Passing On

by Penelope Lively

  The whole process was, it seemed to Edward, a fine manifestation of the single-minded ruthlessness of species in pursuit of survival and improvement — if you considered Willmots and Handley-Smiths and Stannards as species.

  He arrived late. Things were in full swing. Posses of girls rushed about shrieking. The parents moved in couples, greeting one another with false enthusiasm and competing for the attention of the staff. Mrs Fitton patrolled continuously, displaying a feverish combination of anxiety and benevolence. From time to time she hissed instructions at teachers or senior girls. Edward, hoping to slink past unnoticed, was pounced upon and told to hurry to his classroom, where the Lower Fourth had an exhibition with a literary theme. Edward had conceived and arranged the exhibition himself and was aware that it lacked verve: he was not good at these things. In desperation, the previous week, he had ordered the children to select a favourite passage from books he had been reading with them, write it out in their best handwriting and then add some comments on what they enjoyed about the piece and about the book in general. Those with artistic inclinations were encouraged to illustrate as well. Most of the children said they couldn’t remember any bits they liked; eventually, with much prompting and nagging, everyone came up with something. The results were pinned up around the walls of the classroom. Edward, re-inspecting them, saw even more clearly the perfunctory effect, and blamed himself. He sat down gloomily behind his desk to await custom.

  He knew that he would never have survived as a teacher in the state sector: he was both not good enough and not bad enough.

  He could never have been one of those charismatic men and women who inspire and enthuse; equally, he could never have achieved an indifferent acceptance of failure. At Croxford House the luxuries of small classes and lavish facilities, plus moderately compliant children, cushioned his inadequacies. Here, he was not a particularly good teacher, but he was by no means a disaster. He did the best he could. Quite often he enjoyed what he was doing.

  Not, though, at this particular time. Small groups drifted through the classroom: mothers and fathers, large numbers of children — Edward’s pupils along with older and younger siblings.

  It was all very noisy. No sooner had Edward attended to one lot than he was seized upon by another. In addition to the literary exhibition the class performance lists were displayed, at Mrs Fitton’s insistence. Edward disliked these intensely. Croxford House deployed a competitive system within which girls were ranked according to performance in every conceivable area; since intellectual ability was not all that highly valued, marks were given for trying, for behaving well, for being punctual and helpful and energetic and tidy, indeed for anything at all. These various ratings adorned the walls. The parents studied them intently.

  Edward, spotting Sandra Willmot’s mother, hastily crossed to the other side of the room. He was at once ambushed by the Stannards. Mr Stannard was a partner in one of the leading county estate agencies; his name graced the pages of the local paper each week, spread like a banner above photographs of houses all priced, it seemed to Edward, at a quarter of a million pounds. He was a big man, crammed into a tweed suit despite the weather, and flanked by his wife, done up in what even

  Edward recognised as a seriously competitive dress. Their daughter Caroline lurked behind them; she was a small pale child of determined anonymity. Edward rather liked her. She appeared to have no qualities at all to speak of, either positive or negative, and spent her time trying not to be noticed. He had made various bids at drawing her out, to no avail; now he felt in sympathetic collusion — thus had he survived his own schooldays. Today the entire Stannard family was present — three more children, all strapping creatures like the parents. Caroline, evidently, was the runt of the litter.

  ‘You’ve seen Caroline’s display?’ Edward enquired. Caroline smiled wanly.

  Her choice had surprised him. She had been the only one to choose a piece from Alice in Wonderland. Mr Stannard was inspecting it closely.

  At this moment the King, who had been for some time busily writing in his notebook, called out, ‘Silence!’ and read out from his book, ‘Rule Forty-Two. All persons more than a mile high to leave the court.’

  Everybody looked at Alice.

  ‘I’m not a mile high,’ said Alice.

  ‘You are,’ said the King.

  ‘Nearly two miles high,’ added the Queen.

  Beneath this Caroline had written: ‘I like this bit because it is funny. The reason it is funny is because a person could not be a mile high. I like Alice in Wonderland because of the funny creatures and because they talk like people except it is not what you expect. Mostly in real life you know what people are going to say.’

  Edward had been startled when first he read this. Now, reading it again, he was positively awed. One could only pray for Caroline, given her circumstances.

  Mr Stannard turned from the display and said heavily, ‘The second line isn’t good grammar.’

  Edward explained that in order to encourage freedom of expression he preferred not to jump on every solecism.

  Mrs Stannard said, ‘Don’t you read Roald Dahl with the children?’

  Edward replied that he did not.

  ‘He’s very good, you know.’

  Edward inclined his head, without comment.

  The books from which the children had taken extracts were laid out on Edward’s desk. Mr Stannard picked up Alice, riffled through the pages and put it down again. His expression was that of a bibliophile rejecting a volume of neither commercial nor idiosyncratic appeal.

  ‘It’s a classic,’ said Edward craftily.

  Mr Stannard’s confident manner faltered for an instant. His hand hovered over the book as though to give it a second chance.

  ‘The boys adore Roald Dahl,’ said Mrs Stannard. Caroline’s brothers grinned alongside her, clones of their father. Behind, an older sister manifested sophisticated boredom.

  Mr Stannard had turned his attention to the class performance lists. Edward, knowing that Caroline’s name appeared towards the bottom of all these, sought a distraction. He tried to interest Mrs Stannard in some art work.

  ‘The best Caroline’s done,’ pronounced her father, ‘is thirteenth for effort.’

  ‘It’s a shame,’ said Mrs Stannard. ‘The boys were in the top three for everything this term, and Emma had the tennis trophy.’

  Mr Stannard shook his head. ‘Is she being pushed enough, one asks oneself?’

  Edward, who could see Caroline cringing behind the blackboard, lost control.

  ‘Frankly,’ he snapped, ‘if I had my way those lists would go into the dustbin, the lot of them. They serve no purpose whatsoever.’

  The Stannards stared at him, evidently rocked by this heresy.

  Even the boys dropped their look of unshakeable wellbeing and gaped.

  ‘If a child can’t see how it’s performing,’ demanded Mr Stannard, ‘how’s it to know if it’s doing well or not? Just tell me that?’

  ‘Achievement isn’t necessarily measured by competition,’

  returned Edward.

  ‘Oh, I can’t agree with you,’ said Mrs Stannard. ‘I mean, in

  this day and age you don’t get anywhere by just sitting back, do you? We’ve always felt Caroline’s got it in her if only she’s handled right.’

  Mr Stannard was now contemplating Edward with the air of a man who wonders if he is getting his money’s worth. There was a silence. ‘Well,’ continued Mrs Stannard briskly, ‘we’d better get on. We’ve not had a chance for a word with Mrs Fitton yet.

  Nice exhibition, Mr Glover.’

  The Stannards departed. Before Edward had time to simmer down he was buttonholed by Mrs Willmot, who had been lurking. Sandra was at her side, looking smug; her name topped several of the lists. If that woman utters one word about God or evolution, thought Edward, I shall do something irrevocable.

  But Mrs Willmot had more important things on her mind, it seemed: she wished to enlist Edward
’s support for the Parent Teacher Association fund-raising concert in the autumn. ‘Do you sing, Mr Glover? We’re in desperate need of a few more tenors for the choir.’ Edward declared himself without musical talents of any kind. Sandra stood by, quietly amused: she wore a sugar pink track suit with matching plastic hairslides in the shape of elephants. Edward could see quite clearly behind her shoulder, like the aura visible to spiritualists, the woman she would be in thirty years time. There is probably nothing to be done about people, he thought, nothing at all, nor ever has been: processed, from the cradle to the grave. Most neither know nor care, which makes it worse. Mrs Willmot was now going on about a film evening in October: ‘I thought you could lay on some nature things — I know that’s your forte.’ Sandra, from time to time, performed a little pirouette, as though warming up for Swan Lake. Nature, nurture . . thought Edward, and God knows which does most harm. He had a sudden vision of families in endless reproduction — Willmots and Stannards and the rest replicating themselves down the years, perfecting their most infamous capacities. Sports like Caroline, of course, would be quietly extinguished, a dead-end. And that, of course, was the other side of the coin: what people do to their children. Wittingly or not. He stood there in the crowded classroom, half listening to Mrs Willmot, and thought of the inexorable process going on all round him — the lives whose courses were being decided at this moment, behind the innocent-seeming chatter, the smiles, the faintly carnival atmosphere of families having a day out. He knew that those who are not parents only glimpse the awful forces at work. Equally, he was never sure if he had missed something or escaped it. He thought, inevitably, of his mother.

  At the same moment he became aware that Mrs Willmot was talking about Helen.

  ‘I know your sister, of course. I see her in the library. Such a nice unassuming person.’

  Don’t, thought Edward dangerously, patronise my sister.

  ‘And we waved to each other last week at the opera. She was with Giles Carnaby, wasn’t she?’

  ‘I believe so.’

  ‘Charming man,’ said Mrs Willmot. ‘Slightly elusive. I’ve tried without success to recruit him for the CPRE and the Friends of Spaxton Theatre. Anyway, it was nice to see your sister looking so relaxed.’

  ‘She enjoyed the opera,’ said Edward in frigid tones.

  ‘Oh, of course — it was super.’ Mrs Willmot smiled knowingly.

  ‘Well, I mustn’t monopolise you. Now don’t forget about that film, will you? Come along, darling — I want to see your art display.’

  Edward, his nerves jangling, turned to his next client.

  When, by Thursday, Helen had heard nothing from Giles the words that rang in her head began to turn from music to mockery. ‘I don’t know you all that well as yet’; ‘We must talk very soon.’ She ceased to savour them and tried to drive them away. Unsuccessfully. Equally, half a dozen times a day she felt again his hand on her, and she burned. She also raged. She raged because she no longer controlled her thoughts or her body. She felt humiliated. It seemed perverse that love — if this was love — should be a state traditionally celebrated in literature. She did not feel as though she had anything to celebrate.

  She went to the library with some relief. At least, there, one was busy and distracted. During her lunch hour she shopped,

  deliberately avoiding the part of town in which Giles’s office was situated. When she returned Joyce Babcock sought her out at once.

  ‘A man came in, asking for you.’ Joyce’s eyes glittered with prurient interest.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Fiftyish. With that sort of greyish-silver hair. Very friendly.

  We had quite a chat about the Lakes. He was asking for a fell walking guide. Our only one is out.’

  ‘That would have been my solicitor,’ said Helen crisply. ‘Giles Carnaby.’

  ‘He’s very attractive, don’t you think?’

  ‘That’s not the sort of thing I notice about a solicitor. Professional efficiency is what one is after.’

  ‘Well, I thought he was a real charmer. Lucky Helen, I thought.’ Joyce eyed her closely. ‘He seemed very disappointed to have missed you. I suppose there’s a lot of to and fro over your mother’s affairs?’

  ‘A fair amount,’ said Helen. She began to sort through some reservation cards. After a moment she added, ‘Was he going to look in later? There is something we’re supposed to discuss.’

  ‘He didn’t say,’ replied Joyce. She continued to observe Helen with attention. ‘You could always ring him up at his office, of course.’

  ‘It’s nothing that can’t wait,’ said Helen.

  The afternoon progressed, but was moved now on to a different plane, lit by the glow of expectation. Helen watched the door, through which Giles did not come. She checked that the fell-walking guide was indeed out on loan. Each time the phone rang she reached it before Joyce. Eventually it was five thirty. She drove home to find Edward returned from the sports day.

  ‘How did it go?’

  ‘It was awful,’ said Edward morosely. ‘Worse than usual.’

  ‘Well, at least you’ve got it over with for another year.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Cheer up. It’s the holidays now, at any rate.’

  The six weeks of the summer school recess were the high spot

  of Edward’s year. He would settle down to a contented programme of long walks, daily spells of observation in the Britches, and some leisurely reflection on work projects for his pupils next year. He usually also went off somewhere under the auspices of some ecologically minded group. This year he was not doing so, claiming that he had left it too late to make arrangements.

  ‘You should get away for a bit,’ Helen continued. ‘Surely there’s still something you could fix up.’

  Edward shrugged. Helen felt a wash of irritation. Come on now … I have my own troubles. Edward made himself a cup of tea and vanished to the Britches, where he stayed late into the dusk. Helen listened to a concert on the radio, with the sound turned low lest she should miss the phone ringing.

  It did not ring. Neither then nor for the next four days. All right, she said to her mother, who trailed Helen once more, watching her with an impassive stare, all right — you win.

  Consider yourself vindicated.

  Why, then, did he say those things? Do what he did?

  Perhaps he didn’t, said her mother. You always had a ridiculous imagination, as a child.

  I am not a child now, said Helen.

  On the Wednesday of the following week Joyce Babcock said, ‘That Lake District book’s back, by the way — Wainwright. I should think you’d want to give your friend a buzz.’

  Helen put the book on one side. It lay there, inescapable.

  After lunch, she told herself — at three, at four. Eventually, at four-thirty, she telephoned Giles’s office. ‘Could I speak to Mr Carnaby?’ Her stomach churned.

  ‘Mr Carnaby’s away this week. Can I take a message?’

  ‘Oh. It’s not important. It’s the library here, just to say the book he asked for is in. Wainwright on fell-walking.’

  ‘Oh, what a shame,’ said the girl. ‘I expect he wanted that for his holiday — he’s up there now, in the Lake District. Anyway, I’ll tell him.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Helen. She put the receiver down and placed

  the book on the pile due for shelving. Where, later, Joyce would see it, with tedious inevitability, and ask questions.

  Funny he didn’t mention, said her mother. That he was going on holiday. You’d think he’d have said. You’d think he’d have told you he wouldn’t be around for the next week or two. More, maybe. ‘We must talk very soon’; so much for that.

  Wonder who he’s with? said Dorothy. He’d be with some woman, no doubt, a man like that.

  That’s all he came into the library for, of course — to get that book. Not looking for you at all.

  What’s the matter, Helen? I know that po-faced look.

&n
bsp; It turned hot. A sullen grey July gave way to sultry August.

  Everything shot into growth, fortified by weeks of rain. The Greystones garden was like a jungle, parts of it as impenetrable as the Britches. When Gary Paget reappeared, offering his services again, Helen accepted with alacrity. She had planted some runner beans in the patch of the old vegetable garden he had dug earlier; they were flowering energetically and seemed to have been worth the trouble. She set him to work on a further area of deep neglect. ‘I’m afraid it’s very weedy. You’ll have to dig it over more than once.’ Gary, a stoically silent boy, merely nodded. He peeled off his T-shirt, revealing a chunky tanned torso that reeked of Lifebuoy soap.

  Helen went into the kitchen and began to cut up onions. She had bought a recipe book and was attempting a rather complex casserole, involving red wine and many ingredients. When in low spirits, seek gainful employment. The Lord helps those who help themselves. The only cookery books at Greystones were yellowing volumes from the twenties and thirties, smelling of damp and telling you how to make spotted dick or pickle eggs in isinglass. No wonder we have always eaten as we have, she thought; if nothing else comes out of my malaise I may at least learn how to cook in the spirit of the times.

  She was struggling to cut the meat into what the book described as bite-size chunks when Edward appeared at the kitchen door.