Bingo Bongo

September, 1955

Boarding school was never a place Ralph had imagined for himself at fourteen. Only two years earlier, he had been a model boy: tidy, affable, eager to earn his marks and captain his school’s rugby team. Then came the salt-bright summer that tore into him like an animal. When he was found again—gaunt, mute, eyes fixed on nothing, his former virtues steadily slipped away. He began to stumble through class lessons, quarrel with his father, sit silent during supper until silence itself felt hostile. It was his father who made the decision—that The Grange Institute for Youth Development would “set him right.”

The Grange occupied a converted country estate three miles East the village of Sutton Weaver. Gray stone, mullioned windows, lawns cut to a regiment’s standard—no longer, no shorter. It always smelled of floor-wax and coal smoke. There were just under fifty boys and Ralph kept mostly to himself, letting the ordered days pass over him: chapel at eight, lessons until lunch, supervised recreation, “reflection hour” before lights-out. He was allotted a narrow dormitory with two twin beds and the promise of a roommate at a later time, though the empty second bed pleased him. It was on a cold, overcast Thursday morning that a new cohort arrived—a dozen or so boys led across the campus by Matron, and among them Ralph recognized one, with a shock that froze his being. Maurice had grown a head taller but still carried himself with that loose, rolling gait, as if his limbs belonged to different bodies. His expression was almost cheerful—a small smile that flickered the instant his gaze met Ralph’s, then vanished. By lunch, an orderlies’ cart rattled into Ralph’s dormitory, bearing Maurice’s possessions, which weren’t much. What luck of mine, Ralph thought, the second bed now no longer empty.

Maurice unpacked gradually over the following few days while Ralph pretended not to notice, yet his presence filled the room suffocatingly. Maurice whistled often—as he unpacked, during homework, after chapel, and seemingly just to himself, the same snippet Ralph recalled from the choir. Now and then, Maurice attempted conversation—remarks about the quality of the gravy at lunch, or his annoyance at double maths on Fridays, but Ralph hardly answered. He wished fiercely for the old silence back, prayed for it every night, but it never returned.

In the second week of Winter term, the masters herded the boys to the lecture hall for an evening discussion on “personal responsibility.” The lamps hissed overhead, casting long strips of light across rows of restless heads. Maurice slid into the empty seat beside Ralph, knees knocking against the wooden bench.

“You don’t talk a lot,” he said in a hushed tone meant solely for Ralph. “Not like before.”

Ralph’s pen snapped between his fingers. Ink bled across his cuff, dark as night. He didn’t trust his voice, so he stared forward and said nothing, the ink staining his fingers. Maurice chuckled through closed lips, turned away and folded his hands. He had thought he no longer cared for anything, but now seemingly everything agitated Ralph. Every sound, grating on his ears—the soft click of suitcase clasps at dawn, the faint sulfur catch in the halls when the lamps were lit, the way Matron’s key-ring jingled against her skirt buttons in the corridor, Maurice’s whistling. Most of all, he noticed when Maurice mentioned him, though only once—in the refectory queue.

“It’s a bit funny,” he had said, ladling boiled potatoes onto his plate. “I had only seen Merridew for one term once school started again, then he was gone, transferred out. They say—some Jesuit school near Bristol. But Roger stayed on. Never missed a day, grades all the same. Imagine that.”

Ralph’s spoon clattered against enamel. The line edged forward and the smell of stewed beef turned his stomach. Wherever he was within the building, Maurice seemed to follow diligently, no matter how determined Ralph was to get away.

That night, lying awake while Maurice snored softly, Ralph rehearsed the words he might one day say: I am not who you remember me as. I will not be that boy ever again. Yet the words remained unspoken.

Weeks passed in a hush of frost-laced mornings and dull-gray afternoons. January folded into February into March. The Grange seemed caught in a perpetual damp chill. Steam rose from the chimneys and fingers numbed quickly in the yard unless wrapped tight in wool. Ralph learned to wake before the first bell by the sound of Maurice’s wheezy breathing—a strange reminder that the world was still as it had been the night before. Ralph felt comfort in the routine, though ever tedious. Latin verbs, history recitations, ink to paper until his wrist cramped, marmalade on toast, pages of scripture underlined in pencil. There was no drama, nor was there shouting, or blood. The tutors were detached but not unkind. The other boys even kept mostly to themselves, silenced by pasts they were reluctant to share. The island had become an entity that only lived through Ralph’s dreams, and Maurice never mentioned it, nor did Ralph expect him to. The silence between them had taken on a routine of its own—two strangers occupying parallel space. Then came a Saturday night creeping onto Spring. Ralph had retired to bed as usual, a paperback of Ernest Hemingway atop his chest, though he hadn’t turned a page in an hour. The dormitory was dark save for the bluish glow of moonlight through the curtains. He couldn’t sleep. More curiously, Maurice wasn’t snoring. It struck Ralph all at once—that faint, irritating hum was absent. He hesitated, then turned slowly towards the opposite bed. He could just make out the other boy beneath the covers, back turned to him, hair a mess.

“Maurice…” The name tasted sour on his tongue, as if it had pricked him. “Are you awake?”

There was a pause, just long enough to be mistaken for sleep. Then Maurice’s voice came low and calm.

“Yeah, Ralph. I’m awake.”

It was startling how easily the reply settled the space between them. Maurice turned, propped slightly on one elbow, the tangled disarray of curls falling against his face. “Can’t sleep?” he asked.

“Not lately,” Ralph admitted.

It felt strange to speak so freely, and as much as the quiet pleased him, he found himself searching for anything to keep the silence from crawling back. “You always snore?”

Another pause, but Ralph distinctly felt Maurice’s eyes through the dark. “I snore?”

Ralph let the question sit between them, though ultimately, he decided to ignore it. “Why’re you here?”

Maurice shifted under the blanket. “Parents’ idea of a clean slate. They brought me in.”

“You did something?”

“Guess so.” Maurice chuckled, though not with malice. “Grades slipping, skipping class, but that had all been ordinary before, just worse now. I think what really convinced them is when I was caught nicking cigarettes with Roger, and some other stuff. Nothing proper. Just dumb mischief, mostly. I had it coming.”

“You still spoke to Roger?”

“Of course I did.”

Ralph didn’t respond at first and instead rolled onto his back, facing the ceiling instead.

“I don’t really talk to anyone else here,” Ralph said.

“Neither do I,” Maurice replied.

They were silent again, but the dark seemed less oppressive.

“I know you’ll get out of here soon, Ralph. Before me, that’s for certain.”

Ralph turned only his head, the dull silhouette of Maurice’s unruly hair still faintly visible.

“I mean it,” he continued. “You don’t belong in a place like this. You’re intelligent, and quiet. You do what you’re told.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Ralph said.

Neither boy spoke again for some time. The moon shifted, the wind picked up and tapped branches against the window like fingers. Then, Maurice murmured sleepily, “You ever think about what you’ll do when you leave?”

“No,” Ralph replied. “Probably just do nothing.”

Maurice sighed, head hitting the pillow. Within the hour, the soft snoring permeated Ralph’s ears once again, and finally, he found sleep.

Three weeks later and it was May. Ralph was summoned to the Headmaster’s office bright and early, a place he’d only ever entered once—when he was first admitted back in the Fall. Mr. Aldridge sat behind his desk, thick brows arched in something akin to approval. Ralph clambered into the wooden seat across from the large man, eyes averting his gaze.

“Am I in trouble, sir?”

“Quite the opposite,” he replied, to which Ralph looked up curiously. He continued, “You’ve done well here, better than we expected given your… circumstances.”

Ralph nodded, shamefully.

“You’ll be released at term’s end,” he said. “You’ve been recommended for readmittance into your prior school. Assuming your father agrees, you’ll sit at your O-levels next year.”

Ralph was quiet, nodding along without a word until Mr. Aldridge looked on at him expectantly. His face grew hot and embarrassed.

“Is that all, sir?”

Then, Aldridge nodded in return.

“That is all.”

Ralph was dismissed, a new feeling sitting heavy within his stomach, not of excitement, nor of dread.

Back in the dormitory, Maurice was sitting cross-legged on his bed, flipping through a battered textbook. He looked up as Ralph entered.

“Heard you got sent into Aldridge’s office,” Maurice commented, to which Ralph didn’t respond, dropping onto his own respective mattress. “What happened?”

“I’m going home,” Ralph said.

Maurice nodded. “I figured.”

“I leave in August.”

“Good for you.”

Ralph hesitated. “You’re angry. Why?”

Maurice shrugged. “I’m not. I told you. I knew you’d go before me.”

Ralph looked at the floor, glistening with dust.

“You’ll forget this place,” Maurice said. “You’ll go back to your old life and proper school. No one’ll ever mention your time here, not unless they’re whispering.”

That part stuck with Ralph, his throat tightening slightly.

“I won’t forget.”

That was the last time Ralph ever spoke to Maurice. The evening that followed was absent of his whistling, and the night was without his gentle snore, as if the boy hadn’t slept at all. Despite Ralph’s determination to rid his life of The Grange, saying goodbye proved difficult. In the end, he said nothing. It was easier not to speak.

The Grange had always been still, especially around the holidays. That Christmas Ralph had spent there was the worst he’d ever experienced. No carols, no decorations—just the cold halls and occasional echo of the chapel bells clanging against frost. Maurice had not yet arrived then, and so Ralph had sat alone by the window Christmas morning, watching blackbirds peck listlessly at frozen hedges. But six years later, his world had gradually filled with color once more. The year was 1961, and the train had been running late that December morning. He arrived back in Bristol just past two. His father met him at the station in his overcoat and cap, beaming with the particular pride of a man whose only son had made University of Cambridge two years prior. He greeted him cheerfully, nearly hugging the wind out of the boy’s lungs.

“We’ve got the roast on. Your sister’s gone and invited someone over—a boy she’s seeing apparently,” the man commented, loading Ralph’s suitcase into the trunk of the Vauxhall.

Ralph raised an eyebrow as he situated himself into the passenger’s seat. “A boy?”

His father sighed, sitting beside Ralph and revving the car’s engine to life. “Sixteen going on twenty-five, that one. I told her it was too soon to be thinking of boys, but you know Emily’s got your mother’s stubborn streak. She’s been fussing with her hair all morning.”

“Who is he?” Ralph asked, brushing snow from his jacket sleeves.

“No clue. She met him at the shops. You know how girls are.”

Ralph forced a smile, though the thought of a stranger sitting at their table irked him. He had wanted the calmness of home, the predictability of old ornaments dangling from the tree and his father’s overcooked ham. He hadn’t been expecting to entertain company.

Still, he remained civil. “Well, I suppose I ought to meet him. See if he’s worth her time.”

“That’s the spirit,” his father joked. “Just don’t scare him off.”

Upon returning home, Emily was radiant when she descended the stairs, her hair swept up with silver pins, cheeks rosy, lashes dark. She hugged Ralph tightly, chattering about university and how pale he’d become. You don’t go out at all in Cambridge, do you? But Ralph only half-listened. His gaze wandered to the set table, tall, lit wicks sitting in the candelabra, the scent of cloves and rosemary drifting from the oven. All of it was normal, gratifying, then came the doorbell. Emily sprang up to answer it. He heard the creak of the door, the rush of the wind, then, ecstatic, Emily introduced the boy. Ralph turned towards the foyer. He stood in the threshold of the front door, polite and proper in a dark winter coat, clutching a small box wrapped in gold ribbon. His features were familiar—strikingly so, as was his name. It can’t be him, Ralph had thought, inspecting the boy from afar. It all has to be some crude coincidence. His tow-colored hair was combed neatly against his head, hazel eyes locking on Ralph’s. For a moment, they both stared. The boy blinked once, then again, as if trying to place something just out of reach, all while the blood drained from Ralph’s face. Emily praddled on, inviting him in, gesturing towards the table. The boy nodded, answered something courteously, but his gaze never left Ralph’s face, not once.