Schooling Page 2

They built this dirty hole when my brother was here . . . Sophie kneels down on the other side of the pond . . . People are always falling in trying to jump across.

  It seems pretty wide to jump over.

  Catrine . . . Sophie folds the hem of her skirt under, watching her fingers do it . . . Someone told me your mother’s dead.

  Is she?

  Raking the dirt for flatter stones . . . You laughed at me in Chemistry.

  What? Oh, it wasn’t at you particularly. Gilbert’s like that to everyone, you’ll laugh when he does it to someone else.

  Really? . . . he’s like that taking in Sophie’s earnest knees fingers to everyone worrying skirt boyish hair . . . To everyone?

  At some point.

  Another unrooted stone not flat enough to skip . . . I didn’t realize. Don’t take it personally.

  I don’t . . . fingering off dirt off the stone.

  Catrine.

  Easter. She died last Easter.

  Here I’ve found you flat ones.

  You skip them.

  I’m hopeless.

  Hold it like this, like pinching . . . like a waist held between thumb and forefinger.

  What did Brickie—

  Why do you think he doesn’t like anyone?

  I’ve never thought about it . . . Sophie searches for stones . . . He just doesn’t.

  Out the back gate lanes switch down around the school fields. One leads to town the town where Brickie lent her money for a comb to straighten her hair for Chemistry for Gilbert for nothing. What are the names of these English plants in lanes banked by hedges hugging the neighboring farms and fields. Littered with horse droppings the frozen ruts trip them as they concentrate on where they are going which is nowhere. Sophie’s hands are big as a man’s big as Brickie’s father’s and as she talks she chops the air.

  Boys from town pass yelling NUNS for their grey uniforms but whistling at them all the same. In one field grazing cows black and white like the watch shop where Brickie—what was it he had on her?

  You seem to do as you’re told . . . Sophie pulls her down a hidden path . . . I’d never have thought you’d miss Tea.

  I’ve skipped school before . . . and rolled a tire into traffic slinging a motorcycle . . . I’m not so good . . . a sudden red bird from the trees what kind why doesn’t she know the names of birds . . . Isn’t it funny that you thought that about me . . . watching the bird fly the man fly . . . That I was some kind of girl you thought you knew but you don’t at all.

  You probably think you know things about me. That I’m a certain type.

  I think you’re alright. You ask a lot of questions.

  Do I?

  See.

  Well, you don’t ask any at all.

  The light cold and orange edges down like it did that day she and Brickie were in the Chemist’s when he put on makeup and was rude to the woman. Behind a dairy covered with vines beyond the millhouse and a thatched barn past pencils of silos they ramble on with no ideas of destination only the idea that they should not return. Not straight-away. Sophie knows how to sneak into school. They will be alright.

  6

  The question remains must we all be forced to bear the shenanigans of a few idiotic pranksters . . . Mr. Betts strides the room, turning abruptly on his heel . . . Upon my arrival here this morning I found that someone had left a message for the Head Man informing him I was on my deathbed and would not be teaching 3X’s English lesson. Imagine my surprise . . . head to one side . . . To discover I was ill. Can you imagine, and your imagination will be tested this term, that one of your classmates might not be as inclined as the rest of you to study literature . . . another pause for their imaginations to chew on that horror . . . No, 3X, I am afraid this is not how it is to be. We will have our sonnets, we will have our Yeats our Leda our Hamlet with all attendant ghosts and killings and girls got up as boys. What we will not have is pranks or bad manners. So.

  Sophie glances back at her. A sly wink.

  Five sides each on the matter of poetry . . . Betts holds up a hand against their pain . . . Unless of course, our comedian steps forward.

  The shifting stops. She shoves Sophie’s chairback. Weakly jointed, it slants into a rhombus.

  Well?

  A kick at Sophie’s seat. Nothing. Another kick. Useless. Sophie will not confess.

  So that is how it will be. I’ll expect your essays next week. Choose your poison, Yeats, Shakespeare . . . Betts picks up a book.

  Low unhappy mutter from the stalls.

  Well, what am I to do. Brickman?

  It wasn’t me, sir.

  Methinks he doth— . . . Betts interrupts himself . . . I haven’t accused you of anything, son. It’s your recitation I’m after . . . motioning with a ruler . . . Up up.

  Brickie stands. A baroque throat-clearing, then . . . I felt a funeralinmybrainandmourners—

  Hold on, Mr. Sack of Potatoes . . . Betts waggles the ruler . . . Shoulders back, head high. Begin again. And when you speak of horses, convince us. You must see them printing their proud hoofs—

  But I wasn’t, sir. Speaking of horses.

  Brickman . . . Betts struggles to compose . . . The sign of mediocrity is a bending towards the literal.

  Brickie overthinks that.

  Now, continue. I Felt A Funeral.

  7

  Midnight maybe at least a few hours since Lights Out. What has she woken to mourners the stories of hauntings white lady headless man breathing of the other eight a grunt here Mareka Holland talks in sleep the nine beds the blue bobbled bedspread pulled up so cold she wears wool socks hat beginning of November what awakened her? Moonlight through a slice in the curtains the windows reach up to the ceiling. What’s the book where a girl hides behind a curtain on a wide sill. Weary night. Pull your head under the covers to get it hot with breathing. Alone now. Not like in Maine because there was always Isabelle but there was never herself so much as here.

  Sophie.

  Face deep in her pillow blankets tossed hands folded under stomach Sophie shifts.

  Wake up . . . kneeling next to the bed, working out a shoe wedged under her knee.

  What are you doing? . . . Sophie quickly awake.

  Shh.

  Go back to bed, Catrine.

  I have a question.

  You’ll get caught.

  Can we go somewhere.

  Tell me here what is it.

  I’m freezing.

  Get in.

  In your bed?

  Yes. What is it?

  I saw something.

  A ghost? You saw the—

  Something, a shape.

  Your mother?

  No.

  What then?

  A ghost of me or something.

  Did it have a head? It was the white lady, the—

  No. Shove over.

  Sophie tries to give her room under a fat duvet brought from Hampstead not school blankets stitched in red 1922.

  Remember I was telling you about my friend in America my friend Isabelle?

  Go on.

  Once we skipped school . . . they had why had they had it been her idea she remembers it as her idea but maybe it was Isabelle now it seems more like something Isabelle would dream up but she was sure somewhere that it had been her idea . . . And took a bus to a different town any town it didn’t matter we wanted to get out . . . with just enough room in the bed that she can lie on her back dropping off the edge a bit and Sophie can lie on her side watching her as she stares straight up at what would be the ceiling if there were light enough to see it . . . We walked up this road . . . curved like an ear . . . It was curved like an ear we walked into the woods and we talked but as we were leaving we found a tire . . . details . . . A grisly tire lodged in the dirt . . . Sophie waits for her to tell it . . . We dug it out. We could see the road down below us.

  You pushed it down the hill.

  We rolled it into the traffic and we knocked a man off his motorcycle.

  Is he
dead?

  He could be . . . it’s close and they can smell each other’s breathing . . . I don’t know.

  You killed him.

  Don’t tell.

  A man.

  They will never speak of it again.

  A man . . . Sophie’s eyes can seem so big . . . It’s his ghost you’re seeing.

  I told you. It’s mine.

  8

  So. Dropped in the middle of a boarding school plot. Pacing the sidelines of a football match. Monstead versus. Who. Something Saxon. Hamping or Felixston. Rounded up to cheer on the fearless Monstead players. Pasty-legged warriors. Pacing one way she passes Simon Puck nose ableed Brickie helping Tilt your head back Spenning and Mr. Betts in intellectual collaboration Devon of Art charcoaling ghastly trees Sophie frowning at the boys What’s wrong with them confused Why are they running like that Vanessa hypothesizing I suppose they want to win Siobhan wincing Thinking about it makes my lungs hurt and across the pitch Gilbert applauding the save wreathed by fifth form girls Fi Hammond and the weird sisters. Pacing back she passes Siobhan braiding plaiting Nessa’s hair Some stupid saturday this is Sophie shouting You always look so cold catrine Devon’s trees resemble skeletons unrapt Spenning listening to Betts declare How I loathe mimetic renderings of natural interrupting Oh that’s good himself Pardon to scribble the wisdom in his blue notebook Spenning nodding ignoring calling Well passed, Haynes Simon throwing his arms GOAL in the air forcing a new red trickle from his nose Brickie shoving Puck Go to the San, Simon Gilbert sending a wave before she looks away here’s Cyclops striding by to survey the troops Settling are you? Yes this is settling Cyclops disappears Brickie’s arrived and together they pass Devon dabbling in unlifelike landscapes relating to Betts Well, the grape got him gossip à deux Betts sagely informing A man will burn himself in the same place over and over. Brickie snorts at that. She stops. They face off. A glare, not without mystery. Behind him, deep in field, Paul Gredville stops to watch them speak. She turns to Brickie, They say you don’t like anyone. Is that true. Brickie smiles or could it be the shift of light. Abruptly he mimes smoking a cigarette, grabs Siobhan and disappears.

  9

  Monday at breakfast Paul in his tight grey leaning down to her . . . Brickie left me in town with glue stuck everywhere. Said he had something to tell you . . . tipping his plate his boiled tomato slipping around the bacon . . . What was it? . . . grease leaking from his fried bread and eggs . . . What did he say . . . so close and even at this time in the morning smelling of cigarettes . . . You’ll tell me what it was.

  Why would I?

  Everyone does.

  Doesn’t mean I will.

  Oh yes . . . the plate right under her nose all she can bear is toast and . . . You will . . . cups from the pitchers of tea and coffee they put out alternating . . . Oh yes . . . tea coffee tea coffee . . . You will . . . snarling sixteen at least if not seventeen Paul the smell of his grease tomatoes curdling her stomach . . . Yank.

  Before she has thought not a good idea in fact a particularly bad idea she is up to escape the rancid smell but is instead tipping his rank plate eggs tomatoes down Paul bacon down his tight cigarette fried bread saturating his chest hearing as she runs the SMASH of plate his bearish roar the gasps the laughs the trouble she’s in.

  Out across the cricket field Do Not Step On the Pitch flying to the back lane howzat through the trees the shrubbery and out lurching on the furrowed earth. The clear air sings in her ears as she runs scrambling Paul will kill her he must be at least seventeen and no one can protect her from that. How should she know why Brickie stares his pretty mouth black bastard hair why did they act like she should know when she couldn’t even tell them what he had on her. Tearing from the dining hall she saw Sophie turn from Vanessa turn with surprise that said she probably couldn’t save her from this oh half a bed half a night under a duvet but no protection not from a sixteen-year-old.

  The cold air hurts her chest. Walking down a different lane now, one to take her away from school. They will call Father in London to tell him she has flown. Gone, sir, she’s gone. The teachers won’t know why not even Gilbert. Gilbert who apparently shows the same attention to all of them even gobstruck old Siobhan in her too-small smock.

  Isabelle would know what to do. Whose idea had it been to roll the tire, she couldn’t remember. Isabelle would protect her from Paul.

  As she walks, the morning sun a cold ball above, grass at her feet stung with white, the world seems to curl up and away.

  Leave the lane for the road to town to find a park or shop. Make friends with the fishmonger, a woman stunk with cats. Forget sleeping nine to a room, Father would find her. I expected more but I was wrong to. A car passes then slows. After all, I was nine when I went. Brake lights redden. It was eight years before I saw my father and then a world war between us. Up ahead, the car pulls to the side. Men kill girls, Isabelle once said. Everyone knows that.

  Crashing back into the lane away from killers prying through a hedge faster heart thumping madly for the second time today. Then she hears him. That dry almost high voice EVANS, hears him where the lane meets the road muttering, Oh my shoes were not made for this.

  Damn. She goes around the hedge this time.

  Raising his eyes from his shoes, What in heaven as she picks leaves from her sweater not smiling pointing at his head, Twigs in your hair still not smiling as she pulls them out asking about, A particular dislike for Monday’s lessons as she’s straightening her skirt and adjusting her stockings aware he watches the adjusting.

  Or are you running away?

  Just running.

  Well . . . smiling so she’ll know he doesn’t pay that kind of attention to the whole class know that he wouldn’t watch the adjustment of just anyone’s stockings . . . Come on I’ll run you back.

  Where were you going?

  Home. Been up all weekend making sure one of you lot doesn’t burn down the assembly hall. Difficult to believe, but I do in fact have a home . . . he falters . . . I didn’t mean anything by that, I was trying to be funny. I meant that I spend so much time at Monstead.

  Too much. I mean I do—I feel like I spend too much time there.

  Doesn’t your family come to take you out? . . . opening the car door for her . . . Or are they in America?

  No. Neither . . . inside the car warm the seats covered with cream wool . . . Is this from a sheep?

  It’s fake . . . revolving the key.

  Wait. Mr. Gilbert . . . a hand nearly on his to stop it at the crest of the wheel . . . I’m in trouble.

  He looks at her hand then her.

  She takes away her hand but puts a plea in her eyes not too much not too dramatic but just enough just enough to say your jokes the class laughing a cup of tea not back to school not yet an hour or even half just a small favor.

  What trouble he pulls the wheel in the opposite direction of school what sort of trouble is it that has you up and running in the wild. Well Mr. Gilbert she reports smoothing her skirt nicely Have you heard of this boy Gredville in the Fifth this devourer of rodents a night creature well it seems that this dark spirit is out for my head.

  Tell me what the trouble is, Catrine.

  Turning into a driveway hidden from the road by hedges and a yew. Not what she would have imagined. If she had. A small lopsided house. Covered with ivy.

  It’s rotting the structure, the roots get in and undermine the mortar, still I do love it . . . his wild mess of a garden not the usual careful English . . . When I have the time I’ll get round to weeding . . . leading her through as he untoggles his duffel, into the heavy-beamed sitting room.

  Newspapers tented on the table cups a plate with crusts and jam dark paintings of streets. Books everywhere. On table speakers chairs yes on shelves but piled in corners and under the windows.

  I should telephone the headmaster, Catrine or they’ll have the hounds out.

  He’ll make you bring me back.

  Perhaps that’s the right thing
, hum? Oh God . . . Gilbert takes a sheet of newspaper kneels twisting sections placing one by one in the fireplace . . . I don’t know. I’m not used to these situations. I’m a Chemistry master not some sort of psychologist. I should take you back, you must speak to Miss Maggone about unpleasantness. She has experience in those matters.

  Maggone hates Americans.

  I’m sure that’s not true . . . Gilbert removes books from a stack of wood selects two logs replaces the books logs go in the fire . . . Actually that probably is true.

  Do you . . . in the chair removing a book Tropisms from under her . . . Hate Americans, Mr. Gilbert?

  I don’t have anything against Americans . . . standing up peering into a Toby mug on the mantel then a small box finding matches behind a framed photograph . . . When I mimicked you that time, I was trying to amuse myself, the class . . . kneeling again striking a match . . . Sometimes my jokes aren’t so funny, I realize that.

  Yes crossing her legs then uncrossing finally settling on crossed . . . What city is that?

  Pitiful attempt at Amsterdam . . . worrying the flames blowing lifting a corner of newspaper . . . Trip I took a year ago. Paintings don’t do it justice.

  The fire lit, the room seems to darken as if the light has been sucked up by the fire, as though the light were O2.

  My mother would have liked those.

  Would have?

  She died . . . turning to the window because it really does seem darker outside.

  Gilbert pauses . . . I’m sorry . . . then continues fussing at the fire.

  She liked dark paintings . . . back again . . . She called them democratic.

  Democratic, did she.

  Why is he puffing away at the fire when he could sit? She has removed the foliage from her hair she should be in a class, English or . . . Do you still paint, Mr. Gilbert?

  You sound so sad . . . finally leaving the fire crossing to sit on the sofa across from her with his scar . . . Surely they’re not that awful. I paint on weekends sometimes when I’m not on duty.

  Paint what?