This book is proving no one looking out for Harry, the latest snip from his book.
After a somewhat purple-prosed confession of how he used to fancy some of the younger matrons at the prep school, he recounts how he used to take great satisfaction out of tormenting another, Pat.
He explains how Pat did not ‘make us horny’ on account of being short and unattractive, ‘not much of a thing, always with a tired face and greasy hair’.
She had a deviated spine and her knees were so stiff she had to descend the stairs backwards.
You might have thought, given Harry’s self-declared sensitivity, that this difficulty would elicit some sympathy from him.
Far from it. Instead, he stands at the bottom of the stairs and does ‘mocking little dances’ and ‘makes faces’ at her discomfort.
In other words, he humiliates the poor woman – although that, he claims, was not his primary motive: he did it to make his classmates laugh.
