boys sniggered into their palms; that was exactly what they had done.
‘Thought as much.’ Mark nodded in jest.
Without a word, they turned a hundred and eighty degrees on the path. With straight backs and heads held high, they began retracing their steps.
‘Did you catch the match last night, boys?’ the headmaster shouted at their backs.
They turned their heads as they continued walking away.
‘Oh, sir! It was gutting. We were robbed!’
‘Aha! Just goes to show that even with all that fancy Italian footwork, we can still whoop you!’
‘You got lucky, sir, that’s all!’
‘Is that right? And by the way, boys, if you are trying to use the correct football lingo, it is “we was robbed” – only ever “we were robbed” if talking cricket. Got it?’
The two laughed even harder as they quickened their pace towards the dorms. They loved him. All the kids did.
Mark brushed past his wife and wandered towards the rose bed that formed the waist-high perimeter at the back of their private garden. With hands on hips he surveyed the scene in front of him. The house sat as a separate wing to the Upper School, with a large patch of immaculate lawn overlooking the main sports fields. The school itself was Gothic in places, but largely Georgian in construction. The main administration block reminded Kathryn of an oversized doll’s house with its four large, symmetrically placed square windows and panelled front door with lion’s-mouth knocker. She sometimes imagined removing the front completely and moving the little dolls around inside. The classrooms were spread around two main quadrangles and there was a beautiful early-nineteenth-century chapel.
It was one of those fine English establishments whose every angle offered a postcard opportunity and whose character and history were far more impressive than the day-to-day running would have you believe. It had a reputation for being elitist, proud and superior, and with good reason. Mountbriers Academy was a centre of excellence in many subjects, from science to art. Its alumni included high-ranking military men, prime ministers, scientists and medics of note; attending the school therefore carried its own pressures.
The school’s elaborate gold emblem, with eagle wings spreading behind it and the Latin motto beneath – Veritas Liberabit Vos; Truth Shall Set You Free – adorned not only all sports kit and blazers, but also bags, vehicles and even the school bins; everything was similarly stamped. The school did not miss an opportunity to advertise the elitist symbol that set its pupils apart. In Finchbury and its surrounds it was instantly recognisable as a badge of privilege that few could aspire to. Not that the paying parents minded; it was all part of a carefully orchestrated PR campaign to keep the fees rolling in.
Gone were the days when it was all down to a recommendation from an old boy and a strenuous entrance exam; days when many a titled family would pace their panelled hall and snap at the staff, waiting anxiously for the cream, crest-embossed envelope whose contents would either smooth their son’s path through life or hamper it.
Nowadays it was all very different. As long as your parents had the requisite bank balance, you too could run amok wearing a rugby shirt that would normally cost fourteen pounds, but once embroidered with the Mountbriers logo had to be purchased from the school shop for a shade under forty.
A more shocking fact for many Old Mountbrierens was that the school now allowed the female of the species to attend. The offspring of newly moneyed families desperate for social elevation, the children of oligarchs with their eyes on European prizes, and Trustafarians whose Right Honourable parents wore extra jerseys to stave off the damp in their crumbling, country piles – all now rubbed shoulders along the portrait-lined corridors and ivy-clad walkways, each step reinforcing just how very fortunate they were.
Mark hummed an excerpt from his favourite Tchaikovsky overture, ‘Romeo and Juliet’, the only one he knew. Stepping forward and removing a pair of nail scissors from his inside pocket, he snipped the head off a full-bloomed rose. It was one of Kathryn’s favourite varieties, a blushing pink called ‘Change of Heart’.
Kathryn tucked in her lips and bit down, a physical trick she employed to stem the words of dissent that often gathered behind her tongue. It was easier that way. She quietly winced, calculating that the flower would have remained beautiful for another week or so, maybe ten days at a push, without a rough wind to shake its darling buds. It