Schooling (28 page)

Sealed on the top floor, attic enveloping her in its triangles, hands on the cover, slept like a corpse. Woke to an abrupt light, yanked curtains, him silhouetted against the morning, one hand arranging the curtains, teacup in the other.

Sleep well, he asked as she sat up lying, Yes because the moth was gone. And sitting on the moquette, he stared at the teacup until she said, Is that for me, to bring him back. In the doorway, the same doorway it took him so long to leave the night before, he watched her fuss with the hot cup, bringing it carefully to her mouth. He said, Catrine. Couldn’t he see how busy she was with her tea. Are you alright? After all, she didn’t want to spill on the white coverlet or on her own knees. She answered about the tea, there didn’t seem much point in talking about moths. It’s so sweet. Too sweet? It’s fine.

They continue toward more sheep. Next to Piers detailing the differences between education systems around the world, German, English, the term he spent in Maryland, conclusions formulated regarding America. She tells Piers that everything to know about that country is not found in Maryland but he will not be swayed. What will you do when you finish your degree, she asks, not caring in the least. The idea is never to finish, not while they’re paying me, Piers picks at his lips, a chapped patch, Ah, to stay a student forever.

Vicar wants to point out birds, name them for her. And trees. Here’s a chestnut not that I can draw it for the life of me. I’m only good at the figure. An eye for the ladies my wife says but I can do a man nearly as well. My trees. My trees always come out sickly. There you go.

Gilbert does a jig of hurry to establish space between the two of them and the other four.

A collection . . . he laughs not a real laugh and a sidelong look at her . . . That’s not what you really think.

I think a lot of things, different things.

Contradictions you mean.

I suppose.

And in the morning after a long night with the moth, after his wake-up tea but before the kedgeree, Giddy’s Men of Harlech reverberated up to her bath, even underwater. This is her body, her arms, her stomach. Tightness in her chest, rolling over on one side, a blanket of water, a bedtub.

Too hot, she slumped over the edge. Head lolling, nose cold against the porcelain. Shot in the bath and left for dead. Blood unfurling across the tiles. She glanced up.

He stood in the doorway.

Mr. Gilbert—

Like The Death of Marat.

Could you excuse me please. I’m in the bath.

So I see. There’s a painting, David—

I don’t care about the painting, Mr. Gilbert.

Well . . . as he went . . . Mind out. You’re dripping into the drawing room.

Gilbert stands on a stile bench to address them. This will be our last sketch for today. Tomorrow is a day off and we’ll spend Wednesday on watercolors. Beginning at the cliffs and ending at the church for a short discussion on methodology which is not as boring as it sounds. But today, during our last hour, take these sheep by storm, make bold, assertive mistakes. Good luck.

Capital . . . Vicar in a voice involving teeth . . . We have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own heart.

I’m sure that’s true, Vicar.

We have done those things which we ought not to have done . . . Vicar, on a roll, nothing will stop the falsetto, his teeth, the prayer, it will go on and on and on a bus rolling east toward the water the color of it the color of a coin on a day they should have been in school. In a town they’d never seen, headed toward a store at the edge of water. A ding as they went in, a ding as they bought the sugar cigarettes. And standing on a wall made of stones looking out over the metal water, she said, I’m not over it, Isabelle. I’m not over pretending that apple trees are horses. Twelve isn’t too old for that sort of thing. Although since she had not yet been to England, it was fairly unlikely she said anything like
that sort of thing
. Whatever she said, it made Isabelle shake out the last cigarette like an old farmhand, regard the horizon, the folly of past mistakes found there. After a long silence, Isabelle said, I’m going to camp. To ride real horses. The wind picked up off the water. Let’s try the hill, she said, walking away from Isabelle. The road they followed curved like an ear. Them in the drum. How long will you be gone? Nothing’s definite, Catrine, after all. The way Isabelle said After all to her as if she were a child. Into the woods because Isabelle said, Men kill girls who walk along roads. Halfway down the hill they broke through to a clearing, the traffic clearly visible below. Let’s throw something. Who said it, was it Isabelle, her face thinning with excitement, dried sugar dotting her mouth, or did she say it, as always mindless of the consequences.

They are not strong enough to reach the road with the rocks and sticks they find. They give up to walk home. Leaving, Isabelle trips. There in the dirt, half-hidden, the tire. Absurd but plausible. Isabelle brushes off the worms and on a count there’s the traffic two cars a bus white van with red lettering and One should we take a run up Two it will go faster if we do Three and bursting from their grasp who knew Isabelle was that strong arms flailing high in the aftertow to the wind no stopping it a black rubber streak down the hill staring from car to plunging tire back and forth tire to car cause to effect finally dawning what was impossible to project when the tire sat in leaves, that a hurtling object shaped so weighing so set at such a course of this degree and that velocity might act—

Like a bullet . . . Isabelle whispers . . . Or something.

Back and forth road tire road tire and the tire bounced to miss a speeding mercedes before SMASH off the front wheel of the motorcycle the figure catapulting stomachs twisting sickly over handlebars landing in dense grass on the side of the road.

There is no health in us.

Turning, there’s Vicar and his womanly cows, sheep as odalisque, finishing his prayer for them all.

What do you mean?

Ah now girlie girl . . . is he supposed to be Jamaican . . . Everyone’s done those things which we ought not to have done . . . or is it more like Scottish . . . Is all I meant.

Gilbert passes, he smiles at Vicar, moves his eyes to her, teases Vicar about sheep doing things they ought not to have done and there is no health in his stomach.

No health in her. Both led and saved. Gilbert watches her as Vicar stories away in his elusive patois. A reverence or is it only the vicar’s proximity.

Back at the sheep, her hand betrays her. The day painting mudscapes, a time when He Smelled Nice. Was nice. The coats of the sheep ruffle in the picking-up breeze. Whatever might happen to all of them, she and Isabelle in their far-flung worlds, Vicar, Gilbert or even the man, dead, alive, legless, she would never.

This man then.

After dinner, a dinner where Giddy made sausages. It was supposed to be toad-in-the-hole but the pudding burned almost black and Giddy had to pick the toads out of the hole and mix up some Smash so they could have a vegetable. Then Brussels sprouts were found in the freezer, four each, so Gilbert could say A regular feast. Not much talking until Gilbert’s voice began squeaking out the day, painting, cows, butcher, cigarettes and sheep. She left him and Giddy, Cornwall, for her first day at Monstead.

In their hotel room, Father by a tiny light, sewing name tags into her uniform as she slept. On and off that night she woke to see his hunched form jabbing to find the eye. On the way to the train the next morning, he said how often they would see each other, weekends, holidays. How he understood that all this was happening at such a furious pace. The platform, slick with a drying rain, smelled of metal, piss, of coal. Bags at her feet, watching Father waiting at the ticket counter. Something cut through her. He seemed so small. An approximation of the man she remembered. Making his way back to her through streams of Londoners leaving home or coming home, neither of which applied to her, coat overarm, hands full, a cheery strain. The cold on its way into her bones again, to stay there for weeks. She was still. Father handing her the ticket. He was still. London on its way somewhere else. Even after six months alone, they were polite. A garbled announcement. Swahili, he said. Her train. A porter carried her cases on board, they could see him through the window stacking them by the door. A hug. He was small, she was fine. She moved to go. He said, I have these for you. Turning back, it was a box of chocolates, a sampler for a grandmother. Father pushed them. She watched her hand take the box, it was an unfamiliar hand. He said, Perhaps there’ll be others from Monstead returning from the weekend. You’ll have something to offer. The boxtop spelled
Chocolates
in cross-stitched lettering. For an odd moment she wondered if he had sewn it. She was fine she was fine. Thank you Father, she said. Da. Then she climbed the steps. The porter tried to help, made it more difficult. There was a moment before the train moved away. Father, he was her father. She wouldn’t look out the window to see if he waved for she was fine and didn’t need last minute waves. The train breezed through Wandsworth, Wimbledon, Kingston, Haslemere. People came on got off sat next to her then left. Outside, on platforms, arrivers were greeted with hollow burps of pleasure. Sun came out from clouds or went in, rose or set. Sagging tights webbed like the foot of a duck. In new uniform, yes new despite all efforts, she sat like a good girl, chocolates on her knees, her mannish shoes below, staring at the box as if it held secrets along with marzipan, as if it might tell her why it affected her. On the way to Father’s school, a good-bye to the plastic London kitchen. Father would begin the search for a new house. Yet the chocolates, his hasty offer, as if they were colluding. In the hurtling train, a woman across the way gave her a treacly smile. Well she didn’t look up for a long while after that. No it wasn’t school or mother, coal or piss or the weather that broke her.

This man then.

On the stairway, the rising blister of Giddy’s television, Gilbert stops her on the final flight. The chocolate box stayed in the locker next to her bed. She never ate nor offered a single one. Finally, fearing ants, she threw away the chocolates but kept the stitchy box for letters, pebbles. Isabelle’s, before they stopped and a shell she found in her orange squash one day. She leans against the wall, he is below, one foot on her stair, hands in pockets, leaning against the same wall.

You haven’t been your usual chatty self. Giddy will think I’ve been telling fibs.

I don’t talk that much.

What have I done, Catrine.

I was thinking about other things.

This man then, your poor man on his motorcycle.

What about him?

Well . . . Gilbert wipes his mouth with a hand . . . It deserves a longer conversation at some point, do you think?

Yes, sir.

You’re not going to tell me what’s got you all quiet, are you?

She shakes her head.

You’ll slay me too, will you?

She moves to go.

I didn’t mean that . . . he reaches out . . . Come back.

She stops . . . Am I an experiment?

Don’t be absurd . . . Gilbert takes her hand from its wallpaper play, traces the remaining purfle of eczema . . . Poor Punchinello.

I don’t care about it. It’s mostly gone.

Eyes on her, he raises her hand to his mouth.

Giddy’s voice floats up from downstairs . . . Are you coming to watch with me, Michael?

Without removing hand or eyes, he calls . . . Just drawing a bath for Catrine. Down in a moment.

I had a bath this morning.

Never have too many . . . pulling her up the stairs and down the corridor . . . You’ll sleep better for it.

In the bathroom Gilbert rolls up his sleeve to rattle the drain. On his thumb, blue, a small bruise, smudged ink. The water runs. He gauges the temperature.

There’s no collection behind my cupboard, Catrine.

So you said . . . closing the toilet lid, she sits on it.

Do you know for certain that the motorcyclist died? . . . Gilbert reaches up to dry his hand on a towel.

I feel it. In my bones.

In your pretty bones. Well, bones have been wrong before, haven’t they? Perhaps he only broke his hip, jaw . . . sitting on the side of the tub they are knee to knee . . . The man was wearing a helmet?

Yes.

There you go. I’m sure he survived. Deep down, you’re a pessimist, hum?

He went up so high.

Garish in the bathroom against the chortle of running water. Gilbert knows about probability, there’s mathematics in chemistry for god’s sake. Father in the train station with his granny chocolates, giving them so she could have something to offer but it never seemed a likely survival. An offer of as much as he had, certainly it often came down to chocolates in the end. And a helmet.

I want to help you . . . with one finger Gilbert presses her knee, the help button . . . To give you things, to make it better.

What things?

I want you to like me . . . press press . . . Is that horribly wrong? Is that. I mean would Mr. Betts for example—

Mr. Betts?

Oh I know we left him in Chittock Leigh, well the Council on Proper Behavior then.

They have an office here? . . . she watches water from the tap rush furiously.

Yes, in town, I saw it as we drove through . . . he designs a figure eight on her kneecap, behind him, the water . . . I struggle with understanding why I brought you here.

You mean not for the painting group?

The eight stops.

I’m not talented at all, am I? Not a Fauvist at all, just bad. You’re laughing at me. Thinking what kind of person would paint a rock yellow?

Come now, I’m not some sort of charlatan. I’m serious when I speak of possibilities.

Then what do you mean, you struggle to understand?

I’m thirty-four years old, Catrine. You just turned fourteen. Why do you preoccupy my thoughts? . . . he touches again . . . You remind me—

Of Rosie.

Yes and of—

Don’t say of yourself.

Of no one I’ve ever met. You’re shiny or. Uncompromised. I tried to tell you while we were driving, Catrine. Your life’s so unlived, the potential—