Polly (19 page)

The girls observed her with sympathy. Most of them thought her quite stylish, in a quaintly English way, with her neat figure set off by her floaty skirt and black, skinny rib polo neck, her sweet face framed by her glossy, straight bob.

‘But,' Polly continued, letting the silence hang until the girls' attention was restored, ‘I am both teacher and Dorn Mum – and, for both, it is a
prerequisite
to be old and square. So, listen up while I run a few rules by you – OK?'

The girls gathered loosely around her while she discoursed about tidiness (brushing down her jumper for emphasis), study hours (nodding towards her old brass alarm clock), telephone permission (grabbing her own handset and holding it aloft) and exit passes (reading the rules verbatim from the guidelines issued by Powers Mateland).

‘Girls,' Polly warned, ‘just remember your guts and my garters.'

All twelve observed her before nodding and saying ‘Sure, Miss Fenton', practically in unison.

‘Lorna!'

‘Polly!'

Having seen each other at various distances during the day, this was the first opportunity they had had for a few minutes together so they grabbed each other and hugged in reunion. Lorna ruffled Polly's hair, which she straightened immediately.

‘How was Christmas?' Polly asked. ‘And the lovely Tom?'

‘Pretty cool,' Lorna nodded, ‘both of them. And Max?'

‘Darling Boy,' Polly proclaimed, ‘I've loads to tell you.'

‘Me too,' said Lorna.

‘Why don't you come up to my rooms during study hour?' Polly suggested.

‘Just you try and keep me away!' Lorna drawled. ‘Hey Chip!'

Where?

Oh yes.

‘Hey guys,' said Chip, looking only at Polly, ‘how's it going?'

‘Fine,' Polly sang, disappointed that she'd noticed anew just how handsome the man was.

Merely an objective observation, come on now. And how come he hasn't objectively acknowledged my new haircut?

‘Pretty good,' said Lorna.

‘Cool,' said Chip. ‘Great bangs, Polly.'

‘What? Did you?' Polly retorted, at once flustered. Chip looked imploringly at her and then made a strange motion across his forehead. However, it took Lorna to tweak Polly's fringe before she could make the translation.

He noticed!

‘How was your Christmas?' Polly asked, eager to establish a casual and ordinary atmosphere to serve as a footing thereafter.

‘It was a lot of fun,' Chip acknowledged. ‘How was it for you? In the orphanage?'

Polly punched him lightly on the arm and said her Christmas had been brilliant.

Chip looked up at the sky.

‘It's gonna be one helluva season,' he said to Lorna. ‘We gotta get Fen'un up on skis.'

‘Absolutely,' Lorna agreed.

‘I'm game,' chirped Polly, delighted to be called by her surname, especially with its ‘t' being dropped. She accepted Chip's slow, penetrating smile at face value only.

‘Hey, I gotta split,' he said, ‘check you later.'

‘Later,' Lorna replied.

‘Cheerio,' said Polly.

‘
Check you later
– gee, that guy,' said Lorna as she and Polly marvelled at the sight of him jogging across the hockey pitch. Lorna looked to Polly as if she was expecting some sort of answer.

‘Yes,' Polly said.

‘Yes?' Lorna queried.

‘Yes, he's a nice bloke.'

‘He's a danger,' said Lorna with a light but knowing look. ‘Beware. Be wary.'

‘Me?' Polly snorted.

‘Yes you,' Lorna said, ‘it's you he'd like to “check later”. I know what he's like. And I know what he likes. And I know, too, that he always gets what he wants.'

‘
You can't always
–' Polly began to sing. Lorna hummed alongside her and then they both devolved into giggles, lala-ing away.

‘Anyway,' said Polly, ‘aren't you forgetting Jen Carter?'

‘
I'm
not – but don't put it past him to.'

‘Look,' said Polly, ‘thank you for your concern. Chip Jonson is a really lovely chap and fiendishly good-looking too. But I have Max Fyfield. And I'm afraid poor Mr Jonson pales into insignificance in comparison. You really have nothing to worry about me. I'm sorted.'

‘That's good,' Lorna all but warned, ‘I'm pleased to hear it.'

‘You'll be even more pleased,' Polly said, ‘to hear that I'm going to marry him.'

‘Max?'

‘Max.'

W
hen Polly had been back in England for Christmas, it had been easy to recall and denounce America a dangerous place fraught with emotional pressure, to blame it for her inner turmoil. It was only on returning that Polly realized the accusation could be more fairly levelled at her home country. Life in Vermont had slipped smoothly into a prosaic routine; though her days were fantastically full, they were relatively free of stress. Indeed, the most taxing thing to have befallen her so far was a return to Manchester with Lorna on their one free day off. The dilemma, over which she expended much energy and deliberation, was whether or not to buy the microfibre body from the DKNY outlet. She decided to be abstemious, and was resolutely so – until two miles out of town when she made a screeching U-turn, paid cash and said not to bother with a bag.

Of course, Polly fully empathized with the plight of her senior students studying for their S.A.T.s, consequently giving over much of her free time to extra lessons on Charles Dickens or the vagaries of punctuation. Similarly, she was accommodating to any of the Petersfield girls who required her advice, her English copy of
Elle
magazine, or merely her company. Often they came to her with a variety of problems which she found, to her pride and their relief, she could quite easily unravel for them. She had hated being at boarding-school when she was the pupil; it was thus heartening now to see how such an institution could really function, to contribute actively to its success, to be an essential stitch in its fabric.

A lovely, colourful American quilt.

Being Dorm Mother was long, hard work but rewarding too. Polly was on duty from eight in the morning until lights out at ten thirty at night, thirteen days out of fourteen. She enjoyed the company, she liked the daily routine at Hubbardtons, she loved eating in the dining-room surrounded by the din of animated chatter. She was a part of this special community. With its beautiful buildings ergonomically laid out, it was like living in a safe, hermetic village where the worries of rent and bills, neighbours and landlords, had no place. Most of all, Polly loved her students indiscriminately; those who shone academically, those who were the clowns of the class, those who tried so hard, those who just bumbled along. She was not prejudiced.

I am a teacher – how could I be? I love my students – I am a teacher, how could I not? They are my clutch, my brood.

Polly just about found time alone for long enough to write brief letters home. She had written to Max at length when she first arrived back but as soon as school was in session, she quite literally had to cut corners: for her second letter, she took scissors to the page and created a heart shape which she filled with sweet nothings because there was very little to recount anyway. This term, however, Polly felt no guilt about the briefness of her notes back to Max; though incredibly busy, she made the time to think of him, to repeat to herself that they would always be together. Her one letter to Megan merely compared and contrasted S.A.T.s with A levels, with a ‘
P.S. Say hullo to Dominic'.
Usually, she sent a message to him via her letters to Max, but she now felt shy and wary, fearing that if Max relayed her regards it might provoke Dominic to confide his doubts.

Dominic, Dominic – you had it all wrong. There was only ever your brother for me. No question of it, no question at all. Not any more. Not now.

And Chip? Chip Jonson continues to be, as Polly herself says, a very nice chap – she has taste and discernment and the determination not to be fooled by appearances alone. They have waved at each other from afar and Chip has been up to visit her on a few occasions. Though she has never been on her own, he has stayed long enough to enjoy a glass of Coke and light conversation with the goggle-eyed students and their glance-avoiding teacher. However, it is the fact that Polly is dodging eye contact, however subconsciously or conscientiously, that heartens Chip the most. He is now presented with more of a challenge than he would have anticipated, considering the state of affairs at the end of last term, but he doesn't mind. He rather relishes the ingenuity he must now effect in setting his trap.

Chip Jonson might not subscribe to monogamy or fidelity, but is it not merely opinion and society which extol and validate these principles as virtues, and condemn those who refute them as immoral? As sinners?

Can't certain sins be fun too?

And, ultimately, edifying?

Chip means no harm, he simply loves sport.

‘It's like fishing,' he muses to himself, having bandaged the last limb for the afternoon, ‘I'm just the guy who lays the bait – the decision whether or not to take it is out of my hands. Women get hooked – and I reckon they enjoy the exhilaration of the reeling in and all. Being admired. Finally, being released.'

He looks out of the window and observes the third-floor bedroom window at Petersfield House. In the corner of his surgery, his beloved fishing rod is propped. Near to it, a picture of him; in shorts, bare-chested, hair tousled, lips in a broad smile and biceps taut as he holds aloft a twelve-pound salmon for the camera and posterity.

‘I always release what I catch,' he says quietly as he ventures to the photograph to scrutinize the precise details. ‘When I let that fish go, it just hung around in the shallows, quite happily, before making for home.'

Ah, but if you saw a most beautiful salmon swim so near to your bait, circle it even, but then decide to swim away, would you not cast your line again? And again?

Christ, that would be some fish – sure I would!

Polly came across Zoe who was in tears and utterly inconsolable. She had popped back to Petersfield in the lunch hour and, from her bathroom, heard the sound of crying from the floor above.

‘Zoe,' she said gently on discovery, ‘poppet, what ever is it?'

‘Leave. Me. Please,' the girl stammered through her sobs.

‘Hey,' Polly soothed before continuing carefully, ‘you simply can't weep all by yourself – what a dreadfully lonely thing to do.'

This raised the corners of Zoe's mouth slightly but Polly's warm smile in return served only to replenish the tears.

‘Come, come,' she said, kneeling in front of the girl, ‘I can't have my Dorm Daughter so forlorn.'

Polly laid her hands softly on the heaving shoulders and the gesture, combined with her persistent tenderness, caused Zoe to sink into her embrace and really let go. Polly encouraged the girl to cry, comforting her with a host of soothing, maternal locutions until the sobbing subsided and the child was still.

‘I'm sorry,' Zoe sniffed, ‘I, like, trashed your shirt.'

‘Blimey, don't worry about this old rag,' Polly exclaimed, regarding the sodden patch on her shirt before lying, ‘I've had it yonks.'

‘You're so funny,' Zoe smiled through the blur of her tears.

‘That's better,' Polly praised. ‘Now, share your problem and I promise you, though it may not be solved, it will certainly be halved.'

‘I don't know,' Zoe faltered.

‘I
do
,' Polly stressed.

‘I guess,' Zoe responded, regarding Polly warily as if to make absolutely sure. Polly shuffled on her knees around the girl and then sat beside her, their backs against a wall adorned with photographs of Zoe's pets.

‘I say,' said Polly, nodding towards the opposite wall which was smothered with posters of the leering, posturing Guns & Roses and other motley crews, ‘if we're going to snuggle down to a heart to heart, I'd rather our backs were to
that
wall. They're deliciously frightening. They're making me feel rather faint!'

‘They're the only men in my life,' rued Zoe bitterly.

‘Fine,' Polly announced, ‘we'll stay put and try not to be distracted.'

‘
They're
the only men in
my
life,' Zoe repeated, imploringly. Polly took it as her cue.

‘Boyfriend trouble?'

Zoe nodded.

‘You know I've been, like, seeing Jim? Broad?'

‘Is he?'

‘Jim
Broad
, Miss Fenton.'

‘God, yes of course, my Thursday morning set.'

‘Anyhow, I found out that he was – you know – like, going with Tammy over the vacation?'

‘Where to?'

‘No. You know – like, making
out
?'

‘Out. Oh. I see. Hang on,
Tammy
? Scott? She's in my Wednesday juniors?'

‘Yeah. Slut.'

‘Hey!'

‘Well she is.'

‘Go on—'

Zoe continued rapidly, with the inflection typical of American teenagers – raising the tone at the end of almost every sentence into a question of sorts. ‘Jim says to me it was just, like, a
thing
– you know? A one off? He swears it meant nothing? Before, during or after? Crying and all? I go, so how come you did it then? He goes, I dunno? It just kinda happened. I say, so what now? He goes, I love you? And all that shit—'

‘I beg your pardon.'

‘Excuse me. So he says, like, how he feels for me? And that he doesn't want anything to change? He goes, she didn't mean shit to him? Excuse me. But, you know? Do I believe him? Like, can I? How can I ever forget?'

‘How do you feel, you yourself?'