O Caledonia (11 page)

Then the sun came out and shone quite strongly and the sporting activities began. There was cricket, there was tennis, there was swimming. Luckily none of them rode.
‘
We aren
'
t really keen on animals in our family. We
'
re more people people.
'
The Dibdin girls called their mother Mumsy and their father Poppa. Raymond called them Ma and Pa. The girls embraced both parents constantly; Raymond put his arm round his mother as though she might fall over at any moment, but managed to keep his hands off his father apart from the occasional virile slap on the back. The girls were kind to Janet but they did not understand one another.
‘
Gosh, what fun it must have been for you, being the only girl among eighty boys,
'
said Hilary, eyeing Janet in a suggestive manner.
‘
Not really,
'
said Janet.
‘
Oh, why ever not?
' ‘
It just wasn
'
t.
' ‘
Oh.
'
But they assured Janet that she would simply love St Uncumba
'
s.
‘
We adore it. Such a funny name for a school. The dear old thing who founded it was really keen on education for women and votes for women and things; she was absolutely anti-marriage, so she called it after this weird mediaeval woman who grew a beard so that she couldn
'
t be forced to marry anyone. But it
'
s not a bit like that now, is it Hilary, is it Jill?
'
Tides of tinkling laughter. Raymond was at a boys
'
public school in England. Then he would go on to Sandhurst, he was to be a soldier.
‘
I hate war. I
'
m against war and I
'
m against armies. I
'
m a pacifist,
'
announced Janet, suddenly furious. She had never used this word before, but now she believed in it with passion.
‘
What, you mean like those awful conshies? Traitors, they should all have been shot. My dear Janet,
'
said Raymond, turning red in the face,
‘
I don
'
t actually think that at your age you know what you
'
re talking about. Things aren
'
t as simple as that.
' ‘
Yes they are,
'
yelled Janet.
‘
Killing is wrong and you
'
re wrong. You have no right, you make me sick.
'
She rushed out of the room, panting and shaking with rage.

Gail sprained her ankle, tripping over a crack in the tennis court while leaping winsomely up to a volley. They were all covered in midge bites; the drawing room reeked of DDT. Everyone was glad when the last full day of the visit dawned. The sun shone brilliantly from a cloudless sky.
‘
Typical, isn
'
t it?
'
said Vera.
‘
Never mind, let
'
s make the most of it while it lasts
–
and while we last!
'
beamed John Dibdin.
‘
Outdoors, everybody!
'
Rosie was lame; Janet went down to the stables to bathe her swollen fetlock. She loitered about, putting off the time of return. She went for a wander upstairs through the forbidden and dangerous empty rooms and corridors which ran over all three wings of the building. They were lovely rooms with cornices and mouldings of grapes and flowers, the walls still washed in pink or blue, but the floors were decayed and the ceilings had gaping holes where rotten lathes sagged through. Fungi grew on the windowsills and swathes of cobweb hung about the corners. There was one little room, like a dressing room, off a larger chamber, which she had never been able to explore. The door was either locked or jammed. Today she thought she would try it. She pushed and pulled and shook at the door. Plaster fell on her head from the decaying frame. She kicked it hard. Suddenly it gave.

The tiny room was windowless and smelt of mushrooms and ammonia. Sunlight streamed in from the other room and in a moment Janet
'
s eyes adapted to the dimness. It was entirely lined by shelves full of ancient-looking leather-bound
books. Her heart thumping with excitement, she carefully lifted one out and opened it.
Aubrey Beardsley. Erotica
was the title. It meant nothing to her. She turned the pages, stared, dropped it as if it had burnt her. Plate after plate, shielded by tissue, of the most unspeakable male and female goings on, far worse than Jim's magazine had been. She pulled out more books; different titles, different authors but all the same theme as far as the lavish illustrations went. She pushed some back, dropped others. Surely there must be some sort of normal book here. Her eye lighted on a name she knew, P. Ovidius Naso; she had not yet read any Ovid, but she felt a Latin poet must be safe. In fact this was just as bad as the rest, and worse than some. It was called
Ars Amatoria.
Suddenly the hated voice of Raymond Dibdin was calling her from the courtyard. ‘Janet, Janet, where are you? Your ma wants you.' ‘All right, I'm up here, I'm just coming,' she shouted.

‘I say, can you get up there? What fun, I must just have a look.' Before she could move he was galloping up the stairs and into the little room. ‘It's hellish hot out there,' he said, wiping sweat off his forehead. He was wearing nothing but a pair of soldierly khaki shorts. ‘Good God, whatever are all these books?' ‘Nothing, come on, let's go,' said Janet, putting the Ovid behind her back. He picked up the Beardsley and stood with his back to her to catch the light. ‘Well well,' he said, his voice changing, ‘Janet, you naughty little thing. I'd never have guessed it of you. Do you come here often, as they say?' ‘I've never ever been in here before, I was just exploring,' squeaked Janet, her throat going dry. He wasn't listening; he was engrossed in the Beardsley.

Janet decided to sidle past him and run for it. She was afraid. He shot out an arm and grabbed her. ‘Have a look at this then, Janet, since you're so bloody interested.' He was panting; he brandished and twirled a dreadful dark pink baton out of the front of his shorts. A dictum from Kennedy's Latin grammar flashed crazily through Janet's mind, ‘Masculine will always be / Things that you can touch and see. (Example: curculio – weevil.)' He pushed his face against hers. ‘Come on then, give me a kiss.' His clammy mouth moved across her cheek. With all her strength Janet jerked her head back and smashed the corner of the
Ars Amatoria
into his eye; at the same time she kneed him. He gave a retching gasp. ‘You bitch, you dirty little bitch,' he hissed. She ran, down the rotten stairs, across the cobbles, up the steep back drive. She heard him pounding after her as she reached the top. She grabbed a sharp chunk of quartz from the bank and spun round, at bay, ready to scream. His face was still red but it was rearranged into a mask of boyish contrition. ‘Janet, I'm most dreadfully sorry. Please, please forgive me. I can't imagine what came over me. Put it down to the heat and those weird books. Now do please say you'll accept my apology. Please.' He put his head on one side and looked down at her with a mock woebegone expression. Janet didn't answer. She dropped the quartz and walked on. He walked beside her. ‘Look, do you want me to go down on bended knee? What can I do to atone?' Then as they turned down the path by the Heracleum grove, he suddenly changed his tack; he looked her straight in the eyes: ‘I beg and implore you not to tell anyone about this. May I have your word?' Janet stopped dead. ‘Bugger off,' she said. He looked astonished, but he turned away. She was astonished too; she did not remember ever seeing or hearing this expression. A great tide of anger rose within her, overwhelmed her. How dared he, how dared he! All her dreams and yearnings for high romance, all her love for Auchnasaugh were pitted against his miserable filthy mind, his disgusting cowardice. He had paused, he was looking at bald, crippled Mouflon as he edged painfully out of Lila's window. ‘That thing should be put down,' he was saying. ‘I'd be glad to...' With a wild shriek Janet charged forward, arms and legs flailing and shoved him headlong into the giant hogweed patch. Down he crashed, clutching frantically at the great Lords of Luna. Down they crashed about him, under him and over him. The sun blazed on the sap as it trickled freely over his bare skin. Janet slipped into the dark haven of Auchnasaugh, seen only by Lila, who kept her counsel.

That evening Janet's family gathered in the drawing room. The Dibdins had gone, Raymond preceding them by ambulance to a burns unit. Their farewells had been of necessity a trifle brisk; they had made it clear that they would not be returning while the Heracleum grove stood: ‘I must say, it's a tiny bit irresponsible, don't you think?'

‘What was the young idiot doing in the hogweed anyhow?' demanded Hector irritably. ‘Chasing a cat, I expect,' said Rhona. ‘I warned him about the poison, the day he came,' said virtuous Janet.
‘And
he wanted to kill Mouflon.' ‘How could he?' With the enemy driven from their gates, they spent an evening of unusual gaiety and kinship before resuming their separate lives.

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER SEVEN

 

 

Janet stood at the nursery window, high in the central tower. It was a golden, hazy morning in mid-September. She gazed down the glen at the autumnal trees and the scarlet rowan- berries which scarcely trembled in the mild air. She was trying to learn this view by heart, for today she was to be driven away, far south to St Uncumba's. She wore her new school uniform with pride and excitement. In her brown felt hat and oatmeal tweed coat she felt that she was refashioned, a different person, vibrant with possibilities. Behind her on the big green chest of drawers Polly leant from his cage, intent on his woodwork, skilfully prising splinters from the top surface, shredding them and flinging them to the floor. The dogs shifted and groaned in their derelict armchairs. A striped cat was coiled like an ammonite on the sunlit window ledge. The boys were at morning prayers. They were singing ‘By cool Siloam's shady rill'. Their voices floated up to her, pure as holy water. Down in the terrace there was a flicker of movement. She saw a weasel glide through the fallen leaves, almost on its belly, slower, slower. It was motionless. In the shadow crouched a rabbit, palpitating. It stared at the weasel, the weasel stared back.

 

O thou whose infant feet mere found

Within thy father's shrine

 

sang the boys. The weasel leapt, a chestnut streak in the sunlight. The rabbit screamed, threshed violently, was still. Limp and open-eyed, it lay on the green grass; the weasel was curved lovingly at its throat. Janet shivered.

 

Thine be the glory, forever and ever,

Forever and ever amen

 

sang the boys. It was time to go.

 

*

 

Janet
'
s boarding house at St Uncumba
'
s stood above the cliffs on a rocky peninsula. It overlooked another heaving expanse of the North Sea. The main school buildings were a short walk away, sequestered by high walls from the grey town. Once there had been a great cathedral here, and a mighty fortress had reared up from the edge of the sea bed, higher than the cliff, its outer defences running along the shore and curving inland to encircle the town. Now only shattered towers and the ribs of arches loomed against the starry sky, faintly phosphorescent. In their memory, it seemed to Janet, bells tolled almost continuously
–
sometimes faint, tossed back and forth by the wind; sometimes heavy with portent. The air was wet with the haar. From her dormitory window Janet could see the grey sea imperceptibly merging into the grey sky; nothing else at all. It was like living at the end of the world.

The excitement and pride of being a real schoolgirl with a real uniform had rapidly given way to bewilderment, and bewilderment to a numb desolation. She did not know how to talk to the other girls. At Auchnasaugh the boys had taken great pleasure in words, rehearsing new discoveries, competing to find the most resonant, succinct or bizarre. They had also, she realised now, been interested in so many things, applying themselves with the same unquestioning absorption to making balsa wood aeroplanes, building dams, composing sonnets, developing photographs, stalking Janet. The girls were interested in clothes and their families and games. A few were interested in boys. When Janet used words which had delighted or amused her they fell silent and stared and moved away muttering to each other. First they thought she was showing off; then they thought she was mad. She became silent, lost in dreams at meal times, so that on the few occasions when anyone did speak to her she did not hear them. They put pepper in her tea to see if she would notice, and for a while she didn
'
t. They hid her hockey boots so that she would be late for the game, a cardinal sin. Janet assumed that she had lost them; she lost things all the time. She hid in the back of the music practice room and read all afternoon. The housemistress summoned an emergency meeting of all girls before supper.
‘
Someone, who is in this room,
cut the game
today. There can be no excuse for letting sides down. In this school and in this life we work together, no matter how small our contribution. This is the first rule of social behaviour, and you are here at St Uncumba
'
s to learn it. All for one, one for all. If you think you know the identity of this girl I trust you will make your feelings clear to her. I shall say only this.
Be ashamed
.
'
Janet was sent to Coventry. For three days no girl spoke to her, no one answered when she tried to find her way to classrooms or games pitches; she was late for everything. It became clear to her that she would have to pretend to like hockey and she would have to try to talk in simple language, if she could think of anything at all to say. Also she needed someone to plait-her hair. Nanny had always done this; Janet was hopeless at it; it unwound in maddening wisps and frizzy scrolls, as fast as she twisted it back. By surrendering her weekly chocolate bar, the sole pleasure of a Sunday, she obtained a helper. Hilary Dibdin was not friendly. Apart from a curt
‘
Hallo Janet
'
on the first day, she ignored her. Janet overheard her telling a group of girls that if they thought Janet was peculiar they should see the rest of her family.
‘
And the place they live in. Enormous and freezing cold. They
'
ve hardly any carpets and they let the animals climb all over everything and lick the butter. In the garden
–
well you could hardly call it a garden, it
'
s all overgrown and wild
–
there are a whole lot of really poisonous plants. My poor brother got stung by them and he was in hospital for
weeks.
There
'
s a disgusting bald cat too, who goes around being sick everywhere.
'
Janet fled to her icy cubicle and sat clutching her photograph of the dogs on the back drive, looking around at her, smiling in the sunlight under the great trees. Soon a monitor came and dispatched her to the study room to get on with Knitting for Charity. Every moment of the day was timetabled. At night she lay in her cold white bed listening to the bitter sea wind; the lights were still on and for twenty minutes you could read a book of your own choice. Next term she would bring back a torch. But now she was too forlorn even to read; the print was a long grey wet blur, like her life. At the far end of the dormitory the bath taps were running. Someone was singing: