Lucius the Club | Page 6

to blow a fatal hole in him. You don't want to hit him with a hundred
separate pinpricks, otherwise he's just going to walk home and dab on
some Dettol.
By the end of the afternoon I was clear that my weapon of choice
would do the job. I knew what kind of cartridge to put in the gun, and
how far away from the target I needed to be. I knew that the gun would
kill someone.
All I needed now was courage.

*
On the way home in the train I thought about that, and I decided that
perhaps I might have what it took after all. I came to that conclusion
because of my experiences at school.
Jack must have pulled a few strings to get me into Follington, because
they like their boys to be one hundred per cent fit, and I wasn't.
I was born, you see, with a condition known as talipes equinovarum -
or a club foot, in common parlance. Same thing that Lord Byron had.
And, as if that was not enough, there was probably an injury inflicted
during birth, which resulted in damage to the muscles and nerves on the
left side of my face. This meant that I tended to dribble a bit -
especially when I got tired.
Mama never trusted doctors, and when I was a child she refused to let
them operate on me. But later, when I was forty, I had some
reconstructive work done on my foot, and a similar operation on my
face, which stopped the worst of the dribbling. But when I was of
school age both of these were a problem.

The club foot meant that I walked with a distinct limp. And it was Jack
who insisted that I should use a stick, although it wasn't actually
essential.
'A stick will mark you out, Lucius,' he said. 'Give you a bit of
distinction. If you have to be a cripple, be a cripple with style.'
There was no political correctness in those days, you see. No talk of
being 'handicapped' or 'disabled'. You were just crippled. So Jack got
me a stick with a silver top. Quite a handy weapon actually, if push
comes to shove. I've had a few different sticks, over the years, but
they've all had silver tops.
Mama did her bit to overcome my disabilities too. When I was a boy
she didn't hide me away, as if she was ashamed of me. Far from it. She
took me everywhere - to theatres, film studios, parties, the lot.
Wherever she went and whoever we met, she always introduced me.
'This is my son,' she would say. Proudly. 'My son Lucius. Lucius the
Club we call him, because he has a club foot.'
That was very clever, you know. In retrospect. It meant that my
condition was public knowledge - almost a mark of distinction. And so
everyone knew me - including every doorman and head waiter in
London.
Physically, I wasn't by any means an obvious shoo-in for any public
school. On the other hand, I was really rather bright academically,
which did quite a lot to recommend me.
By whatever means, possibly a little blackmail on Jack's part, I was
allowed to enter Follington.
It wasn't until I got there that I found out where the name Lucius came
from. I was named, it seems, after one of the mythical kings of Britain.
I once asked Mama if she chose the name for that reason. 'Oh yes,' she
said, 'of course. I made enquiries.'

Follington was quite a sporty school, and the standard game in that first
Michaelmas term, five afternoons a week, was rugger. I couldn't do that,
so they sent me to the gym instead. For remedial exercises with the PT
instructor - a Sergeant Mansfield.
Mansfield was about five feet nothing; ex-Army man; short tempered.
The boys were slightly frightened of him. He got me to walk up and
down for him, with and without the stick, bending, turning, and so forth.
Eventually he decided that there was nothing wrong with me above the
waist, so he got me doing work with weights. Before long I was the
strongest boy in my year, and within a couple of years I was the
strongest boy in the school.
On three days a week, in the early evening, boys had the option of
doing boxing or gymnastics in their spare time. Comparatively few
volunteered for either, but Mansfield decided that I would box.
I thought this was a ridiculous idea at first, but his theory was that you
didn't need to be able to move particularly fast in the ring. Not, at any
rate, at schoolboy level. Well, he was partly right, and it was partly