Y - Twenty Year Reunion

The twenty year reunion of our leaving Class at the Bishop Cranley
Endowed School was the third reunion they had organized. There might
have been more but people needed time to come to terms with that bit of
unpleasantness on Graduation Day. There had been a ten year reunion,
and then a fifteen year reunion. Opportunities to renew friendships and
display successes. Clara and I went to all the reunions. You can't help
being curious about your old classmates, can you? And we were
interested to see how they would deal with that bit of
unpleasantness.

Naturally if you pass through a school like Bishop Cranley people
expect things of you. Your teachers and parents wouldn't be too pleased
if you ended up serving hamburgers at MacDonalds or calling the odds at
Walthamstow Dog Track. That kind of thing is almost unknown.

1982 was a golden year. It produced a cabinet minister (although he
didn't survive the first reshuffle), a consultant psychiatrist, an
ambassador to Botswana, a television news reader and a Police Chief
Constable. Not bad for one of the "minor" publics.

At all three reunions Clara and I arrived slightly late. Easier to
blend in if there are lots of people already there, talking to one
another. We love listening to people's conversations when they don't
know we're there, we've never been able to resist it.

The venue is always the Small Assembly Hall, which is actually quite
large. Lots of room for the long tables with the food and the punch
bowl, and places for people to sit and chat - or dance if they want to.
They play the pop tunes from the graduation year. In 1982 it was Eye of
the Tiger, Ebony and Ivory, and Chariots of Fire.

At the ten year reunion that bit of unpleasantness was fresh in
everyone's mind. We wondered if they would refer to it, and of course
they did. It was very tasteful. There were two framed photo-studio
portraits on a little table, and between them a tribute from the
Headmaster, on paper that looked like parchment, and a vase of
creamy-white lilies at each side. It said: "In memory of the tragic
loss of our two young classmates and dear friends, who in a moment of
confusion and despair put an end to their own lives. They shall live
forever in our thoughts and prayers."

It didn't fluff the issue or hide behind euphemisms. It told the truth.
Clara and I liked it a lot. Of course it couldn't tell all of the truth
because the only people who knew that were Clara and myself and Theresa
Lindsay. Nobody else in the whole world.

Poor old Theresa. She hadn't been an easy person to like back then and
she still wasn't. Clara and I had visited her at home quite a few times
at the beginning, but it had only made things worse. Her problems were
quite serious. Psychiatric.

At the fifteen year reunion they had the same bit of parchment, framed
this time, but no photographs and only one vase of flowers. It must
have been difficult for the Headmaster, deciding what to say and what
was best left unsaid. A matter of good taste. One thing that Bishop
Cranley people have always had is impeccable good taste.

Theresa didn't attend the fifteen year reunion. We were sorry. We had
hoped we might renew our acquaintance with her there.

We were wondering if they would still remember the unpleasant incident
at the twenty year reunion. At first we thought they hadn't, but we
eventually found the framed parchment, on one of the walls alongside
lists of distinguished ex-pupils and war dead and the like. You could
tell they normally had something larger there from the clean bit of
wall behind it. A tasteful attempt to help unpleasant things to fade
away.

We were looking at the parchment when Theresa walked up behind us. I
turned and told her how nice it was to see her again but she didn't
reply. I couldn't tell her she looked well because it wouldn't have
been true: she looked terrible. Thin, drawn, pasty-faced, dark shadows
around her eyes as though she hadn't slept for weeks.

"You didn't expect to see us here, did you?" I said gently.

"We've never really left you," Clara smiled. Theresa just stood there,
looking shocked.

"We've forgiven you ages ago," Clara assured her, "We were all just
children back then. Just a mass of surging hormones."

"I think we should talk about it though," I put in gently. "We've tried
to before and you didn't seem very receptive." She stared at the two of
us, wide-eyed and unblinking.

"What we did was our own choice," said Clara. "Everybody chooses for
themselves."

Theresa didn't move. "You chose to follow us, didn't you? You didn't
just walk in on us by accident. Not with a camera all ready to flash.
You knew exactly what you would find in that locker room. You came
fully prepared. Why did you do that, Theresa? Jealousy, perhaps?"

"Of course in an ordinary school it simply wouldn't have mattered, "
Clara continued. "It isn't as though we invented sex. I suppose it
happens all the time in a state Comprehensive. But this is Bishop
Cranley."

"It was so sordid, Theresa," I explained sadly. "The locker room floor.
What would our mothers have said about that? Our classmates? Our
parents' friends?"

Clara drew a little closer. "But we did over-react. It's a pity we were
such good chemistry students."

Theresa suddenly thundered the words: "Leave me alone!" with a power
you wouldn't have believed she possessed. The music stopped.

A man came rushing up to her and grabbed her arm. It Was Dr. Stuart
Bolton, the consultant psychiatrist. We used to call him "Stu" and
tease him about his big nose.

"It's all right Theresa. I shouldn't have brought you here. I'll take
you back now." He led her through the silent crowd without saying
anything to us, as if we weren't there.