Lessons from the Heart (2 page)

‘But it's all stupid,' I say. ‘And I'm not even sure anything happened at all.'

‘I'm afraid,' Mr Mumble-Mumble says, ‘you're going to have to leave us to decide that.'

‘But I don't know anything about it. I didn't have anything to do with it.' I hear the whine in my voice and despise myself for wanting to crawl out of things like this. And I think of how alone Toni is.

‘I know you didn't have anything to do with it,' he says. ‘Or I believe you didn't. But you do know a great deal.'

‘Not a
great
deal.' And I feel much calmer saying this because I'm speaking directly to him now and not just to a table with three heads.

‘Perhaps,' he says. ‘But still a lot more than any of us, don't you think?'

And what I do start to think is that he's not so bad, after all, and he's trying to do the right thing and be fair to everyone, and actually he's got very kind blue-grey eyes in a smiley face, and might even have been handsome once. It's funny how that can happen, how you can turn someone from a faceless bureaucrat which everyone on the radio's always saying public servants are, into real people just by looking at them in a different way. And it can be something quite small, like a calm voice when everyone else is squawking and tense, that does it.

‘I suppose so,' I say. And then I see his name on a box file on the desk near his elbow, and it's
Murchison
, and not even
Mr
, but
Greg
–
Greg Murchison
and not Mr Mumble-Mumble at all.

‘I suppose so, Mr Murchison,' I say again, because he's the only one being friendly and I want him to like me and think I'm mature and can remember people's names even when they're introduced by someone as hopeless as Mr Jackson.

‘Well, the point is, Laura,' he says, ‘we now have to get to the bottom of this, for Mr Prescott's sake, and for Toni's.'

And I like him even more, then, for using Toni's real name, instead of just going
Miss Darling
or
Miss Vassilopoulos
and
police matter
and
alleged misconduct
and all that jargon like Mr Jackson. But he frightens me a bit as well when he looks at me and says in a very quiet voice:

‘And be sure about this, Laura. One way or the other, we will get at the truth.'

And I wonder how he can be so sure about that. Even I'm not sure, and I was the one who was there after all.

3

The first shock of the trip comes even before we leave the school yard. It happens so quickly I almost miss it, and a moment later – when everything's normal again – I begin to wonder whether it happened at all. But I know it did, and it changes everything that happens later on.

Three buses have been organized for the trip, three huge Greyhound coaches with deep recliner seats – so deep that some of the tiny Year 7 girls already look lost in them – plus toilets and air-conditioning and overhead monitors for films. ‘Better than home,' Toni says.

‘Yes,' I say, ‘but what if we get
Forrest Gump
or
Little House on the Prairie
all the way there and back?'

‘God yes,' she says. ‘Who did you get on your bus?'

‘Miss Temple. And Mr Jasmyne.'

‘Sucks you.'

‘I don't mind them,' I tell her. ‘You're with Dreamboat, I suppose?'

‘Ye-es,' she says, and rolls her eyes and drapes herself over the back of one of the seats to stop from swooning in the aisle.
Dreamboat lover / Wont you be mi-ine…'
she sings. The children in the seats around her look on bug-eyed, then start to clap along with her. They love Toni.

‘Who else?' I say.

‘Guess.'

‘Miss Plummer.'

‘No! Guess!'

‘Well, the only one left is Mrs Harvey.'

‘Horrible Harvey, can you
believe
it?'

The children around her can. They mimic Toni, holding their noses between their thumbs and forefingers. ‘Mrs Har-vey!' they chorus after her. ‘Oh, no.'

‘And you'll never guess what her real name is,' she whispers to me. ‘Florence! Florence Harvey. Whoever heard of anyone called
Florence
?'

‘You'd better go back to your own bus,' I say. ‘You're supposed to be helping get your kids settled.'

The motors of the buses have been running for twenty minutes now while the kids have been counted on and off a dozen times, but with all the excitement and swapping about and the boys wrestling and pushing and pulling and leaping to the windows to shout at their friends in the other buses, we've never reached the same total twice. Lots of parents – mostly mothers – are still here, waiting to wave the buses off. They're standing around in small knots and circles, talking sideways out of the corners of their mouths but still keeping their eyes on the buses and the kids getting off and running back to them for things they've forgotten or a final hug and the mothers are saying, ‘Don't worry about that now, for goodness sake, just get on the bus, they'll leave you behind,' and you wonder whether they're saying it because they're embarrassed their kid's such a sook or whether they're worried the kid
will
be left behind after all the money they've just paid out to get rid of them for nine days and get a bit of peace for the first time in their lives.

I'm on the third bus and I'm by myself because they could only get five senior students to put their names down in the end to go with the six teachers. And I'm glad I'm alone and that the two teachers on my bus are Mr Jasmyne and Miss Temple because I like them both, even though Miss Temple is so strict and demanding. ‘I'm simply trying to stretch you,' she says if you ever complain about how hard she makes you work, and she forgets you're just teenagers and not made of elastic or rubber or something and can bust if you're stretched too hard.

The parents think Miss Temple's good, though, because she never uses simple words like
talk
or
speak
like anyone normal but says
states
or
utters
or
declares
and on parent-teacher nights she's always telling your parents how your marks are bad but it's not really your fault but is
a consequence of prevailing cultural formations
, and some of the parents look at their kids then and wonder if it's dangerous, but Miss Temple laughs and says, ‘No, no,' that's not what she meant and explains it again in words of one syllable like
discourse
and
dialectics
and
social constructionism
, and the parents sit there and go, ‘I see, I see,' and don't have a clue what she's talking about. So they know she must be smart, especially when their own kids refuse to set the table at home for tea and when their mother says, ‘And why not, young Miss?' they can say it's because setting the table is only
an empty formalism
and
a form of discourse they're reluctant to engage in,
and their mother can only say, ‘Oh' back, and has to set the table herself. But she doesn't mind too much because she realizes that if
she
can't understand it, then employers won't either and it's sure to get her kids a good job because even if they're only sales clerks or on the check-out, it's better to have someone who can talk with the customers and explain how weather is a form of discourse, instead of just saying it's raining or sunny or concentrating on getting things in the right bags and giving people the right change and that. Toni disagrees, of course, and says Miss Temple will never get herself a husband if she goes on like she does, because men won't want to listen to discourse when they could be talking about sex or football instead.

And the other teacher on my bus who's nice but a total nerd and a walking encyclopaedia is Mr Jasmyne, who's about forty and teaches Physics and Computing but knows all about plants and animals and politics and everything and ought to be on a quiz show. He'd have to win it – the amount he knows – except he'd never get on it because they interview you beforehand to see if you pass certain standards, like do you have a personality and are you photogenic and that, so Mr Jasmyne wouldn't stand a chance.

Mr Jasmyne's one of those people who's strange for being so smart because his head's smaller than normal and it's only a tiny bit bigger than his Adam's apple, which is the thing that fascinates you when you talk to him. It travels up and down his throat while he talks, like a mouse trapped in a Christmas stocking. It's actually useless asking him anything in class because as soon as he starts answering, you find you're not listening – you
can't
– cos you can't drag your eyes off his throat. It gets so embarrassing all you can do is say, ‘Thank you, Mr Jasmyne' and go back to your seat while he's still talking and just getting to the vital bit of the answer.

On the other hand, all this does make you like him more, because he is so hopeless and shy and always tries to answer your questions before he starts stammering and going scarlet because he knows what you're looking at instead of listening. And some kids do it deliberately, of course, just to see him change colour. Toni's the worst. He can't help it, I tell her sometimes, but she just pokes her tongue out and says, ‘Oh, so maturrrre.' And Mum takes Toni's side and says, ‘Of course he can help it. Why doesn't he wear a skivvy or polo-necked jumper if he's so sensitive?' But Toni goes, ‘You mean camouflage and that? But the thing is, you'd still see it, it's so huge, it'd be like a ferret in a wool overcoat,' and Mum just laughs and tells her not to be so stupid.

We do get along all right, though, Mum and Toni and me, because we laugh so much together. Toni's at our house more than her own these days and Mum understands her and bosses her and treats her like she does me, and sometimes I think Toni regards Mum as her real mother – but the weird thing is, Toni calls her
Miriam
instead of
Mrs Trent-Harcourt
, as if they were sisters. And I suppose I've got used to it, but it still shocks me sometimes to hear her saying it, and one time it must have really shown because later, after Toni has gone, Mum looks at me sideways and says:

‘Do you resent it?'

‘What?' I say. Knowing what.

‘Toni calling me
Miriam.'

‘No. Why should I?'

‘I just wondered.'

We don't talk for a few minutes after that. She just keeps humming to herself and doing whatever she's doing at the sink. I want to leave then, but I don't.

‘Would you like to?' she says.

And I think of saying,
Would I like to – what?
but I realize how fake that'd be, so instead I say, ‘Do you want me to?'

‘It doesn't affect me one way or the other.
Miriam
or
Mum,
it's what you prefer that matters.'

‘No, then,' I say. ‘I don't.'

‘Good. I'm glad.'

‘Besides, you're too old to change your name again.'

‘Thank you, darling.'

Mum's
Trent-Harcourt
now. Her maiden name was
Harcourt,
the same as Grandma Vera's, and she changed it back to that for a while when she left Dad and brought me home from Greece. But it's Trent-Harcourt now because she married Philip, who's
Trent,
and who's mostly okay but can be a total fake as well. And that's why Katie, my little sister, is Trent-Harcourt, and Thomas, my baby brother, as well, and why I'm the only one left who's still
Vassilopoulos.
Apart from my Dad.

And blah.

Anyway I don't much feel like talking to anyone – even Toni – at the moment, and when the kids are finally all on their right buses and we're ready to get started, about seventeen hours late, I'm happy just to go down to the back to the last seat by myself and think about me and Philip –
my
Philip, I mean – and maunder. And that's when the thing happens, and if I hadn't just sat down that second, I would have fallen down with the shock.

The last kids are just climbing over one another to get into their seats and the driver's slammed the baggage doors shut along the side of the bus, and one of the other buses is already rolling towards the school gate and the mothers are waving and clapping and looking delighted, and for one second I stop looking out at all this and reach over into the aisle to pull my bag up onto the empty seat beside me. As I do, I glance sideways down the aisle towards the front of the bus, and that's when I see it. I see these two hands swing and brush past one another, and then – just for the briefest moment, so that if I'd blinked at that second I'd have missed it completely – the hands swing back, then lock and squeeze, one little finger on one hand caught in the index finger of the other, and then they part.

As if they'd snagged by accident.

And my breath stops, and I feel the blood in my head and wonder if I've just got dizzy with bending and I'm seeing things, but I know I'm not.

When I straighten, everything swings back into normal again. Miss Temple and Mr Jasmyne are the only ones still standing, and they're smiling and nodding, and everyone on the bus can see they're both so relieved to have got everything sorted out at last and are just happy to be going on a holiday and hoping everyone will have a good time. Except me, that is. Because now I understand their smiles aren't for us at all but for each other, and they're in love, and they're lovers. And that's what's making them happy – that, and the fact that no one else in the world knows. And, looking at them, I find I have this awful pain in my chest – a real pain – and I want to burst into tears because I'm happy for them and that and I'd never tell anyone, but I hate them as well. They look so smug and ugly with happiness and think they have the whole world to themselves and share this amazing secret, when all the time they're only Miss Temple and Mr Jasmyne, and hardly the World's Greatest Lovers, after all. And Miss Temple in particular looks so happy and sure of herself, it's lucky I'm at the back because if I was nearer I'd want to slap her in the face.

And just as I realize this, and notice the pain's still there, I see Miss Temple has stopped smiling and is frowning a bit and beckoning at me with her hand, and pointing at a seat at the front, opposite hers and Mr Jasmyne's. And that's the last thing I want, so I signal
No, I want to stay here,
and she goes on asking so I shake my head and put on this fake smile, and that satisfies her because she's not really thinking about me or wondering if I have a pain – no one's
that
sensitive – but is just thinking about how happy she is and how she'll be with Mr Jasmyne and have him to herself for nine whole days, even if she's got to sleep in a tent with Miss Plummer or Mrs Harvey. Everyone'll probably think that coming on this trip is just a duty for her, it's such a drag – though she does it with such goodwill, they'll say, she's so devoted to her job – when all the time she's racing with excitement inside and thinking about secret kissing or even sex, and maybe even outside, on the grass, or on a path with the gravel biting into her back -with Mr Jasmyne! – because he can't bear to be so close to her and not have her, and how she will fight him off for a while and not want to, then go back to her tent afterwards and listen to Mrs Harvey talk about some boy in Year 8 and how unmanageable he is, and if he doesn't improve then he can jolly well sit in the bus all the time we're at the Rock, and then she'll go to bed, smiling in the dark and still wet between her legs and wondering with sudden shock if Mr Jasmyne's smell will reach Mrs Harvey and what on earth she'd make of it if it did, and not be able to sleep for hours with the excitement and secrecy of it all.

And the weird thing is, once you've seen a tiny little thing like that, it's as though the world you're looking at is suddenly quite different from anything you ever saw before. And you can even see backwards to things you never gave a second's thought to at the time, like seeing Mr Jasmyne and Miss Temple on yard duty together or walking to the tea-room because they happened to bump into one another leaving their classrooms, or once when it was raining very hard after school and Miss Temple had given you and Toni a lift to the Mall and Mr Jasmyne happened to be standing at the bus stop, and Miss Temple had turned and said: ‘Shall we give him a lift?'