Schooling (32 page)

She takes the painted handkerchief from the bag strapped across her chest. Holds the cloth cold, hard in places where the paint has dried. Her Gilbert original. He smiles at her, he knows what she will say, she will make it alright because she is a girl who can see consequences. A girl with a sense of timing. Comic. After all this time, she has finally learned. Who would have thunk it would take as long as it did. No one can protect you in the end. She smooths her tunic.

He kissed me.

Silence.

With his tongue and lied. He put his hands . . . folding the handkerchief into a neat grid . . . Where I didn’t want them.

Her voice sings out, clear in the air above the muddle of the others.

Gilbert’s face fails . . . Oh no . . . he squeaks . . . What have you done?

You see . . . Betts trumpets, placing his arm around her . . . I knew he wasn’t to be trusted.

She pulls away. Butcher’s head swivels from Catrine to Betts to Gilbert while Vicar’s gaze remains on her, as if her speech bears no relation to her mouth.

Who are you? . . . Butcher asks Betts.

Mr. Betts extends a hand to Mrs. Ingle . . . Colleague of Mr. Gilbert ’s . . . to Vicar . . . I had some worries about the girl, her well-being. I took it upon myself, I have a cousin in Truro, do you know a Kelley, um. So I drove down to see for myself.

See what for yourself ? . . . Vicar croaks out . . . Is there some sort of problem? Mr. Gilbert?

Vicar, Mr. Betts belongs to a higher order of moral authority than you or I. He has convinced himself that my intentions toward Miss Evans are immoral.

Well you heard the girl yourself. She said you kissed her.

Is that what you were saying . . . Vicar looks at her . . . I couldn’t make it out.

Catrine . . . Butcher at child level, hands on knees . . . Is what you say true? Did Mr. Gilbert kiss you?

With his tongue?

Ingle shoots Mr. Betts a look.

Mr. Gilbert looks away to the mountain, hands still on hips. He looks down at his cuffs his shoes. He bought a pair for her only yesterday, they laughed about the green circles, about stupid things like frogs, how pennies weren’t green. Such a distance. An insignificant height.

He thought it’s what I wanted.

Nonsense . . . Butcher straightens . . . You’re fourteen. You don’t know what you want. You barely have a mind of your own.

Lucy . . . Gilbert protests . . . That’s hardly fair. You’ve spent time with the girl. Listen to the way she speaks. She has her own ideas. She’s not entirely innocent here.

Mrs. Ingle walks over to Gilbert, his hands at his sides dejected shoulders she dejected him. Butcher stands in front of Gilbert Butcher raises back her hand and smacks Gilbert hard across the face.

Even Betts seems sorry for that. Vicar looks bewildered but makes no comment on cleavers. Then Ingle leans in and they all hear her say . . . If there was more to it than that, I’ll kill you.

Don’t. Don’t hurt him . . . taking Butcher by the wrist to pull her away from Gilbert . . . Don’t kill him.

Gilbert puts no hand to his cheek, allows it to redden in full view. A brief interval. Buy some chocolates, stretch the legs.

Gilbert breaks the silence . . . She is fourteen, not ten.

Betts takes a step away . . . I wouldn’t be surprised if ten year—

No . . . Gilbert interrupts . . . This is rapidly becoming absurd. It was a mistake, it was in some—moment. Vicar. I hardly brought the girl up here for evil intentions, Patrick. Mrs. Ingle, you’ve known me for how many years?

Suddenly it doesn’t seem like very many.

You shouldn’t be entrusted with the well-being of children. Patrick, I have more interest and concern for my pupils than— Well it’s the type of interest that’s the concern.

I don’t have to put up with this . . . calling . . . Piers, Thérèse, we’re going back down, collect your things.

I’ll see to it that you won’t return to teaching.

He turns to her . . . Wasn’t I decent to you?

You were obsessed with her . . . Betts suggests.

I thought about her, she filled my thoughts. Don’t make a monster of me.

She looks at him his hair trying to get him exactly right, to capture him in the light of the mountains, the green behind him, new grass, too-short cuffs.

I lost my head, it was a moment of weakness. I love her like a— A sister, like Rosie?

No, I love you like yourself, like my very own Punchinello. I never made you into something you weren’t, into some replacement, some—

Analogy.

Catrine, tell me I helped you. Tell me I gave an accumulation of moments, however small. No one else gave you such love, not the school, not your father.

Well this is all very sentimental . . . Betts hoists up his rucksack . . . But we should be moving on. Get the girl’s things. I promised her father I’d get her home by tonight.

No . . . Gilbert puts up a hand . . . I want to explain myself.

I think your desires have been indulged quite enough as it is. Perhaps we should let him have a moment with her before we go . . . Butcher stops . . . What do you think, Vicar?

Vicar has spent this time mostly in a state of preventative asthma, mouth open, eyes agoggle . . . I’m not following any of this.

Alright . . . Betts walks away . . . But we’re to watch from a short distance and he’s not to touch her.

Fair enough.

Vicar puts his arm through Butcher’s as they walk away mumbles, Is it the girl, has she, trailing away and Betts turns back once as he follows Butcher and Vicar to where Piers has been taking so long to help Thérèse put on his coat and open her eyes.

7

There you have it, a real drama. In the car reverse of only three days ago days of sheep shoes tunic mornings of kedgeree and lies nights of moth bathtub and moquette. Unto the place whence these rivers come thither they return. Telegraph poles bob and fall as the Amateur Botanist winds up the window with jerks face reflected in the glass when we come into a tunnel. I turn away. The window of a triumph turns you grotesque. Warped. And on through the county of mirrors where mothers draw only curtains and baths and maybe the odd conclusion. Who’d a thunk it. Vicar in the hallway his teeth more protrusive than ever who’d a thunk it from the teacher always thought him a man after my heart man of God etcetera but you never can tell what brews beneath the surface. Driving Inred in his Deux Chevaux why only this morning Lucy the man ruined a shirt helping me change my flat who’d a thunk he could mistake a girl for a man on a horse cantering next to the car for half a field but the sky darkens he should get back lest his horse trap a fetlock in a foxhole. We must forgive him he knows not. Well John I think he knows very well what he does I’m in no mood at this point on and on through counties of worried mothers of horsey mothers. Country where a mother stood next to a car as it plumed exhaust into a winter morning and said That’s a coat suited more for fall than winter. At the top of the stairs so that looking up she ends at the knees and you know only her hem. Please do not leave me here on my knees. Sun burns down the sky into a haze of yellow like gassed nothing so wild anymore. Past houses off the main road into a town past the founder’s statue gaggle of boys kicking at a ball or dog now parking for a dairy milk. I’ll wait for you. I’ll wait for you here. And Betts returns with an armload and a grin with chocolates as there are only chocolates in the end. No Lilt. Should have asked. Or he should have known just by looking that a Lilt was in order. You came at me full force like a train but perhaps because they are in a tunnel that occurs first. Why won’t it rain when a scene demands rain. The forest dances heavy with music. Body up again first light again. Libraries never hold what they should. Once her yellow hair danced a bauble in the candleflame. There’s an emptiness don’t guess what it is when you haven’t the foggiest. The yellow miasma shrouding towns with ham at the end on the table past smokestacks putting their own thoughts into the evening into the setting of a hazy sun. I am leaving you. I am racing away speechless for you have taken my tongue. I had to give you something why do I need to ever speak again if that’s what a tongue is capable of then blast all tongues. I will never speak again except to say I want to say I only had distant knowledge of him. Oh that’s all wrong as usual. For the defense I feel still the pang of a despisèd love. That’s my final word. Except to say What’s it all for. Maltesers Benny would say Dairy Milk. No one here knows Benny and no one here can tell me whether that merited an eighty-five or a ninety-two. Something fairly high surely. Yes surely. I will say only that they will not pry it from me no matter the pressure applied no pliers no wheedling. Foods of foreign and exotic origin placed before me in efforts to cajole. I will only belch out Surely. That is my final word on the matter. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. This isn’t how I began it. Surely I could have done it some other way. Surely it could have resolved itself differently. We could live on a cliff by the sea we could no you see no no there is no point in. You have not learned anything. Please it was all my fault. I never saw you coming. Give the next man some warning. Hum. Flash of highbeams. You are the same fool you began. Orgon. You took the mask for the face. Cows lying in a field it will rain no time to stop for a sit and a chat devonshire cows might up and carry you away. Abduct you and you only want sleep. He has a photograph of a boy sleeping against a cow it hangs in the kitchen next to a cupboard he bought along with old old medical dictionaries but that is really all I’m willing to say on it. Yes yes your tongue flapping in your head American let it go Lavinia what story can you possibly have that might interest a faction of us. Your tongue loosed in your mouth like a ferret among rabbits like a clapper in a bell as well as well. No one listens not even you it is simply to chime out the hour to hear it ring every half and on. Better not to speak at all. As you promised only moments ago. Better to sit quietly hands in tunic lap bereft of art. The very ecstasy of love. She has her own ideas he said as though it were a curse. Least of all this darkening country wants to know your wild ideas. The console lit up like a plane’s. Single engine over northern africa. Scattering gazelles in four directions as they come down for a landing. Father waiting at Felmar. Getting out from the triumph tunic still neat kickpleat with a kick to it. He’ll see his old bicycling bag slung across her. Aren’t you clever to have put it to such a use he’ll say what have you got in there. Only my very special brushes which were a gift only a pear bruised beyond recognition with a thumbish cut in it what happened to your tongue you’re speaking so strangely It was bitten off in a freakish accident I used to have art papa in my or your special bag it was an original given to me by an artist who made his trade by the profession of science but I gave it back for it stopped pleasing me. My that old bag of mine has seen some interesting sights. Oh yes Father oh yes racing madly around the house like a dog fresh from the car like a child screeching Let’s fix up the pool Let’s play the piano. Father will stand next to the triumph postponing the moment to speak of the automobile’s handling capacity. He will wear wool with a press down the center of each leg. He will place his hands behind his back one cupped in the other as if to approach a nervous horse. The driver stuffed with chocolate staving off pins and needles in his right leg. What about the potting shed I promised you a place to paint. Oh Father I must be the one to tell you. It’s a sad case but I have no eye. If you have the passion for it what matter if you are not so talented. Passion? Father? For art? Art is the least passionate subject I can imagine. I have more interest in war. Oh there are wars of all sorts roses worlds or wars lasting only seven days. Wars in Arabia where mercy might be passion or simply good manners. You have learned so much in such a short time. Yes but my knowledge cannot be trusted for I also learned that at fourteen I barely have a mind of my own. She could have taken her cleaver to him could have cleaved him in two old Ingle as the sky was cleaved by far-off trees. She had only distant knowledge of him for as a butcher she is better acquainted with cuts of meat with her old friend the vicar with whom she may or may not have shared more than a pencil sharpener. They may for example they may have holed up together in some inn at Land’s End to escape the prying eyes of Vicar’s wife. And like those famous sheep well gone astray. In the top room with sloped ceilings featuring a smell they discuss in their nervous adulterating undressing as camphor or death. Lying largely pink and naked in the drafty bed in a pool of light from a wonky desk lamp Vicar exploring the inglenook Butcher saying Stop the accents John just for the weekend for it seems I’m to be the one to inform you how annoying they are. Who’d a thunk—Vicar says before he can stop himself luckily Butcher shuts him up by clamping her mouth on his. And they roll and roll on and on past a pub disco spelled out in forlorn lights past a white place selling chicken. You will go in you will say good night to Father wearing the nightgown his gift for the trip. Or is that wise the lace collar might provoke nasty associations of executions in one or the other of you. No. Downstairs in the old pyjamas downstairs for hot milk with golden syrup because you hear it may cure sleeplessness which might plague you or might not but sounds delicious nonetheless. You will not want to discuss it tonight he will not press the topic he will follow you into the kitchen and ask if he might not have some hot milk too just when it’s coming to a boil so you have to add more and wait. In his smart creased trousers he will sit on the counter to bong his heels as he always did in Maine. A distant aunt in Cheshire wants to take you into her home. He says this as he picks up the Lyles and says What’s this for. Well what’s it all for. You will take the green tin from him and set it down gently you will inform him it is to put in the milk as it will taste good that way. You will make Father a croque monsieur without him asking and when you press down the sandwich to make it sputter you will say I am alright Father. You will say I do not want to go live in Cheshire with whomever she is because I have friends at Monstead. They went to France. And Brickie brought back a postcard for me. He didn’t know the address. Look he said It’s all going to be different between us this term. I ask did he have a marzipan cake upon his return and what shape did it take. I say We have shared things you and I Brickie. You thought I’d be one of the lucky ones. But they’ll get us all. Doubt not. Pieces in their games go chess we will next year become rook knight Bishop of St. Lieven the King of Athens but still only choose black or white squares. Oh Brickie is it really so bad. Through the arch heat from the laundry on a winter day a full plate of chips no need for bread the smell of autumn the promise of spring. No I’m an optimist. I know. The vaguery. Waking at night to see my jumble my grey lying on the chair tuck key aglint from some caught moonlight the breathing of the other eight to think This is my world my entire world a world without end. I am this Catrine so small I could evaporate. I wanted boaters not fires Brickie. I never expected you to see my life ebb and flow in the waffle of these shoes but if you are bound hand by foot to your own bed tell me that the welts disappear. Tell me that your stomach will quell for now it rises up where bed used to be a pleasure albeit a horsehair one now it is a fright but that too will pass and you will trust in sleep again. But this is all petty. I portray myself as shallow. What am I asking you who reveal nothing you who taunted me for weeks over some slight of my father’s. Should he have taken the gun and aimed for a leg? Brickie let’s not let this come between us Brickie come here with your cold eyes pull back your hair let some light in you see it’s not so bad I know I know it took me a long time to realize. We drive toward summer when the tuck shop sells ice cream. I wanted you to say nice things I wanted you to tell me what you found in the crystal ball of my shoe. We had the shop girl and the glue we had your father and his padded fingers we had Paul. We both knew. I watched you as you watched me did you really think those times your black bastard eyes sought out mine that mine rested elsewhere. He bought me new green shoes but in the end those squashed as well. Over a bridge dark water rushing underneath boys with their poles in the water now the last of the light and Father will wait the house all dark but one light in the bedroom for he’s caught up in reading. He’ll want to know about the horsepower and ask the Botanist in for a drink. Now gasoline and finally a can of Lilt off again because there are Miles to Go. Do something do something. I wanted judgment conclusion I wanted morality to
ariiise
from my wild bestial plane. But I was always doomed for down. You have choice in the matter dear girl there’s always a choice dear girl. Car speeds north leaving what little spring we had. Cornwall. Head against the metal door your face will hold wrinkles. Elasticity winnowing out. Skin and nails shedding. Leaving little bits of yourself on settees and trains. Stretching away until you die. Apologize to Bea say I’m sorry I never really heard when you spoke of him singling me out I was more entranced by the word than the meaning I’m sorry I never paid much attention to motivations which I took to be the bastard cousin of my enemy consequences. And you were there with Stokes visiting the same inn as Vicar and Butcher in Land’s End with old Cyclops on sabbatical from his wife you came down to Cornwall you fancied a sherry he made up for not understanding why a girl sets a fire by pouring you an extra large one in glasses brought all the way from Chittock Leigh wrapped in his undershorts by holding open the door to the Indian restaurant he demonstrated it very well. And that night even more so. I’m sorry Bea forgive me Bea I’m a girl in a car a girl in a car. I am this Catrine. I was beginning Bea I was beginning to see how paths were laid down I was beginning to understand it was all up to me. I wanted to admit myself to the clutch saying You Are This. Am I petulant am I a beast don’t I care for others at all? Why take refuge in him. Days pass hours pass with the cars rushing past I am in Maine a girl seldom alone I am here always alone I am in France eating madeleines with you I am a girl without her tire. Without Isabelle. The man got up and walked away. The man got up brushed off his knees looked once up the hill then back to where the tire landed he shook his head once he shook his head again
Well that’s an anomaly
in these parts
. The man took a piece of paper which had attached itself to his hip threw it back to the ground. He straightened his helmet righted his motorcycle. He was off again before you knew it. His face set against the road the scarce traffic. Sky could not be any clearer. We will arrive back at Felmar safely and recognize it is not Maine or Cornwall or Chittock Leigh. Not London where a man bends in half-light to sew. I do not look out this window into rain. Asleep I dream I drive I am a woman who complains in shops the woman who sighs the queue is too long the chops too fatty. The streets are not safe. Lock up your children. Hello I say Welcome to my lecture. I won’t be hidden I won’t be nude. I won’t clack out from discreet doors. Well what’s the point of showing a book of art in a museum full of it. The answer’s so obvious. So one will know what one sees. Not everyone lives in a precarious balance for consequences they can barely fathom. They want to know this will happen C if you add A to B. Not like you poor girl raging from one moment to the next. A tsunami of consequence. Hello I say, Welcome to my lecture. I post it on the door. Wild beasts cannot be allowed to roam our heaths at will. At night untold damage has been done to flowering grasses in their natural state. Do not fight over the squish each boy will get his own if he does his best for England. If not I’m afraid you live by the sword you die by the sword. What one knows one must know with a sword in one’s hand. No running on wet floors. Let me go please let me go. She will be there when you return the first the rest come tumbling running out of School House they will pile on each other frisking like puppies barking to know the adventures you had on the cliffs but she will stand off to one side while they tell you the troubles they had with abstract nouns. And when they shut up and you are still quiet she will shoo them away to have a word. Oh this is what I dragged you up for this debauchery? You forget ma’am you are not my mother. Well could it be you need a replacement? It will never be you. And she will perch on her enormous desk strewn with papers in her hideous stockings the color of mushrooms you cannot help yourself you imagine her underthings the straps the heavy material war remnants strong enough for missiles and similar in shape. Can it be your father is not doing his job as a parent? You leap from your chair she has thrown down the gauntlet. You Maggone have insulted my honor. Sit child sit we are not serving in the French legion away with these dramas of yours. At some point perhaps at that moment she rises to press her matronly self against your neck. And you leave the flat for a cliff in Cornwall. To say. Mrs. Ingle I understand you wear red for slapping. Thank you for all manner of advice. But I won’t grow old. Won’t catch me stopping long enough. I want a tunic for every day. I can be different even as I am the same. Even as we wake in uniform. I am thewy. This driver gave me the word. Motorway lights flash from the opposite path we keep moving Father awaits. Tomorrow he will make us a pancake in the shape of a mousehead the ears will run into the side of the pan and fold but you will know it for a mouse because it is always a mouse. He will sit across from you expectantly wonder when you learned to drink all that tea it can’t be good for you but then so few things are. Let’s fix up the pool Let’s paint the walls that’s the only sort of painting I want. Sort he’ll say sort. You are getting some sort of accent is what sort. And you’ll bite a bite that should be an ear but it’s an accordion for your delight. I don’t need to be American any more those white patches we left behind I’ve forgotten it all you’ll say for his alarm then laugh then sip some orange juice which you actually hate. Good pancake mouse right? Smile as you pour more syrup. What will he do. What is he doing right this moment staring into his embering fire. Running water for another bath. He will want to feel clean for he has been made to feel so dirty. Asking the fire what went wrong what were his intentions I mean she has a mind of her own and anyone can tell you fourteen is not ten. Down at his foot encased in a slipper playing with the sash to his dressing gown. He is in Cornwall she is between them I love you I love you my Punch my sugar water you saturate. Please don’t evanesce my anomaly my Marxist you held your waist as if you wanted mine but we never danced staring down at the robe in his hands he fixed your skin made it cover you back up as was originally intended. He will say no to dinner tired of toads but yes to cocoa which helps him feel it’s all been a skinned knee. Look back in anger. There will be a tribunal. You have been paying her unwanted attentions not true not true the line down the middle not true not true the yellow line. They were wanted. Some of them. Most of them. You return from circumnavigating the globe on a motorcycle you walk into the lab with your hair in control. He sets down the book he’s reading aloud to another form another year another ten years of that looks at you over them he finally bought glasses couldn’t see the board about a year ago. Well hello he’ll say and his trousers hit the same spot they did the day you left you are as tall as he no you are taller he wants to take you to lunch in the dining hall for yellow salad cream and custard. The class waits for your answer there you are in the last row the girl with a hunch in her back she wishes she could disappear evident in the part of her she can never make straight her back or shins or hair evident in what she sees in him. And lunch. You must decline you have been to Lutece but you will take a turn around those playing fields for odd time’s sake. There’s the spot you were with the boys there’s the spot of the old pavilion. He greys. Remember old Aurora Dyer you say she burned the pavilion down to toast whatever happened to her. Who knows my memory these days my memory works like a sieve. And no matter how you describe Aurora the wild days with chemicals he can’t remember. But it is not Monstead at all not if our Botanist has anything to do with it. Who knows if you will find him again who knows if it won’t all just flame out once and die. But we have seen worse things than kisses in our day French or otherwise. When it snowed and he was kind enough to let her stay she slept on his pillow slept as she hadn’t in a month yes she discovered paintings. No she didn’t need to be told they were of Fi Hammond. They were like enough. The moment she saw them together in Bath. But there were times he marveled yes she saw it in his eyes What Goes Through This Mind it meant something it meant something. Like Piers I am leaking. Like Thérèse I am blind. There was a poinsettia design painted on wood Mother hated Father loved the old refrigerator you covered with stickers. I can’t remember any of it. I have the disease the one in the movies a blow to the head. You recalled Father sitting on that counter heels slamming. Try. The bevel to the flatware a chunk out of the lintel the swing the stairs took weeding the hump in the middle of the driveway gravel sticking to your knees turning to see why she called from the porch how you couldn’t see her for the sun. Father’s first steps toward having enough. The kitchen the tile. Mother looked down said What good is this apron I have a postage stamp tied around my waist. And she stopped wearing aprons which was a pity because she had such a collection. The lace the jokes the see-through the plaid. That was the kitchen. It was where she heard war by radio and undercooked the meat. They had to put it back in halfway through. Waiting with empty plates forks upright and Nixon. The table was wood not plastic pitted and gouged not cracked with rivers. Buildings the outskirts of London they are rushing home take longer last longer I don’t know what to tell my father. The driver asks about Easter. You are not a man I can tell. I have sentenced myself to Lovely to Marvelous to details on table settings or preparations for lamb noting concoctions of jelly or arrangements of flowers so as to have something to say in a moment like this. It was lovely we went to a family a friend of my father’s they are a family I love so much by the name of Mitchells. Details girl a lie is known by the lack of details. They have a dog a shepherd I think. Or is it retriever or collie or mix. Details details. They have a house. Oh she fails she sinks it’s obvious by his silence. And now you know what you will do from now on you cannot tell the truth you are obviously a miserable liar so you question you interrogate you frown with concentration giggle when it’s appropriate you jolly you prod you cajole you simper pull the story from him whichever one it is he really wants to tell. And so it is France he talks about Araigny the food and the views well they were magnifique he will confide because he’s feeling so fine he has it in mind to ask for divorce. It took a special talent on your part to extricate that. His jolly French vacances. Anything to switch off his voice offer God your eternal soul. Take me back turn the car around this has all been a dreadful mistake. It was never anything. I want to tell authentic stories I want to tell jokes to bring up my score. I want to be silly but I will go back back to her gripping my wrist wrenching my hands from my pockets I will return to her stares. I had that man’s tongue in my mouth his hands in places his. And he took out my tongue he took out my tongue. There is no one there for you anymore. No one will take you to art. He fixed my skin. And now you are crying and pressing your face into the cold dark window as if you could float out into the night. He’s there outside the window for you as he was in the beginning as he was that first day struggling over your suitcase. And after Paul he was kind he said Paul is a bad apple only he failed to mention that he was one too. Yes I’m fine I’m fine coming down with something. Let it go girl let it go. Lilt gone can crushed into a sticky pineapple smell underfoot with the purple foil. Do not leave me here on my knees. There it was spinning away from me like this road caught in the headlights then pass passing how did I know the Botanist would appear like that come crashing out with accusations. Because of foresight you say extrapolation. Well it all got away from me. I couldn’t see them yes the consequences I’m always on about. I’m sorry forgive me. I wanted it to stop I wanted to catch my breath I didn’t want everything taken away. Open the window a crack for air the hot blast of the heater suffocates. Oh I’m quite alright upset stomach yes a bit a bit I need the window open I need an end to politeness and matching towels I need to go back to the way it was between us when it was alright when we bicycled when you thought about wearing clips the first time we saw Courbet together or on the balcony when you rested your chin on your hand and suggested We and We Alone Are Significant. Back to the cinema because you love a train station good-bye good-bye. They left us alone at Giddy’s but not in the bedroom. I said good-bye to the moquette on my own when I went to get the suitcase. In the drawing room you plinked a key you said this is the famous piano from the days of Rosie. And I sat down next to you as I had done so many times it seemed like a thousand times it seemed like my whole life or at least the very best part of it we sat side by side leg to leg they were in the kitchen admiring Giddy’s collection of wedgwood you went down on your knees to look in my eyes you said no matter what Punchinello this was never your fault I made some stupid mistakes it could be I ruined your life it could be I’m a very bad man I have perhaps I have passions I shouldn’t have I hurt you I hurt you I said yes you did but you were the only one who cared about me you started to cry my knees were all wet you said there are many people who care about you we’ve all just got such fucked-up ways of showing it. I had never heard you swear so that was a treat but I was sobbing too I said I’m never going to see you again it’s all different and different in a bad way you said you never know we are optimists you and I all things will come out in the wash wash what wash I put my hand out to your hair but I had never touched you like that you wrapped your arms around my knees you said All Betts are off aren’t they? I leaned over you couldn’t see me take one final smell the place where your hair gets so short I touched your hair even though the promise of no touching had been made I can’t keep a promise I said I never could he said you’ve kept all the ones you made to me you came when you promised. I said what happened that day you said Oh Catrine I knew even then it was all wrong I knew even then this was a downhill track to nowhere fast so I tried to stop no that’s a lie I forgot I forgot we had a plan you didn’t matter to me at all I cared not a whit no that’s a lie too it was Fi and Dido we were having a threesome no it’s untrue it’s fibs and stories all of it. It never happened. You said will you be happy here in our country. I wanted to be petulant though anyone would agree there was reason enough for anger but you knew it would break him so you got hold of some of that famous strength you’re certain you have and you said Yes I will Squeak. I will be happy here. He looked up at you all wet a mess to be frank he said I’m glad for that then after a silence he said Did you call me Squeak? Squeak? How could you? then he laughed and laughed even though you didn’t say it to be funny then he said for that you get a one hundred percent. That’s inflation I said which I’m learning in maths. Is that because there’s no further opportunity for advancement like that I said it like I was Miss Maggone. Yes he said. Sadly enough that’s the case. In that case I said I got up to go we could hear them getting nervous outside I want to tell you that you always rated one hundred in my book. Oh God you said like you were going to cry but you put your hand on top of my head like I was a teapot you led me outside. And off the motorway to the final small roads to Felmar where hot milk awaits. Father comes out in slippers and scarf he puts his hand on your shoulder as if the two of you stand in a painting. You say to no one not your driver or your father but to yourself you say I Am Not A Science Girl. You say I am made from grief from chocolate and air not from atoms not from paint. Dear Father I want to have character I don’t want to be compromised. I am not harmonious my legs have wills of their own they grow at different rates and one likes north the other west. My neck can collapse will drop my head