Relatively Strange (6 page)

When our feet touched terra firma and we’d bowed several times, he managed to pull himself together enough to gallantly kiss my hand and lead me to the catwalk. His hands were shaking terribly badly and he was cherishing thoughts of kicking me headfirst and hard into the orchestra pit. At the same time, he was trying to work out how it had been done. He’d been had, that much he knew and he had in mind a rival or two who’d probably engineered it. It had been a bloody good trick, no denying, but he wasn’t laughing. The effing shock, he was thinking, could have put him six bleeding feet under. The audience loved us, no doubt about that. Mind you the thunderous applause was as nothing compared with the thunderous expression on the face of my waiting parents. They and Mr. Magica exchanged a long, pained look. We didn’t stay to see the end of the show, but left immediately and in some disarray through a side door.

*

I think my parents had, up until that point, chosen to deal with odd and worrying but hopefully passing aberrations as just that – passing! But that evening, round the kitchen table, fortified by strong tea and Bourbons they, as well as I, began the process of comprehending the depth and degree of my differentness.

They’d known, of course about the flying. They were also unhappily aware of my knack of moving objects without touching. Was there, they asked, with trepidation, anything else I’d like to share? In this new spirit of openness, I was determined to be helpful. Could everyone, I inquired, hear what people were thinking or was that also just me?

I think they handled things remarkably well, under the circumstances. Although I do remember my father, who was teetotal, going to the sideboard in our hall to extract a dusty bottle of brandy for a medicinal tot. They did, after all, have a fine line to walk – making me feel that what I had was very special and a not a Bad Thing, at the same time impressing upon me the virtue of discretion, because other people, Mr. Magica for one or indeed Aunt Cynthia for another, might not have quite the same appreciation of my talents.

My parents telling me not to use what I had – and they must have known it – was virtually impossible, like saying keep your right hand tucked away and make do with the left. I did try, but sometimes events overtook me and I simply reacted. Always in my favour though was people’s consistent and instinctive need to rationalise, to make what they saw or heard fit within parameters they understood. Time after time, that let me off any hook I might have inadvertently got myself stuck on.

I do know however because, naturally, not much was secret in our house that my poor father and mother spent a huge amount of time thinking and discussing what, if anything, they could or should do about me. But most of these anxious confabs went round in circles and hit the same brick wall – who, if anyone, would be the correct expert to go to for advice? What, if anything would they actually want done? And in the long run – shades of Grandma here – might this not be a situation best kept under our hats?

Chapter Six

There is in every school career, alas, one teacher who terrifies above and beyond all others. Mine was Mrs Treason. Square-built, solid-legged with year-round biliously beige knitted stockings and fat-soled brogues, she was an immovable object. Her shock of white hair, cut mercilessly short, bristled with malign energy and she was possessed of and never slow to use, a parade-ground boom that made the insides of your ears ache. Thursdays were Mrs Treason’s dinner duty stints. Alternate Thursdays were tapioca pudding days – an ominous confluence.

Technically we were not allowed to get up from the long dinner tables that possessed the school hall from 12.30 – 2.00 until we’d cleared our plate. Loosely adhered to by most teachers, this was a rule governed in the final reckoning by their own desire to salvage a portion of the lunch-hour for themselves. Not so Mrs Treason who was made of sterner stuff and took her duties all too seriously.

It always seemed an absurd situation that, if you knew full well you hated something, you weren’t permitted to say no thank you and go on your way, dessertless but happy. Sadly, the system didn’t work that way, two courses were provided for us and two courses we had to consume. But, coming face to face with an off-white, gelatinous spawn, topped with a dollop of strawberry jam was an ordeal that even now, sends a surge of unease from stomach to throat. By the time, on that particular Thursday that Mrs Treason was standing over me, I was the sole occupant of the hall and desperation had me in its tearful grip. The tapioca, unappetising enough when hot was indescribable, stone cold and as I hung my head in defeat, the odd tear falling into the mess wasn’t helping. Mrs Treason said if I cried like a baby I’d have to be fed like a baby, but finish my portion I would, if she had to wait all night.

As the noxious substance slid greasily down my throat, I sought frantically for a way out and lit on a solution to the problem that was so blinding in its simplicity, I almost sobbed with relief. Obviously I wasn’t in any position to properly explain the depths of despair to which she was taking me. But if Mrs Treason were to be made fully aware, for just one moment, of exactly what I was going through, how truly awful the stuff tasted, she’d surely view the matter in a whole new and sympathetic light. I promptly opened my mind and did a little sharing.

Results were swift if not entirely expected. Mrs Treason began to turn an interesting shade of very pale green and suddenly seemed to lose all interest in me and my pudding. For a moment or two she gazed somewhere off into the middle distance, concentrating intently, it appeared, on some inner turmoil then,

“Back in a minute.” she muttered thickly, “Don’t …” She didn’t finish, but swung smartly on one sensible heel and headed for the door at a brisk pace which in anyone else might have been called a trot, I think she may have had a hand clasped to her mouth. I waited for ages, but she didn’t come back. A kindly dinner-lady eventually taking pity removed my plate and said run along now, because they had to clear up. Mrs Treason didn’t come back at all that afternoon, someone else took her classes, nor do I ever remember any other show-downs over the tapioca. Empathy’s a great thing.

*

My closest friend in school from the earliest days was Elizabeth Mostroff, the younger daughter of parents who’d arrived in England from Russia in somewhat mysterious circumstances. They were apparently involved in something equally secretive once they were here – either that or they suffered from a similar strain of paranoia to my grandmother. Any inquiry about where they worked and what precisely they did was answered with a finger to the lips, a small smile and an admonitory shake of the head, causing much speculation on the part of Elizabeth’s friends’ parents.

The whole Mostroff family were frighteningly clever, with both parents fluent in over ten languages, although if they were as hard to understand in those, as they were in English, I’m not sure what good it did them. Their older daughter, Dora, played the cello; Elizabeth, the violin and piano; Mr. Mostroff the flute and Mrs Mostroff any instrument not currently occupied by any other member of the family. They didn’t have a television or radio because, they said, they preferred to provide their own entertainment.

Tall and angular with short curly brown hair, the slightly foreign intonation of her parents and an infectious giggle, Elizabeth invariably came top in exams because she was exceptionally bright. I also did well, because she was exceptionally bright. She was one of those rare people able to concentrate on the subject in hand to the total exclusion of any distraction. Consequently, whenever I got stuck and had to stop and think, there was Elizabeth, blazing loud and clear, not to mention correctly. I didn’t feel it could be considered cheating, since it was unavoidable. But on more than one occasion, our answers were so similar, suspicion was aroused and we were separated to either end of the classroom, to our mutual indignation. Such separation, of course, made no difference whatsoever, other than teaching me a little caution, but it was indeed a severe blow to my academic career, when in junior school we were put into different classes.

Chapter Seven

I was in the top class of the infant’s school when I was voted May Queen – an honour indeed, May Day being a shining highlight of the school calendar. Nigel Lawrence was to be my Crown Bearer, along with ten attendants, a boy and girl from each year, to carry my train – a slightly stained, blue satin effort, kept in the school dressing-up box and handed down to successive monarchs. My mother laboured long and hard and between stints on the typewriter, produced a full-length, blue-bow bedecked, white dress, worn over a hooped petticoat that swayed gratifyingly with each step.

It was a thrill almost beyond description, to emerge from the doorway of the school in all my glory and our slow and stately procession across the playground to pass beneath a flower-decorated arch, was one of those moments of pure delight that should be tissue-paper wrapped and preserved. My throne was Miss Macpharlane’s study chair, elevated to grandeur by a swathe of red velvet and set in front of the flower garlanded climbing frame. I was crowned, with due ceremony by Mrs Ford, an elderly ex-head of the school, roped in as visiting dignitary. My parents and sister had front row seats and as I graciously raised my sceptre – bejewelled with glued-on coloured winegums – the afternoon’s activities swung into action.

Each of the classes had prepared a song, short play or acrobatics and the traditional grand finale was maypole dancing. This involved a complicated in and out routine, resulting in an elegantly plaited pole or a hopeless tangle, depending on whether people undered when they should, and didn’t over when they shouldn’t.

At the end of the afternoon, the maypole duly emerged for its annual airing in the arms of burly Mr. Jones followed by a scarlet-faced lad, staggering under the joint weight of the solid iron base and the responsibility of placing it correctly on the marked spot. With shuffling, nudging and self-important giggling, the children took their ribbons and positions. Mrs Gordon, on the piano and also in charge of a motley crew of tambourine, drum and triangle players nodded, hit the keys and the maypole dancers were off, teachers mouthing instructions and smiling relief as gradually the coloured ribbons wound a discernible pattern.

They established later the trouble was at the base of the heavy wooden pole, where it slid into its iron support. It had been around for years and where time and damp had done their work, the wood had gradually deteriorated to the point of disaster. Now, the uneven but determined pull on the ribbons of twenty or so children, was a final straw. The pole began to sway unnaturally far, first one way then back the other, its seven foot height and weight putting a disproportionate strain on the twelve inches of weakened material held within the unyielding base. Parents and teachers one by one, seeing the danger were already starting forward. But, occupied in the complications of remembering who went where and when, the children were blissfully oblivious.

From my throne vantage point I could see, all too clearly what was happening and my head filled with a keening, increasingly searing note of panic as awareness swept the rest of the audience. If that pole snapped and crashed, injuries would be inevitable but the warning shouts of the running adults couldn’t be heard above the cacophony of a band now well into its discordant stride. I concentrated, reaching out, but the thick smoothly dark wood was as slippery to grasp mentally as it would have been physically; I closed my eyes, envisaging myself, feet spread wide for balance, arms wrapped tightly around it and held on.

I held it as long as I could and then when I could hold it no longer the slippery pole, ribbons now forlornly hanging, crashed with a gravel-raising thwump, to the asphalt. But by that time, all the children had been herded out of danger. I had a right royal headache under my crown and could feel the familiar surge of sickness. Only vanity saved me. I really didn’t want to go down in school history, as the only May Queen who’d thrown up on the throne.

It was then that Nigel Lawrence, next to me, started making a very peculiar noise. I thought at first he was laughing but the rusty sound he was making didn’t sound happy. As I turned, reaching out with automatic curiosity, I realised he wasn’t laughing and why. There was no air where air should have been and my eyes must have mirrored the panic in his as my throat too, sought to stay open. This had happened to him before, though not as badly. He knew it was an assmattack. His mother, full of fear, nevertheless always told him it was nothing to worry about, just a nuisance and uncomfortable, breathe slow and regular and it would pass. Nigel was doing his level best to follow instruction, but it wasn’t passing.

I’d gone in with curiosity and had simply been unable to find the way out. I wondered afterwards what we must have looked like, the two of us, seated still on our ceremonial chairs, gasping and clawing. It can’t have been for very long though. I was briefly aware he’d fallen off the chair and into a dark black place and then I was hurtling down there too.