First Fruits (5 page)

Which means, when Hilary finds us, on
our way to our own late lunch, we are laughing like drains, like people who
have never had so much fun. As if Greek was the best fun lesson in the world.

Later, before Hilary has time to ask
about the lesson, I say, 'How about me coming back to your house this
afternoon, Hills?'

It's a Wednesday. Dad hardly ever picks
me up on Wednesdays. And he likes it when I go to Hilary's.

Hilary's face glows, the brightest she's
looked all day. 'Of course you can, Kate. Of course.'

Then her face clouds over as she tries
to remember if this is the day her mother has arranged extra piano. But it's
not, of course. I know the days of Hilary's week even if she doesn't. Her face
clears. 'Of course you can,' she repeats, louder this time.

'Great,' I say, and punch her arm in
friendly fashion, the way they do in those books of hers. 'Oh,
and
Lydia,'
I add. 'We can't leave Lydia out.'

Lydia lifts her head, surprised.
Flustered, she manages another smile, while Hilary scowls.

'COME
away in my dears,' says Hilary's mother. 'Come straight in.'

It's what she says every time, but just
try putting it to the test. She's worried about our feet. Hilary's mother has
cream carpets running through her house, and lives in fear of what might be
brought through the door. Imagine her face then when Lydia, not realising that
some invitations aren't to be taken at their word, clumps straight into the
hall -
and doesn't stop to take off her shoes
.

Mrs. Cross swallows once then twice, but
doesn't say a word. She can't. It's never been necessary before. It's up to me
to save the day.

'Hey Lydia. Take your shoes off.'

There, simple. Lydia turns, momentarily
surprised, then without another word, nods and shakes off her shoes. Mrs. Cross
throws me a glance of eternal gratitude. And that's good, isn't it. There's
nothing so useful as gratitude.

Hilary takes us upstairs. She is proud
of her bedroom. She has flounces on her counterpane and window, and even more
of them round her dressing table. Pink carpet, pink cushions. It ruins it
really, having frogs everywhere, frogs in all shapes and sizes. Hilary will
tell you she collects them. But that's only because I give them to her, every birthday
and Christmas, making it official; Hilary collects frogs.

She nods to Lydia to go and sit on her
dressing table stool. Meanwhile she and I collapse on the floor, yards away. No
doubt who is being left out.

A moment later, her mother appears with
a tray of weak orange squash in unspillable cups. Tells us there are biscuits
if we want them, but we have to come to the kitchen table to eat them. The
carpet, you see. Always the carpet.

None of us moves though, not even
Hilary. She waits till her mother disappears then turns to me, 'Well, go on.
Tell me all about it. Was it terrible? Did Miss Jamieson stand over you with a
whip? Have you got loads of work?' 

I open my mouth as if to let it all
flood out, every precious detail that would bring her right into the picture.
Then close it again. And sigh.

'I don't know, Hilary. I just don't know
if it's the sort of thing we ought to talk about it. What do you think, Lyd?'

I've turned to look across at Lydia who
is sitting, clutching the sides of Hilary's stool as if in danger of falling
off. We've kept her at such a distance, I don't think she's heard a word we've
said. Now, though, her head shoots up. It was that
Lyd
again,
so...friendly.

But not knowing what we're talking about
she can't think of anything to say, so it's up to me to carry on. 'You see,
Hilary, I think Greek is going to be sort of private. Something just between
the two of us - Lydia and me. I mean, we don't keep asking you about your piano
lessons, do we? Not that we'd want to, mind.' I give a little laugh to remind
us that we've all got a sense of humour, even Lydia, if she would only work at
it.

Meanwhile Hilary just stares at me, then
goes bright red. She is seeing the way it's going to be from now on, and
there's no saying what the shock might do to her. To be honest, she looks as if
she might be about to have a fit.

And that's just what her mother thinks
too. Because it is at this very moment that she walks into the room to collect
the cups. She takes one look at Hilary who appears to be having difficulty
breathing and almost faints with horror. Next thing we know, Hilary is in bed
and Lydia and I are being bundled out of the house.

But really it doesn't matter. Beside the
pavement a familiar car is waiting, with the window wound right down. I never
said I was coming to Hilary's but he always seems to know where I am. It's like
having someone locked into your mind. Something no-one else has - least of all
Lydia, whose father doesn't care.

He has noticed Lydia of course, and has
leaned his head out of the window with a view to having a chat. He hasn't seen
her before today, so naturally he'll be interested. But then something very
peculiar happens. Lydia glances at the car, and of course, its occupant, then
looks away.

And that's all. She didn't even change
her expression. After that one quick glance, she mumbles a goodbye to me then
plods off along the road, weighed down by a great big satchel that looks
heavier than she is. Yet she must have seen him, my Dad, smiling out of the
window at her, ready to give her all the time in the world. How could she not
have seen him?

It's shocking, how self-centred some
people can be. Hilary now, she would have given her right arm just for a
glimpse of him. But Lydia, she wasn't interested, didn't give him a second
thought, as if he wasn't there, as if he was just anyone. She took one look and
she walked away.

It's the shock that keeps me watching
her, trudging along, shoulders bent, pipe cleaner legs getting thinner and
thinner. Then I hear a sound beside me. It's the window being wound up, so fast
it meets the top with a small thump. Which reminds me, I should have been
getting into the car.

It's going to be harder this evening,
finding the right thing to say. She's turned everything upside down, has Lydia,
walking away like that. Not giving him the time of day. Acting as if he was
nobody. Nobody at all.

Even before I climb into the car, the
bad leg begins to ache, the way it does at times like this, as if to remind me
of other times when everything's gone wrong. But it's important not to limp or
do anything to show. Do nothing, say nothing to remind. Less than perfect,
remember. Less perfect than ever now. He'll think it's my fault. My fault that
she didn't notice him, my fault that she didn't say a word. All these days
she's been at school and I haven't said a word about him. Not to Lydia.

And no good telling him that the reason
I didn't mention him was because she didn't ask. That she wasn't interested.
That she's just one of those people who can only think about herself.

In other words, not my fault at all.

Then again, there never was
anyone like my
Dad for surprises. Surprising me.

It must have been something that's
different about Lydia, something about her walking past. Even before he's started
the car, he's begun asking questions,
and not one of them is about me
.
Instead, he wants to know who she is, where she's from, why I haven't mentioned
her before.

In short, he wanted to know all about
her.

But it was when I told him about Greek,
how she had actually volunteered, that something deeper took place. Suddenly he
was so quiet it was impossible to tell if he was glad or upset.
Then
I
told him how her father had had nothing to do with it. How he didn't care what
she did. Which is when I went quiet too, so he'd see that
I
could see
it, the enormity of it. A child whose father didn't care what his daughter did.
A father who looked the other way.

But even then the silence didn't last; a
moment later he's started up again, one question after the other, so in the
end, there's only the obvious question left unasked. The one question I
couldn't answer.

How she could have walked away, and
never given him a second glance.

But he never did ask. Something
unexpected has happened. My Dad, he never forgets to show an interest. It's the
secret of his success, the reason Hilary and the old ladies fall for him. He's
convinced them that they're special, something that couldn't be further from
the truth. And he does it without even having to try.

But Lydia is different. Lydia has made
him stop and think, and not even Miss Jamieson has ever done that. (He found
his own way round
her
, didn't he, fingering her weak spot, bringing up
the Greek.)

But now there's Lydia, and it's not the
same. The interest is real. And suddenly here, in the car, on the way home,
something has eased if only for a moment. There's been a shift.  Like having a
beam of light that should be trained on Kate Carr suddenly change direction,
putting the focus on someone else, leaving me....

...Invisible.

I don't know that this has ever happened
before. And of course it doesn't last, it can't last. But it makes you wonder.
What would happen if they were ever to meet properly, Lydia and my Dad? Who
would he focus on then?

Next
day, they are at it again, Hilary and Lydia, both
expecting to sit next to me. Or to put it another way, neither of them wanting
to sit next to Moira.

Well I solved that one.
I
went to
sit next to Moira.

I'd been meaning to anyway. Some things
have to be done occasionally and one of them is reminding myself to sit next to
Moira, just to show I can.

Now that might sound as if I had some
kind of difficulty with sitting next to Moira, as if there was a problem. And
the fact is, nothing could be farther from the truth. No, the only problem with
sitting next to Moira is that she smells. A kind of vegetable odour, like the
fug which collects at the bottom of a bag of potatoes. Damp, musty. Fleshy.
That's the one problem with Moira.

That, and the sheer size of her.

And even the size isn't a problem, not
in itself. Handsome is as handsome does, Dad says. And friends with that kind
of handicap are almost the best friends to have. Gratitude again. Show a bit of
interest and people can't believe their luck. I mean, you should see the shape
of some of the folk who turn up at the Service. You'll never catch them turning
their back on Dad.

So you'd think Moira would show a bit of
gratitude, but it doesn't happen. So
then
you find yourself wondering if
she even knows there is a problem - or if maybe, just possibly, her Gran's been
telling her that she's fine, perfect just the way she is.

No, if there was a difficulty with
sitting next to Moira, it wouldn't be the size of her. It would have to be the
stillness. God surely never made any of us to be that still, as if time and
motion had got lost in all that flesh. That's the stillness of Moira. Something
not quite awake - but not properly asleep either. Something you can't quite
ignore in case...

...Well, just in case.

It doesn't bother me, though. Nothing
about Moira bothers me. Not even the way she stares.

Moira stares at me all the time.

I keep expecting somebody to notice, the
way she never takes her eyes off me. But nobody ever does. Notice, I mean.
That's because nobody ever looks at Moira. It never seems to occur to them;
I've watched people's eyes slip over her as if she was part of the furniture.
And
that
is why no-one has ever noticed. While no-one is looking at
Moira, she is looking at me.

Watching me with eyes that have no
centre to them, like tablets on the point of dissolving.

But, so what if she wants to stare? It
doesn't bother me. Not one little bit. And just to show how much it doesn't
bother me, I'll remember to go and sit next to her now and then. Cosy up to all
that bulk and stillness and faint smell of vegetables. She can stare until the
cows come home, until she's seen what she's waiting to see. But it won't mean a
thing. It simply doesn't bother me.

And that's why, when I plump myself down
next to Moira and she turns to me with that slow, dissolving beam of hers, I
give her just the brightest smile you could imagine. No-one could fail to get
to the message. Kate Carr couldn't give a fig for Moira and her stare.

Meanwhile, Hilary and Lydia think I'm
just wonderful sacrificing myself like this. But they had better make the most
of it. After break I'm going back to my own seat, and then I'll decide which of
them sits next to Moira.

I think it will have to be Hilary. She's
bigger, takes up more space - much better built to get in the way of Moira and
her eyes.

Then
it's lunch time again and we have to go for our
Greek lesson with Miss Jamieson. Lydia is almost quivering with anticipation.
She's told me about her homework. The entire Greek alphabet memorised, and a
few dozen words as well.