The Finishing School (7 page)

13

Dr. Alice Barclay-Good had agreed to come again and lecture to College Sunrise in the winter term because it made a break in her retirement routine; she would be paid a modest fee and her traveling expenses. She would be put up for the night at the school in Switzerland. She had nothing better to do, and Scottish history of the sixteenth century was very much her subject. She had been invited by the principal, Nina Parker, to speak on the subject of Mary Queen of Scots and her times. “One of our students,” went the e-mail, “is at work on a very original novel on the subject. He already has a publisher and is negotiating the film rights. So we are very proud of him.”

It was true that Chris had been visited by a film producer and a director, both of them staying prominently and luxuriously in the nearby hotel. One was tall and middle-aged, the other short and young. They had spent two days discussing every possibility with Chris, including the casting. But Chris was reticent as to how the book would develop and how it would finish. The producer (the tall one) was anxious about Chris’s need for “much more time.” “You’re seventeen. Under age. That’s a selling point. If you wait till you’re eighteen, nineteen, you might as well be anybody.”

While these film men were at the hotel they were visited by Pansy, who introduced herself as a fellow student of Chris—“Maybe I could help you? Call me Leg.”

This ambiguous approach by the small, eager girl earned her a glass of chilled white wine and a promise to bear her in mind for the motion picture script. She impressed on them that she had attended a summer course at Cambridge and that she had the advantage of a rare insight into Chris’s working mind.

After the filmmakers had left Nina asked Chris what were his intentions now. Did he still want to stay at the College and finish the novel?

“It depends on Rowland.”

“How, ‘depends on Rowland’?”

“I need him.”

Nina was apprehensive about what he would say next, suspecting that it was something she couldn’t handle.

However, Chris went on to say what he had to say next: “I need his jealousy. His intense jealousy. I can’t work without it.”

And Nina, terrified of what she herself would inevitably say next, nevertheless went on to say it. “Chris, he might kill you.”

“That would be bad for the school,” said Chris.

“Go away,” she said. “I think I want you to go away.”

“Rowland doesn’t.”

How would one handle a situation like this? She and Rowland were joint heads of the school. Nina foresaw the possibilities of a great fuss, a complete breakup of the school with this and that student taking “sides.” There were weeks ahead till the end of term. Nina had hoped to balance the tension between Rowland and Chris for the remaining period.

“Chris,” she said, “I believe you are coming to Dr. Alice Barclay-Good’s lecture?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Will you introduce her?”

“No, let Rowland do that. After the lecture I’ll thank her profusely on behalf of the school.” Chris was very much in charge.

Israel Brown had work to do at his London art gallery, but he neglected it on account of his growing attraction to Nina. She seemed to say exactly what he hoped she would say. She handled her plainly psychotic husband with admirable tact and helpfulness, she was a beautiful girl and aware of it. The more he lingered on in his lakeside villa, the more he loved Nina. They made love in the afternoons whenever Nina could free herself from the school, and when she had gone he could feel satisfaction in looking at a wool jacket she had left behind, hanging on a peg in his bathroom, beside his dressing gown. He would have liked to put a frame round the two garments, almost as if they were a picture. In the weeks when Rowland had been at the monastery, Nina had spent whatever hours of her time she could spare from the school with Israel Brown.

The students were hesitantly conscious of this affair although Nina was careful. They were not scandalized if Nina went to swim in Israel’s indoor pool rather than the pool in the nearby hotel, where the school often went by special arrangement. It was not Nina’s affair that occupied their speculations, but Rowland’s obsession with Chris, and Chris’s reaction.

Rowland, when he returned from the monastery, resumed a routine of literature and art classes, his creative writing class and his computer-wisdom class and he accompanied them to the gym in the hotel, or to a game of squash. He went for walks along the lake and on steamboat expeditions. Rowland, in fact, helped to fulfill the school’s curriculum equally with Nina. But he had become ill-looking, absent.

Mary Foot, who so much adored Rowland, was inconsolable when he forgot her name: “Opal—Lisa—oh, yes, Mary.”

“I think he’s gay and hooked on Chris,” was Lionel Haas’s verdict.

“You should be so gay,” said Célestine Valette, the long-legged cook.

Dr. Alice Barclay-Good was a tall, built-up woman with a smooth, applelike face, gray swept-back hair, deep eyes, and was altogether handsome for her age, sixty more or less. Nina had been to the airport to meet her, radiant and proud as she always was when one of her much admired scholars visited the school. Nina was well-satisfied with the authoritative and confident aspect of her lecturer. She had not changed much.

Rowland had been to their local doctor that afternoon, complaining of a sense of imbalance and stomach unease. He was trembling. The doctor prescribed medicine for Menière’s disease, an affliction of the inner ear which causes dizziness. “But you suffer from your nerves, don’t you?” he added, recalling the number of Rowland’s recent visits—more than everyone else in the school put together. He gave Rowland an additional calming drug which in fact rendered him useless for the rest of the day, so that Nina was obliged to introduce the lecturer while Rowland lolled in a front seat, eyes half closed.

Dr. Alice was first introduced one by one to the students. This was to give Nina a chance to explain, when it came to Chris’s turn, that he was the star pupil who had already earned the attention of film producers and some newspaper diary paragraphs by writing his historical novel.

“I should have thought Mary Queen of Scots had been exhausted as a subject,” said Dr. Alice.

“I have a new theory on Darnley’s murder,” said Chris, and he described how it might have been that, with a little help from an imported source, Rizzio’s brother, Jacopo, might well have connived at the murder of his brother’s killer, Darnley. It would be the natural reaction in any Italian family.

“We must discuss this further,” said Dr. Alice, plainly not wishing her lecturing juice to be used up before the event.

Mary Queen of Scots and her times was comfortably launched in the cozy, crowded common room. “The Queen and her times,” she said “are closely connected. You know already that Mary was condemned to death on counts of treason and murder. To bring about her downfall, letters and sonnets, known as the ‘Casket Letters and Sonnets,’ were produced. It is clear to any legal or even lay mind today that these were forgeries. But what you should realize about the intellectuals and even ordinary intelligent people of her court and surroundings—they didn’t believe these incriminating documents were true. They could not possibly have done so. The letters and poems are full of the wildest contradictions. They are patched-up jobs, proving nothing. But in the times of Mary Queen of Scots, legal truth quite obviously took on a political, not a moral significance. It was the truth of propaganda in aid of a cause that condemned Mary Queen of Scots. This is not to say she was guilty of the murder of her husband or otherwise. It is to say that there was no direct proof.”

Rowland, sleepily in the throes of his calming drug, kept his eyes on Chris, while Chris himself gazed with what looked like admiration at the lecturer throughout. Her voice was monotonous. She had the persevering tone of one who believed in and had thoroughly rehearsed what she was saying. Nina was anxious lest Rowland should really drop into sleep, which he barely avoided doing.

“. . . and,” proceeded Alice, “another incidental point we can discern from the very Casket Letter we have been discussing: it was obviously the accepted mode of writing a long letter, to first make a list of the subjects to be covered, and then expand on the list. This remains to the present day a very good system. It was a system employed by the Queen, but the letter was grossly misrepresented by the list appearing in the text. But methodology aside, what is it that we find moved the sixteenth-century political scene along life’s way? What caused them to overlook plain facts in favor of propaganda? What caused the slaughter of Rizzio followed by the deliberate murder of Darnley? —Remember his house was not only blown up as he slept, but when he was found alive in the grounds he was actually slaughtered. The gunpowder was meant for him, not for the Queen. What was the cause? We are in the latter half of the sixteenth century, in Scotland. The causes of these homicides were jealousy, uncontrollable jealousy. And the subsequent execution of the Queen of Scots by the edict of Elizabeth? —It was hardly fear of treason. Mary was a prisoner. She could intrigue by word and pen, but she had no power. The secret, I feel, is jealousy. When James VI of Scotland, I of England, the son of Mary Queen of Scots was born, it is chronicled that Elizabeth exclaimed, ‘The Queen of Scotland is delivered of a fair child and I am but barren stock.’ Jealousy, green jealousy, that was the motivation of the age . . .”

For the occasion, sherry was offered all round after the lecture. Chris had made a very graceful speech of thanks to Dr. Barclay-Good on behalf of the school. She had, he said, widened and enlivened their awareness of the elements of hypocrisy prevalent in the society that had brought Mary Queen of Scots to judgment, a hypocrisy that serves its own ends, ignoring the simplest and most evident solutions such as the one he hoped to put forward in his forthcoming novel. Thank you, Dr. Barclay-Good.

Alcoholic drinks were a great rarity at College Sunrise, unless smuggled in occasionally by the likes of Princess Tilly.

The sherry, as an event, was soon reflected in noisy chatter. The snacks were presided over by handsome young Albert who had attended the lecture, with a white apron tied over his gardening jeans. He himself took Coca-Cola.

Albert’s only language was French and, perceiving both this, and his charming looks, Dr. Alice engaged him in her best, not bad, conversational French. Rowland had disappeared.

As they went into dinner Nina put up an explanation for Rowland’s absence. “He was at the dentist this afternoon and had a heavy anesthetic. I insisted he went to bed.”

“I noticed,” said Dr. Alice blandly, “that he was dopey.” She was under the impression he had slept through most of her lecture.

To Nina’s rescue that evening, after dinner, came Israel Brown. He brought his very young aunt Giovanna with her violin, and, to everyone’s rather stunned amazement, she played the solo theme of one of Niccolò Paganini’s
capricci
.

“You know,” said Dr. Alice, “I was at a finishing school only a few miles from here. But it was very different from this. Much more strict.” She also said, “Music speaks to you. It speaks.”

Giovanna smiled at her nephew and put away her lively violin.

It was raining heavily outside. Their guest was to leave early next morning for the airport. The party broke up at ten thirty. Dr. Alice was put in the attic guest room. Nina said, “I’m afraid you’ll hear the rain thumping down on the roof.”

“Oh, I’m so tired, I’ll sleep through everything.”

“It was a really wonderful talk,” said Nina. “I can’t tell you what it means to us. Chris was especially very enthralled, I could see. I only regret my husband was so much under the weather. But I know he’ll want me to thank you again on his behalf.” The envelope containing the check for the fee and the fare had already been slipped into Dr. Alice’s hand. Nina was to take her guest to the airport immediately after breakfast. “Good night. Good night.”

The house was silent already when, less than an hour later, Dr. Alice was awakened by a tap on her door.

“Who’s that?”

The door opened. She sat up in bed and switched on her bedside light.

Chris’s red head appeared.

“May I have a word with you?”

“A word—”

“You’re so magnificent,” he said.

“I just want to tell you,” said Chris, “that your insight into the life and times of Mary Queen of Scots is simply astonishing. How could you divine so much? Jealousy. Enmity based on jealousy . . .”

He came and sat on her bed.

“The hypocrisy of her accusers,” said Chris, “. . . the cynicism of it all. I was entranced to hear you speak. You looked so wonderful, and now, as you are, you look more stunning than I can say.”

“Look here,” she said.

But eventually, having discussed the era and circumstances of Mary Queen of Scots a little more, and after Chris had expanded on the subject of Dr. Alice’s splendid voice and appearance, he slid into bed with her. The rain danced on the roof. She was overcome by the redness of his hair and his young beauty, and succumbed with a faint cry.

Rowland was standing on the stairs leading down from the attic room when Chris let himself out. They did not exchange a word.

On the way to the airport in the morning Dr. Alice said, “Yours is a very advanced type of college.”

“Well, I hope it is,” said Nina.

“And the students very mature, I think.”

“They vary,” said Nina.

Rowland said later to Nina, “Chris was in your scholar’s room last night. He’ll ruin the school. There won’t be a next school year.”

“Get rid of him. Tell him to go,” Nina said.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“He needs me.”

“I know,” she said.

14

Rowland’s father died. He flew to join his family in Yorkshire. He wrote to Chris:

I fear there is a new book published a few months ago about Mary Queen of Scots and the murder of Darnley. By a scholar of the times. I advise you to read it and reconsider your thesis.

Chris sent an e-mail:

I am a red-haired novelist of seventeen, soon to be world-famous as such. I weigh 160 lbs. I am at present 5’10’’ still growing. Active sex life. Excellent health. I speak good French. I will successfully study Arabic and master German and Russian in the decades ahead. I will also continue to be a successful writer and first-class tennis player. Bury your dead.

Rowland e-mailed back:

I have a degree in English and run a finishing school. I am 5’11’’. I weigh 163 lbs. My French is excellent. My father was buried yesterday. —Rowland.

Chris took a printout of the latter communication and pinned it to the school notice board where it was much admired until it was rescued and removed by Nina.

Rowland had intended to stay for a while with his family, his mother and aunt, both active middle-aged women, and a younger sister still at school. “Stay for a while and relax,” Nina had exhorted him on the phone. But there arrived, daily, a local male health counselor to teach them how to grieve, so Rowland made off once more for Switzerland. He had been attached to his father, whose unexpected death had rather taken Rowland out of his problem with Chris. It was on the plane to Geneva that he started picking up the threads of his former obsession. He decidedly fought against the temptation to dwell on Chris, and longed for his more peaceful state of mind only the day before, when he had recalled his father in early days very dear to him, and was mourning him deeply. But the nearer he got to Geneva, the closer came Chris. No longer a boy student, he was now a meaning, an explanation in himself.

Nina met him at the airport.

“I set a sort of exam,” she said. “They wanted to sort of be reminded of what an exam was like. Do you know, our lot are remarkably clever.”

“Yes, they’re all bright. What was the exam about?”

“What would you invest your money in, at a time of deep economic depression?”

“What did they say?”

Nina thought, He sounds bored, or am I imagining it?

She said, “Tilly, if I remember, would buy a horse, maybe two, and rent them out as a reliable means of transport, and economical on the basis that oats are cheaper than petrol. Lionel would buy up all the automobile spare parts he could find, and lodge them in garages. This, on the reckoning that few people could afford new cars and would depend on repairs. Mary Foot, of course, has this fixation on pottery. For some reason she claims that rural ceramics would thrive in a depression. She spelt ceramics S-A-H-R-A-M-I-X. She really needs you, Rowland. She’s left a letter for you condoling you on the death of your father. How are you feeling?”

“All right,” he said. “I was all right yesterday and the day before, after the funeral. I was thinking of my father, thinking a lot about him. His death took Chris completely off my mind. But now, I can hardly wait till I get back into my brooding environment, if you know what I mean. I know I’m obsessed with Chris, but I want my obsession. So does he.”

“I think you’re very bogged down.”

“It’s his fault. Trying to pass himself off as a creative writer, when all he’s doing is exploiting his looks and his youth.”

“It might be a thrilling book, all the same,” Nina said. “Not historically sound, of course. But not impossible, just probable. Doesn’t that fit in with what you always tell your class: You have to persuade the reader to read on?”

“My father’s death made me forget him,” Rowland said.

“That’s understandable.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. You have to see an analyst,” Nina said.

“I will if Chris will. The boy won’t leave me alone.”

“Just hang on to the end of term,” Nina said. That, in fact, was what she was trying to do, herself. She said, “Try to think about your father, about the times you spent with him.”

He said, “My father’s death was a respite.”

She thought: He needs a death. And not a word for me, not a look. No “How are you feeling, I’ve missed you.” All I, I, I and “my problem.” All I hope is that he doesn’t murder Chris, that’s all I care now.

Rowland said again, “My father’s death was a respite. Has Chris told you how much of his novel he still has to write?”

“No.”

“Have you seen any of it?”

“Only that bit at the beginning before you told him to give up the idea.”

“I shouldn’t have said that. It made him cagey, secretive.”

“Well, I suppose so.”

Here they were at the gate of College Sunrise, Rowland thinking of the state of mind he had experienced on the death of his father, but unable to recapture it.