First Fruits (7 page)

Behind us a familiar figure looms, the
shape of a duffle coat approaching.  I need to raise my voice now, just a
little. 'Poor old Hilary. She's going to be
so
jealous.'

Hilary stops dead in the cloakroom
doorway, tenses up, sniffing trouble.

'What?' she says. 'What am I going to be
jealous about?'

Time for a sideways glance at Lydia.
Surely she won't be able to resist. All she has to do is imagine the look on
Hilary's face when she tells her.

But Lydia doesn't say a word. I don't
think she was even listening. The silly girl still has no idea of how lucky she
is. Almost the luckiest girl in the world.

Upstairs
, in the classroom, Fiona McPherson
rests one hand lightly on Lydia's desk. 'Well, did you talk to your parents?' 
Smiling because she thinks she knows the answer.

And Lydia freezes. Poor thing, I have to
do the talking for her. 'Lydia won't be coming to the boarding house. She's
made other arrangements. She's coming to stay with me. My father has sorted it
all out.'

It's worth everything just to see the
look on Fiona's face. Or it would have been. In fact, Fiona didn't bat an
eyelid. She never does. That's her secret. She just shrugged and carried on to
join the others by the window. Lydia stared after her, but Fiona never looked
back, and why should she? Lydia has made her choice.

Or rather her parents have. Dad says
they were so surprised to hear she had made a friend, they didn't even think
they had to ask her.

Lydia is coming to stay with us.

ALL
the same, it's important for Lydia to see how lucky she is - and show it. So
everybody can look at her and know.

In the end, nothing could be simpler. It
starts in French. Hilary is sitting right next to me, so when I pass along the
note, naturally she thinks it is for her. She's wrong of course; it is addressed
to Lydia. She hands it on, pretends to concentrate on her book. But it's no use
because I have another note for her to pass after that, then another, and
another, till they are coming at her thick and fast. And right beneath Mrs.
Chatto's nose, which takes some doing.

Before long, even Lydia has caught the
spirit of the thing. Who could resist messages like
hope you don't snore
and
if your feet smell, you're not coming
? It's a taste of things to
come, fun only we can share. And if even that isn't enough, all she has to do
is look at Hilary, see how it feels to be left out.

By the end of the lesson, it seems Lydia
has come full circle. I reckon she'd be heart broken now if she couldn't come.
Mission accomplished, you might say.

BUT
it goes to show. You can't take anything for granted. Not even a creature like
Lydia.

We are sitting in Greek when Miss
Jamieson decides to rock the boat.

'Kate, I've not heard you open your
mouth in a long time. Not asleep, are we?'    

This was rich, coming from someone who
from the very first lesson has behaved as if Lydia was the only person worth
talking to.

Instead of answering then, I just stared
at her.

Which in this case simply makes things
worse. Jamieson's eyebrows plunge into a downward swoop, always a bad sign.
'Kate Carr, I want to hear the verbs you've been learning over this weekend.'

Again, I just stared at her. What was
there to say? I didn't know any verbs. Greek's turning out to be more difficult
than I thought. I need careful, special attention, something to spur me on. The
sort of attention Dad expected I would receive. The sort of  attention Lydia is
getting all the time. He's being cheated.

But the silence is having its effect.
Miss Jamieson has started to breathe hard now. I suppose I should be worried.
But I'm not. You could compare it to being an expert sailor out on the ocean,
bored with flat seas and gentle winds. Hilary is easy, Lydia is easy. Sometimes
a person needs a
challenge
. Sometimes it's all she wants.

Then, something happens. Something
unexpected. I become aware of Lydia.

Her arm is touching mine, and all down
one side, I can feel her body grown tense. More than tense; the girl has
actually stopped breathing, as if any movement, any sound could be dangerous.
So what's wrong? It's Hilary of course, filling her head with stories about
Miss Jamieson, and legends of the Lost Temper. And the people who are never the
same again - well, not for several days at least. But why should
Lydia
worry? It's nothing to do with her. This is all about me. And Miss Jamieson
finally showing the proper attention.

Then it hits me, the reason she's
trembling. It isn't herself she's thinking of. Lydia is frightened alright. But
not for Lydia. For me.

Not like Hilary then. Hilary would be
shivering with delight. She belongs to those audiences who used to fill the
Roman amphitheatres Miss Jamieson tells us about, drinking in the sight of
other people's blood. The only thing she'd fear would be that, like any storm,
Miss Jamieson's temper might suddenly veer uncontrollably in her direction. But
Lydia is different. Lydia is behaving like someone who is on my side.

Suddenly I hardly know what to do next.
It's the surprise factor, you might say, complicating things.

Back to Miss Jamieson. She is standing
very still, hands square on the lid of my desk, fingers splayed, keeping her
steady. It's the hands you have to watch. You can see other teachers using up
half their temper just throwing their hands around - and anything else they
happen to have on them. But not Miss Jamieson. That must
her
secret; her
hands stay still, and nothing gets wasted.

In a way, it's interesting, being forced
to notice them, properly, for the first time. Her hands I mean. They are small,
but with strong brown fingers. There's a sense in which they don't look like a
woman's hands at all. But they don't look like men's either. They just look,
well, useful. I bet she puts up her own shelves. Not even Dad can do that.

Something about her hands then.
Something that causes me to lift my head and look at her, straight in the eye.
And for the first time ever, smile that certain smile, the one I use for Miss
Botham.

'I'm sorry Miss Jamieson. I haven't
learned any verbs. But it won't happen again. I promise.'

The word 'promise' makes my lips come
together as if in a promise of their own. I can feel it happening. Something to
do with having
It
.

Miss Jamieson's eyes widen, and for a
long second we continue to stare at one another. Then suddenly she is moving
backwards, away from the desk, away from me. A moment later she's scrubbing the
blackboard as if all our lives depended on it, gathering clouds of chalk in her
arms and her clothes, and her hands don't look brown or steady any more.

The storm has blown itself out, just
like that.

Beside me though, Lydia is still holding
her breath. She doesn't know it's all finished, over. Yet I have the strangest
urge to whisper in her ear, tell her everything will be alright and not to
worry, not for my sake.

And even when the lesson's done, and
Miss Jamieson has left the room, I still feel as if there's something I have to
say. Something important.

'Look,' I begin. 'Look...' And then I
have to stop. Well, it's not easy, is it, doing something that makes no sense,
not even to yourself. 'Look, you don't absolutely have to come to my house, you
know. Not if you don't want to. Not if you would rather go somewhere else.'

Because if she came it would be the
beginning of something. Nothing will be the same for Lydia, not after that. Now
I'm giving her the chance to stop it, before it's even started.

But look at her, blinking at me. Lydia
might know a lot of Greek, but she hasn't an ounce of what I have. She hasn't
got
It
. Give her a Situation, and she'll walk blindly through - and out
the other side, never knowing it was there.

So I say it all again, different words
this time, same meaning. 'What I'm saying is, you don't have to come to my
house. You could go to the boarding house instead, if you want. I....I won't
mind.'

There, clear as daylight now. But even
now, she can't seem to think of anything to say. Instead she just looks at me -
and begins to blush. Which for some reason - don't ask me why - makes me do the
same. Start to blush. Maybe it's because Hilary wouldn't do this, not old
Hills-are-alive. Hilary wouldn't make me wait for answer. I even know what
Hilary would say. Although the same goes for Lydia. All those messages,
remember. All that fun.

Finally, a voice whispers, 'But it's too
late. I can't change everything now.'

Meaning she would if she could. Change
things.

Oh. Oh how wrong can you be? She doesn't
mind being frightened for me, but give Lydia the smallest chance and she'll be
off, still anxious to be one of the gang, a friend of Fiona, with her own seat
by the window.

There's nothing like seeing a person in
their true colours. I know now what I was trying to do wrong. It's the old
mistake I used to make when I was young, thinking I could interfere with the
way things are meant to be. Well, I can't. No-one can. After all,
he's
expecting her. This is the beginning of everything. Lydia Morris is coming to
stay with us.

Which is more than she deserves. Despite
all her faults and failings, that girl is all set to be the luckiest girl in
the world. 

Why so nervous though? This
is the
beginning of something and I should be glad.

It's Sunday evening and somebody in
Lydia's house phoned to say they were on their way. But that was an hour and a
half ago and they should have arrived by now.

That must be the reason I'm nervous.
No-one likes to be kept waiting.

I suppose they have got lost. People
lose themselves here all the time. But if they are determined enough, they
always manage to find their way. Seek and ye shall find, Dad says. He doesn't
mind waiting. He has all the time in the world. The people who want him always
seem to find him in the end.

But what if Lydia and her family aren't
seeking anyone? What if they have changed their minds?

He gave them final directions over the
phone himself. A bend, a dip, and then a church. Our church. He could have told
them to look out for cars too. This is Sunday, remember, and people come from miles,
despite the mud, and the twisty lanes, despite having churches of their own,
right on their doorsteps, probably.

There are other Services they could come
to in the week, but they come today because it's Sunday and because everybody
knows he's at his best then, as if all the week has been a build-up to this.
Afterwards, in the hall for the Social Hour, there's even more of him to go
round than usual. More of the warmth, more of the jokes. No wonder they don't
want to go home. They'll hang about by the tea urn long after he's come away
just because it will seem extra specially cold outside, after my father and his
warmth.

It's why there'll be cars outside even
now - belonging to the fisher folk mostly. They especially like Sunday. They
haven't got time to think of their souls during the week, out there, riding the
waves miles off Peterhead, and nothing to save them if the weather turns their
boats belly up, and the sea swallows them whole, something it seems to do a lot.
Especially at this time of the year. No wonder he's popular. They need all the
help they can get. They need to know they are already saved, after a fashion.

So if Lydia's father arrives now, the
first thing he'll notice is the faint smell of fish hanging in the air. And a
lot of rusty old cars. Imagine what he'll think, Lydia's father, I mean.

I know exactly what he'll think. He'll
think we are no different from them. And there'll be no way of explaining it so
he understands;
we
don't choose them.
They
choose us.

Something to be thankful for then;
they've decided to leave in convoy. The last of the cars is pulling away,
someone's old banger coughing its way up the lane. They are all old, their
cars, older than ours even. It would be nice, for Dad's sake, to see the odd
new make, shiny and expensive, just now and then - a sign that he was
attracting a better class of person. But it never happens.

And still no sign of headlights from the
opposite direction. No light out there at all now, except for the stars,
shining hard, and cold, and far away. That's the sort of light I like. Distant
and cold. I had the dream again last night, and the light seemed brighter and
closer than ever as he carried me through the house. This time, I could feel
the heat of it, streaming about us as he walked. Too much light, too much heat
– and me like a feather in his arms. A piece of kindling.

Do other people feel as if they could
look at the stars forever? So faint and far away.

IT
was another three quarters of an hour before they arrived. We were sitting in
the kitchen about to have our supper.
She
said he mustn't be made to
wait any more. He needed to eat when Nature intended. She can't stand it when
anything gets between him and what's meant to be.