Educating Simon

by Robin Reardon

  “Ned left that for you. Remember that the school material recommended you bring lunch today; the canteen isn’t open yet, and there won’t be a lot of time for you to come here or look elsewhere for lunch.” She smiled. “I think you’ll be pleased with what he’s prepared. And here. Keys to all outside doors except for Brian’s office, in case you need to let yourself in after your exams.”

  “Thanks. Let’s get going.” I just wanted to get this day started. I test well, but I’m often nervous before a test begins. Once I’m into it, I’m fine.

  I didn’t say much on the walk down Marlborough Street. It felt awkward and also comforting to have Mum walk with me, like going back and forth between being a child and . . . well, being a child. She didn’t go to the test room with me, though; we were met at the front entrance by an academic-looking man, maybe forty and decidedly following the dress code, who introduced himself as Dr. Metcalf. What he teaches, or what he does here, I didn’t quite catch. He ushered me away, telling Mum he’d have someone collect her to see Dr. Healy.

  We walked down several hallways until I was thoroughly turned around and ended up in a classroom with huge windows overlooking a small close with green grass, some benches, and a few ornamental trees. No people in sight. I was pleased, actually; if I have to gaze at something whilst I’m thinking, I like to have a pleasant but non-distracting view. There were several other students in the room, also from outside the US. I didn’t make any effort to remember their names; I’ll get to know them if I need to.

  Dr. Metcalf, half sitting on the desk at the front of the room, explained the rules for the exams and said that the results would have some bearing on our schedules, which we’d be e-mailed by end of day tomorrow. Orientation for seniors, he said, is on Wednesday, and classes for everyone begin on Thursday.

  Most of the exams were predictable, on subjects like maths, biology, history, English, a few others. I’m sure I did quite well on all of them but one. History. It’s a subject I’ve always excelled at, and it’s one that Oxford will expect me to be good at. A great memory and my synaesthesia help me remember how to spell everything from place names like Afon Tryweryn to emperors like Zhu Yuanzhang, but history is a strong suit for me.

  Which is why I couldn’t understand why I was struggling a little with this test. Or, rather, there was an obvious reason. It was that so many questions pertained to points of US history, some of them so esoteric that I didn’t quite know what was being asked or how to answer. The only questions I’m convinced I did well on were those about the history of Europe, India, and Russia, and a couple about the Chinese dynasties.

  Back at the house, I used my newly acquired front door key to let myself in. In my room I found a surprise. There was a package on my desk, and a note, which I read first.

  Simon—

  I thought you might like something along the lines of what your classmates will have, so here’s an iPhone. Charges will go to my account, but I’m not checking up on the calls. I realize you’re likely to call England. Hope you like the blue bumper.

  If you don’t want the iPhone at all, that’s fine—just let me know. And if you suspect I’m trying to win you over with gifts, well . . . it can’t hurt to try!

  I showered and changed, and then I played with the iPhone, located the phone number, and texted GG to say the exam ordeal was over and I did fine, and got Xs and Os back. I hadn’t decided whether to keep the thing, so I didn’t change any of the default settings.

  Downstairs I heard voices, Mum’s and Ned’s, and laughter, coming from the kitchen. It appeared Ned was having her help him prepare dinner, apparently salmon, and they were getting along like old chums. They hadn’t seen me yet, so I watched from the door, and it came to me that Mum used to cook a lot before Dad died. She was very good, too; taught me a lot of what I know about cuisine, as a matter of fact. I’d kind of forgotten that.

  Finally Ned looked up. “Simon! How goes it? I’m sure you wowed them. But did you wow yourself?”

  I shrugged and tried to subdue a temptation to grin.

  “Your mom made you a treat. A reward for your hard day.” He held out a small, pristine, white plate with several tiny balls arranged on it. Tea butter balls. They’re made from butter (of course), flour, butter, confectioners’ sugar, butter, vanilla (we always used Tahitian, but I don’t know what’s in this kitchen), finely chopped walnuts, and—did I mention butter? While they’re still barely warm from the oven, you shake them up with more confectioners’ sugar to coat the outsides. I think they’re my favourite biscuit. I looked up at Mum as I took the plate and the napkin Ned handed me.

  Mum smiled but didn’t take any active credit. She said, “We’re having barbied salmon with scallion horseradish mayonnaise. I’m making that, and the raspberry fool for the pudding. Um, dessert. Ned’s making a surprise soup. He says it’s one of Persie’s favourites, but he won’t tell me what it is.”

  “Now, Emma, we say ‘grilled’ here, not ‘barbied.’ Miss Persie will have you hog-tied if she hears you. Hey, Simon, Brian tells me you’re quite the wine aficionado. Wanna help me pick something out from the cellar for tonight?”

  Now, that I would love to do. And I felt an unwilling rush of something like pleasure at the thought of BM’s noticing this about me and even sharing it in a good way with Ned. I tried to curb my enthusiasm. “Sure. When?”

  He turned to Mum. “You’ve got this covered, right?”

  She laughed, something I haven’t heard her do lately. Hands waving dramatically in the air, she put on a pseudo French accent and said, “But of course!”

  I set down the biscuits and followed Ned towards the back of the kitchen, where the door to the wine cellar is. The stairs lead back under the kitchen and into an area that far exceeded my expectations: several tall, glass-fronted, temperature- and moisture-controlled storage units, each partially full of bottles.

  “Miranda—Brian’s ex—was responsible for keeping these full of wine. When I got here there wasn’t a lot left, so I’ve been working to restock. Brian seemed to have lost interest.” Ned turned to watch my face. “He’d lost interest in a lot of things. And then he met your mother.”

  That was a place I’d rather not go. “You call him Brian?”

  “Oh, sure. We’re all friends here.”

  “Um, where does he get his money? In England, at least, an architect would have to be quite the success to have a place like this.”

  He grinned. “Well, his clients do like him. He gets lots of referrals. But this house was in his family, and I expect he got money from them, too. There’s no mortgage, I don’t think, though the property taxes are probably hefty. Now, on to the wine.”

  He moved from case to case: lighter whites, meaty whites, light reds, heavy reds, rosés, each case divided into countries and regions of origin. There was also a case for sparkling wines, and one for brandies, cognacs, ports, after-dinner wines. Very impressive.

  Returning to stand near the lighter whites case, Ned crossed his arms casually and leaned against a post that supported the floor above. “So, what would you like for tonight?”

  You. It almost slipped out. “You’ve led me to this case. Is this the category you’d recommend?”

  His smile was cryptic. “Maybe I led you to the one most people would choose. Doesn’t mean it’s the best choice. Sometimes it pays to take a risk. Let me ask you this: If the salmon were given a heavier treatment”—he waved a hand in the air—“something less summery, what would you drink?”

  “Probably a pinot noir, maybe a white burgundy. Depends.”

  “So, for a lighter treatment, would you go red at all?”

  “Maybe a rosé?”

  He made a slight face. “Not bad in concept, but would it hold up to the horseradish?”

  As soon as he said horseradish, I headed for the sparkling wine case, looked for a pink foil over a large cork, opened the door, and pulled out a bottle at random. It was a rosé prosecco.

  Ned laughed
and clapped his hands. “I love it!” He bowed obsequiously and imitated a pretentious waiter by saying, “Excellent choice, sir.”

  I moved over to the sweet wines. I was looking for a sauterne my father used to love, but I didn’t see it. There were sauternes here, but nothing I recognised.

  Ned said, “Another excellent idea—fabulous with fool. Do you want a recommendation?”

  “Please.”

  He moved to stand beside me, and in the cool cellar the warmth of his body was almost like a wave, or a gentle pulse. In a trance, I watched him, not the bottles. He pulled one out and handed it to me. “This one, I think.” He didn’t move away. “You know, I think it’s great that we’re celebrating tonight. And I think we’re celebrating not just your day, but also your mom’s coming out of her shell.” He closed the case and stepped back.

  “Shell.”

  He laughed and headed towards the stairs. “Don’t tell me I gave you too much credit. I know teenagers mostly don’t even know their parents are people, let alone sympathise with their difficulties, but—yes, shell. She’s seemed so wound up, so tight, since she got here. But not this afternoon. Did she teach you to love wine?”

  “No. My father.”

  “Well, you could learn a few things about cooking from her. She’s no slouch.” He took the stairs two at a time. I followed, watching him from behind, watching his behind, and once again thought that things could be worse.

  Back in the kitchen, I picked up the plate of tea balls. “Thanks, Mum. Haven’t had these in a while.” The relatively friendly comment was more for Ned, so maybe he’d give me back a little credit, but Mum beamed like I’d given her an unsolicited hug. To Ned, I said, “Any reason I can’t take these into the music room?”

  He feigned a scolding tone. “If Miss Persie finds one tiny smudge of dusty sugar on that piano, you’ll hear about it for the rest of your life. Here.” He handed me a glass of San Pell, two-thirds full, with a submerged lime wedge. “Don’t spill one drop!”

  There was a table with coasters in the music room, so I set my water and plate down, ate two biscuits, wiped sugar from my fingers, and perused the CD collection. It was massive. Everything from Tantric Buddhist monks to Tippett. There was also an area devoted to less erudite recordings. It seems BM—and perhaps Miranda? —enjoyed the popular music of the 1980s. Plus The Beatles, of course. Too soon, I’d finished the plate of biscuits. If it hadn’t been for the dinner Ned and Mum had planned, I’d have gone looking for more. I turned away from the CD rack I’d been browsing—and nearly dropped the plate.

  Persie had come in, very quietly, and she was sitting on the piano bench, facing me with her side towards the keyboard. I did my best to hide my fright. “No Anna?”

  “She has today off. It’s not the right schedule.” Probably compensation for the tantrums she had to deal with all weekend. “Daddy’s grilling fish. Ned is cooking.” She didn’t look at me.

  “My mum is cooking, too.”

  No response. All right, I would avoid referring to anyone who hasn’t been here long enough to become the norm. That would include me, of course, so I asked something about her.

  “Did you do any Schenkerian reductions today?” She hummed three notes. “What’s that?”

  “Beethoven, Cello Sonata, Opus 69 in A minor, second movement. Scherzo, allegro molto.”

  I know only so much about Schenker’s method. A whole movement down to three notes? “Why that movement?”

  “It’s fun.”

  “Why Beethoven?”

  “I wanted to start with something easy.” Her tone was flat; there was no bragging in it. No expectation of praise or admiration.

  I nodded like I understood. “Are you sure those are the right notes?”

  “I have perfect pitch.” And she played the three notes on the keyboard at her side.

  So there was no question in her mind that I would ever challenge her reduction—that is, whether those three notes accurately represent the sonata movement by Schenkerian rules—just the actual tones she had hummed. I might have met my match for arrogance.

  Then she added, “I might try Berg next, though. The Beethoven was too easy.”

  Nope. She has me beat for arrogance. I can’t even listen to Alban Berg’s music. “Let me know how that goes.”

  She looked at me, briefly, without expression, and then away. Remembering what BM had said about her lack of expectations regarding empathy and politeness, I decided to give it a test, hoping she wouldn’t go into one of her tantrums.

  “I took placement exams for my school today.” Still no response. No How did that go? I plunged ahead. “Most of it was pretty easy, of course. Though I’m not sure about the history section. It’s . . . well, it’s rather upsetting, actually. I mean, I’m very good at history. But I’m worried about this test, because it was mostly about US history. The proctor said it’s to see how much I know, coming from England.” I paused and got nothing. “Do you know who shot Abraham Lincoln?”

  “John Wilkes Booth.”

  So she was listening, anyway. I didn’t let on that I hadn’t known. “I did really well on the English section, of course. I had to use the words irenic, nugatory, neologism, sartorial, and ersatz in as few sentences as possible.” I was about to describe how I’d done it, but she got up and wandered over to an end table. She picked up a glass object that looked like a bird of some kind, and sat on the chair beside the table. I had to reposition myself to be able to see her. She didn’t say anything, though, and she showed no signs of exploding. She was looking at the glass bird so intently it was almost like she was meditating on it. But I wanted to talk more about my day, and GG wasn’t here. I didn’t want to talk to Mum or BM, and Ned was busy. So I just kept talking to the un-protesting, unresponsive Persie.

  “Then they had fifty uncommon words, some of which were misspelled, and I had to correct those. Iliopsoas gave me pause, but when I considered that the p might be silent, I knew it was Greek and I should leave it alone. And I almost missed an incorrect one, but then I realised it must be Greek too, so I added an r and got it right.”

  Persie was still intent on her bauble. I didn’t know whether it was her silence or my knowing that she didn’t care at all what had happened to me today, but I ended up telling her something I would probably not have told anyone else. Even GG.

  “That Greek word was arrhostia. I thought I was correct in leaving it alone. But the proctor, Dr. Metcalf, came by and said that I’d made one mistake in the whole list, and that if I found it he’d give me credit. I was shocked that I’d missed something, actually. Shouldn’t have been, maybe, because I hadn’t seen some of those words before. I hadn’t ever seen arrhostia. For a minute I suspected Dr. Metcalf of playing a trick on me.”

  No response to that. So I tried another test. “A is pale yellow. R is bright red, so it’s bright red twice after I made the correction.”

  Something about what I said caught Persie’s attention. She watched my face as I went on. “H is cream; o is terra cotta; s is blood red; t is bright blue; i is bright yellow; and the final a at the end is another pale yellow. So the overall effect is creamy yellow, with a brownish-purple swirl. That swirl is almost brown if you take out that second r.”

  “Because of less red with the blue, and the brown tone of the terra cotta.” She looked away again.

  “Exactly.” These are rules. Rules for letters, to be sure, but I’ll bet the concept appeals to her.

  “What colour is p?”

  “Black.”

  “What colour is e?”

  I knew where she was going. “Your name is black, lilac, bright red, blood red, bright yellow, lilac.”

  She laughed. Actually laughed. And clapped her hands a few times. “It’s like a painting by Clyfford Still!” Before I could ask Who’s Clyfford Still, she was up, out of the room, and pounding up the stairs. I wasn’t sure whether I should follow her or not; could she get herself into some kind of trouble? But—BM left her alo
ne sometimes, and it wasn’t like she was an imbecile or something. I took the stairs two at once, just the same.

  The door to her rooms was open, but I didn’t feel I could just wander in. I peeked in, though, and it looked really lovely. Lots of pastels, all used to very good effect. I called out, “Hello?”

  “Here it is. Here it is. Here it is.” She repeated this phrase several times and then trotted out and sat at one end of a love seat in the upstairs foyer, her hands flying over the keyboard of a laptop. “Here it is. Here it is.”

  “May I sit at this end?” I knew I had to ask for permission.

  “Yes. Here it is. Here it is. Here it is.” And finally, triumphant, she turned the laptop so I could see the screen. And she was absolutely right. There was a painting, Untitled, 1974. It must be oil, must be huge. It’s abstract, and the effect is the same as if Still had painted the entire canvas black and then added jagged areas of a purple colour with swirls of creams and pale yellows and reds in it, and finished it off by adding small but equally jagged areas of bright red, bluish white, and just a dab of sunshine yellow.

  I looked up at Persie, and she was grinning from ear to ear. I had to smile, too; couldn’t help it. “Yes,” I told her, even though the purple was more purple than lilac. “This is you.”

  “Simon,” she said with finality, not like she wanted to address me, more like it was just a word. “What colour is m?”

  “Brick red.”

  “What colour is n?”

  “Coral.”

  Evidently she remembered the other letters that make up my name, because she was back at her laptop again. “Here it is. Here it is.” When she turned the screen again I was dumbfounded.

  The painting is called 1947-R-No. 1, and the Web page said it’s just over five feet square, a little taller than wide. Blood red overall, large irregular edgy shapes in terra cotta, a squiggle of yellow, and a small starburst of orangey-coral. There are also areas of edgy black and a squiggle of white, but they don’t upset the total effect. I was staring at it in a kind of trance when I heard BM’s voice from downstairs.