Love Lessons (23 page)

‘I think you're looking sad.
Please
don't be sad, Rax. Be happy.
I'm
happy, the happiest I've ever been in my whole life. I never dreamed I could feel like this. I've read all sorts of books, I've pretended stuff, but I had no idea it would feel so wonderful.'

‘Oh Prue. Come here.' He pulled me nearer, his arms right round me, holding me tight, my head on his chest. I was stretched sideways, bits of the car sticking into my waist and hip and leg, but I'd have happily let someone saw right through me just to stay in his arms. He very gently kissed the top of my head, nuzzling into my hair.

‘It's starting to escape from the topknot already,' he said. ‘Ouch, there's a hairpin! Do you mind if I take the pins out and let it hang free again? Your new hairstyle's very sophisticated, but I like it better the old way.'

I shook it free at once, combing it with my hands. Rax played with it too, winding strands round his fingers.

‘I love your hair,' he said.

‘It's
horrible
! I wish I had straight silky hair.'

‘Your hair's like you.'

‘Yes, wild and mad and untidy.'

‘OK, wild, but also springy and full of life. And utterly uncontrollable. What am I going to do with you, Prue? What are we going to do?'

‘I know,' I said. ‘We're going to start driving and keep on driving, all through the night, until we get somewhere we've never been before, where no one knows us, and we'll start our new life together, Prue and Rax. We'll find some old cottage or beach shack, we'll live very frugally on bread and cheese – maybe chips! – and you won't go to work and I won't go to school. We'll paint all day. You'll teach me lots of things. We'll go for long walks hand in hand and in the evenings we'll curl up together and then we'll read. Maybe you'll read to me – would you like that?'

‘I'd like that. I'd like all of it,' said Rax. ‘If only!'

‘Let's make a wish that it will come true some day,' I said. I reached up and pulled out one of my spiralling hairs.

‘What are you doing?'

I found his left hand and wrapped my hair round and round his ring finger. ‘There! That means that
one
day you'll be mine. I'm wishing it. You wish it too, Rax. Come on, close your eyes and
wish
.'

‘Sometimes you're more like four than fourteen,' said Rax. But then he went quiet, holding onto his own hand. I knew he was wishing too.

‘OK. That's the future taken care of,' he said. ‘But we're still in the present now. I've got two little children and a sick wife at home. If she wakes up she'll be wondering what the hell has happened to me.
I'm
wondering. Maybe I've gone crazy. Come on, let's get you back home again.'

‘It's still quite early. We could stay another half hour, easily.'

‘No, it's time to go, Prue,' he said, gently pushing me back into my seat.

We drove off down the lane.

‘We
could
drive up to Scotland, down to Cornwall, across to Wales—' I said.

‘We could. But we're not going to. We're going to take you straight back home, OK?'

‘
This
time.'

‘This time,' Rax said.

‘But
one
day—'

‘Yes, one day,' he repeated wearily.

‘Are you just humouring me?' I asked.

‘Yes. And humouring myself too.'

‘We'll work it all out, Rax, you'll see. I swear I won't make things difficult for you at school. I'll be the total soul of discretion. Don't laugh at me, I
will
. I'll do whatever you say, I promise, just so long as I can still see you in secret just a little bit.'

I went on burbling, fearful now because Rax had gone so quiet. But when we came to my street he parked a little way up the road, glanced round quickly and then gave me one last long wondrous kiss.

‘Out you get, right now, or I really will drive off with you,' he said.

‘Then I'm staying!'

‘Prue. Please. Go now.'

‘One more kiss?'

‘What happened to your doing whatever I say?'

‘OK, OK. Goodnight, darling Rax. See you at school.'

‘Ssh! Yes, right. Off you go now, there's a good girl. No hanging about or waving or blowing kisses, OK?'

I got out of the car and walked obediently to the shop door without even turning round. I unlocked the door and stepped inside, into the stale, musty world of sad old books that no one wanted to read any more.

Mum was upstairs in the kitchen with all our bank statements and bills spread all over the table.

‘Oh Mum, put them
away
. They'll just stop you sleeping,' I said.

Mum looked at me, red-eyed. ‘I'm not sleeping whether I look at them or not,' she said. She paused, glancing at some of the crumpled bills.

‘I had no idea,' she said. ‘I can't work out your dad's system. I know I don't have a head for business but even I can see you need to pay your bills, you can't just let them
slide
.'

I didn't want to slide down this familiar dreary slope with Mum. I wanted to stay soaring above the stars with Rax.

‘I tried to tackle your dad about it, but he was in one of his moods. He really doesn't like it when you're babysitting, Prudence. I think it worries him. Well, it worries
me
, dear. It's too much responsibility for a girl your age.'

‘Mum,
please
. Look, I'm tired, I'm going to bed.'

Grace was waiting for me too, asking endless questions. I took no notice, humming under my breath as I got ready for bed.

‘Do you really love Rax?' she asked. ‘You
do
? You are weird, Prue. What's the point? I mean, obviously he doesn't love you.'

‘How do you know?' I said, before I could stop myself.

‘He's married, he's got children!' said Grace.

‘I know. But that doesn't stop you falling in love if the right person comes along.'

‘You are so nuts!' said Grace. Then she paused. ‘You don't
mean
it, do you? Prue, has he said anything? Has he told you stuff? Has he kissed you?' She started spluttering with laughter, lying back on her bed and drumming her legs in idiotic fashion.

‘Stop it!' I said. ‘Stop being so ridiculous!'

‘Imagine kissing
Rax
!' Grace chortled. ‘Oh yuck yuck yuck! That stupid beard mustn't half scratch and tickle!'

‘Just shut
up
, you fat lump. I don't know why you find it so funny. No one's ever going to want to kiss
you
. You're pathetic.'

Grace stopped, as if I'd thrown a bucket of water over her. ‘You're the one who's pathetic,' she said. ‘You're the one everyone laughs about at school. You're the one who gets a stupid crush on a manky old teacher. You're the one who pretends all sorts of stupid stuff, making out you're having this big grown-up affair when all the time I bet he's just feeling sorry for you!'

I flew at her, putting my hand over her mouth to stop her saying it. She struggled and then bit my fingers hard. I slapped her; she pulled my hair. I tried to bang her head, she kicked at me, and then we rolled off the bed with a thump.

‘Girls, girls! Whatever's happening!' Mum shouted, rushing in.

We were still kicking and slapping there on the floor.

‘Just you
stop
that, both of you! What are you playing at? Have you both gone demented? I need you to be grown-up sensible girls, yet here you are behaving appallingly! It's that school, isn't it? You've only been there five minutes and yet you've both changed so dreadfully. You talk so badly now, Grace, and you just giggle giggle giggle with those friends of yours on the phone. As for you, Prudence, you've become so wilful, doing exactly as you please, and you go out of here painted like a street girl. I can't bear it! I wish your father was here. Oh dear God, why can't he hurry up and get better and come
home
?'

I wouldn't make friends with Grace. I wouldn't even talk to Mum properly, but I did mind the shop for her on Saturday morning while she went to Tesco. For a long time we had no customers whatsoever. I roamed round and round the shelves, picking up odd volumes here and there, sifting one pile of books and shunting others into corners.

Dad had always had his own idiosyncratic display system. He divided his stock into categories – fiction, biography, art, general paperbacks, juvenile, etc. – but his cheap shelving wasn't flexible, so large art books and children's picture books were over on the big shelves near his desk and little Everymans were crammed willy-nilly into odd corners. For years now newly-bought stock had simply been stuffed wherever he could find a space.

There was a special locking cabinet of supposedly precious books but he'd lost the key long ago and so he'd had to jemmy the door open. We were supposed to sit at the desk in front of the cabinet, on guard, but this was pointless. No serious collector wanted Dad's precious books. There were a couple of illustrated Rackhams but some of the colour plates were missing; then there were several sets of Dickens and the Brontës, but very faded and foxed; there were various first edition modern novels but mostly without their dust wrappers. All our books were as faded and out of fashion as our family. No wonder we had fewer and fewer customers.

I dealt with one old lady looking for a book she'd loved as a little girl, and a middle-aged man came in looking for Rupert annuals. Then a whole hour went by with no one. I flicked through an old water-stained book of favourite artists through the ages. I wanted to find someone who painted Rax-style men but didn't have much luck. He was long and lean and soulful like an El Greco, but the men were too effeminate and pop-eyed. He was pale with a pointy beard like a Veronese or a Titian, but their men were too square-shouldered and muscular. He was dark and pensive like Picasso's Blue Period men, but they were too angst-ridden and melancholy. I flicked through the book to the end and then started sketching my own Rax on the back page. I knew every feature so well it was as if he was posing in front of me. I was lovingly shading in the hollow under his cheekbones and highlighting the sweet curve of his mouth when the shop bell rang. I looked up, wondering if I could possibly have conjured him up out of sheer longing.

It was Toby.

I slammed the book shut. ‘Not you again!'

‘That's not very welcoming,' said Toby. He came over to the desk and touched the art book. ‘Let's see.'

‘No,' I said, hands tight over the edge of the pages so he couldn't open it.

‘You're not supposed to draw in books,' said Toby.

‘It's not worth anything, and it's my book anyway,' I said, shoving it under the desk. ‘Just go
away
, Toby. I don't want to see you.'

‘I'm a customer,' he said, pretending to look at the books.

‘Yeah, a customer who can't read,' I muttered, but not loud enough for him to hear.

‘Seriously, I want to buy a book. I'm really getting into reading now. What would you recommend?'

‘Oh Toby, you've got us both into enough trouble with your wretched reading.'

‘I'm sorry about Rita and the other girls. I thought they'd have stopped giving you a hard time by now.'

‘I don't care.'

‘I don't know what I ever saw in her. She came round to my house last night and said she was prepared to take me back.'

‘Well then!'

‘But I said I wasn't interested.'

‘Then she'll
really
have it in for me on Monday morning.'

‘We could have fun together, you and me, Prue. Just as friends, like. I could help you out in the shop, clear up all this stuff on the floor. You just tell me where you want all these boxes to go, I'll shift them for you.' He seized one as he spoke, lifting it a little too recklessly. The soft cardboard sagged and twenty-odd volumes fell out all over the dusty floor.

‘Whoops!' he said.

‘Careful! Honestly, Toby, will you leave them
alone
.'

‘Hey, look at these!'

Toby was looking through the old volumes of Victorian pornography, his mouth an O of astonishment as he pored over the colour plates of the Reverend Knightly and his cavorting congregation.

‘Where did you get these dirty books?' he said.

‘They're not “dirty” books. It's Victorian erotica,' I said haughtily, though I couldn't help blushing.

‘Fancy your dad selling porn!'

‘It's not. All sorts of highly respectable people collect it.'