The Finishing School

by Muriel Spark

  Princess Tilly was writing a thesis on the massacre of the Nepalese royal family in recent years. She had met one of their remote cousins at the Plaza Hotel in New York. This gave her confidence to describe the already well-documented scene, as if she herself had been there. She had forgotten the name of the young man she had met and dined with at the Plaza, but she made out it was a secret not to be revealed. She called him “R.” “As I danced in R’s arms, little did I dream of the drama awaiting him back at the Royal Palace . . .” In fact there had been no dancing at the Plaza, and the youth in question was nowhere near Nepal when the King and Queen were slaughtered by the distraught Crown Prince, but Tilly was already launching herself excellently on her future journalistic career. Rowland marveled as he read her essay. How slick and self-confident these young people were . . . How they could cover the pages, juggling the paragraphs around on their p.c.s and never for a moment thinking that any word could be spelt other than the way they wanted it to be. Tilly “dansed” with her friend from “Nipall.” Why not? Rowland thought. She will always have an editor to put her story straight. And if only, thought Rowland, I could know what Chris is composing, there alone in his room from which he emerges with that sly and cheerful smile: “No, Rowland, you can’t see it. To show it to you at this stage would ruin it for me.”

  Rowland regretted his early efforts to persuade Chris not to write the book. That had been a mistake. At least Chris would have felt at ease to show him what had been written so far, and he would know. Because, of course, Chris did have a plot, he had a construction in mind. People would read that book if it ever came to light, imbecilic as it might be as an historical novel. Chris might, might certainly, might almost surely, succeed in some way. Rowland had an urge to tip a bucket of green paint over Chris’s red hair. Green paint, and it all running over his face, and obliterating his book. Or perhaps to wreck the computer with the whole work in it. Switch it off, wreck, terminate it.

  Nina now perceived that Rowland’s jealousy was an obsession. She believed firmly that Rowland could write a good novel if he was free of jealousy, envy, rivalry, or whatever it was that had got into his mind when he had first encountered young Chris. It was a real sickness, and Rowland would be paralyzed as a writer and perhaps as a teacher unless he could get over it.

  “Put it away until after Christmas,” she advised Rowland.

  “Why?”

  “Chris will have left us. He’ll have gone home to his mother and uncle, those lovebirds, with his novel and his p.c. and his wild ambitions and his red hair.”

  “I thought you liked him.”

  “Oh, I do,” she said. “I sort of love Chris.”

  “Why do you want him out of the way?”

  “He’s in your way. His novel writing bothers yours.”

  “Not at all. You haven’t understood a thing. It’s as his literature and creative writing teacher that I’m anxious about Chris. He’s going to be terribly disillusioned.”

  “I understand that’s a beginner’s fate in the world of letters. You should read some literary biographies.”

  “You don’t believe in me then?”

  “Oh, I do. You’ve got sensitivity and imagination. Also, of course, the know-how. Do you remember that girl Rosie Farnham we had at school in Brussels? How good she was in the creative writing class, remember? —Well, I saw an article of hers the other day in the Tatler. Very professional and good, really good. That’s thanks to your teaching.”

  “What was the article about?”

  “How to make a goldfish pond.”

  “I remember Rosie. The courier-express family.”

  “Yes, well she’s a journalist now.”

  He sat down at his desk, and she went out, hoping he would break through his writing block.

  He remembered now that Nina had recently suggested: “Why don’t you write about Chris and get him off your chest? . . . Just make notes about him—anything that comes into your mind. No one will know about it. Put down anything you observe.”

  It was the creative writing course swerving back on him. Yes, it was exactly his own advice to students stuck for what to write about. “Watch for details,” Rowland had often said. “Observe. Think about your observations. Think hard. They do not need to be literally true. Literal truth is arid. Analyze your subject. Get at the Freudian reality, the inner kernel. Everything means something other than it seems. The cat means the mother.”

  Observations: Chris and the house of Israel Brown. The girl and the violin. Was Chris inside the gates, lurking? Could he be a Peeping Tom under the guise of a researcher for his own novel? What was he really up to, sitting around the bar of the hotel next door? He says he’s 17 but to me he seems older. Is he 17? Perhaps 19. Pallas Kapelas is not yet 17. Chris is very friendly with her. Does he sleep with Pallas? If so, he’s a pedophile—am I right? His novel so called is only a cover. He’s into porn day and night.

  Rowland was scribbling all this with his Biro. Yes, it did make him feel better. Nina was right. He had to get it off his chest.

  Later, he said to Nina, “I’m going to send Chris an e-mail.”

  “What for? What about?”

  “To warn him I’m on his track. I have to warn him.”

  “Oh my God,” said Nina, “you’re going mad.”

  “Do I sound mad?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Then I won’t send him any e-mail message. That’s just what he’s waiting for. He’s waiting to accuse me, that I’ve gone mad.”

  “He doesn’t think of you, Rowland.”

  “Then why did he put Kapelas’s missing cards among our card index?”

  “Oh, he does that sort of thing all the time. You know, it’s only a guess that it was Chris. It could have been anyone.”

  “But it’s just like Chris.”

  “Oh yes. That’s why I say it’s quite harmless. Look, Rowland, you know, we can’t afford to expel Chris from the school. We need every last fee to break even by Christmas.”

  “Do we? Why is that?”

  “Switzerland is expensive.”

  “Well, the fees are too low.”

  “No, they’re the highest we can get,” Nina said. “But don’t worry. We’ll break even with perhaps a profit, after all.”

  “You were just trying to frighten me?”

  “Well, yes, perhaps a bit. When you go on about Chris . . . It’s all so unreal. And yet, when you see him around, and at meals, you treat him quite normally, so he hasn’t the slightest idea that you have an obsession about him. It is an obsession.”

  “It is and it isn’t,” Rowland said. “I’m keen to do my writing, finish my novel.”

  Nina said nothing. He had hardly started the novel, and was apt to make a new start every now and again. Nina had a much longer-term prospect in mind, which she kept to herself, for she was convinced that sooner or later she would separate from Rowland, marry again, have children, study. But in the meantime, shrewd woman that she was, she knew there was a life to be lived as comfortably and pleasantly as possible. It was mainly, at this moment, a question of trying to keep Rowland’s state of mind from running away with itself. Chris, only Chris? Was Rowland an unconscious homosexual? It would be strange if this were so, considering the very perceptive views of life that he held in all other respects. To be sexually jealous over a man or a woman was something Nina understood, but jealousy over a book, a work of art, a piece of writing . . . That was indeed a fact she was trying to swallow. Rowland was simply going mad with jealousy about the writing of novels. It was a fact, not merely a possibility, not something new in the world, but something new to Nina as she grasped it.

  10

  It was not long before Rowland told Nina he had changed his mind about the type of book he was writing. She took a vague note of this. Nina was occupied mainly with guiding her students along the paths that would lead to their future careers. So she told herself but, in fact it was the school that kept her stable. Rowland’s s
ecretary, Elaine, who was also an excellent French teacher, seemed now to spend less of her time with Rowland and more with very handsome Albert, the garden boy. Well, after all, Elaine had always liked gardening. Albert as a close companion was out of bounds to the girl students, for the single reason that Nina was afraid that one of them might get pregnant while in her care.

  At dinner that night Opal Gross reported new developments in her family’s difficulties: “My father’s really in trouble. Mum thinks he’ll go to prison.”

  “But he’s declared himself a bankrupt, hasn’t he?” said Pallas. “That’s a great position to be in.”

  “Well, perhaps it’s not all as straightforward as that,” said Opal.

  “My father can help,” said Pallas.

  “What?”

  “I know he can help. He buys bankruptcies. He buys and sells them.”

  “Pallas,” said Nina, “it sounds a bit slippery, all that. But of course anything you can do, anything you and your family, or any of us, can do for Opal, we as a school will be very grateful—won’t we, you young people?”

  Nina had been slightly dismayed by Pallas’s cool claim, but her appeal to the dining table as a whole was being greeted with warm assent, real enthusiasm. She said, “Get a message to your father, Pallas. Let’s see what he can do. I must say I never heard of buying and selling a bankruptcy before—did you, Rowland?”

  “No,” said Rowland, “but I’ve heard of it now. Why not?”

  “Bankruptcies pay a percentage. You buy low and sell high,” said Chris, “and you don’t have to pay your bills anymore.”

  “I have some cards that probably belong to Pallas’s father,” said Nina. “They got mixed up in my index box with scholars’ cards.”

  “I think they should be handed back to Mr. Kapelas,” Rowland said.

  Rowland later wrote in his book of observations:

  Chris knows all about fraudulent bankruptcy. How did he come by this knowledge? Is he the son of a fraudulent bankrupt?

  He said to Nina as soon as she put in an appearance, “I’ve changed my mind, you know, about the book I’m writing. It won’t be a novel. It will eventualy be a life study of a real person, Chris. At present I am accumulating the notes.”

  “Well, that’s quite a sweet idea,” she said. “A study of a clever teenager. You’ll have to keep it anonymous. Chris wouldn’t like it.”

  “Oh, yes, anonymous.”

  She almost panicked, but set herself strongly to remind him of the forthcoming evening’s activities. They had planned a fashion show with a catwalk. Everyone in the school was to take part with their best clothes. The catwalk had been set up in their big common room.

  By any standards the fashion show that evening was a glorious success. The room had been transformed into the image of a veritable fashion house. In the resulting home movie it looked quite the real thing. Strategically stacked banks of convincing paper flowers, regardless of their seasonability, were placed in all parts of the room. An unnecessary fire was glowing and flickering luxuriously. Makeshift screens, over which were draped multicolored bedcovers, were mostly due to the work of Elaine and Célestine, with the support of the daily maid Claire and Albert the garden boy with his pinewood branches for uprights.

  The catwalk itself was composed of two long kitchen-table tops which were conveniently separable from their legs, as were most of the college tables. These were mounted on wooden boxes and flanked by clusters of plants. Seats were lined up on either side. A bar offering fruit juices, Coke and sweet petits fours was set up in one corner with Mozart playing softly in another.

  Lightbulbs had been obtained which allowed for many varieties of illumination, from dim to dark to glowing to bright, throughout the room. Lionel Haas and Rowland were responsible for the impressive lighting throughout the show.

  The only guests from outside the school were Israel Brown (his young aunt was away) and the manager’s wife from the hotel next door (her husband was too busy) who had agreed to be judges of the show. They were joined on one line of side-seats by Nina, Elaine and Célestine, Claire the maid and Albert. At each end, conveniently placed for their intermittent operations on the lighting, were Rowland and Lionel.

  The opposite row of seats was sporadically occupied by the models themselves: all nine students. As each took to the catwalk another sprang up and disappeared behind the screens.

  Chris was the master of ceremonies. “Oh, ladies and gentlemen,” he announced, “we are about to present our Sunrise fashion show, confident that our styles will soon become famous throughout Ouchy and beyond.” He wore a dark suit, white shirt and large green floppy bow tie.

  Princess Tilly was first on the walk, tall, with her dark hair piled up, mysteriously elegant in a brown and gold antique shawl which she later revealed came from Cambodia. She wore the shawl wrapped round her waist to the effect that it revealed one of her high-stepping legs in their stiletto heels. She was practically topless under a transparent blue scarf, the possible perception of her toplessness to the audience depending on the lighting scheme. She walked, stopped, dramatically swiveled and walked back with great style, already followed by Mary Foot, less beautiful but equally spectacular. She, too, wore a shawl draped to serve for a dress. She was all in white. Rowland was very careful with Mary’s lighting, so that her short white fur boots kicked out clouds of the white chiffon shawl. Mary was a pale, tallish wisp, with long, naturally fair hair falling almost to her waist. She adored Nina and Rowland, especially because he wrote her letters for her at her dictation. Mary was totally unable to spell or write in any language, including her own. She could start a letter Dear Dad, but never got as far as Dad, being unsure whether to put Dere, Dear, Deer or maybe Dier or Dior. It puzzled her so much that she became almost ill if she had to write or type a message. Her experience of the hilarity which her many attempts had hitherto provoked, in schools and out of them, altogether unnerved her. She had been put through many forms of treatment without success. She had very little to guide her where words were concerned. She spoke well and clearly, without trouble, but she simply could not turn speech into spelling, having neither a phonetical ear nor a photographic eye for it. Rowland always took down her messages and conveyed them with great kindness and pleasure. He discerned that she could mentally photograph a few short slogans and was quite good at prices. He therefore predicted for Mary a successful career in the village shop that she craved, selling ceramics and transparent scarves. She would also be an adorable wife and mother, he told her. She loved Rowland for all this. She had never felt so confident, and now that he was manipulating the lighting for her catwalk appearance, she felt as radiant as she looked.

  Rowland’s eyes were on Chris, now, announcing, “Our stunning No. 3, the stately brown-haired model Joan Archer whose . . .” His voice was lost in the applause as Joan, stately indeed, and decidedly robust compared to the first two girls, stepped forth in a black satin sheath with bare shoulders. She wore a dog collar of fake diamonds from the local supermarket and a pair of long green gloves. Joan was very swingy. She was hoping to be accepted in a drama school next year. Chris, watching her, thought she might be a good Mary Queen of Scots in the motion picture of his novel.

  But then came Lionel Haas himself, relieved from his double duty as lighting assistant, to Rowland. He wore a flowered shirt and shorts, satin, with a dark background, a pair of long, white-rimmed sunglasses, a soft panama hat and gold leather sandals. Picking up his seaside summery statement, Pallas Kapelas followed wearing a minimal gray bikini. She wore rimless sunglasses and she, too, wore gold sandals. Less confident than the girls who had preceded them, both Lionel and Pallas nonetheless put on an attractive performance, with much elegant elbow and footwork.

  Opal Gross, being tiny, had thought well to project her presence with an enormous, high, cone-shaped hat, covered with flowers, feathers, shells, heads of corn and small pinecones. She wore a simple Greek-style tunic that she had brought back from her Aegean ho
liday, with bare legs and feet. As Chris announced Opal he observed over the top of her hat the faces of Nina and Israel Brown smiling at each other with extreme affability at the same time as they joyfully applauded.

  Pansy Leghorn or Leg was also a small girl, but she had decided to be herself in her shell-pink taffeta evening dress, and shoes to match. She wore a pearl tiara and carried a very large box of chocolates under her left arm. As she kicked her skirts out on the catwalk, there flashed glimpses of a black frilled petticoat.

  Chris had slipped away, and now it was near his turn. He had not changed from his dark suit, white shirt and floppy green tie, but he brought with him on his arm Lisa Orlando with her shiny black bobbed hair and golden skin. Lisa was a southern Italian. Chris had arranged to take her with him to make Lionel jealous, as everyone supposed. Lisa wore a green shawl arranged to cover only one shoulder and one breast, reaching to her knees, with glittering glass beads of various colors falling to her feet. She wore green platform sandals, which made her taller than red-haired Chris. They made an emphatic couple. Rowland concealed his fury with Chris from all but Nina, who noticed that the sight of Chris swinging up the fashion gangway with the lovely little Italian girl on his arm had infuriated Rowland. He, in fact, was clutching his throat as if to control a scream.

  Albert was on the catwalk now, in a cream tropical suit with a silk scarf of dark blue and white spots. He had bought it ready-to-wear in the supermarket. It fitted perfectly. In his breast pocket was the tip of a red silk black-spotted handkerchief and he wore red espadrilles without socks.