A 1974 Selection.

The truth is, if old Major Dover hadn’t dropped dead at Taunton races Jim would never have come to Thursgood’s at all. He came in ­mid-term without an interview—late May, it was, though no one would have thought it from the weather—employed through one of the shiftier agencies specialising in supply teachers for prep schools, to hold down old Dover’s teaching till someone suitable could be found. “A linguist,” Thursgood told the ­common-room, “a temporary measure,” and brushed away his forelock in self-defence. “Priddo.” He gave the spelling, ­“P-r-i-d”—French was not Thursgood’s subject so he consulted the slip of paper—“e-a-u-x, first name James. I think he’ll do us very well till July.” The staff had no difficulty in reading the signals. Jim Prideaux was a poor white of the teaching community. He belonged to the same sad bunch as the late Mrs. Loveday, who had a ­Persian-lamb coat and stood in for junior divinity until her cheques bounced, or the late Mr. Maltby, the pianist who had been called from choir practice to help the police with their enquiries, and as far as anyone knew was helping them to this day, for Maltby’s trunk still lay in the cellar awaiting instructions. Several of the staff, but chiefly Marjoribanks, were in favour of opening that trunk. They said it contained notorious missing treasures: Aprahamian’s silver-framed picture of his Lebanese mother, for instance; ­Best-Ingram’s Swiss army penknife and Matron’s watch. But Thursgood set his creaseless face resolutely against their entreaties. Only five years had passed since he had inherited the school from his father, but they had taught him already that some things are best locked away.

Jim Prideaux arrived on a Friday in a rainstorm. The rain rolled like ­gunsmoke down the brown combes of the Quantocks, then raced across the empty cricket fields into the sandstone of the crumbling façades. He arrived just after lunch, driving an old red Alvis and towing a ­second-hand trailer that had once been blue. Early afternoons at Thursgood’s are tranquil, a brief truce in the running fight of each school day. The boys are sent to rest in their dormitories, the staff sit in the­ common-room over coffee reading newspapers or correcting boys’ work. Thursgood reads a novel to his mother. Of the whole school, therefore, only little Bill Roach actually saw Jim arrive, saw the steam belching from the Alvis’s bonnet as it wheezed its way down the pitted drive, windscreen wipers going full pelt and the trailer shuddering through the puddles in pursuit.