Schooling Read online

  What job?

  Assistance. It’s come to my attention that Paul Gredville—

  Paul Gredville?

  Yes, has made certain threats, certain overtures, if you’ll excuse the pun—

  I don’t need your help.

  Oh God. One of those. Something to prove. It’s trying, it really is . . . the boy checks his clipboard . . . Let me see . . . Owen leans back, throws open the door . . . Sophie Marsden!

  Down the hall, a piano stops playing midscale.

  There’s a POD . . . warning him . . . Right down the hall, Madame Araigny—

  Sophie Marsd—

  But Sophie’s in the doorway, breathless . . . Yes, Owen.

  Tell her . . . and Owen’s up and back out the way he came, the window shuddering down behind him.

  She turns to Sophie . . . What the hell? You’re not to go out alone. Especially at night.

  13

  Alone. At night. After Prep’s sonnet debacle. Memorizing for Betts. Sad. Mortality, a fearful meditation! Or was it sad meditation! Death loop. Follyfield chapel Brinton boys’ dorms past the sunken lair of Cyclops. And then French too, the verbs, Araigny’s odd vocabulary. Provocation. Insight, what was insight. Enceinte means pregnant. Such a calamitous Prep. Inkfight in the back, a random compass stabbing. Brickie disappeared for twenty minutes and when he returned Annie said, If you’re not constipated I’ll send you to the Head. But there was no way of proving it. What strong hand can hold his swift foot back? Not Annie’s. Eyeglasses at a rake, sweating those tidy diagrams, sharpening, sharpening. Tennis courts. Out by the old swimming pool. La piscine. Or le. Was swimming pool masculine—

  YANK out of the darkness like a cat like a life lived under a bush.

  A sudden blow. Fearful mortality. She staggers. Elle stagges. It will be done, soon, yes finis.

  Bonjour. She doesn’t say that because Paul Gredville already has her by the arm beak nearly meeting around an insufficient bicep. Pulling her off the path skinny legs well who can choke down the food here the pink slabs with eyes. Yank he declares Yank he recalls Has anyone ever told you how you sound like you’re chewing a brick?

  No one had mentioned it.

  Didn’t you think I was serious when I told you what would happen. Where are you looking? Do you really think someone’s going to save you?

  No clever answer battered by the smell of his underarm pinned against the tree how the trees go there colors here among the finest chest curves the wrong way concave or convex can he smell her fear or hair washed for Chemistry does he know she has a father or what she ate for tea. Even with his arm down she can smell him worse than that day in breakfast. The night is still there is no one they took the tire dug it out from the worms and dirt held it between them before launching down into the road into the motorcycle into the man flying the man into the bushes into the grass into the hospital. And he is going to teach her some manners is what he is going to do because how would you like bacon here or here or down

  Stop it.

  Stop what?

  How could she not have realized that this is what it would be her with her stupid lab man with hands on blue lady paint a good night ki the motorcycle jerked like it was attached to string he was a helmet in his astronaut back of her head pencils jabbing her at night biting his dirty cigarette palm fingers vague head scraping as he pulls her kinetic against the trunk yelling but there is no one into a bush what kind of bush why doesn’t she know bending under her weight their mass his hands slipping under her sweater pressure of his wings against her skirt feathers and hands everywhere over layers of sweater and blazer over her fighting for air ripping kinetic spitting up at him a pathetic mist not the blinding glob she hoped for but suddenly he stops.

  Silence. Scrabbling echo held in the trees. Paul lies on his side. Puking? Crying? She backs out of the bush. He presses his face deeper into the dirt but she’s

  Fuck Brickie.

  Hurtling down the path.

  Evans.

  Her hands white enough to see by. Through the night she runs and Just one minute.

  She is one flight up the marble stairs valleyed in the center when Catrine Evans.

  Yes? . . . not turning smoothing hair yes behind ears go to hell the gesture’s her own.

  What on earth . . . his voice from outside the Duty Office under the stairs . . . Why the racket?

  Not moving . . . Racket, sir?

  You sound like an advancing army. Come down here at once.

  14

  The POD office hardly bigger than the desk it contains. Hooking her heels on the rung. Sitting on her hands. Opposite, a crack in the plaster runs into the calendar and out the other side. Like what. The Seine, a graph. Stocks are up.

  Right . . . Gilbert folds his hands . . . Mind telling me what you’ve been on the losing end of ?

  She does mind. She has a sonnet to memorize.

  Catrine.

  I tripped. I fell.

  You’re lying.

  And then he puts his arms around her lightly he touches the wings—

  Don’t lie to me . . . Gilbert taps his pen on the desk, leaning back in the chair.

  You’ll tip over.

  Perhaps you’d rather tell the Head first thing in the morning. I’m sure Mr. Stokes will be fascin—

  Keeled right over, so dark I couldn’t—

  I’m not interested in stories.

  The light fixture overhead is clogged with moths.

  Right, first thing after breakfast—

  Paul Gredville—

  Ah, the boy you threw breakfast on. He’s reappeared, has he?

  Paul is. Very patriotic. And thought spilling like that was bad manners. It wasn’t cricket to waste food. Anti-English, in fact. He shoved me into the bushes. It was nothing. A push. Then he. Ran away.

  Don’t lie to me, Catrine, I can see it was more than that. I thought we were friends.

  So That as Betts would say Is How It Will Be. The POD rooms gets very quiet. Gilbert’s chair stops squeaking his pen stops its jittering dance against the table. Even the wind settles. Really, it does.

  He tore at my clothes

  Gilbert stands up but no room to . . . Aargh . . . so sitting again . . . I’ll—

  No, no. He stopped.

  Of course. Someone appeared. Another boy? Owen Wharton? Or was it a teacher, Spenning, Devon?

  No. No one was there . . . this is the truth . . . All of a sudden he rolled over. Rolled into a ball and started. Crying.

  He didn’t hurt you?

  She shakes her head.

  Gilbert studies her . . . I don’t know whether to believe you.

  I’m fine.

  Paul Gredville is. A peculiar lad. He’s. A bad apple

  I wish he’d disappear.

  We’ll leave the Head to come up with something.

  The Head?

  Come on, I’ll drive you around to the San.

  Please don’t tell Mr. Stokes. Please.

  Gilbert picks up his coat shaking it to assure the jingle of keys. Mr. Gilbert?

  You need to get those cuts seen to.

  I saw your paintings . . . her face tight, the scratches swelling . . . The ones you hid.

  You should have something put on those scrapes . . . leading her outside.

  Why are you always trying to get rid of me.

  Come on now . . . opening her door then the back door to throw his duffel on the seat.

  Running her hand on the notsheep next to her. Last time she thought it was real.

  Slams the door he pushes back the driver’s seat then he waits. In the cold car together. She looks where he does at School House the top three floors lit classrooms below dark.

  What? . . . why does he say her name like that . . . What, Mr. Gilbert?

  You must speak to someone.

  I’m talking to you aren’t I?

  You’re not crying.

  I don’t feel like crying.

  Still staring up at the school . . . Yo
u’re stronger than you realize . . . now down at his hands ready on the steering wheel steering her . . . Some might think you older than you are.

  What does that mean?

  Hum?

  No . . . she won’t let him . . . What does that mean?

  Gilbert won’t answer. After a moment she pushes her head into his shoulder his delicious sweater the two of them like this in his woolly car looking out at the night and school this waist-embracing chemist with hidden paintings and a nearly fourteen American who smells the lab man’s warm sweater and through it feels the swallow high in his chest.

  15

  Well, that didn’t go over very well did it?

  Startled, she drops her book. It stays there, splayed unnaturally on the ground between them.

  Fancied a constitutional? Out wandering the night in the hopes of resolution? Control a Paul Gredville, that the idea? Not what I’d call the plan of a genius . . . Owen stoops for the book, hands it back . . . You don’t really think things out, do you?

  How does he know.

  Catrine Evans . . . amused . . . But I admire ambitious failure. She blinks. He’s still there. The gap between the teeth, toothpick he chews, way he brings up his hand to blow on his wrist.

  Scars. Itch sometimes. Do you find that? Scars tingle? Don’t have any.

  Ah. No scars. Interesting.

  Slowly, she reaches out. They both watch as her finger lightly grazes his arm. Leather’s cold.

  Can I help you?

  Do you even exist?

  That’s not very polite . . . Owen moves to go . . . I mean, I could ask you the same question.

  16

  Comprehension last. Madame Araigny knits through the test. The French have Noël. They love to eat Chestnuts. The word for Hubris? Maneuver? Next door, Betts teaches English, his voice sloshes through the classroom wall, a correcting tempest. Our revels, revels do you hear, now are ended. The word for Legume. These our actors, as I foretold you were all spirits. The word for Pays. Frisson is a thrill, a shudder. Are melted into air. The radiator begins to hiss. All bent in study. Questions like Where Was Your Brother Yesterday? There is only one answer, At The Football Match. Askew. Squalor. The Bertillions cluster around the Christmas tree, congratulating each other on A Joyeux Noël. Brickie pulls off his Sweater, blue. This schoolboy here has two Arms and two Legs. In the Summer he will attend the Seaside there will he find Shells, there he likes to eat Mussels. Find a Seahorse! Locate the Ocean! Describe how the smell struck us as we came down the hill toward the dock. The Bertillions notice that Papa is missing. Ou est Papa? In the basement assembling an airplane for Pierre? Sniffing glue? Troubadour. Through the wall Betts Lucy Trimball, for God’s sake, the stress never falls on NOT. Word for Could Have Taken. Conditional. The salt air used to strike us when we lived in America. Vanessa looks at the clock. Nessa will wear a pretty dress by the Christmas tree and Dance by the Fire for Mummy. Mummy loves Nessa’s pretty dress for she sewed it herself. Vanessa chews her pencap Uncle Ian will come home for Christmas back from the RAF he will Waltz there will be Chestnuts. The future of To Spend as in You will spend Christmas dinner snubbing lemon chiffon. Outside the window, a boy’s head bobs by, he’s wishing he’d been born to the Bertillions with their perfect past and isosceles Christmas tree I wanted better things for you my brother how did it come to this the drugs the wrenched ending to our football matches when did you begin with the anarchy and hair dye how stupid I was never to have noticed. The boy begins to run, late or cold. The word for Hegemony, purple and mimeographed. For Time, Licorice. Madame Araigny glances up from her knitting. Quickly back to the test, Will Spend. Desk gouged with scars, initials. A badly drawn heart. An oval with aspirations. Word for Garden, a hostage of weeds. He made toast for her. Araigny’s head comes up, the knitting goes down, Time Is Up. Fini. A wild guess at Insight. Insignes? No, failed again.

  17

  Past Shaftesbury Ave Father spins the combination with one finger tells the cabbie not to take a right can’t he see the traffic situation why shouldn’t you be educated during school holidays which was not directed at the driver. A different aspect of your education. Certainly record shops are not aspect of any education I’ve heard of. Didn’t we have a lovely supper last night didn’t I tell you the stories you love including the ever popular Hamey Eats The Bird the famous How I Did Not Marry Miranda Watson the Barrister’s Daughter for I sensed your mother lurked in the world now with all that including the first chicken I haven’t scorched along with some very nice fresh vegetables from your good self you will still insist on pressing your face against that dirty window. No offense my friend to the cab driver. Aren’t you lucky to see the finest museums in the world at such a young age.

  Drab tea in a shop around the corner from the museum. Four spoons of sugar and often fried bread, yes she has acquired a taste for it. Then up the front steps, hello to the ticket-taker. Through to the second gallery to her favorite painting. A mountain scene, two girls, their Alpine guide. On loan from America. A wattled man, the docent, has a tour group gathered in front of it.

  Sensual, self-aware, do you see . . . the guide points . . . As if the figures know they are creations. What a tense scene. Follow the gaze from child to man. And these two figures over here who point to something unseen. Our gaze lingers because we are directed to ponder mysteries.

  A man in the tour ponders the mysteries of time.

  Any questions?

  Yes there are questions, not just Sophie’s when she brought Catrine out to the fields of sleeping cows one day after English. After Betts teaching Metaphor. Do you want to sit on the cows? Sophie said. They don’t mind. Certainly there are questions. The cows turned once, slowly.

  Moving on, my sheep . . . the docent leads his group to Fruit with Fishhead.

  Sophie would just stare. You will just stare won’t you? A question. Sophie drummed her leather shoes against the cow’s massive side. Tattooed the poor cow with its own family. Said Hereford sighed.

  An ocean. Turner. Tell me Catrine, Sophie said, Catrine Catrine. Finally she answered, It’s like. But then stopped, stumped for analogy. The cow’s ears cut her view into three pieces. Indescribable. That’s no answer, Sophie shook her head slowly saying in rhythm to her heels against the cowside. No answer at all. Which was true enough.

  Here’s a painting children love.

  A farm, haystacks. In the week before Christmas, Father took her roaming. Scouring the countryside for a house halfway between Chittock Leigh and London. The scenes were identical, eager owner restraining a retriever, issuing practiced belches of delight at the pargeting or stained glass, relating the exciting history of Catholics hidden in the larder. O ye ancient trellis, thy comely mantel. In London they were still eating off a table mapped with the Bosporus, the Nile or whichever geography Father wanted over supper that night, his chicken, her vegetables, their rivers. The brick wall her bedroom gave aspect on was undoubtedly the Great Wall of China or a metaphor. Father had never gone to university so all cracks are rivers to be learned and every cumulus holds a continent.

  One night, a pub. Two eaved rooms, a toilet down the hall. They left their bags, the night was thick with fog or was it rain, symbolic weather of some kind. Went downstairs for stew. The bartender’s wife set down two plates, then went back to leaning against the bar, watching as they picked around gristle, carefully extracting half-done potatoes. Father saying Be Discreet for Heaven’s Sake with his napkin at his lips. When the woman came for their plates, he asked about the town, the environs, the house down the hill. Behind him, two darts players laughed at Father’s accent. Or were they laughing from the game, yes, one had nearly pierced his mate’s nose with an errant dart.

  She went up for her shandy, his Guinness, gauging the brims not to spill on the way back through the crowd. Knowing Father watched. She was no omniscient, but she knew what he was thinking. She sat down, wiped her hands. Picked up a beermat to examine the image of a milkmaid. The town clock tolled
eight, nine. They were strangers. Father drew an X in the foam to see if his beer was well drawn. You used to like to do that, he said, draw an X for me. She waited. She watched a man in a rugby shirt try to fix his glasses.

  You seem all grown up to me . . . Father looked where she did, at the man . . . In only ten weeks.

  I’m the same.

  You’ve gotten so quiet.

  I’m the same.

  Rabbiting away, a great flood of details. In the old days. Couldn’t stop you. What are you saving up for?

  Nothing, Father please.

  We’ll tell our Monstead stories. How about when Treat bolted for Corby looking for adventure. Or, day before Annual Dinner when your Mr. Stokes stole a Christmas pudding from the kitchens. Then there was Peterson who swung through a hatch on a rope that couldn’t support his weight. Ended up, all the boys thought me an idiot.

  When it was her turn she made up a story about Brickie’s mother putting her head in the oven which was supposed to be funny but turned out squalid. Afterwards, in the boxy room upstairs, she listened to the darts players who would not be quelled at half-past but bullied the owner until nearly one.

  Oh, you’re remembering it all wrong, the guide glares. For God’s sake, it was never like that.

  Why, Father, was another question driving to the final houses on Christmas Eve. Called away from mince pies, the owners guarded their doorways, refusing anecdotes. Why, she asked again on the way to the restaurant, Father, if we have the money, can’t we go back?

  They arrived.

  Back to America, Father?

  Abstraction can increase impact . . . the guide presents a scene . . . Though one mustn’t see abstraction where there is in fact flesh.

  A restaurant for Christmas dinner, distorted, abstract. A Savoy or An Emerald. Lost gentility of some kind. Where the lamplight was orange, silver burnished. Unevenly, the strings struck up ’Tis the Season and when the prawns arrived, went Dashing Through the Snow. Sunk low in the red leather banquette, lemon chiffon uneaten before her, she watched elderly couples glide across the parquet. Dances with diagrams. Father ordered port and after a few sips, spirited a bewigged woman around the floor. The apologetic husband tripped on his shoes, she averred discreetly from the man’s breath. After a polite while, she excused herself for a powder, leaving Father to foxtrot or jitterbug or lindy.