‘Wait a minute,’ he added and started to walk resolutely towards the girl.
‘Ben,’ Ian called behind him. ‘Not now, Ben …’ Ben ignored his friend. The curiosity he felt was stronger than all the ceremonial delights of the Chowbar Society. He adopted the saintly smile of a model pupil and walked on. The girl saw him approach and lowered her eyes.
‘Hello. I’m Mr Carter’s assistant – he’s the head of St Patrick’s,’ said Ben. ‘May I help you in any way?’
‘Actually, no … Your … colleague has already taken my grandmother to see the headmaster,’ said the girl.
‘Your grandmother?’ asked Ben. ‘I see. I hope it’s nothing serious. I mean it’s midnight and I wondered whether there was something wrong.’
She gave a weak smile and shook her head. Ben smiled back. She was not such easy prey.
‘My name is Ben,’ he said politely.
‘Sheere,’ replied the girl, looking towards the door as if she expected her grandmother to emerge at any moment.
Ben rubbed his hands.
‘Well, Sheere,’ he said. ‘While my colleague Bankim takes your grandmother to Mr Carter’s office, perhaps I can offer you some hospitality. The head always insists we be polite to visitors.’
‘Aren’t you a bit young to be the headmaster’s assistant?’ asked Sheere, avoiding the boy’s eyes.
‘Young? You flatter me. I’m just blessed with an enviable complexion, but I’ll be twenty-three soon.’
‘I never would have guessed it,’ replied Sheere.
‘It runs in the family,’ Ben explained. ‘Our skin is resistant to aging. To this day people mistake my grandfather for an altar boy.’
‘Really?’ asked Sheere, suppressing a nervous laugh.
‘So how about accepting St Patrick’s hospitality?’ Ben insisted. ‘We’re having a party for some of the kids who are about to leave us. It’s sad, but a whole new life will open up before them. It’s exciting too.’
Sheere fixed her eyes on Ben and her lips slowly formed a sceptical smile.
‘My grandmother asked me to wait here.’
Ben pointed at the door. ‘Here?’ he asked. ‘Just here?’ Sheere nodded.
‘You see …’ Ben began, waving his hands about. ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but … Well, I thought I might not have to. These things are not good for the image of the institution, but you leave me no option. There’s a structural problem. With the walls.’
The young girl looked at him in astonishment.
‘Structural?’
Ben adopted a serious expression and nodded.
‘Exactly. It’s regrettable, but here on the very spot where you’re standing, not even a month ago, Mrs Potts, our old cook, God bless her, was hit by a piece of brick that fell from the second floor and for two weeks she thought she was Moll Flanders. Imagine the scandal.’
Sheere laughed.
‘I don’t think it’s a laughing matter, if I may say so,’ said Ben, his tone icy.
‘I don’t believe a single word you’ve said. You’re not the headmaster’s assistant, you’re not twenty-three, and no cook was ever hit by a shower of bricks,’ said Sheere defiantly.
‘Are you suggesting I have provided you with inaccurate information?’
‘To put it mildly.’
Ben weighed up the situation. The first part of his strategy was on the point of floundering, so he had to think of a change of direction, and it had to be clever.
‘I may have been carried away by my imagination, but not everything I’ve said is untrue.’
‘Oh?’
‘I didn’t lie about my name. I’m called Ben. And the bit about offering you our hospitality is also true.’
Sheere gave a winning grin.
‘I’d love to accept, Ben. But I must wait here. Honestly.’
The boy adopted an expression of calm acceptance.
‘All right. I’ll wait with you,’ he announced solemnly. ‘If a brick falls, let it fall on me.’
Sheere shrugged and fixed her eyes on the door again. A long minute of silence went by. Neither of them moved or uttered a word.
‘It’s a hot night,’ said Ben at last.
Sheere turned her head. ‘Are you going to stand there all night?’
‘Let’s make a deal,’ Ben proposed. ‘Come and have a glass of ice-cold lemonade with me and my friends and then I’ll leave you in peace.’
‘I can’t, Ben. Really.’
‘We’ll only be twenty metres away,’ said Ben. ‘We could tie a little bell to the door.’
‘Is it so important for you?’ asked Sheere.
Ben nodded.
‘It’s my last week in this place. I’ve spent my whole life here and in five days’ time I’ll be alone again. Completely alone. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to spend another night like this one, among friends. You don’t know what it’s like.’
Sheere looked at him for a long while.
‘I do know,’ she said at last. ‘Take me to that lemonade.’
Once Bankim had left his office, Mr Carter poured himself a small glass of brandy and offered another to his visitor. Aryami declined and waited for Carter to sit in his armchair, with his back to the large window below which the young people were still celebrating, unaware of the icy silence that filled the headmaster’s room. Carter wet his lips and looked questioningly at the old woman. Time had not diminished the authority of her features in the slightest. Her eyes still blazed with the same fire he remembered in the woman who, so long ago, had been his best friend’s wife. They gazed at one another for a long time.