Theo walked across the quadrangle with his suitcase under his arm. His trousers were a little high on his ankle and his blazer was tight across his back. A month of vigorous daily swimming at La Grande Belle had been good for his physique.

It had been a relief to travel back to the UK alone, leaving his parents to wallow in the unpleasant soup of their own making. He had said his goodbyes over breakfast, watching with barely disguised astonishment as his mother, her face hidden behind oversized sunglasses, sipped coffee and laughed at a remark Nancy made, while his father bit into a hot croissant and flicked through a copy of Le Monde. It was as if the previous night had not occurred, as if he’d dreamt the whole thing. Whereas he’d lain awake until dawn, replaying the row in his head like a movie, his gut twisting with anxiety. His parents seemed to have forgiven and forgotten and were now simply looking forward to another fun day on the Riviera. He realised that for them this was almost routine – the booze, the row, the hurt, the forgiveness – and it changed nothing. But for Theo, everything had changed. He’d made the extraordinary discovery that he had an illegitimate brother, Alexander. And, even more shattering, he’d learnt that his mother would choose his philandering father over him every time. That was a very bitter pill to swallow.

He thought of Kitty, wondering how they could possibly chat about the summer and how he might phrase the horror of his experience. She’d be full of the pleasures of having spent her holidays with her mum and dad. He thought of Freddie, who’d disappeared completely, and wondered if she was literally walking home. He couldn’t help the flicker of concern for her wellbeing, despite what she’d done. Knowing now what he did about his father and recalling the way his dad had looked at Freddie on that first day, Theo saw her as a victim; troublesome, but a victim nonetheless.

Keeping his head low, he made his way towards the dorm with dread in his stomach and a head full of the events of La Grande Belle.

‘There you are, sonofabitch.’

Theo stopped at the sound of Wilson’s voice over his shoulder. Oh please, no! Not now, not today.

‘Well, look at you with your lovely tan. Been sunning yourself, have you?’

Theo ignored him, hoping, though not believing, that if he stayed still and quiet, Wilson might leave him alone.

‘I know you can hear me. Not so cocky now, are you, without a mouthy little whore to stick up for you. I thought not. Told you, boys.’ Wilson laughed. ‘Helmsley filled us in on how you gobbed off at him in the airport. Sonofabitch, who do you think you are?’

Who do I think I am? Good question. Theo’s thoughts raced with images of his bulging-eyed dad and the cruel laughter of his mum. He turned slowly, preparing to reason with Wilson.

‘What’s that on your mouth? A caterpillar?’ Again the boys guffawed into their hands.

Theo ran his index finger over his top lip and cursed that he’d forgotten to ask his parents for a razor and find out what exactly to do with it. He would ask Mr Porter.

‘Is that all the rage in the gay clubs? Is that why you’ve grown it? To make your boyfriend happy?’

Theo shook his head. Tears of frustration threatened, which he concentrated on holding back; letting them flow would be the very worst thing.

Wilson dropped his sports bag at the feet of his chums and sauntered over, pushing his sleeves over his elbows. Theo knew what came next, but he couldn’t think what to do. Ridiculously, his mother’s advice came to mind. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Theo! You’re being a wee bit silly! You know what to talk about! Sport? School subjects? Good God, the weather? Anything!’

He opened his mouth to speak, to try and use his smarts to defuse the situation. But Wilson’s speed denied him the chance. He was fast. His first blow glanced off Theo’s cheekbone, sending a searing pain whistling from one side of his brain to the other. It hurt. Theo’s fingers curled into his palms.

‘What’s the matter?’ Wilson bounced on the balls of his feet with his fists raised, as if he was observing the Queensberry Rules rather than brawling in the schoolyard. ‘Too scared to hit me, faggot?’ He rocked his head from side to side and jabbed a couple of mock blows before landing the third on Theo’s left eye socket.

Theo winced and held a cupped palm over his face, cursing the tears that now spilled, as much in response to the pain as in frustration.

Helmsley and Dinesh skittered about like excitable pups. They darted around the two of them, shouting their approval and whooping and hollering as they cheered their leader on. ‘Poof!’ Dinesh yelled for good measure.

Theo tried to stand up straight, thinking that he should now speak, try to reason... The next blow caught him on the side of the head and for a second or two his vision blurred.

‘What sort of bloke doesn’t fight back? What the fuck is wrong with you?’ Wilson spat. ‘Is it like the homo code?’

Theo would have had difficulty describing the exact order of what followed. His fogged brain, a preoccupation with his injuries and a sense of disbelief made him a less than perfect witness.

He saw Wilson’s head jerk sideways as something struck him on the side of the face with force.

‘What the fuck?’ Wilson yelled, in a high-pitched voice that Theo hadn’t heard before.

What had struck him was a palm on the end of a brawny arm, belonging to none other than Cyrus Porter.

Wilson turned to face the groundsman and laughed, his face puce. ‘I see how it is. Come to defend your boyfriend! So it is a homo code!’

Mr Porter slapped him again. His knuckle made contact with Wilson’s mouth, whose lower lip split like an overripe tomato. Blood trickled over his chin and down his shirtfront.

‘Fucking hell!’ Wilson yelled and dropped to his knees, dabbing at the blood and rubbing his thumb over the pads of his fingers before bringing them up to his eyes, as if he needed visible proof. He remained kneeling, shocked and subdued by Mr Porter’s intervention, stunned by the flow of his blood.

‘What is going on here?’ Mr Beckett’s voice boomed across the quad.

Dinesh and Helmsley froze. Theo staggered backwards and tried to slow his breathing, which was now the only thing he could hear, loud in his ears. He glanced over at Mr Porter. The colour had drained from his face and he looked as pale as the ghosts he lived with.

*

The clock on the mantelpiece ticked insistently as Theo sat on the other side of the headmaster’s desk and waited. Mr Beckett hovered, straight-backed, by the door, as if ready to stop any escapees, and Mr Porter stared out of the window. It occurred to Theo that this was probably a rare opportunity for Mr Porter to see his work from this vantage point: the cut grass, the trimmed borders and the immaculate playing fields.

‘Mr Porter, I—’

‘Best say nothing,’ Mr Porter offered in a neutral tone, his head making a slight incline towards Mr Beckett.

Theo swallowed the words of gratitude and apology he wanted to share with his friend. They would keep.

Once the adrenalin had calmed, his face, and in particular his eye, began to throb. He looked down at the red stain on his right hand and flexed his fingers. He wasn’t sure if the dried blood crusting the underside of his hand was his own or Wilson’s.

The headmaster entered the room in a hurry. His robe billowed behind him and Mr Beckett followed in his wake like an impatient page. The head coughed and sat down hard in his leather chair. He let out a deep sigh, as if the whole thing was an inconvenience, before resting his elbows on the inlaid desktop and touching his fingertips in front of him to form a pyramid.

‘I must say that I am at a loss, Montgomery.’

There was another pause. The sound of the clock was now quite deafening.

Mr Porter coughed, as if clearing his throat to speak.

‘I will address you presently,’ the headmaster snapped in his direction.

For Theo, despite everything he’d already gone through, this was the worst part of his day, hearing his friend Mr Porter spoken to with such disdain. He glanced at Mr Porter, who seemed to shrink. Theo felt like weeping at the reddening of the man’s complexion. For him to be so humiliated when he’d only been trying to help, trying to stop Theo from getting a further beating. Mr Porter had defended him just as he’d defended his country. That was the sort of man he was.

The headmaster sighed again, his irritation apparent. Mr Beckett stood like a sentinel to his right, looking furious. Theo faced the two men and wished they would hurry up and get this over with. He wanted to be free to leave and to talk to Mr Porter out of earshot.

‘I don’t need to remind you that your father and your father’s father both made head of house. They are Vaizey men, like myself. In fact your Uncle Maxim and I played in the 1st XV together. This fact alone is going to earn you a second chance.’

‘Thank you, sir.’ Theo barely hid the disappointment in his voice. He’d been half hoping for expulsion and permanent liberation.

‘Not that I shall be easy on you, and nor indeed will Mr Beckett. It is obvious that you need a firm hand.’ Theo looked up at them. It was laughable, the implication that until now they’d been soft on him. ‘I don’t need to tell you that yours is not Vaizey behaviour. Where did you think you were? A public house? The docks?’

‘I don’t know, sir.’ He kept his eyes fixed ahead. ‘It wasn’t my fault.’

The headmaster exhaled loudly through his nostrils. ‘In my experience, there are certain reasons why a boy might display such violent behaviour, especially when it is out of character, which I believe for you this was.’ He sat forward in the chair. ‘Mr Wilson, despite his injured state...’ He fixed Mr Porter with a steely glare. ‘...was able to throw a little light on the possible cause of this scuffle.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Is there anything you would like to share with me?’

‘No, I don’t think so, sir.’ Theo shook his head, trying to think what Wilson might have said. ‘Just that it wasn’t a scuffle.’ That implied it had been a mutual thing, an altercation, almost playful, but Wilson’s actions had been nothing of the sort. ‘I would say that rather than a scuffle it was an attack. I didn’t do anything wrong. I had only just arrived back and they called at me from across the quad—’

‘Saying what, exactly?’ Mr Beckett interjected.

‘Erm...’ Theo wondered whether to repeat the vile taunts, taunts that Mr Porter had taught him would make you ugly on the inside as well as the outside. ‘They called me a sonofabitch. And then a faggot and then poof and homo, that kind of thing.’ A blush spread across his cheeks. ‘And then he called Mr Porter a homo.’

‘I see.’ The headmaster nodded and looked down at his hands, as if considering these words.

‘And then he punched me. And he carried on punching me,’ he levelled. ‘I didn’t punch him at all.’

‘So it was an entirely unprovoked attack?’

‘Yes.’ Theo nodded with confidence.

‘And Wilson attacked the groundsman too?’

Theo looked up at his friend and couldn’t decide how best to answer. The words caught in his throat as he recalled their pact, made on a rough wooden bench many years ago. ‘Here’s the thing: you never have to lie to me, and I will never lie to you, how about that?’

‘Mr Porter is my friend. He... He was only—’

‘It’s a simple enough question,’ the head interjected. ‘Did Wilson attack the groundsman?’

‘I...’

‘Yes or no, Montgomery.’ Mr Beckett joined in. ‘Did Wilson hit the groundsman?’

Theo looked directly at the men, unable to hold his friend’s stare. ‘No,’ he answered clearly. ‘Wilson didn’t hit him.’

The two masters exchanged a knowing glance and Mr Beckett breathed in and out through his nostrils.

‘But Wilson was hitting me, he hurt me! And Mr Porter hates fighting, he says we’ve all fought enough, and he was only trying to—’

‘Enough!’ The headmaster held up his palm. ‘You cannot possibly know what Mr Porter was or was not intending to do.’ He took another deep breath. ‘Mr Beckett, kindly escort Mr Porter to the staffroom. I would like to talk to Montgomery alone.’

Mr Beckett tilted his head in response and walked to the door. He opened it and stood back, waiting for Mr Porter. As he walked past, Theo caught the whiff of earth, petrol and real fires that he had so missed over the summer.

When the door closed behind them the head dropped his shoulders and gave a small smile that softened his face. ‘Now, Theo, is there anything else you might like to tell me about Mr Porter?’

‘No.’ Theo looked up, wondering what he might be getting at. He knew it was against the rules to loiter around Mr Porter’s house during lunchbreak, as it was officially off school premises, but he’d been doing that for years and had never been taken to task over it. He remembered then that Mr Porter had agreed to do his English assignment for him. Had Wilson found it in the dorm? Was that what he was talking about?

‘You have no secrets? Nothing that you would prefer to remain between the two of you?’

‘No big secrets, only small ones...’ Theo swallowed, remembering their agreement. ‘They’d have my guts for garters if they knew I’d helped with your homework.’

‘Has Mr Porter ever asked you to keep anything... private?’

He turned to face Theo, who felt a flush of fear that his friend was going to get into trouble. He pictured his pen torch, given all those years ago and still serving him well. ‘Nothing important, just something to help me, at night...’ He swallowed.

The headmaster stood and walked around the desk slowly, before placing his hand on Theo’s shoulder. ‘I take the reputation of my school very seriously. Do you understand that, Montgomery?’

Theo nodded. Even though he didn’t understand at all.

‘Very well, you are free to go.’ The head coughed again and sat back behind his desk, where he reached for his telephone.

Theo looked to his left but couldn’t see Mr Porter anywhere. He walked to the dorm with the strangest of feelings; it was as if every pair of eyes in the school was on him. It wasn’t until he got to his room and looked in the mirror that he saw the mess of his face. There was already a yellowy green bruise forming around his swollen eye socket and the white of his eye was scarlet. Touching the soft tissue, he wondered what Kitty Montrose would make of that.

*

Despite being the innocent party, Theo was gated, so it wasn’t until the weekend that he was allowed to leave the confines of Theobald’s House. He made an effort to order his thoughts and calm the anger bubbling inside him. Twitcher gave him a nod of acknowledgement as he walked from the dorm and for the first time Theo wondered if Mr Porter had been right about that Gandhi fellow. Had he been cowardly? Should he have fought back?

His cheekbone was no longer swollen, but the rainbow-coloured bruise left by Wilson’s sharp fist had not yet disappeared. He walked purposefully along the length of the field, eager to thank Mr Porter for his intervention, keen to know what had been said and desperate to tell him about all the comings and goings at La Grande Belle. He was also hoping that Mr Porter would do what he did so well and help him make sense of what had happened, explaining Wilson’s sudden violent attack and making him feel better about it all.

Jogging up the path, he knocked on the door and with his hands in his pockets called his usual greeting through the letterbox.

‘Only me!’

There was no response. Theo ran through Mr Porter’s schedule in his head. He should be home. He turned and knocked again, then made his way along the wall to the sitting-room window. Bringing his hand up to his forehead, he leant on the glass and squinted.

A pulse of shock rocketed through him. The room was bare! Gone were the books from the shelves and the cushions from the chairs; the mantelpiece was empty of the knick-knacks that usually sat there gathering dust. It was as if Mr Porter had never been there.

Theo raced back to the front door and barged it with his shoulder until it shifted and opened. He raced from room to room, ending up in the kitchen, where a green enamel kettle had once whistled on the stove and the radio had burbled with the gentle sound of the cricket.

As realisation dawned, Theo felt a physical pain in his chest. The knowledge that Mr Porter had gone was a sharp thing that now lodged itself in his skin. Sinking to his knees, his fists balled against his thighs, he howled a loud guttural cry that came from deep within.

‘My friend! What am I supposed to do now?’ he screamed as hot tears streamed down his face. ‘My friend! I’m sorry! I should have said more. I should have told them to leave you alone! I’m sorry!’ He yelled loud enough that the words might travel high and far, to be heard by his friend, who might or might not be sitting on the brow of a hill, letting his eyes sweep the broad fields of the Dorset countryside, where full hedgerows formed the boundaries and deer frolicked on the lower slopes in the pink haze of the evening sun.