First Fruits (2 page)

'Oh Lydia,' says Fiona, face smooth,
hair shining. Lydia looks up and the faintest of blushes begins to spread
across her cheeks. Did she know then, even after this short time, about Fiona?
How she's a boarder, and how generally boarders stay over by the radiator under
the window, and never cross a room for anyone? Yet here she was, standing right
in front of our pair of desks, come all this way just to speak to her.

'Lydia,' Fiona says again. 'We hardly
heard you in class just now. You've got such a little voice. I wasn't even sure
if you got the answer right, you know, to the question Mrs. Chatto asked you.'

Lydia pushed her glasses up her nose.
Suddenly she was thoughtful, as we'd never seen her before. Which means she
did
know, about Fiona. How is it people always seem to know?

Meanwhile, Fiona carries on, voice
suspiciously calm, that posh Edinburgh accent of hers adding a little extra
polish to every word. 'What was his name again, the man who jumped off the
bridge to escape the Duke of Argyll's men?'

Lydia swallowed hard. Opened her mouth,
but nothing came out. Opened her mouth again, and this time there comes the
answer...

'Rob Roy.'

Or rather,
Wob Woy
.

The room which had grown quiet at the
sight of Fiona leaving the radiator, suddenly erupted. Too late, Lydia has
realised what she has said, understood for the first time how she sounded. She
should have listened harder to Kenneth McKeller on the radio, learned from
Moira Anderson and the TV specials at Hogmanay before she ever thought of
moving North. A huge swathe of red sweeps over her face, as she stares around
at an entire room laughing.

And that's all she can do - stare, her
head turning every which way, cheeks flaming, lips pale and twitching. Until.
Until she comes to Moira. Because as usual, Moira isn't laughing. As usual, 
Moira has failed to see the joke. Yet something about her has its effect. A
moment later Lydia stops staring and shaking. She even stops blushing. It's as
if suddenly, she isn't so much upset as confused, asking herself why Moira is
the only one here not laughing.

And it didn't stop there. The confusion
seemed to lead to something else, a kind of unexpected confidence. Suddenly she
lifted up her head, stretching that long skinny neck of hers and mumbled something.

'What did she say?' This was Jackie
Milne, who's deaf as a post because even at her age she doesn't clean inside
her ears. I'd heard though, and so had Fiona McPherson. Who had stopped
laughing, and now was simply smiling. She turned to Jackie. 'Lydia says if we
ask her nicely, she'll say "Round and Round the Ragged Rock the Ragged
Rascal Ran." Just for us.'

At which, at long last, Lydia actually
smiled. And that's when we saw it, the logjam of metal in her mouth. She was
wearing dental braces, gigantic ones with bands and knobs and claws, the sort
that made you wonder what sort of man could have done such a thing to anyone.
No wonder she had barely opened her mouth before.

Only now here was another point of
interest. Everyone bent forward to have a really good look. And once again, she
didn't seem to mind. The smile just grew broader, more metallic.

Watching her now, you'd have sworn she
was the only interesting person in the room.

That's when I jumped to my feet. 'Stop
it, stop it all you. Stop staring at the poor girl. How can you be so unkind?
She can't help being ugly. Just leave her alone.'

The effect was instantaneous. All the
smiles stopped  together. A couple of people - like Helen May and Pamela Wilson
- even appeared to be quite upset. But it was all you could wish for. In the
bare twinkling of an eye, Lydia had become quite invisible. There was a new
centre of attention.

Me. You see, it was me they were staring
at now - even Moira MacMurray and let me tell you, not even Lydia had managed
that. It's a moment to savour really. Because it's at times like this that you
know, that you remember what it means to have
It
. Something no-one else
has. I haven't mentioned
It
before, how
It
changes things. But
then I haven't had to, have I? It has a habit of making itself known, all by itself.

One by one, then, they drifted away,
even Fiona McPherson, till there were only the three of us left. Four if you
count Moira MacMurray.

Hilary however was still gazing at me.
Her eyes were shining, and her nose had gone quite pink. 'Kate,' she said.
'Kate, I never saw anything so brave. You were just like something from a book.
Lydia, wasn't Kate brave...?'

She was casting round her, looking for
Lydia. But she couldn't find her, not at first. Yet Lydia was right there,
exactly where she'd been all along, beside me, in my shadow. It's just that for
some reason or other, she had made herself so small again, so insignificant you
could hardly see her.

Sad really. Some people just aren't made
for the spotlight. Better for everyone that they stay invisible.

****

DOWN
in the cloakrooms after lunch, Hilary was still going on about it. So brave,
she kept saying. So headstrong, so in control. She was beginning to sound like
a broken record. Still, it's nice to be appreciated. Without Hilary it wouldn't
happen, not with the sort of people we have in our class. It's one of the
things she's good for.

It helps, you see, having someone to
remind you that you're special. That you're not just anyone - or worse.

Remember Lydia, back there in the class
room the first time, looking at me as if I was something she had discovered
under a rock? Biting her lip. Believe me, a lesser person might want to make
her pay for a look like that.

And that's what I'm up against.

Something about me. People can see I'm
special. Something about my eyes perhaps, out of the ordinary. Something
he's
put there. That's why you have to remember to smile. Smiling makes the
world a better place. It puts people off their guard, makes them easier to....deal
with.

And anyway, why not smile? I have reason
to smile. I'm
his
daughter. The luckiest girl alive. Except for the one
thing.

I suppose I have to mention it. If I
don't someone else will. Except for my leg, then. The one thing that stops me
walking on air, stops me walking like other people, like Hilary. Like Fiona
MacPherson.

Actually, we prefer not to talk about
it.
He
doesn't like it. And why should he, when he can't bear anything
not to be perfect, least of all me?

It's the reason I can't ask him. How it
happened that I have the one leg shorter than the other. A leg that no-one is
allowed to see. Not even me. It's the rule. Every family has to have rules.
There's a way of getting dressed, having a bath even, without looking down,
without having to be reminded. I get dressed the way
he
showed me, so as
never to catch sight.

Except that, every so often I
do
catch sight. Streaks of brown, tinged with pink. And in bed I can feel it,
below the knee, softer than the other leg, softer than the tips of my fingers.
It's what happens when something burns, when skin has been fired to become
something different from skin. Something beyond repair. Something lost.
Something I can't even remember. Something no-one will tell me.

Don't dwell, Kate. It's unhealthy. And I
can walk, can't I? I could even run if I wanted, as fast and as far away as I
wanted, if I weren't so happy where I am.

And anyway, none of it matters. None of
it. I've got him and I've got
It
. When you've got
It
, nothing
else counts. Especially if you know how to use
It.

So brave, Kate. So in control
.

Hilary will have to stop going on about
it soon. Even she can't keep it up forever.

I
told Lydia to go and sit next to Moira. It took a moment to get through to her,
but she did as she was told.  She was tired. Behind their glass panes her eyes
looked sunken. Three hours at a new school had taken it out of her.

But there couldn't have been anything
brighter than my smile when I said  kindly: 'I wonder what they're doing back
at your old school right this minute. All those friends in 2A. Getting on
without you, do you think?

She just stared at me then, but her eyes
seem to sink even further into her face, like people going slowly down into
quicksand.

Hilary who is no slouch when it suits
her chipped in. 'Funny how you can forget a person when they go. One moment
they're there, and the next moment they're not, and then it's as if they never
existed.'

She gave me a nudge. And that's Hilary
for you. Nobody had told
her
to go making the poor girl's day more
miserable than it was.

So I ignored her.

'Actually,' I said - nice and clearly
because Lydia was trying to look away - 'Actually, I should think they're
missing you terribly.' I pointed to the bracelet which, despite my best efforts
on her behalf, she was still wearing. 'You must have been
really
popular
to be given something like that when you leave.'

I glanced round then and there's Hilary
wearing a look sour enough to turn milk, and it's irresistable. 'Do you think
anyone would club together to buy
you
a bracelet if you left, Hills?'

Of course they wouldn't. Not unless I
organised it.

Lydia is the one to watch, though.
Putting Hilary in her place has had its effect. That teeny flash of metal was
the signal, the first time she's smiled since Fiona started to make fun. In
other words, the first sign of gratitude I've seen all day.

And as Dad would say, it doesn't do to
ask too much of people. Not everyone has it in them to rise to the occasion.
You've got to take them as you find them.

Meanwhile, the room has grown quiet
suddenly. Someone must have noticed the time and signalled it to the others.
Yes, it's time. You won't catch anyone moving now, not for anything.         

Or would you? Behind me, a rustling
noise. Completely unexpected. I turn round, and believe it or not,  Moira is
busy offering a crumpled bag of sherbet lemons across the desk to Lydia. It's
as if she hasn't noticed the time. Or doesn't care.

And to make matters worse, Lydia takes
one.

Meanwhile, far away, in a distant part
of the building, comes the sound of footsteps, hailing closer. And is it my
imagination or is there also the warning flap of garbedine, cracking in the
bone-dry school air like a ship's sail? There's danger here, and yet Lydia and
Moira are oblivious, busy with their sweets. Lydia pops hers into her mouth.

Serve them right then when the door
bursts open and there it is, standing in the entrance, the reason we've all
been waiting.

The door slams and a poisonous cloud of
chalk dust - twenty years of it, rising from those same black folds of 
garbedine - moves across the room, scattering particles. Mandy Edwards - who
swears she's allergic - immediately begins to cough. But it doesn't get her
anywhere. In the middle of the cloud, a hard black figure - Miss Jamieson -
stands, tapping her foot, glaring with chips of flint for eyes, and waits for
her to stop.

Silence falls. Then she is off again,
this time striding between the desks till she arrives in front of Lydia. There
she judders to a halt, black gown swirling and, finally, settling around her.
Lydia lifts her head, slowly, unwillingly; takes one long look - and gulps. She
has just swallowed her sherbet lemon. Whole.

'Lydia Morris,'  says Miss Jamieson.
'New girl. Good at Latin. Very good at Latin. Well, we'll see. We'll see.'

 There's another silence. Miss Jamieson
is examining Lydia, taking her in. You'd think the girl would be all of a
shiver. But here's a surprise; after that first involuntary spasm, Lydia is
staring back at Miss Jamieson with a look none of us has seen before. A look
that is partly terror, but also partly of naked admiration, the look some folk
will have when they watch a thunder storm.

Miss Jamieson continues to stare, then,
almost imperceptibly, nods her head. Something has passed between them, Lydia
and herself. An understanding you might say. Not that anyone else would have noticed
it. You would have to know how to look properly, how to read the glances that
pass between people. In short, you would have to have
It
to be aware of
anything at all.

For the moment though, Miss Jamieson is
brisk. Whatever went between her and Lydia, it doesn't show. She turns away and
makes her way to the front of the room. The word is she's a Catholic, but you
wouldn't know it from looking at her. Dad has taught me how to recognise every
Catholic I am ever likely to meet, told me how you can be friendly, but never
trust them. Because they've got it all wrong, haven't they, with their idolatry
and being such fools for Mary who is only a woman after all. That's what he
says, so it must be true; yet still I can't imagine Miss Jamieson being a fool
for anyone.

Nothing I've done has ever worked.