Tales of the Metric System. Imraan Coovadia

order in the houses. The same system is in effect at leading schools in the United Kingdom, so there can be no question of our fairness in this matter. I found two bottles of Klipdrift, cheap brandy. Paul has refused to explain their provenance, which has only worsened his situation. Did he bring the brandy from home? Some students have been known to raid their fathers’ liquor cabinets in an attempt to win popularity.

      —That doesn’t sound like Paul. But Neil doesn’t touch spirits. There is usually some wine in the house. I sometimes have a glass in the evening.

      —And that’s no sin.

      Lavigne and his dry laugh acted on her nerves. There was some intimacy in their conversation which Ann disliked, as if the housemaster wanted to show that he was in on her secrets. She thought that he didn’t mind offending her. She watched him more closely. Even in Neil’s utopia there would be a Lavigne.

      —Paul probably went to an Indian shop, Mrs Rabie. They operate just beyond the limits of the Curzon estate. By law, they cannot obtain freehold in the area. So who rents them the land? At the board’s request, I am investigating the proprietors who allow these traders to operate. When we discover the names of the culprits we will take action. They must conform, or their tenants will have their licences revoked.

      —It sounds severe, Edward.

      —Severity is called for. I am not a racialist, believe you me, but I know that there will never be a peaceful settlement in the country until we have brought everyone up to a certain standard. I take an interest in the university. In which department does your husband work?

      —Neil’s in Philosophy. We came back early from Paris so he could take up the position. I would have stayed in France longer if I could have. I married early, the first time, and never had a year to wander around Europe.

      Ann wasn’t sure why she was saying more than she had to. She tried to be on good terms with other people. She wanted to help Paul.

      —I had three years on the continent, Mrs Rabie, at Oxford. It convinced me that my place was here, because this is where our civilisation is being put to the test.

      Lavigne excused himself for the toilet. Ann watched his solid figure striding down the corridor, confident that this life and the next belonged to him. In his Anglican afterlife he would shake hands with the boys whose backsides he had deliciously caned in the privacy of his study. They would thank him for putting them on the right track.

      Ann was born Catholic, the product of Irish grandparents. She had been confirmed, but did nothing more than light a candle when she entered a chapel. She was divorced, moreover, and did not fit in the same category as the other parents. It occurred to her that the private schools resembled the church. They shared the assumption of universal rule. Edward Lavigne could have been a bishop.

      Ten years ago Ann would have been impressed. But she had enjoyed the years in Paris, living on the Boulevard Saint-Michel, visiting the houses of Lévi-Strauss and de Beauvoir. She didn’t mistake a Natal private school for the height of civilisation. She simply didn’t want Paul to lose a year. He had adapted to Curzon College, arriving on the bus at the end of term in black blazer and tie, eager to relate to her the great schoolboy debates about motorcycles, batsmen, and bowlers, and the rumours about the border that filtered down from older brothers.

      Neil had been Dux at a similar institution. The table of punishments hadn’t changed since his time. Boys could be beaten with a cricket bat or cane, privately in the housemaster’s study, or in a line in the gymnasium in the case of a group offence. A boy could be forced to run cross-country miles, denied the privilege of going home on a long weekend, or made to reproduce tables of Latin conjugations.

      It was a prodigious schedule of human sacrifice. Between her and the mother of an Aztec there was not so much difference as the historian supposed.

      By the time Lavigne returned Ann had resolved to ignore the subtle current of his mockery. He had combed his sandy-blond hair so severely across his head that his grey scalp was exposed to her. When he spoke he set his head at an angle as if he were deliberately revealing a part of his nakedness. He wanted Ann to see the thinning top of his head.

      His vanity offended her. The same quality had been harmless in Parisian men and women, playwrights and university philosophers, pianists and surgeons, who were so fierce talking about themselves and their doctrines. It reminded her that Edward Lavigne was the unusual man with a French surname and an English accent.

      Lavigne wanted to complete his piece of business.

      —At this stage of the term, we cannot refund Paul’s fees. That is the view of the school board, having taken legal advice on the matter. We will allow you to remove Paul from the school at your own initiative. I am willing to make a favourable call to my good friend, the headmaster of Kearsney, or, if you prefer, send a letter to an excellent public facility like the Durban High School, assuring them of his character. Many boys who have been asked to leave College go on to become substantial personages in the world.

      It was as bad as if Lavigne had reached over the table and slapped her with one of his finely shaped hands.

      —We haven’t established that Paul needs to be taken out. Other boys misbehave. They haven’t been asked to leave.

      —Mrs Rabie, I simply cannot compare one boy’s treatment with another. The facts change with the individual case. Permit me to be frank. So far you haven’t given me any reason to consider Paul’s case in a new light. Therefore, so far as I am concerned, the headmaster’s decision stands.

      They waited for the bill. On the borders there were new guerrilla armies. The rouble and the dollar had replaced the pound sterling. The kilometre and the kilogram and the litre were new ways of measuring miles and imperial pounds and fluid ounces. In Zaire, Patrice Lumumba had been murdered on the instruction of the White House. They wanted to expel her son for possessing two bottles of brandy. The measurements made by Curzon College were as outdated as yards and inches. They didn’t know what counted.

      Without arranging it, Ann found that she was walking Edward Lavigne to his car. He had parked on a parallel street, behind the City Hall where they hadn’t installed meters, and accepted her company.

      Ann thought that they had come to an impasse. She wanted to make him aware that Gert, Paul’s father, had a close connection with the old families of the National Party. Gert’s own father had been Transvaal Minister of Education. The private schools remembered that their subsidies came from the government. They never crossed a sponsor, whether it meant removing Lady Chatterley’s Lover from the library, excluding non-whites, or accepting the son of an expatriate Japanese businessman as an honorary European. The Special Branch might well have advised the school against enrolling Neil Hunter’s stepson.

      Lavigne’s car stood in front of the post office. Paul had told her that his Geography master drove a Bugatti, the Italian sports car noted for its attractive lines. Lavigne was a bachelor, usually splendid in a bow-tie, and was sighted tooling around the town of Curzon, the seaside resort of Margate, and hotels in the Drakensberg around Champagne Castle. Who he visited was a mystery. Could it be another man? Ann considered the possibility that he was a homosexual as Lavigne took his car keys from the striped silk lining of his blazer. It explained his style and his exactness with a phrase, his way of holding himself as well as his sentences, and his uncomplicated sadism. She should blackmail him back. Fair was fair.

      —If you don’t mind, Edward, before you leave. You run a school for young men, not a convent. Boys get up to high jinx. So I have to ask you, does this turn of events have anything to do with my husband? As it happens, Paul is not Neil’s son. Paul is the son of Gert Rabie. I understand the school is politically sensitive but you cannot punish Paul for my husband’s beliefs. That is not fair play.

      Lavigne unlocked the car door, then put his hand on the green bonnet and looked, for the first time, as if he was confused about what to say next. Through the windscreen Ann saw a pair of men’s gloves on the dashboard. They were cream-coloured, heavily stitched around the fingers, and latched together by a string and two beads. They were driving gloves, popular among automobile-club members, who drove