycled to school; Mum was a bit quiet though I didn’t notice that then. It’s only in respect I can see that was the case – no, not respect – a word like that, anyway, it means looking back and seeing something you didn’t see at the time. Retrospect – that’s the word.

Anyhow, Mum and me listened to the wireless together in the evening like we often did; the weather became changeable. At school at the start of the music lesson on Tuesday Miss Harris tells us that there is to be a couple of performances of Handel’s ‘Messiah’ in Ipswich in December and she is hoping to organise a school trip to one of them. Details regarding the date and time and cost ‘to be announced later’ she said. Mick and I may go if it’s not too much. Might be a laugh. He said, though I don’t think Handel’s Messiah is supposed to be funny.

Anyway, it’s Friday now, after home time, and we’re sitting in a semi-circle on wooden chairs in the middle of the school hall listening to Miss Grieves talking about this play ‘The Guinea Pig.’ When I say ‘we’ I mean me and Mick and a couple of grown-ups who I’ve never met before that Miss Grieves introduced as Mr. Sheldon and Miss Gainson – two members of the Walton Drama Club who are taking leading parts in the play. Miss Gainson is younger than Miss Grieves and I’m guessing she is an ex Grammar School girl – bet she works in