Among Others (21 page)

I was trying not to talk too much, but I probably did anyway.

“Do we want to have a meeting next week?” Greg asked. “Or should we leave it until after Christmas?”

“We should have a meeting, but how about a Christmas theme?” Harriet suggested.

“Christmas-themed SF?” Greg asked. “What is there?”

“There’s
The Dark Is Rising
,” Hugh said. “It’s fantasy and it’s a children’s book, but it’s all about Christmas.”

“All right, do you want to lead discussion about that?” Greg asked.

Everyone looked at Hugh, and I realised something in that moment, which is that they took him totally seriously, even though he was only fifteen. They didn’t just let him come to the meetings, they thought he could lead one. They’re the same with me, they don’t look at me as a remarkable dancing bear, they listen to what I say.

“I’m not sure there’d be enough discussion material for a whole meeting,” Hugh said. “But there are the other books in the series.”

“If we run out of things to say early, we can always adjourn to the pub,” Harriet said.

“I think it’s a good idea. We haven’t talked about a children’s fantasy since we did the Narnia books,” Greg said.

“I suppose they have Father Christmas in,” I said, and everyone groaned.

“Worst thing in them,” Keith said.

“Tolkien hated that,” someone else said, a little dark man. “He said it wasn’t internally consistent. Father Christmas and Bacchus and boarding schools and everything all mixed in like a Christmas pudding with raisins and candied peel and sometimes breaking your teeth on a sixpence.”

I joined in the general laughter, and then it was time to go.

I thought I might be a bit shy with Greg on his own, but I wasn’t. We talked about
Dying Inside
, which we hadn’t talked about properly in the meeting. Greg said it was impressive how Silverberg had taken an idea other people had always seen as a blessing and made it into a curse.

F
RIDAY
14
^TH
D
ECEMBER
1979

Exams, and Wednesday and yesterday too. It took me until today to finish writing up Tuesday night.

S
ATURDAY
15
^TH
D
ECEMBER
1979

I met Janine as arranged. Hugh was there too. He looked a little self-conscious at first. He also looked a lot more like a human being out of that purple blazer. I wish I could wear my own clothes on a Saturday. Or at all, really. Wearing a uniform seven days a week is like being in prison.

“Hope you don’t mind if I tag along,” Hugh said, sounding like someone in a book, and also as if he’d been rehearsing saying that. Janine and Hugh—and Pete, and Greg, and everyone who goes to the book club except Harriet—have local accents. The Shropshire accent isn’t a pretty one, but it’s nicer than the Received Snob I have to listen to all the time at school.

“Not at all,” I said. “Though we’re just going to do some shopping.”

I had six books at the library, all heavy hardbacks, which was actually a bit of a drawback as far as shopping goes. I couldn’t leave them there until afterwards, because of course the library closes at noon. I put them in my bag, sighing, and then Hugh offered to carry it. “No,” I snapped, not declining politely at all and clutching my bag as tightly as I could. “I always carry this bag, it’s mine, I don’t feel comfortable without it,” I explained.

Janine looked at me sideways. “How about if Hugh carried the library books in a carrier bag?” she asked.

“That would be all right,” I said. “I mean that would be very kind of you, Hugh.”

Hugh blushed. He’s got sort of sandy hair and freckles, and his blushes show up. Janine and I ignored it. I transferred my library books to a carrier bag Janine produced and Hugh carried it as if it weighed a feather instead of half a ton. We went down the hill to the bookshop, sort of automatically, as if that’s the way all our feet wanted to turn. I said that to them.

“Bibliotropic,” Hugh said. “Like sunflowers are heliotropic, they naturally turn towards the sun. We naturally turn towards the bookshop.”

In the bookshop I bought
The Mote in God’s Eye
for Daniel. I don’t know whether he’s got it or not, but in any case I want to read it. I was going to buy
The Dark Is Rising
so I could read it before Tuesday, but Janine offered to lend me her copy instead. We went and had buns, but we didn’t talk about anything personal this time, probably because Hugh was there. We talked about reading children’s books when you weren’t a child any more, and what Lewis and Tolkien had said about it, and Hugh’s embarrassment at having mentioned one at the book club and his astonishment when Greg thought it was a good idea.

“Is this the first time you’ll have led a meeting?” I asked.

“Yes. But Pete’s done it twice, and Janine’s done it once, and Wim’s done it several times.”

“What did you do?” I asked Janine.

“The Pern books. Did you know there’s a third one coming out soon? It’s called
The White Dragon
. I can’t wait.”

“Do you like them?” I asked Hugh.

He looked uncomfortable. “Sort of,” he said. “There were things that made me uncomfortable, in
Dragonquest
in particular. I love the world and the dragons.”

“Perhaps they’re books that appeal more to girls,” I said.

“No, Pete loves them,” Janine said. She stirred her tea, although it couldn’t need stirring.

“You should get back together,” Hugh advised. “It’s silly the two of you breaking up over something Wim may or may not have done.”

“He did,” Janine said.

“We don’t have all the evidence,” Hugh said. “Wim refuses to talk about it, so we only have Ruthie’s side, and that not directly from Ruthie but garbled through what she supposedly told Andrea. That’s hearsay. You and Pete—”

Janine was looking very cross, so I interrupted. “What books did Pete do? When he led the group I mean?”

“The Flandry books, and Larry Niven,” Janine said.

“And Wim did Dick and Delany,” Hugh put in.

Delany! They’ve already done Delany without me, and of course it would have been Wim.

“I think it’s better when we have one book, or one series of books. That way you can read them before the meeting and not get into a situation like Hugh last week,” Janine said.

Hugh shook his head. “I agree actually, it makes it easier and more focused, but there is something nice about discussing all of an author. It works better for some than others.”

I bought a set with soap and shampoo and a fluffy flannel in Boots for Deirdre, all matching and primrose yellow, tied up with a ribbon. I didn’t know if she’d get me anything, but she’d had a rotten time in the exams and these would be useful. I looked at Black Magic in Woolworths and decided to get Greg and Miss Carroll boxes of Continentals in Thorntons. They’re just much nicer. I bought a bag of toffee for Sam, in case I am going to see him. If I don’t I won’t send it, I’ll give it to Grampar along with the elephant.

Then we went to Janine’s house. It was an ordinary little house, the sort of place you’d expect someone to live whose father owned a garage—modern, pebble-dashed, with a lawn in the front with one little tree in the middle. The only unusual thing about the outside was the fairy who was leaning against the tree. It was like a dog, apart from the wings. It looked at me almost insolently and then it disappeared. The others didn’t seem to see it at all.

Inside, the sitting room seemed very cluttered, and full of her sisters, though there are only three of them. They were playing with Barbies and taking up the whole sofa and both chairs. The sideboard and mantelpiece were filled with ornaments. Her mother was in the kitchen, which was also very cluttered and messy. “I’m taking Mori and Hugh up to my room, all right?” Janine said.

“All right,” her mother said, hardly even looking up from her ironing. She has lank ginger hair, quite different from Janine’s vibrant bush. The sisters are also gingery.

We went upstairs. Janine’s door has a sign on it that says “Private, Keep Out, This Means You!” She held it open for us to indicate that it didn’t in fact mean us. Her room was a complete contrast to the rest of the house. All the other rooms were papered in fussy papers; hers was painted pale green. There were no ornaments or toys at all, only a bed with one faded and eyeless toy dog, and a bookshelf with all the books in rigidly alphabetical order. There was one chair, a wooden upright chair painted in a darker green than the walls, the same colour as the skirting board. The window had a blind in a very similar colour. There was a huge black office typewriter with a very small bedside table underneath it supporting it precariously.

“Did you do this yourself?” I asked.

“You bet,” Janine said, sitting on the bed. Hugh took the chair, and after a moment I sat beside her on the bed. “Actually Dad helped with the actual painting. But I designed it. I wanted something different.”

“I wish I had a room like this,” I said. I do, too, only maybe not green. What I’d really like would be a panelled study like Daniel’s.

“It’s nice to be able to shut the door and keep people out,” Janine said.

“It must be,” I said.

“Do you sleep in a dormitory?” she asked.

“Yes I do, but no we don’t have midnight feasts or anything fun you may have read about,” I said.

“I share a room with my brother,” Hugh said.

“What does he do?”

“He’s mad about Manchester United. So his half of the room is all football, and mine is all books.” Hugh looked uncomfortable saying this.

Janine bounced up and found me
The Dark Is Rising
, and she and Hugh started squabbling about whether I should read the whole series or whether it would put me off to start with the first one because it was kind of childish. Hugh didn’t seem to think I’d have time to read five books between now and Tuesday night.

“I will,” I explained. “I don’t have much to do except lessons and reading. At Arlinghurst the emphasis is on sport, and I can’t do sport of course. So I spend all my time in the library reading. I have hours every day, normally. I didn’t this week because of the exams, but they’re over now, so it’ll be back to normal.”

“Pretty dim of your family to send you to Arlinghurst in the circumstances,” Hugh said.

“Yes, wasn’t it,” I said.

“What is wrong with your leg anyway?” he asked.

Normally I hate that question, but the way he asked—just as it had come up in conversation, and as if he was mildly interested, in the same way Janine wanted to know if I slept in a dorm—I didn’t mind at all. “It was a car accident,” I said. “My hip got all mashed up, and my pelvis. It’s not so bad now. It doesn’t hurt all the time.”

“Is it getting better?” Hugh asked.

I should have just said no, it’s not, either that or that I hoped it would, but burning tears came out of my eyes for no real reason and I hid my face in a tissue. Janine fussed around and changed the subject and then it was time for me to go.

Hugh came with me to the bus stop, still carrying my library books. I had my shopping and also the Susan Cooper books I’d borrowed from Janine.

“About Wim,” he said, as we were turning the corner by KwikSave.

I looked at him enquiringly. My leg was hurting—Janine’s bed was too low for me to sit on comfortably, and getting up again had jolted it.

“We don’t know what happened. Wim has never talked about it. Wim has refused point blank to talk about it. And I see people condemning him and—this is a small place. Reputations are strange things. It’s a case of giving a dog a bad name and you might as well hang him. He dropped out of school, you know.”

“I know. He’s doing his A levels part time. Janine told me.”

“Janine. Janine thinks the feminist thing to do is to believe the woman all the time. But I think it means treating everyone the same as much as you can. I don’t know what happened. But I know I don’t know. I do know Wim’s making his life much harder because of it.” Hugh looked terribly serious. He’s shorter than I am and a tiny bit plump, and he has that freckle-face, so it’s easy to think of him as a little boy and a clown, but he isn’t like that at all.

“Why do you care?” I asked. We were nearly at the bus stop, but the bus wasn’t there yet. A whole scrum of Arlinghurst girls were milling about waiting for it. Hugh sat down on a wall, and I lowered myself onto it next to him.

“Wim saved my life,” he said, quietly. “Well, my sanity. He stopped a group of boys beating me up and instead of walking away afterwards he stayed and talked to me. He lent me
Citizen of the Galaxy
. I was twelve and he was fifteen, but he treated me like a human being and not like a snot rag. I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt?”