Schooling (19 page)

ELDER

Ariiise ye, from the innocence of brutehood.

GIRL

Give me back my epic life.

BRICK

I had a stupid need for conkers. I waited for him as I always did on the steps to the boy’s changing room, thinking about conkers, how I never played anymore, the games I played at junior school, well I’ve dwelled on that already. I waited for him as I often did on Tuesdays, he had physics, we would walk to lunch together. You hadn’t been there very long, we had been in town together, the three of us and he asked about you. He wanted to know why I had brought you the day we sniffed glue. He called you that name, the one we all do. Two girls had tied you up under your bed, he thought that terribly funny. A bird in the dirt turned to us with bright eyes as we passed. I said to him I wish you didn’t find some things funny. He said But imagine her lashed to her bed like that, unable to get away. They were tearing off ivy, three men on ladders. One dropped a bit of yellow tin, it brushed my ear as we walked inside. Into School House. He said Come in here for a moment and brought me into the cloakroom. A first year was trying to hang his coat, we pushed him out. He said I don’t like you around her. I said I fancy, he said You don’t, I said Listen, he said No. I said You aren’t hearing me, I won’t leave her, I won’t do as you say. He said Leave I said he said Fuck off I said Don’t he said Fuck I said I love.

OPHELIA

Why did I burn down the pavilion if not for this? You are a Science Girl, you still have chance for university.

GIRL

Am I a Science Girl? Or did he say that to protect me, I don’t know.

OPHELIA

So the burning was in vain. Remember the bunsen flames. Think that you joined me as I crossed the field, the lighter atwitch in my hand. I knew not what I did. Hard light from the pyres of padding and bibs, the smell of burning plastic jolting me awake. The flames moved to eat netting draped on a shelf. Standing in the doorway, the fire grew hotter and hotter at my back. I did not know what I was nor where I should have been, for there were only the two of us, myself and the pavilion. Our arrangement was clear. Gladly will I suffer for you that you may leave your mark.

ELDER
 (sourly)

No better than a beast.

GIRL

In Maine I did not think Is this a school? Is this any sort of voice to have? What way is this of weather or plants? How it was in Maine was simply how it was.

ELDER

Now you are a girl who thinks too much.

GIRL

I would return to days before a balcony, photographs, a tire. Days before questions.

ELDER

You are American, they have difficulties discerning right from wrong. It is their moral code which does not translate.

CROCONIUS

She has an eye.

WHARTON

An I?

CROCONIUS

A gift. Her art will serve her well, save her perhaps.

GIRL

In London, a hidden woman revealed herself. Hello, she said, This is a museum, a place where we have bodies. Look at me, my smart brown suit and shoes that clack behind my hidden door. I have you already fooled and the art hasn’t yet begun. Here I am, delirious in my skin. My nerves own my body, she said, Which I can temper and abate at will. Hello, I said, I am a cynical science girl, atoms disturb me. I am full of blood, bile and enzymes. Goodness, she said, You are harmonious. Oh, I said, I did not know. Come with me, said she, I will take you to a place where outline does not exist. I do not want to go there, I said, Even to a place of abstraction, even to a place where the real is exact. Well, she said, You will never be a blue lady if that’s your attitude. You have not yet made it behind the wardrobe where real art is kept and until that time you’d do well to listen to your elders and, if you need reminding, well your betters too. I said, because I was proud, I have a head with individual character. She didn’t like that much, saying, When you are naked you are ideal, that is if you are a true nude. If you insist on owning all this character on your head or in your face well so be it, but you will never be a study. Character compromises, dear girl. Yes, I said, I know, but I don’t care if I never end up behind the wardrobe. I don’t mind telling you I was close to tears. For abstractly, I am still rewarding. Oh no, she said, That’s not true at all and if you continue to speak in that tone of voice you will never be analogous.

TWO

1

Grey fog settles on the tracks. The wind picks up, swinging the sign Chittock Leigh Chittock Leigh. A rattling from down the platform is not the sign but a fourth former at the vending machine. A day Father drove her to Euston himself. Took the morning off work, bought her the ticket, pressing it into her palm as if she weren’t the same girl who’d spent the summer caroming around the new city with a tube map, no lunch, cinema schedule. To the perfume counter at Selfridge’s, the market, a warren of stalls selling old pewter teapots and military overcoats. Lawrence of Arabia twice, Wuthering Heights, A Brief Encounter which takes place much of it on a train platform. As well as in a café like Bishop’s where she bought her fried egg sandwiches where the man took the woman’s hand between the salt and pepper shakers. Gilbert walks across the platform to Darton at the machine. A possible word of caution regarding exploding refreshments and Gilbert moves Darton back to the group. When Father disappeared to buy her ticket she watched a man kiss a woman on the mouth. She left lipstick on him. There was always kissing in train stations. Spenning doesn’t watch Thorpe draw a map for him in the air, he’s checking checking and again his list. Tempton, Thaxted, Williams, Woodward. Betts stares blankly into space. On the balcony or the mezzanine knees tented her skirt. Had he said something out loud. I watch you. A screech. Betts turns, Thorpe brings down his hands, the map disappears. Conductor nods, whistles again. Off to the side Brickie has one hand at the back of his knee Puck in his beak says the night will never end. We are all in this together. And it will go on and on. Father said, Never wander near the park or Kings road where there is a dark element. Meaning the loitering roosters, rollies clamped between yellow fingers. Even the girls had vicious hair and one smashed a man’s camera when he took a picture. Down the platform, Gilbert looks up over his ushering fourth formers, smiles or maybe it’s a grimace. Behind her, Dr. Thorpe, If you please ladies, plural because Fi Hammond is rushing up from finding her yellow pullover forgotten at the ticket counter. Dr. Thorpe, bull’s breath out his nose, Miss Hammond, fourth formers are down in the next carriage with Mr. Gilbert and Miss Devon and that not being a regulation jumper let me not catch you wearing it. Fi runs toward Gilbert, ankles flying up in white dashes. And Gilbert, watching her over the heads of his group, switches to Fi as she gets closer. That’s perspective for you. Can’t be helped. Thorpe’s voice in her ear, Up we go. If she resists he will bring up Thomas à Becket or Augustine because something in her behavior or the consequences of it will have resonance for the man. Oh, reaching for the handrail can Gilbert see her own white socks. Oh, pinkish from schoolwash. Oh, in a fake way as if it is A Brief Encounter, Pardon Me, Dr. Thorpe I Was Lost in Thought. Turning at the top of the steps to watch Thorpe raise his thumb to signal Devon or Gilbert or the stationmaster or himself.

Vanessa next to Sophie. Opposite, a choice. Girl who sweats or Brickie. Swaying, the train has begun, and here’s Spenning shuffling papers staring Well Sit Down Then, Girl. She has to go with the stink or risk Flirt.

Three parts to this excursion and you’d do well to listen today so that tomorrow’s essay questions don’t induce suicide pacts. Of equal weight will be Mr. Betts’ comments before and after Tartuffe this afternoon. Now, we are inclined to think of Bath as a Roman town, however it did not come into prominence until—

The train picks up. Rattles out of town. They are leaving. Past the cemetery police station ugly house another and another four fields flash past a country road parallels a moment man on a bike barking dog field field field. Nessa has a bit of paper, Sophie draws on it, they laugh. And laugh. Helpless, Nessa leans forward against her knees. Sophie glances up at her, she has been seeing Maine in Sophie’s shoulder. Smile, sheepish. Turning, a farmhouse. Behind it, cows humped in hills. It will rain. Cold hands. In her lap, nails cut straight across. Patches of eczema. Stop it, Catrine, that’s disgusting. Out the window, a red mini drives up a hill. I’m not doing anything, Ness. The mini arrives at the farmhouse, she steps out, takes down the scarf she wears to protect her hair from the wind. Inside, he watches a football match, can hear it in the background. Father, yes love. Father. I have a question, Yes love oh go go run man you’ve legs of con-oh. Crete. Father. I’m listening bach, Damer’s a fool is all. What’s on your mind? Easter, Father. France. Remember, the school has a trip there. Silence. Offside, crowd roars. Penalty, he says and she hears the television snap off. A trip to France is it. I want you near at Easter, Easter marks a year. But Father, pushing at the coin return, Father the trip’s after Easter, only for a week, and there’s four weeks of holiday, Father. Daddy. Da. Holiday not vacation as if Holiday will push the balance to yes. We’ll take the ferry. Hovercraft or something. Papa. The cart rolls by.

Orange squash, penguins, hard rolls. She goes to Spenning, right in his ear, Going to the lav, Mr. Spenning. Lav. Who says Lav. Waiting at the far end of his fourth form carriage. Palms flat against the metal, bottom against her hands, she watches him come to her. His hip catches on a seat, an embarrassed smile, up the aisle to her, hand over hand, light flashing on his face and off again as he passes windows, making his way to her for she has news she has to tell him and tell him now, Father said Yes.

On the platform BATH. Betts with his list and hair, the kerfuffle of it. Striking coach drivers have spoiled everything and who if not he will see to it that no one’s limbs get amputated via train, veering toward apoplexy when Gilbert and Devon’s fourth form group mingle with his third formers hissing, Mr. Gilbert sir if you would just Give A Hand, because Gilbert is showing Simon Puck his trick with a coin.

You can’t blame her for not writing anymore . . . Sophie catches up . . . Your friend. In America.

Isabelle? . . . below them, Bath spreads, clammy and white. Who said anything about it.

Three thousand miles, Catrine. It’s like dying.

We were never really friends.

You were. You had her letters. Last term. I saw them.

But there have been no letters from Isabelle. Biro-trenched onion-skin. Carefree divots. No blue sails have arrived for her at Monstead. No untidy pages bearing those hurdles, the American
r.
Flagged pinkie over cream tea, Catrine? Pinafores? A Governess? Latin?

Georgian . . . Spenning has them puffing up a hill toward the main square. At the back,
Bringing Up the Rear, Mr. Spenning
, Betts entertains with a story about a monk who fell in love with a swan and jumped into the river though that was a rare sort of occurrence even in the twelfth century.

Thank you, Mr. Betts. The river you are currently passing over harbors an unusual breed of and Brickie next to her saying Araigny’s finger was cut off by a nazi when she was four.

That’s horrible.

Well there are horrible things.

And apropos of nothing, certainly not nazis, she laughs. They are fueled by freedom, the twenty-six of them, outside school they are ordinary human beings reveling in company. Chosen company. She has invited Brickie, Simon Puck, Sophie and Ness to join her for a tour in the country. And driving down in headscarves and mittens, wicker basket on the backseat, they toast each other and the paucity of traffic, spouting little stories that end with a joke or someone made to appear foolish or, in her case, trailing off into silence as the original reason for the story suddenly proves elusive. Giddy with the idea of an outside world, of beings not limited to eleven through seventeen, but inhabited by small creatures, midgets, well infants they call them, and wily pensioners, jaws clicking as they maul the biscuits. Spenning’s paleolithic spurts will not moor them. For they have emerged blinking into a world not Chittock Leigh, not half-day Wednesday when half the town shuts up. But a workweek, a real town, almost a city actually. Caught up. Carried away. Impulsive. One of them will act outside the domain Pupil. A noble act for another, a decent one for his friend. Yes, they will treat and be treated as citizens.

Abruptly, she stops. Someone smacks into her. She steps aside and Simon Puck shoots past, undenting his beak, scowling.

Tell me, Brickie, what you have on me. I know it’s about our fathers, when they were boys at Monstead.

You don’t have the courage to hear it.

I do. I have done things. Survived things.

There’s blood involved.

What’s blood to me? Nothing. I’ve seen blood, houses laid waste. Tell me.

I’ll think about it . . . Brickie in a fine turn. He tears down the hill, catching up to the Dodo.

The Ambassador at twelve or fifteen, hurling cutlery at the scholarship boys. Miniature Father at nine, eleven. There were photographs, Mother brought them out when he was away. In Wales, standing behind his father’s house, shovel in one hand. His mother had already sailed for America. Not so long afterwards he was at Monstead and the Ambassador was teasing him with fat fingers saying I’ve got something on you and. Father being led up a hill by his mother was another. Mother taking her fingernail to get the pages apart. That’s why your father chose me, I reminded him of his mother, though no man wants to think that. Mildewed album. Yes, it was my accent he fell for.

Cry of a gull. Down the riverbank, fourth formers sketch the river house. Devon circulates, arms crossed. Her voice trailing up, You’re
really
moving towards something. The lurid color is Fi Hammond in her illegal jumper
really
moving. From her vantage she can see Gilbert. Gilbert taking Fi’s sketchbook, Gilbert leaning down, kissing Fi on the mouth. Putting one hand on a yellow shoulder.

Waiting for the loo are you? Yes, her hands cold against the metal. Will you enjoy Bath and he put his hands in his pockets and swayed with the rhythm of the train as if he too waited for the loo although as far as she knew neither of them had checked to see if the latch read vacant or occupied. Have you been avoiding me but as he said it he looked up the train toward the third form compartment toward Betts so it was clear who was avoiding whom. No, I’m not, I’m not avoiding you. Patchy hands cold against the metal wall. I spoke with my father last night, he’s sending the permission slip. Gilbert looked puzzled. The door swung open, a boy came out. Go and sit down, Gilbert said for no reason. What do you mean permission? Posting it, his signature, the check, so I can go to France. Oh, he said, That’s wonderful news.

They will have sufficient vocabulary, nine fingers will ensure it. On down the riverbank taking out notebooks, brown for geography. Dirt clods sellotaped to a page, a flowering grass found in Chittock Leigh, stages of sediment, contours, cross section of a rock. A fresh page for flint, for Bath.

Over a bridge. The town whitewashed, the smell of ocean. Seaside. Four buildings form a square. A man in the doorway of dry-cleaning presses two fingers to his temple. Baskets of colored eggs in the windows, streamers. A year, a year Easter day. Her pen has bled, the taste of ink. Never get through a day without blue somewhere, blouse, arms. She is wasting away they said and it was a waste. The smell of car fumes, gasoline. Dr. Thorpe talking about carriages. On his pause for breath, Spenning quickly interjects a note on mesolithic hunters. When Mother was wheeled into the library on a cot, Father put away the photographs for good. They are sentimental. But he didn’t know she kept the vintage letters, Dear Catherine Dear Henry. They think you will die from the pain of it. Or is it you who thought that. If it were something you could refuse. Thank you, no.

Vanessa holds out a can of Lilt. The group behind her, their straggled height of hair, brown, yellow, black. Brickie, Joyce. The treeline in the square, the roofs. This town a hospital all white and straight as a sheet. Drinking down the effervescence the pineapple sweetness a remedy.

A day by the ocean when Isabelle told her they wouldn’t be girls again. Smelled like this. Like salt. Tasted of salt.

You’ll go back, I expect . . . Nessa reaches for the drink.

Their fingers overlap. No, Ness, there’s nothing for me in America.

Sophie appears slapping a rolled-up magazine into her palm, What’d I miss, shoving it between her knees to take Nessa’s notebook.

And they move on. All so fraught one moment, the next nothing. Deflated, then expectant. The excitement of possibilities, of accidents and fortune, alternate and collide, drumming a pulse above her ear. Through the streets. They could rebel.

In the park, Spenning passes out lunches, the sun crawls out. Figures on the Lawn. Gilbert on a Bench, lunch beside him, face raised to the blank sky. Even those few minutes in the hot corridor he kept glancing over her shoulder to sight Mr. Betts.

A tap. Simon Puck alerting her to a spot where the grey balds in her knee. Sophie is dismantling her sandwich, revealing its sordid inlay. Butter webbed to cheese.

Sophie, stop . . . Nessa, easily disgusted . . . It’s like open heart surgery.

Brickie shifts, picks up his leaning hand, looks at it. Buttercup pressed to his palm. Immersed, black hair a curtain, sandwich balanced on his knee.

Suddenly, a packed lunch lands on the grass between them. Betts, pulling off his jacket.

So you are to be our hero, Brickman. Congratulations.

Nessa and Sophie stare . . . Brickie?

He’s peeling the flower off his palm.

And how are you finding Mr. Percival’s direction? I had the opportunity to stop by your last rehearsal. Your director is certainly taking a number of liberties with the translation. Aristophanes must be a dervish in his grave . . . Betts pours a cup of dark syrup from his thermos . . . I was asked to operate the machine but I’m already engaged in some theatrics. I’d prefer a lighter role, still . . . Betts knocks back the coffee . . . What do you think, Brickman, are we victims of vanity? This thirst for applause, is it only ego gratification or is there more to it?

Peaks couldn’t remember his lines, sir and Owen Wharton threatened me—

Could it be that our own lives offer so few opportunities for noble action?