Love Lessons (15 page)

When I opened them Toby's face was alarmingly close to mine, making me start. His eyes were half-closed, his lips puckered, almost as if he was about to kiss me.

I moved sideways sharply.

‘Hey, don't run away,' he said. He reached out for me but I ducked away.

‘Prue, come on. I'm just trying to be friendly.'

‘Yeah. And what would Rita have to say about that?'

‘Rita doesn't own me. Sometimes I wonder what I ever saw in her.'

‘Oh come on, she's the prettiest girl in the class.'

‘You're prettier than she is. Listen, I've been thinking. You're not so great at maths and IT, right?'

‘That's putting it mildly.'

‘Well, I'm a whiz at it, honest. It's just I'm rubbish at reading.'

‘What, you don't like it?'

‘I can't
do
it,' said Toby, shuffling. ‘It's not that I'm
thick
. I'm severely dyslexic – that's what they say.'

‘You mean you can't read at all?' I said, wondering how he could bear a world where books were meaningless.

‘Yeah, I can
read
,' he said, flushing. ‘I know all the words and stuff, it's just that I get them all mixed up. Plus at my old school they used to make fun of me, so I just stopped trying and messed around.
Anyway
, what I was thinking, you're obviously the hotshot at English. You talk like you've swallowed the dictionary and you can run rings round Mrs Godfrey, so how about you giving me a bit of extra coaching? Then I can help you with maths and IT in return. OK?'

‘I don't know.' I stubbed out my cigarette, thinking about it. ‘When would we do this coaching?'

‘We could get together at lunch time.'

‘Oh yes, Rita will be thrilled.'

‘I told you, Rita doesn't own me. I'm sick of her telling me what to do.' He was obviously worrying about it all the same. ‘Tell you what!' he said, smiling. ‘We could go round each other's houses once or twice a week. What are you doing tonight after school?'

‘I've got to go and visit my dad in hospital.'

‘Well, tomorrow then. Friday?'

‘Not Friday. I definitely can't make Friday.'

‘Why? What are you doing then? Seeing your boyfriend?'

‘I
said
, I don't have one. No, I'm babysitting.'

‘Oh, right.' He didn't pursue it. He offered me another cigarette. I refused, feeling dizzy enough with just one. He edged up close again, so I started walking away smartly.

‘Hey, come back. You can't just stalk off like that – someone will see you're not in class.'

‘I don't care.'

‘You really don't, do you?' he said. ‘You're so different from all the other girls, Prue.'

‘I wish I wasn't.'

‘Are they giving you a hard time?' he asked. ‘You come and tell me if they get at you too much. I'll sort them out for you.'

‘Yeah, they'll relish that,' I said sarcastically.

‘So, when are we going to get it together for these coaching sessions?'

‘Sometime,' I said. I wouldn't commit myself any more.

‘And are you going to give me a kiss sometime soon?' he asked.

‘This year, next year,
sometime
 . . . or maybe never,' I said, running off.

He ran after me, trying to grab hold of my hand, but I kept snatching it away. We must have run past Grace's class because she was all agog when we went home from school.

‘You were holding hands with Toby Baker!' she said.

‘How do you know Toby Baker?'

‘
Everyone
knows him. Iggy and Figgy think he's dead cool.'

‘Well, they're easily impressed. And I wasn't holding hands with him. I wouldn't.'

‘
I
would,' said Grace. ‘He's just, like, drop-dead gorgeous.'

I sighed at her. ‘Shut up! You sound so vacant. You don't really think that at all – you don't like boys any more than I do. You're just saying stuff to impress Iggy and Figgy but they're not here, right, it's just you and me, so stop
pretending
.'

Grace blinked at me, looking wounded. ‘I thought you were all in
favour
of pretending,' she said. ‘Why do you have to be so horrid about Iggy and Figgy, they're my
friends
. I'm not talking to you now, see!'

I laughed at her. I knew Grace couldn't keep quiet for more than five minutes. Only
one
minute later she said, ‘What were you doing with Toby Baker anyway? Is he your boyfriend?'

‘No. Though I think he'd like it if he was. He kept pestering me,' I said.

I wasn't interested in Toby, but I couldn't help enjoying the fact that he liked me, especially as so many girls seemed crazy about him. I knew he was the golden boy of our class, but I hadn't realized he was an icon throughout the school, with worshippers as small and silly as Iggy and Figgy.

‘I wish you would go out with him. Iggy and Figgy would be seriously impressed if they knew Toby Baker was going out with my sister. Then you could invite him round to tea and I could invite them and they could actually meet him.'

‘He wants to come round to our place so we can help each other with stuff.'

‘Oh Prue!' Grace started skipping, her pink panda dress wafting alarmingly high up her large legs.

‘For heaven's sake, Grace, stop acting like a toddler.'

‘Don't be mean again.'

‘Well, don't be so babyish. And there's no need to get excited anyway – I'm not having him round.'

‘Oh!'

‘Can you just imagine it, with Mum flapping round and asking him all sorts?'

‘Yes, I suppose. And Dad would go bonkers if he found out you had a boyfriend.'

‘Dad
is
bonkers now,' I said, sighing.

I didn't really mean it. I knew my father wasn't intellectually impaired. But he couldn't help sounding weird as he parroted key words and phrases after me. He sounded demented whenever he threw a tantrum and repeated the same swearword over and over again, like a satanic version of a Buddhist chant.

He was in a foul mood that night because the physiotherapist had made him wear someone else's shorts for his exercise session. Dad was outraged, utterly refusing to cooperate, hissing with rage whenever he looked down at his sad, skinny legs. He'd always loathed shorts on anyone, male or female. Grace and I weren't even allowed to wear them as little girls.

Mum helped him into his pyjamas while we lurked outside his room, but Dad stayed infuriated, even decently covered in his blue and white stripes. He kept pointing at the baggy black shorts hanging from the end of his bed. He acted as if a giant black bat was flapping from his bedpost.

‘Yes, Dad. Shorts,' I said meanly. ‘Say the word “shorts”.'

Dad said a much more graphic word.

‘They just want to help you, Bernard,' Mum said. ‘The physiotherapist says she's sure you could get the use of your leg back if you'd just try to co-operate.'

‘I know you don't like doing the exercises, Dad, but they're good for you,' I said.

‘I hate exercises too. PE's my worst thing at school,' said Grace.

There was a sudden silence. Grace sat very still, her eyes bulging as she realized what she'd said. Mum looked agonized. Dad shook his head irritably.

‘What?' he said. ‘What?
What
?'

‘She said she hated exercise, dear. So do I. Now, where's the girl gone with the tea trolley? Isn't it time you had a nice cup of tea?'

Dad looked at her scornfully. He could see through her diversionary tactics in two seconds. He turned to me. ‘What?' he repeated.

‘Grace and I have started a school game, Dad,' I said. ‘We're teaching each other, setting each other tasks, as you're ill and can't do it for us just at the moment. The rule is, we have to do absolutely everything the other one asks. So I get a bit mean to poor Gracie sometimes, and make her do all these exercises for PE.'

Dad's eyes were narrowed. I stared innocently back at him. Then he suddenly started laughing, wheezing away as if he was about to break in two.

‘
More
PE. More more more. Grace fat!'

I forced myself to laugh too. Mum laughed. Grace laughed the loudest.

It was OK. We'd got away with it.

I walked along Laurel Grove, peering at all the neat 1930s houses. I looked at the bay trees in ornamental blue pots outside front doors, the carriage lamps, the pebbles and spiky plants in mock Japanese gardens. I couldn't imagine Mr Raxberry living there. Surely anyone with an earring and artistic tendencies would be considered deeply suspect?

I checked the address, written in his own lovely italic writing on the back of my school jotter in my bag, though I knew I'd got it right. My bag was full of things to do: my sketchpad and crayons, patchwork, two novels and an old shop copy of Penelope Leach's baby book in case of emergencies.

Number 28, 30, 32 – and there was number 34 Laurel Grove. At first glance it didn't look any different from the other houses in the road, a black and white semi-detached house with a sloping roof and a green front door. At
second
glance, as I walked up the garden path, it stayed an ordinary, slightly shabby house with an abandoned Thomas the Tank Engine shunted into a cotoneaster bush and muddy frog wellingtons lolling on the porch. Mr Raxberry didn't belong here. He should be living in an urban warehouse flat, large and airy and white, with huge canvases on the wall and a large easel in the centre of the room. I saw him there, painting, his face tense with concentration, his earring catching the sunlight. I was sitting on a black leather sofa, talking to him while he painted my portrait.
That's
the way it should be.

I rang the doorbell and waited. I could see into the living room, glimpse the cream canvas chairs and the beige sofa and the bleak square shelving. I
must
have come to the wrong address.

Then the door opened. There was Mr Raxberry in black jeans, soft blue shirt and bare feet, but he was holding a baby, a little girl with tufty black hair and a cross expression. She was wearing a small navy jumper and nothing else. Her little pink bottom perched neatly on Mr Raxberry's hand.

‘Hi, Prue. Sorry, we're in the middle of a nappy change, aren't we, Lily?'

Lily grizzled irritably. I held out my hand to her uncertainly and she reared away from me, butting her head against Mr Raxberry's shoulder. She started crying in earnest.

‘Take no notice, she's tired,' said Mr Raxberry. ‘Come in, come in.'

I stepped into the hall and followed him towards the beige living room. The carpet was strewn with wooden blocks and wax crayons and limp teddy bears.

‘Sorry! We'll get cleared up in a jiffy. I'll just shove a nappy on Lily. Marianne's upstairs giving Harry his bath. She'll be down in a minute. Would you like a coffee or a Coke or something? And I'd better show you how the television works.' He said all this boring ordinary stuff, the baby still balanced in his hand, but his eyes were looking at me.
They
were saying, ‘Hark at me, bleating all this suburban daddy stuff. What am I
like
?'

‘It's OK,' I said. ‘I'll clear up the living room if you want to go and do the baby.' I wondered if I ought to fix the nappy myself but I didn't want him to see me struggling, doubtless snapping the wrong bits together.

He smiled at me gratefully and went upstairs with his grizzly little girl. I got down on my hands and knees and started gathering toys. The carpet was a bit gritty and could have done with a good going over with a hoover. Mum would have been ashamed to have a visitor see her house in such a state. Maybe Mrs Raxberry simply couldn't be bothered? I imagined her sprawling on the sofa, stuffing chocolates and watching television while the baby wailed and the little boy created havoc.

Why would Mr Raxberry want a wife like that? Why didn't he want a wife who was artistic and creative? He was so chic and stylish himself. Why not go for a complementary partner?

Mrs Raxberry came into the room at that moment. I stared at her, startled. I'd been imagining her as this great wobbly jelly woman when she was just an ordinary fair-haired mum, thinner now than the photo in his wallet, though the woollen dress she was wearing was clinging a little too closely.

‘Hello! You must be Prudence. I'm Marianne. Oh God, I'm sorry, let me do that. I meant to get everything cleared up before you came but it's just been one of those days, and the kids have been driving me crazy.'