Schooling (12 page)

36

After hockey, before tea, Aurora comes looking. In the changing rooms. Yes, exactly like in the boarding school books, steamy, white undergarments, pink-cheeked after a trouncing at hockey, they crowd in various states of dress and undress as the script suggests though Daphne misreads the directions and enters in a swimsuit. That was so like Daphne. Meanwhile, Vanessa is wondering whether, given the opportunity, Catrine would or would not kiss Greg who is Indian. Buttoning her shirt, Greg has the annoying habit of always jiggling is it possible that he can remain still long enough to kiss a girl, but Nessa is sounding views on it from her stepmother and they are half-dressed when here’s Aurora cold from outside with a nonregulation scarf tight around her head saying, It’s freezing, Kid. Saying I need you, closing Catrine’s locker to see better, trapping her fingers in the door, Meet me in the cloakroom.

Sitting on the bench in the cloakroom below the coat hooks, Aurora holds up a hand to warn about splinters. Then she feels around in the pocket of a coat hanging overhead, takes out a roll of mints and pops one in her mouth. Thanks for coming, Kid.

Tripping on a boot, catching herself on a hook, she falls on the slatted bench beside Aurora, Well, I’m hungry, tetchy, ankle throbbing, Will it take long? Aurora focuses on the mints, Sorry Doodle, can’t agitate a man on a full stomach, but she peels back the wrapper into a furl and passes her a mint, Extra Strong.

Aurora, she says and boldly too, Aurora? Silence but for the steady hiss of heat from hot water pipes lashing the cloakroom ceiling. Outside the door, boys rage up the steps to Tea. Aurora assesses her thumb for splinters reappeared, Well, Kid, she says finally, looking up at Catrine. I did it.

What? Getting up from the bench, she crosses to the other side of the cloakroom. No, Aurora. You didn’t. Aurora rolls her eyes, Of course I did. Can’t you foresee anything?

Why? Why would you do that? It was a good place. What did they speak of that day she sat half-in half-out the pavilion. Aurora takes the mint from her mouth, I tell you, I didn’t think it would go up like that.

Silence. Then Aurora throws down the roll of Extra Strong saying, I don’t know why I did it, Kid, just to see.

More silence. Aurora gets up, The pavilion was a fire hazard. A building that can shoot up in flames like that. Finally she speaks, It was here for fifty years. Since my father. It survived war. Aurora moves the mint to the back of her teeth, Not my war, Kid.

Now Aurora walks no saunters to the other side of the cloakroom. Standing on a bench, she takes hold of the rack overhead, leaning forward until just her toes remain on the wood. This is good for stretching out your back, she says, hair jagging down. Aurora, please. Dropping off, Aurora goes deeper into the room, disappearing behind a line of coats. She follows. Aurora? A shuffle. Are you crying? A pause. Wanted more sweets. Aurora sits with her back against the wall, scraping the floor with a key or coin, We had some fun in the lab, Kid, Aurora watches her hand scrape scrape, Remember the bunsen? God I laughed.

She remains standing, she pulls on a hook, she says, It’s Prep soon. Aurora takes out a watch with no strap, Ten minutes. My father gave this to me. It’s worth quite a bit of money. Apparently. Made by a famous company, Aurora holds up the watch as if trying to read a message on the face, Swiss I should think. The Swiss are good at watches. Aurora? Aren’t they, Aurora says, Aren’t the Swiss good at that? Aurora, you said I could help you. Very precise people. Went there on holiday two years ago. Germans as well. Mechanical. Her stomach pitches with hunger. My father showed me how to take apart a car engine once. But then he couldn’t put it back together again. Philippa was furious at that. You know,
Mummy
. And she says, because it didn’t seem as if Aurora can be stopped, Where is your father? Ended up paying a man to fix it for him. Probably a German or Swiss—What do you mean where’s my father? At home. With my mother. No, wait. I can tell you exactly. Finger to the watch face as if to still the minute, Aurora says, Six o’clock. Reading the newspaper. Thumb in his drink, not on the glass mind, but in it to make sure the level’s the same, that no one’s creeping up behind him and siphoning it off. Since it’s winter, Philippa will be watching the fire. If it were spring or summer, she’d watch the garden. Her job is to say, Is it? How dreadful? whenever he reads out some news even though she read the paper before he came home. Daddy would like to watch television but won’t watch before he eats supper because that’s common. Aurora, I have to go. Aurora puts away her watch, Well, that’s how they are.

They walk to the door, Aurora hands her an envelope. A scrawl,
BEATRICE. 14 Marvelle Road
. Aurora, in the doorway, staring from the window of a moving train watching Catrine flash by, her last hope village. Aurora, she says, It will be alright. A bad lie. Aurora glances down the hallway. Well, she says, Miles to clear and all that.

37

Cue our crone, speedily from the wings. Quicker, quicker, quick— Alright, hold everything. Who the hell’s on makeup? Edward? Come on, son, she’s ugly enough, but we need the grimness played up a bit, take into account all those nights of gin and misery. Give her a rheumy touch of yellow around the eyes, there’s a boy. Now, Maggone, a slope to your step, if you please, remember your motivation. Remorse simmered over the years to a stew of Evil. And who’s going to suffer for it? That’s right, now go again. Beautiful. Right, the girl enters downstage left. Bit faster, there you go, on the way to bed. Let’s try that again, swifter, crone, swifter girl. Maggot, think Terrier After a Rat.
Rrrr
. Exactly. No, no, by the wrist, take the girl in a pincergrip by the wrist. Better. As you’re dragging her back to your maggotflat, ignore that the girl’s slipping in her slippers. Perfect. Little less innocence on the part of the girl. Don’t overdo it, she’s not a naïf. Cue Sophie, appalled, excellent, excellent. Once in the flat, remember that the girl hasn’t been in the maggotflat since she was a new girl when the maggot confused her with a girl named Mary, sat her down with a cup of water and rules about pocket money and things to be sewn. In that scene, when the girl finally spoke, Maggot improvised nicely, shot her eyebrows dancing past her hairline, wonderful, suggested that the shock of the foul new world in her very sitting room was enough to send her to the gin right then and there. More of that sort of impro, if you like. And the girl needs to remember how that moment felt, though it looks like she’s having trouble enough with the script. Hang on. A blue dressing gown? Who’s the lunkhead on wardrobe? Sorry, that’s right, supposed to be all wrong, a gift from the father, gorgeous gorgeous. Excellent choice, it really is a dreadful blue. And is it actually
furry
? God, that’s fantastic, you’ll have them howling in the galleries. Quiet please. Maggot, you’re hamming up the scold a bit, this isn’t the Christmas pantomime, take it down a notch. Line, please? HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW AURORA DYER. And again, more forcefully, you’re implicating the girl in arson. Steady on, no need to deafen us, we’re right here. Don’t repeat it four times, three’s quite enough. Nothing from the girl, this is all taking her by surprise. Tad more sullen, that’s it, you can’t help it, it’s in your nature. HORSEPLAY ON THE HOCKEY PITCH AND shuffle those papers, Maggot, yes as if they catalogue the girl’s crimes. Roll in authority like a pig in muck, good good. Of course, the real shocker is the ending line, GREDVILLE’S EXPULSION, EVANS, WASN’T THAT YOU? A long pause. Even longer. We’re shocked by the impact of the Chemistry teacher’s perfidy. He swore he was trustworthy, but he’s told the girl’s archenemy. The girl, hello? Don’t drift off into your slippers, this is a delicate moment for you. You’re to walk up the two flights to bed. Silently. And in that walk, we want to feel the sleepless night awaiting, how you’ll churn in your bed’s horsehair dip thinking how horse is my valley not dreaming wondering will Gilbert make fun of you in the morning will he mock the savagery of wet hair you couldn’t tame in the night will he look at you down that roman nose will he say why won’t your experiments do what they should, hum. Will you even sleep at all.

38

The animal we looked at today was the pig we could see how the masseter muscle worked on an omnivore, the pig. The pig has salivary glands on either sides of the jaw, it also rolls the food to the back of his mouth to go down the esophagus. The epiglottis of this pig will close when the pig swallows food. This stops his food from going down the windpipe of the pig which could choke him otherwise. The actual stomach digests two things. The stomach of the pig will contract and expand accordingly. It is a reservoir. We looked at the pig.

39

The first recorded history of the town is far too boring for me to go into here, needless to say the good stuff begins with my arrival in nineteen and well before the war in any case and yes the second one don’t be cheeky. I will say one thing about the school the Monster on the hill, it provides stories hm well some would say gossip but I was always told that gossip is for the frivolous and if I enjoy it well does that mean I can’t also enjoy enjoy enjoy—

Shakespeare?

Shakespeare. Right because if I set my mind to it I’d be as sharp as any of them. Sharper now mind your step and give an old lady a pull up. There we are. Didn’t realize this place was so close did you. But then the train’s half of it. I love the train. There’s excitement there you go Tolstoy yes have you read that one where she jumps in front of it oh that’s a good one Yes I can enjoy the classics Tolstoy I can and still have time for a gossip. To take the edge off. I suppose they’re not going to let you come anywhere like this are they I suppose it’s this they’d call frivolous if they knew. I know you’re indulging an old woman I’m not going to try to buy you a balloon or cotton floss ooh what a black look what a vocabulary she’s got in those eyes Roger when they don’t even have cotton floss on National Trust grounds anyway. Now over there turn around is Penford castle. See it. Turn back. That’s for a different day. Personally I would rather go to the zoo but that’s what London’s for. So we’ll make our way down that treacherous path over there buy our tickets then across that narrow lane and that’s where we find them. Palm. Orangery. Succulent. Tropical and if we don’t get carried away we’ll have time for them all.

There has been frost. Making their way down the path, the two of them and Roger banging against her legs as she leads the way, Bea’s old hand like a claw on the back of her neck for support. The other hand bound in Roger’s leash. A small slip, Bea could snap her neck.

I don’t have any children myself. They talk too much and I like to be the one doing the talking. Then again . . . Beatrice takes a tighter grip . . . Your Monster provided all the children I ever needed. Though . . . Bea pulls on Catrine to slow her, horse commands . . . Those boys were snobbier children than I would have raised. That was in the days before girls as you can imagine a more peaceful time. Oh if you could have seen them in the old days with their weak hearts and weaker Latin all over the map on account of the parents. When all they wanted was mothering without smothering not that I’m maternal which is a word I’ve always despised. They came for tea . . . Bea squeezes her neck as if to say I’ll have you know.

At the ticket stand, Bea narrows her eyes at the sign . . . Take this.

It says . . . holding the leash out woodenly, stepping around a truckling Roger . . . It says, Children Under Twelve Half Price.

Bea tucks her glasses over each ear, blinks at the sign . . . Children Under Twelve Half Price. Well . . . Bea regards her over the glasses . . . What do you think of that?

Unzipping her money belt . . . I’m thirteen.

Bea places her hand on Catrine ’s . . . Put your money away.

A girl in the Comprehensive uniform and an oily anorak leans against a parked van, watching her idly.

Clara . . . a squat woman approaches the girl, counting change . . . Dad’s parking. He said you’re to have fun . . . she shakes her daughter’s shoulder, the notes flutter to the ground . . .
We’re
to have fun.

The girl bends down to pick up the money. Silently she hands it back to her mother.

Well it’s better than the dentist . . . the woman pushes the girl toward the path.

Bea balances her grip on the counter, searching through it . . . Two please . . . to the woman . . . Two
adults
. . . sliding the money across coin by coin.

Bea hands her a ticket . . . This is where we leave Roger . . . Bea ties the lead to a post by the counter . . . Digs up my own garden enough as it is.

Her dog has worried eyebrows.

Will he be warm enough?

Bea looks up from her tying . . . He’s a dog.

I don’t really know about dogs.

Never coddle a dog. Come on come on . . . Bea bringing her close to say . . . What did I tell you about maternal? Poor dog, not a bone in my body.

Across gravel to the narrow path snaking toward Palm House, turning sideways every few moments to let the leavers by.

Palm House was built by a man named Stewart who wanted to be Capability Brown but wasn’t. You can see . . . Bea points up to the rafters where birds dart . . . It’s no Kew.

Hexagons form a glass firmament. Birds dash against the panes, forgetting, over and over again. Plants, trees in shaggy tangles. From somewhere the tinny echo of running water. An infinite nutshell. The smell of earth as well as cold potatoes for some reason. They pass a small fountain, flowers with sharp leaves.

This morning Mareka gave her an extra garter to control her hair and she paid homage to Aurora. Hair in a big ball, she could hardly think her fingers trembling as she wound it through the night he came to her with scars and fathers his way of looking reluctant almost pained when she speaks eyes taking her in twice first his painting then on the easel keeping still as requested providing an expression he can hang in the drawing room. Trust me. Over his palette. Coffee at breakfast, because she wouldn’t go refill the tea not with her hair like that not in front of everyone. Coffee had her heart pounding in her throat when she ran to find him. There he was shambling down the Avenue toward the lab after Prayers. Mr. Gilbert, her nose began to run too, long ago she lost her gloves. Come over here, he said with that pained look, To the lily pond for a moment. What on earth is having you babble in foreign languages I need a translator for, hum? To calm herself, she fixed on the pond. There was the day he told her about Rosie but also said You mustn’t be affected by things. Well, Catrine, he said as she looked into the dirty water, What’s the new drama? If I might have the cast of characters, supporting parts, etcetera. She came out and said it yes right there before Music. You told, turning it into a question, Did you? He made a spooling motion with his hand, I told—? And it all unwound in too many details the tartan you told you told the smell of gin you told slipping in slippers and finally Paul Gredville. After all you said you wouldn’t tell you said. To trust you. Then his face changed from smiling down on her as if she was the morning’s amusement to something over her left shoulder. She turned, there was Madame Araigny struggling with the wind and Betts dropping some books. Let’s chat before Tea, he said, I’m away all afternoon. Before Tea in the library, he said. Meet me there. She went one way around the pond and he the other. Catrine, he said. She looked up. Rest easy, now, I didn’t tell. She smiled or grimaced. Whichever. He put his hands in his pockets, Rest easy. As she walked away he called out, and it carried across the pond, I like your hair like that.

Tropical, which is next door and hotter, we save for last. It was designed by Stewart but finished by his brother after he perished in a boating accident. And you can tell the difference in a heartbeat . . . Bea takes her hand . . . We’ll begin with trees then onto the flowers that eat grown men.

Please. Trying to loosen Bea’s grasp from her waxy skin and cracked fingers. Please let go.

Come come . . . Bea grips her tighter, leads her along a cobbled path between rows of flowering bushes . . . Not yet . . . calling over her shoulder, palm hooding her eyes . . . Save the best for last.

A man and a woman holding hands with a child pass. They waltz to yield, a hand-holders traffic jam.

And . . . Bea squeezes her hand, pointing up.

Dazzled for a moment, standing below a green sky, the water, hand held fast in Bea’s warm palm.

A Norfolk island pine and they fit it in a house.

Leaning back to take in the entire tree.

Set this in your mind so the day you’re wedged in the back room with some uninvited guest you can fold your hands in your lap, nod pleasantly and replay it, the smell of this tree, these four pebbles in their little square.

I have a bad memory.

About what?

No, a faulty memory. I can’t recall—

Dates and battles? Irregular verbs?

The past . . . pine crowning at the roof . . . I won’t be able to remember the smell of this.

Practice. My advice—

I don’t remember advice either . . . reaching out for a pebble.

Bea presses her lips into a thin line . . . I don’t think you should remove that, faulty memory aside.

My father says I do things without considering the consequences . . . she replaces the pebble.

Well I think considering the consequences sounds very boring. A tame life, indeed. What if flies considered consequences? There wouldn’t be any carnivorous plants. Would you prefer to be mundane or to have the colors of a Venus flytrap?

As noted previously, they come to you armed with overcoats and questions, demanding answers you are content without.

Well?

I’d prefer not to be eaten.

Yes . . . Bea scrapes her lip with her teeth . . . That image doesn’t quite hold. Still, we remember what we choose to remember . . . Bea walks away . . . You’ll learn all about the unconscious in the Sixth form . . . using Aurora’s crumpled envelope to point . . . Orchids.

Leaning forward to draw breath over the soft folded flower. Not England but rivieras boats villas the names for things in Mediterranean countries. Something unfolds yes something cocooned tight in her throat beats upwards. Garden. Rake leaned against a door. Loud laugh, the clink of silver from the tea shop the bubble of a universe the jar of an experiment two children huzzing and Bea saying—

Sixth form’s safe for Freud. Psychology will only give you nightmares at this age.

What’s the point, memories aren’t real.

Who said they were? . . . Bea takes out a handkerchief, snorts into it then stuffs it up her sleeve . . . And if nostalgia replaces truth, at least we have nostalgia.

But if your memories are changed by other people’s stories, then it’s not even your own nostalgia.

Bea faces her . . . What on earth do you take comfort in, child?

I take comfort . . . rubbing a petal between two fingers . . . In mushy things.

Careful, now, they bite. I’m waiting for a proper answer. Do they let you get away with avoiding questions up on the hill?

I take comfort—

I’ve the feeling you’re going to quote me something. You have answers of your own, do you?

Who is this woman.

Hold people hostage with your silences, I imagine . . . finally Bea turns away . . . Off to the Orangery or we’ll miss our train.