Teach Me Dirty (15 page)

“
All
men get jealous, Hels. Women, too.
Everyone
gets jealous, even if they are super good at hiding it. It’s like a fixed law of humanity.”

“Even at the outside chance that Mr Roberts could be made jealous, how would I do it?” The thought made me feel all lurchy and horrible.

“Well, that’s obvious, isn’t it?” She smirked at me. “We need to get you a boyfriend.”

I laughed aloud. “A boyfriend?! Like that’s going to happen anytime this century. I’m in love with Mr Roberts. He’s the only one I ever wanted, in case you haven’t noticed already.”

“Yeah, well, you want to catch the monkey you need to open your horizons up and get a bigger monkey trap.” I pulled a face at her analogy and she did, too. “What I mean is, you need to rethink your strategy…”

“And get a boyfriend?”

“Don’t sound so disgusted… there are other male specimens in the world besides Rampant Roberts, you know. Some of them are even alright…”

“None that I’ve noticed.” I stared at the ceiling, at the twinkle of fluorescent star stickers still up there from primary school.

“Best case is that Mr Roberts can’t handle it, and boom, you’re in. Worst case, maybe you even like the new guy and ditch the virgin shit. It’s a win-win.”

“And who’s going to go out with me?” I couldn’t even look at her. “I hardly get a queue of offers, Lizzie. I’m the outsider. Nobody notices me.”

She took my hand and squeezed it tight, and pulled the covers higher around us both.

“You leave that to me,” she said.

***

Mark

I can’t remember a time I was as nervous as I was waiting for Helen to turn up in my art room. Monday came and went and I didn’t hear a peep from her. It felt strange, and empty in my classroom, even though I’d rarely have seen her on a Monday anyway. And that’s when I realised it wasn’t the classroom that felt strange and empty. It was me.

Fuck you.

I’d deserved that. I still deserved that.

And she deserved better than me and my mixed messages. So I’d steered well clear through the weekend. Even though I was preoccupied to the point of insanity, my brain spinning through events on loop, through the day, through the night, through everything, I kept well away from her.

When she arrived for her lesson on Tuesday morning, she looked different. She looked drawn and sad and lacklustre.

She wouldn’t meet my eyes, just sat herself directly behind Harry Sawbridge while I took class, and that big oaf blocked my view obliviously, yawning his idiot face off. The guy should never have been in my A-level art class, he was both lazy and talentless.

She returned to her usual bench when I stopped speaking, and I ached to go over there. Her shoulders were tense as she painted, and her brush strokes were jerky little lines that lacked any real finesse. And it pained me, it really pained me to see her that way.

I took my time approaching her, and she didn’t acknowledge me until I spoke.

“Is that a new technique?”

She shrugged. “Don’t know, don’t care.”

“You always care, Helen.”

“Not today.”

I sighed, and leaned in closer, hoping nobody else could hear me. They were gabbling on about the holidays anyway, and about the winter ball. Gabbling on about anything but the paintings in front of them. “I think we should talk.”

“To say what? I want you and you don’t want me? I already know that, thanks.” Her voice was hissy and her eyes were pained.

“That isn’t how it is.” My voice was nothing but a whisper.

“How is it, then? Do you want me, or not?”

“It’s not that simple…”

“Then you don’t. I’ve got nothing to talk about.” She jabbed her brush against the canvas and it smudged.

I leaned in so close my mouth was at her ear, and I closed my eyes, just to savour the smell of her, hoping, praying that none of the useless idiots in the room would notice me. “I want the best for you, Helen. That’s all I want.”

She turned her face to mine and her eyes were angry and hurt. “Who are you to say what’s best for me?” Her voice was just a breath. “I’m not a child.”

“But you are in my care.”

“Not for much longer,” she said, and turned her attention back to the painting. “In a few months I’ll be gone, and you can forget I ever existed.”

And then I was angry, too. I gripped her wrist, squeezed it, and her eyes widened. “If you think I’m going to move on and forget you existed, you can’t know me at all.”

“You won’t
let
me know you.”

“I’m trying not to, for your own good.”

“Spare me the
for your own good
stuff. It hurts, Mr Roberts, it really hurts.”

The bell rang and she pulled away from me. She gathered up her things and brushed past me without even a passing glance.

***

Helen

I was still reeling from art class, my heart hammering, when Lizzie grabbed my arm from behind me.

“Well?”

“It was terrible.”

She grimaced. “As good as that, hey?”

“He wanted to talk, I blew him out.”

“Good for you.”

“Feels shit, though, I hate it.” We made our way through the English block corridor, past the library and out the other side. Lizzie pulled me behind the building, pressing us into a dip in the wall, and I was glad, really glad. She lit up a cigarette and I took it straight off her.

“Jeez, Hels, getting desperate for the nicotine in your hours of misery, aren’t you?”

I didn’t even answer, just stared out at the playing fields. I remembered the place empty, just Mr Roberts and me talking and laughing and painting. and my stomach tightened. I gave Lizzie back her cigarette. “Thanks.”

“I’ve been drawing up a boyfriend shortlist…”

My stomach tightened again. “What?”

“A list of potentials.” She pulled a piece of paper from her pocket. It was scrumpled and scribbled on and looked a tatty mess, but there was a list in the corner.

“Terry Edwards… no way! He’s in the football team.”

“So?”

“So, no.”

“Fine.” She grabbed it off me. “Gary Eaton?”

“Arrogant.”

“And hot.”

“Arrogance wins. No.”

“Stuart Belcher?”

“He would never look at me. And there was that rumour that he kicked Wendy Ree’s cat.”

She shrugged. “Fair point.”

“Keith Perkins.”

“I’m not even going to answer that.” Keith Perkins was crude, and disgusting. An all-round idiot.

“Fine.” She gave me a look like I was the most difficult customer in the world. “Harry Sawbridge?”

“Harry? No way.”

“No?”

“Just no. That would be weird.”

“Why weird?”

I stared at her. “He’s in my art class.”

“Yeah, duh. That’s good, no?”

“No. It’s just weird. I just… he doesn’t even
like
art.”

“But he’s doing art for A-level.”

“Yes, but he doesn’t
like
it. He never listens to anything.”

“But he
is
doing it. And Roberts
will
see him with you. All the time…” She smirked. “That’s kinda the whole point of the jealousy thing.”

“I’m not even convinced about this jealousy thing…”

“He’s the best option. He’s kinda cute. Nice eyes.”

“He’s got no artistic talent whatsoever.”

“But he’s cute, right?”

I shrugged. “If you say so.”

She folded the piece of paper back up then tapped her nose. “Leave it with me.”

“What are you going to do?” My heart sped up. “Don’t do anything, Lizzie!”

“I won’t do much… just scoping the lay of the land…”

“Lizzie!”

She smiled so brightly. “So, Hels Bells, how do you fancy Harry Sawbridge as your winter ball date?”

My jaw dropped. “My winter ball date? I’m not even going to the winter ball… I never go to that kind of party stuff…”

She handed me the dregs of her cigarette and I smoked it to the butt. “I think you might change your mind,” she said, and wiggled her eyebrows.

“Hell would have to freeze over. For real. Demon penguins and everything.”

“That’s your stance is it? Definitely not? No way? Not in a million billion years?”

I threw the cigarette butt in the hedge. “That’s my stance.”

“Such a shame,” she said, and there was mischief in it. “Because a little birdie told me that somebody’s favourite art teacher is chaperoning this year…”

***

Helen

Maybe Lizzie really did have a voodoo witchcraft bottle, because the next day in art class the unthinkable happened. I had taken my usual spot, keeping my back to Mr Roberts in fear of looking like some sad little girl all over again, when I heard a rustle of bags and the scuff of a stool over floor tiles. I always sit alone. Always. It’s been that way forever in art. I just don’t like many people, and they don’t like me. Plus, I love art, I live for art, and company and art don’t usually work out so well.

There was whispering and laughing behind me, and my hackles prickled, just knowing it was about me. And then there was Harry Sawbridge’s voice, interrupting my thoughts like a sledgehammer.

“Hi, Helen. Mind if I sit here?”

He was already sitting
here
. I moved my sketchbook a little to the side to clear some space for him. Manners don’t cost anything, after all.

“Sure.”

The laughter was growing more raucous, and my heart did a stutter as Mr Roberts barked out an order for quiet.

He sounded unusually grouchy.

I didn’t look at him, but I did look at Harry, and Harry was looking right back at me.

“Nice painting,” he said, which was ironic considering it was probably the worst painting I’d done in my entire life. The lines were messy and erratic, and not in a good way. It was sloppy and lazy and dull, and terrible. It was a terrible painting.

“Thanks.”

He turned his canvas towards me and his was worse.

“Nice work,” I lied.

“Thanks. It’s inspired by Dali.”

“Picasso,” I said. “Guernica was by Picasso. I finished mine the other week.”

He didn’t look bothered by my correction. “Yeah, can’t really get into it. I don’t like painting like other people. What’s the point in it?”

I could have launched into an impassioned monologue about the beauty in the masters and hoping to learn through even the slightest successful emulation of their work. Normally I would have, but my soul had dried up. I said nothing, just smiled and carried on jabbing paint on top of paint.

He didn’t stop looking at me, and I felt myself burning up. “Guess you like Picasso, then?”

“I love Picasso.”

“Yeah, so do I. He’s cool. I like all of them… Picasso, Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello… Michelangelo…”

I couldn’t stop the smile. “The artists or the turtles?”

“Both. I like the rat, too. Used to watch them when I was a kid.” I had nothing to say to that, and he grew twitchy, flicking his paintbrush back and forth between his fingers. “Say, Helen, are you going to the ball?”

My heel tapped against my stool, knees juddery. “I, um… don’t know.”

“I’m going,” he said. “I was thinking maybe you could… if you wanted to… we could…”

I couldn’t even look at him. My cheeks were burning up.

“…I was thinking… if you wanted…” He sighed. “Do you want to come to the ball with me?”

Everything in me said no. No, I don’t want to come to the ball with you. I don’t even want to go to the ball. I don’t want to be sitting here, talking to you and painting a shitty picture. I don’t want anything but the feeling of Mr Roberts’ hands on me again, of him looking at me the way he did before, of him talking to me like I meant something.

And then I felt him, the familiar heat of him, the way he smelled, the way he moved. He stepped between our stools and stared at my canvas.

“I hope you aren’t distracting Helen, Harry.”

“No, sir. Just talking.”

“Less talking, more painting, if you want to finish that painting this term, that is.”

“Yeah, sir, I’m doing it.” Harry looked at his canvas, communication over.

I felt Mr Roberts staring, but I didn’t look at him. “Your wrist is too tense,” he said, and his hand was on mine, taking the brush from me.

“It’s fine.”

“Shake it out,” he said.

“It’s
fine
.”

He placed my brush on the palette and took hold of my wrist. “You’re tense. Distracted.”

“I’m not having the best week.” My voice was petulant, and I cursed myself.

“If we relied on a sunny disposition to produce our best work, Helen, I think you’d find art galleries would be considerably less impressive affairs.” He grabbed my shoulder and turned me towards him, and then he crouched, so he was looking up at me. He balled a fist to his stomach. “Dig deep,” he said. “Take it, all the crap inside, take it and mould it, and forge it… make it something beautiful. Make it something that means something.”

“It does
mean
something.”

“Transform it, Helen. Use it.”

I could feel stupid tears pricking. “But I can’t
use
it. I don’t know how.”

“You do,” he said. “I know you do.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

“You do want to.”

“Don’t tell me what I want.”

Harry’s neck twisted, eyes wide at our exchange. Mr Roberts saw it, too, and it stopped him in his tracks. He got to his feet and handed me back my paintbrush. “Ok, Helen. If you need some help, you know where I am.”

I jabbed the brush back on the canvas and didn’t even answer. I felt him leave, defeated.

Harry leaned over. “What was all that about?”

I shrugged. “Nothing.”

“That was weird, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“It was well weird,” he said. He flashed a stupid grin. “He’s weird though, isn’t he? Roberts? He’s such an oddball.”

“The weird people are often the best,” I said.

He laughed, like I was joking. “Yeah, gotta love the weirdos. He’s gay, you know.” He slid his stool a little closer and lowered his voice, and the whispering started up again, I could hear them, talking about us, talking about Harry’s arm on the back of my stool. “So, what about it? Will you come with me?”

“I’m… I’m not sure I’m going…”

“Come on,” he said. “It’ll be a laugh. I’ll be wearing a suit, all proper like.”

“I’ll think about it…”

“Yeah?”

I forced a smile. “Yeah, I’ll think about it.”

“Alright then.” His knee knocked against mine and stayed there. “We could have some fun, I know we could.”

“I’ll see…”

Mr Roberts walked by again, slowly. “Harry. More painting, less talking, please.”

“Alright, sir.”

I wondered if he was jealous, if Lizzie really was a seduction genius after all, but Mr Roberts carried on to another table, and gave advice in the same calm way he always gave it. It hurt my heart to think he wasn’t bothered. Maybe he was even relieved. I painted through the rest of class and tried to forget about it, but it throbbed like a tight little ball of fire in my stomach.

The bell sounded and I put my things away, and Mr Roberts was waving people off, smiling and fine and not even vaguely bothered about me or the pain inside. I waited until Harry was almost at the doorway, then raised my voice to sound across the room.

“I’ll come with you, to the ball. It’ll be… fun.”

Harry turned and smiled, puffed his chest out. “Cool.”

“Cool,” I said.

And then I walked away without giving Mr Roberts so much as a backwards glance.

***

Mark

It had been a lifetime since I’d felt a stab of jealousy. It took me aback, shifted me off my axis in a way that was thoroughly uncomfortable until I pulled back into some semblance of professionalism.

Helen was a teenager.

Harry was a teenager, too.

A stupid teenager. A dumb, lazy, uninspiring excuse for an art student as far as they go, but a teenager. He had
cool
hair, and wore trendy deodorant, one of those noxious ocean breeze ones. He was an attractive teenager, as far as I could tell. Dark eyes and one of those floppy fringes, with the disregard for school uniform that the cool kids have.

I felt the pulse in my temples, angry at the ridiculousness of a kid like Harry considering himself a match for a beautiful young woman like Helen.

And then I realised it should be none of my business.

How dare it be any of my business.

Helen was her own woman, her own person, and she could choose to date whichever cool kid took her fancy. I should be happy for her. I should at least pretend to be happy for her.

I just wished I wasn’t going to the stupid poxy ball.

The knowledge that Helen had a date should have appeased my guilt, but it didn’t. It was rotting me from the inside out. I wholly expected Mr Palmer to cause me some issues, and I was prepared for that. I’d take whatever was headed my way.

But the days went by and nothing came.

Nothing apart from the pain in my gut whenever Helen came and left my classroom. I missed her smile. I missed the soft sound of her voice. I missed the feeling of her little fingers around mine.

I missed being in the same space with her, and knowing we were ok.

I checked her cam account every evening, and every evening there was nothing. She’d log in daily, stay online awhile, and post nothing. Radio silence.

So many times I typed out a text message, but the words always sounded so banal and pathetic.

Are you ok, Helen? Talk to me, Helen. Forgive me, Helen.

I miss you, Helen.

Don’t go to the ball with Harry Sawbridge, Helen.

Don’t fall in love with anyone else, Helen.

You’re all I think about, Helen.

I sent nothing, but I felt everything. I felt more than I’d felt in years.

I was arranging the set pieces at the back of the stage when I heard someone clapping.

“Wonderful!” Jenny Monkton was grinning from ear to ear. “Fantastic job, Mark. I’ve been meaning to say thank you.” She paused just a second. “You should let me say thank you.” She joined me on stage. “Dinner, my treat.”

“No need,” I said.

“But I insist! It’s the least I can do.”

I slid the market place scene to backstage right. “It wasn’t just me, Jenny. You have Helen Palmer to thank. I’ll give you the list of the others, too.”

“Ah, Helen. Such a talent.”

It turned my insides over. “Yes, she is.”

“Such a lovely girl.”

“Yes, she is.”

“I’ll have to seek her out and say thank you.”

“I’m sure she’d appreciate it.”

“I imagine I’ll see her at the ball.”

“I would expect so.”

She twirled her hair around her fingers. “I heard she’s going with Harry Sawbridge. He’s in my drama class, silly oaf. He’s been bragging about it.”

I didn’t say a word.

“So many mean girls in that year, so much bitchiness. He’s been taking quite a ribbing from my other students, the girls, that is. It always surprises me how nasty they can be at that age.”

“About Helen?” The idea turned my stomach.

“Yes, you know what they’re like. They don’t like anyone
different
. And Helen is very different, isn’t she?”

“Yes. She is.” I met Jenny’s eyes and they were twinkling, hiding something. “Was there something on your mind?”

“No… well. Not really.” She ran her hands over our desert scene. “Just stupid rumours, you know how it is.”

“Rumours?” My heart thumped.

“Stupid girl talk, I’m sure it’s nothing.”

I forced myself to speak. “What do these rumours say?”

Jenny laughed, tossed her head back and shook her curls. “Oh! Well, it’s quite amusing. They say Helen has a crush on you. Quite a major crush, apparently. They were ribbing Harry about it.”

“I see.”

She took a step closer. “Were you aware of it?”