Schooling (11 page)

Well your mother died for one, you live in an entirely different country, you don’t see your father very much.

A knocking at the window.

I saw my father over Christmas.

Don’t deflect the real question by addressing an ancillary one.

A KNOCKING AT THE WINDOW.

Catrine, did your mother tell you not to cry for her?

There it is, the knock. They both jolt, she slops some tea on the carpet. A comic moment. A woman outside, leans against the window forming binoculars with her hands.

Dido . . . Gilbert jumps to his feet, exits.

From the dining room, theme and variations on the battle of precipitation. The back door opening. The aria, I rang the bell. Dido sniffing from the cold air, coat removal movement.

I saw a figure in your lane with brambles in his hair. I’ve never laughed so hard.

Did you walk?

I did I did. Oh . . . at the sight of Catrine, Dido stops abruptly in the doorway, looks back at Gilbert . . . You have a guest.

Come in come in . . . Gilbert steers her in . . . You remember Catrine from Oxbow. Let me get you a cup.

After ensuring Catrine notices that Dido notices that Catrine is wearing Gilbert’s sweater, Dido enters the parlor setting. She glides directly to Gilbert’s easel.

Not bad . . . then she lifts the landscape, flicking her eyes from the portrait to Catrine to the portrait.

I’m not allowed to see it yet.

No cheating . . . Gilbert, in with a straight-backed chair.

Dido lets the paper fall . . . I saw Patrick Betts yesterday.

Did you.

A colleague of yours, isn’t he?

Yes yes. What are you learning, Catrine?

Hamlet.

There, Hamlet, you see.

He was at college giving a lecture.

Was he . . . Gilbert picks up the teapot . . . Come and sit down, Dido.

Dido walks over but leans against the chairback . . . On Dostoyevsky.

Really. The Russians, hum? Well, there’s no end to the man’s range. What did he speak about, The Idiot?

It was intelligent, slightly crusty. He doesn’t keep up. Which you have to if you’re—

Sit down, Dido, for God’s sake.

Betts seems bright to me.

Really . . . Gilbert gets up.

What do you think, Catrine?

She looks to Gilbert for the answer.

I’ll get another cup . . . exit Gilbert.

Dido goes to the window . . . I love Gilbert’s house. A pretty little orchard he has out here.

But you want him to move to Oxbow.

Dido leans against the sill.

Don’t you?

Gil has many gifts. A superb teacher. He would make a popular lecturer with the university crowd.

He’s popular at Monstead.

Is he? . . . Dido regards her carefully . . . Yes, I imagine he is.

Imagine what? . . . Gilbert sets down a cup, goes out again.

The woman steals Gilbert’s chair, calling . . . I’m hearing how your students adore you.

Gilbert returns with a package of biscuits . . . Not true. They never laugh at my jokes. And they have horrible names for me.

What do they call him, Catrine . . . Dido leans forward, shooting Gilbert a prankish glance . . . Tell me.

Can’t remember.

Catrine won’t go in for public humiliation. She’s moral, this one.

Ah . . . Dido moves back . . . Too bad for me.

I’m not.

Nothing wrong with being moral . . . Gilbert shakes biscuits onto a plate, sits down.

Sounds boring.

Yes, or judgmental. Not living and let live . . . Dido sips her tea . . . Or let living? How does that go, I’m all confused.

Catrine’s very direct . . . Gilbert offers Dido a biscuit, fiddling with the props, hamming it up with sugar tongs and slices of lemon.

Is she?

Here’s a girl who says what she thinks. Most of the time well some of the time. Actually, now that I think about it, never. But she’s. Virtuous though somewhat.

There’s trapped air inside her teacup.

Cynical. A follower of the Greeks. Diogenes, perhaps.

Dido takes a thoughtful bite . . . A philosophical American, you say.

That’s right.

Diogenes. Interesting. What about Aristotle?

Oh, Catrine’s most certainly a Peripatetic.

Her cue, she stands.

Sounds complicated.

At the same time there’s a touch of the dramatic, a real Punchinello. I see a future love of Ionesco, Pirandello, even a fascination with some of—

Once—

Our comedies, Restoration, parody.

She cannot make herself heard.

On the other hand, I wouldn’t rule out tragedy—

I killed a man.

Gilbert swallows.

Back in America.

Silence. The distant sound of a dog barking. Slowly, Gilbert puts down his cup.

So you’re a fugitive? From justice?

It was an accident.

Dido looks up over her biscuit, skinny eyebrows hooked in pleasure . . . Tell us what happened.

I was on a hill. I stood on a hill with my friend—

I love a good tale . . . Dido draws her feet up under her.

My friend Isabelle and traffic rushed below us . . . she looks from Dido to Gilbert . . . You don’t believe me.

Don’t stop now!

Isabelle was my friend, she wanted to get away from school. I went with her. We took a bus out. Out to a town we’d never been to. Climbed up a hill . . . adjectives . . . A big hill. Down below there was traffic. That’s how I remember it . . . she falters, can’t help it . . . But I’m no good. I made it up.

No no it’s true . . . Dido cries, leaning forward . . . I don’t believe you made it up. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Don’t stop.

Did you really kill him, Catrine . . . Gilbert says to Dido . . . Or did you just want to?

Did he do something to you?

I didn’t know him. He was some man on a motorcycle. Besides, it’s a story.

Outside, the patch of white does not reappear. In the painting a gull a sail edelweiss a shirt something you should know or open for interpretation. The bee kicked out against death, on his back Good God If only I could right myself. And tomorrow he will still be dead and they will continue with hot drinks. You expect radios to stop playing, the world to mark an end.

You have a dead bee here.

He raps on the door and she lets him in her hair wet from the accident. It is after she splashes tea down her front after she washes up and after Dido takes her leave. Gilbert comes into the bathroom comes in sits on the toilet seat takes her wrists. She examines his thumbs he tells her he was married to Dido. Knocking, he says Alright in there? as she struggles into her wet T-shirt still wet from the splashing. They are kissing in the corridor, she hears the sound of sucking. Gilbert says Let’s open this a bit for the steam and squeezes past to push open the tiny window then turning watches her attempting to hang towels in a manner suggesting they have not been used. He says You might not be familiar in America but those are supposed to get wet. Out in the corridor he raps on the door Are you in there? And as she is saying I Am Familiar he is taking her hands saying Dido was my wife. Behind him the bowl of soap features five shellshaped that one on the top more the shape of something melted. Cheese maybe. Are you angry with me? She looks at him sitting on the toilet seat wearing his half-day sweater with the sleeves pushed up, tells him No. She hears him treading upstairs. Folding a newspaper. In the kitchen. He ignores the soap she melted. He takes her hands both her hands in his two much larger teacup-warmed hands on the back of one his scar a larger dash than the one above his mouth. Likely burned by a brush with lab bench the deadly cocktails of Aurora Dyer. Wet hair drips dampen her T-shirt. Plosh on his forearm. Pulling her so they are knee to knee, he says Dido and I were married. He considers her with his fourteen-year-old look. She should have brushed her teeth. I wanted you to know that. Why? Because his thumbs rest on the back of her hands. A squeeze he drops them he goes to the kitchen.

33

Gilbert’s Fiat speeds back to Monstead after some shepherd’s pie of his own devising. And more on fathers. How he drove to the hospital and sat a long time staring at his King who watched a point of light in a dark room. In the corridor sat a mother, purse on lap, hands on purse like a little begging dog while Gilbert’s father proclaimed Attica a bloody Babylon, saw chimeras tangled in antennae. Finally Aegeus, skin milky, something at the bottom had been disturbed, left the fishing show. Ah, Theseus, a hand to my forehead to read the forecast as behind him on the screen men struggled to bring up a bass. Theseus, have we long been separated. I was a gawky thin trousers too big at the waist as well as too short wardrobe of a boy spending all his time inside. Back and forth I paced in my ill-fitting clothes. Told him I had never found his pen, that I had failed to slay that old bastard Androgeus who always worked Father’s nerves something terrible. The message here, Catrine, is very clear. One will always fail one’s father. His poker partner Benny from down the hall interrupted, came in to gawp at The Son. Then, as is its wont, time dribbled away. Mother was describing the lettuces when my father slipped into his coma. What a commotion. Doctors rushing to plug him into a socket. Benny helping himself to the suddenly useless playing cards. We waited. I had never known my father, now he was a machine that could breathe, pump blood, boil you a cup of water.

Mr. Gilbert—

A fly gloating on his marble shoulder—

Mr. Gilbert, can you watch the road please, you’re making me nervous.

Rarely seen a car on this stretch. And I’ve driven it countless times. Anyway, I couldn’t bear his static eyes.

From around a corner banked by hedges flies a tire. Four. A car. Low and yellow. Roaring past.

Silence. A bird somewhere close. Sounding like inside the car.

Triumph . . . she picks at her knee . . . Wasn’t it?

Driving like the devil. Never seen anything like it.

Gilbert’s Fiat begins the final ascent up the hill to school.

So, now you can boast that you know a man who killed his father. Mercy killing. That’s how I sleep at night.

Mercy or good manners.

A siren. Gilbert pulls the Fiat to the side of the road to let a fire engine pass, lights blazing. They crest the hill. Gilbert pulls into Monstead’s back driveway. Slams on the brakes. Out across the playing fields, thick billows of smoke roll up to the sky. Three fire engines circle the cricket pavilion. Water gusts in sheets. Figures spill from School House, running to hem the playing fields. The pavilion, Father’s favorite place. Someone’s bowled a googly alright, a shooter, a yorker for now it is on fire.

34

The stage is set for catastrophe. Backstage, a wooden machine on wheels falls over and nearly crushes Duncan Peaks. Meanwhile, onstage, Percival paces. He strikes the boards with yellow chalk marks. Confers with Spenning, he of History, who has come to the project out of his great love for all things needing lists. The men unfurl an architectural rendering. Inigo Jones and his assistant Capability Brown huddling over it. A weighty decision, where a lone tree will stand.

You! . . . Spenning startles a ginger girl . . . Move that . . . he points to a prop left behind from the previous rehearsal.

Owen Wharton strides across the stage to relieve the staggering girl of
Anger
’s ironing board. Simon Puck helps. For whither wanders Owen, there goes Puck.

Wharton . . . Percival uses a loud whisper . . . Wharton.

But Owen is gathering strewn newspaper, now unbending to notice her in row GG, now waving a friendly newspapery hello. Shy Percival tugs Wharton’s upraised leather sleeve. Wharton Wharton. Tall Owen motioning instruction to offstage Pucklet. Mr. Latin & Civilizations hanging from Owen’s sleeve tugging tugging. Oh it’s all happening in the theatre.

Simon appears, roosting in the seat next to her. The two of them are ready for fun.

Percival pulls Owen into the audience, his whisper carrying . . . Duncan Peaks Flubbing his Real Hash of the Bloody imbecile.

Meanwhile, as they say, Duncan Peaks has collapsed on the stage steps, head in hands.

Owen throws his feet over the chairback of row B ignoring Percival’s disapproving tap . . . Let’s hear it, Peaks.

An alarming silence.

If you can’t remember your lines, Duncan . . . Owen continues . . . We’ll have to replace you. Is that what you really want? Just Try To Remember and you will.

It’s a lot of lines . . . the boy delivers.

Your parents will be there, Peaks . . . onstage, Spenning fights to be heard over the ginger girl’s violent hammering . . . Stand up and try again.

Duncan stands . . . If the Birds are older—

Hold on . . . Spenning marches over, plans armpitted. He takes Duncan’s shoulders, forcing them back.

Sir . . . Owen tries to calm the man . . . He’ll get the hang of it.

If the birds are older—

Project, son. Take it to the balcony.

If the Birds are older than earth and therefore older than gods, then the birds are the heirs of the world. For. For . . . Duncan stutters, appalled . . . For—

For the oldest always inherits . . . Spenning throws the sketches at Owen . . . Do something.

35

Burning lingers in the air. Blackened sausages at Tea, smoky Prep, startled awake in the arms of guardians.

Gripped by the challenge of fitting his entire lesson notes onto the blackboard, Dr. Thorpe stands on a chair, a scribbling madman. In the rows behind him, Duncan cradles his head, sobbing softly, Simon Puck is tapping his beak experimentally against his desk. Minter and Mareka are well into the semifinals of a compass dig. Forearms are the day’s battlefields and their desks are bloody and bloodier.

Sophie’s miserable, Bohr’s son won’t answer her letters. Does Catrine think she offended by not mentioning the Nobel win.

Not necessarily, contemplating Mareka carving a bold S at her elbow, Not unless he’s an egomaniac.

Red river from the compass dig curls across the floor. Licking chair legs as it edges toward Dr. Thorpe.

Sophie pulls up her feet, Next time I’ll write a compliment.

Satisfied with the beginnings of his cramped composition, Thorpe steps down heavily from the chair. Splish. He regards his shoes. The floor is scarlet. He glances up. 3X stares back, angel faces glazed, strafed blue by enemy inkfire. Or in the case of blubbing Peaks, water-glutted and red. Minter has his compass raised. Puck stops pecking.

Carefully, Dr. Thorpe sets the piece of chalk on his desk, folds his arms.

What is it? Don’t you want to learn?

They don’t know the answer.