“I—I don’t get on well with children.” The truth is, I don’t get on well with anyone.
“Toby is extremely bright; you’ll get along fine.”
“What if we don’t get along, though?”
“As I said, if the reasons are strong enough, we’ll revisit.”
“How am I marked on this? What if he doesn’t win?” My voice was starting to sound squeaky with panic.
“You and I will meet each week about your career here, and this project is one of the things we’ll discuss. I’ll monitor your progress, I’ll speak with Toby and his parents a few times, and I’ll write a report about your overall success at working with Toby. Your final assessment won’t be based on the outcome of the competition. It will be based on your interaction with him, on the effort you put into it, and on our discussions. He doesn’t have to like you, or you, him. But you need to find a way to help him prepare.”
I was struggling to come up with some other angle. I really, really did not want this project, but without that CAS credit, Oxford won’t consider me.
There are so very many things I’m being forced to do that I don’t want to do, but this? This was the icing on the cake. The final straw. Whatever metaphor you like. I’d reached critical mass.
“Simon, I know that moving to Boston was not something you wanted to do, and I completely understand that. But the best choices you can make now must be rooted in reality. You are here, and we’re very well prepared to support your goal. But you have to work with us. At this point, rebelling against your current situation will work against your future one. My job is to help you. So, given that, and keeping in mind the current reality, is there anything I can do to help you help yourself?”
My eyes stung. I refused to cry! I lifted my chin to keep tears from falling. I knew that if I spoke, my voice would crack and I’d lose my battle. I grabbed the folder, turned my back on my supposed counsellor, and left.
I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. A couple of students I’d met during orientation stood like obstacles between me and the exit, and I nodded at them as best I could without slowing my frantic pace.
The near jog between the school and BM’s house was a blur. If a dog had jumped out and bitten me along the way, I don’t think it would have registered.
Everyone keeps telling me to work with what I’ve got, to look for opportunities in the changes. What they don’t get is that everything else was taken away from me. So everything I wanted is gone, and they keep handing me things I don’t want and saying, “Here. Work with this.” And there’s not a fucking thing I can do about it!
Every time I think, All right, this could be worse, it gets worse. First the house isn’t bad, but then there’s Persie to deal with. So I managed to get to a place where Persie is at least interesting, and St. Boniface tries to make me take remedial history. The IB programme requirements point me towards art, and there’s a course I actually want to take, but no, I can’t have that one. So they push me into a demanding, year-long course that most students know better than to sign up for. And now? Now they want me to cater to some child who can’t learn to spell by himself! And through it all, they keep telling me not to fight it, not to rebel, not to complain.
FUCK THAT SHIT!
At the house I got upstairs as fast as possible. Unlocking the door to my staircase, I was shaking so badly that I dropped my keys at least three times.
My bedroom door has a lock, and I used it. Screaming into my pillow, I didn’t hear Mum’s knocking until it turned into pounding. “Simon! Simon, what’s wrong? What’s happened?”
“Go away! Stay away from me! This is all your fault!”
“I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to stay right here until you open the door.”
There was no way I could go on screaming as though I were alone. I got up and threw the door open.
“You’ve taken everything else, and now I can’t even have any fucking privacy! Get the hell away from me!” I’ve rarely sworn in front of my mother, and never at her.
She stepped into the room and tried to embrace me. I stepped away. “Get out, damn you! Get out and leave me alone!” We stared at each other for two, three seconds maybe, and gradually she turned and left, an odd expression on her face that I couldn’t read. And I didn’t care.
I went back to pounding on my bed, but there didn’t seem to be any tears. Maybe I’d used them all up by now. Sliding down to the floor, back against the mattress, I longed for Graeme. I was supposed to ring him today. Maybe I should ring him now. Maybe I should text him. Maybe it would be cathartic to write a long, heartfelt e-mail.
Maybe I should just face the truth. There is no Graeme.
This hit me smack in the middle of my chest, hard enough to take my breath away.
The Graeme who loves me, the Graeme whose kisses make me wild, doesn’t exist.
The real Graeme, the one I love but who barely knows I’m alive, isn’t even gay. That day in the maze? The treasure hunt where he ended up in the same dead end with me? That happened. What didn’t happen was his kissing me. Or even looking like the idea had ever crossed his mind. There have been no exchanges about being at New College together, or about singing in the chapel or lounging in the garden or creating a dining routine everyone wants to join. I’ve wanted him for over a year, dreamed about him, dreamed of him loving me. None of it was real.
As the self-delusion about Graeme wormed its way into my psyche, it made me vulnerable to another secret I’d tried to hide from myself: I don’t believe Oxford will want me.
It was my dad’s idea, Oxford. It was his belief in me that made it seem possible. And ever since he died, I’ve been trying to prop up his idea—with less and less conviction. And if I’m honest with myself, I have to admit this was part of the reason I’d picked up the razor blade at home.
The other part had been the same damned reason I was in despair again now. Graeme. I’d known he had a girlfriend, but he’d been talkative enough about it that I felt sure he hadn’t had sex with her, because he’d never mentioned anything like that, which meant there was still hope. But then, just before Mum informed me about this move, his talk had changed. And I knew it had happened, and I knew he had liked it.
Looking back, mentally seeing that blade in my hands, I don’t know why I didn’t go through with it. What had stopped me? What had seemed like it was worth going on for? Whatever the reason, not using that blade meant I’d had to find some way to go on living, at least for a time, at least until I could decide what to do. I couldn’t change the move, but I’d managed to reconstruct my love affair. It had been imaginary all along; why couldn’t it continue that way?
Now, with both these things hitting me again on top of the critical mass reached today, I realised that these two delusions together—Oxford and Graeme—were nothing more than a hollow shell merely pretending to be a solid, unstoppable mass. And I was the cowardly lion, pretending to be fearless. I was huddled into a soggy ball and crying out, “Who pulled my tail?” when it was me, hanging onto it out of terror.
There were sobs now, painful and deep, and when they faded I sat there on the floor, considering my options. I could refuse to do any of the things that are being thrown at me, and lose any remote chance at Oxford or any other decent school. I could toe the line for the rest of this fucking year, absorb all those awful things that keep flying at me like rotten meat thrown by a bloodthirsty crowd, and get out of this fucking city and back home, even if I have to disappoint my father and go to some other school.
Or I could let the bloodthirsty crowd win. I could die.
The next thing I registered was that I was in that huge, beautiful bathroom, staring at the claw-foot tub. It would be a lovely place to die, actually. I took off my St. Boniface clothes, folded them neatly, and stacked them on the floor, leaving only my undershorts on. Experimentally, I lay in the empty tub for a few minutes and decided that yes, it would work. I got up, opened the skylight, and from a drawer in the a
ntique oak armoire I fetched my panic kit: that black leather case with the single-edge razor blades.
They looked clean, objective, without judgement or intent or emotion. They were just blades. I selected one and held it so the light caught on it, and I felt a peaceful calm come to me.
Everything was in slow motion now. First, I locked the door. Next, I placed the vanity chair under the doorknob in the event Mum came looking for me again. Next, I set the plug into the tub drain. Next, I turned only the hot water on. I watched the water fill the tub. Water: Navy. Pale yellow. Bright blue. Lilac. Bright red. A few times, I tested the water temperature, adding cold water as needed.
Water off, I stared up at the skylight and, through it, sent a final farewell to Graeme. Aloud, I said, “I loved you. I loved you so much. If only you knew.”
I set the blade in the soap dish and stepped into the tub.
Reclining there, I let my arms float in the clear water, water that wasn’t just clear but was also a swirl of bluish purple with a dash of yellow. I was about to add so much red to it. It would be truly beautiful. Persie would be fascinated. And that’s all she would be. Persie is like the razor blade. No judgement, no attachment.
In my mind, Persie picked up the blade that was actually in my right hand now. She didn’t look at my face. This wasn’t about me, for her. Aloof, emotionally removed, she leaned over her task, and with the corner of the blade she pricked the skin on my left forearm, just to see what would happen, and pulled the blade away. A thin stream of red swirled into the water and gradually disappeared. Again, blade to skin, she made the cut a little longer. No deeper yet, but longer. More swirls, more gradual fading away, rather like my life would do soon. If there was pain, it didn’t touch me.
A little deeper now, and the swirls were richer. I watched them dissipate, but there was enough that the clear water was changing. Suddenly it wasn’t blue or purple or yellow or even red. Suddenly it was an ugly shade of greenish brown. I raced through the letters; what was brown? C, and d. Different shades, but both browns. What was green? F, q, and v. Q for queer, maybe? But together these letters made no sense. They were twisting in my brain into ugliness. They turned into brown snakes with hideous green markings, and they curled around my legs, my waist, and up my chest.
Suddenly I was standing in the tub, screaming, but without making any sound. Silent screams. Silent snakes. With my hands, I brushed frantically at my ribs, pushing the snakes down, pushing them off my legs, until I could get out of the tub. I stood on the marble tiled floor, dripping green-brown water that slowly faded to the palest pink.
My legs wouldn’t support me, and I lowered myself to the floor. On all fours, I felt my lungs heave as though something had pulled me underwater and I’d barely escaped. The panic waned, and from my left arm a squiggly wet stream of watery blood made its way to the floor. I watched it without caring in the least what it was or what it meant.
Fully on the floor now, I lay on my side, curled into an embryonic ball. There were no tears. There was no pain. All that existed were the hard, cold floor and my own heartbeat. And then I heard it. My father’s voice.
“What’s green and brown, Simon, is the word stop.”
His colours were different to mine. I don’t know what all his colours were. All I could do was believe the voice.
The knocking on the door went on for a while before I noticed it. Then I heard, “Simon? It’s Ned. Can I come in?”
I pointed my brain in that direction, struggling to understand. My eyes opened, but still I couldn’t see very well. It was late enough that there was not much light coming from overhead. From inside my embryonic cocoon I managed, “What?”
“Are you all right? Can I come in?”
“Wait.” At least I knew he must wait; nothing would happen quickly. I unfolded my arms first, checked to be sure my left arm was no longer bleeding, then straightened my legs as much as I could, and finally I sat up. “Wait,” I said again, just in case.
There was blood on the floor.
Standing slowly, I located first a light switch and then a sponge, which I wet in the pale pink water of the tub. I swiped at the floor.
“Simon?”
“Wait.” My brain started to kick in, and I realised this wasn’t enough. So I added, “I’m just getting out of the bathtub, all right?”
There would be a stain between the floor tiles. No getting around that. I rinsed the sponge as well as I could and drained the tub, swiping with the sponge at the pink ring the water left behind. The blade, which I had dropped, lodged in the drain, and I picked it up carefully, wrapped it in a wad of toilet paper, and set it in the wastebasket.
At the sink I rinsed my arm. The cut wasn’t very big. It would heal.
“Simon?” His tone had become more insistent.
“Wait! I said wait!” I was irritated now. Again, no privacy. I looked around the room to be sure it was as unrevealing as possible. Wrapping a towel around my waist, holding it with my left hand, my inner arm pressed against me to hide the wound, I moved the chair as quietly as I could and then unlocked and opened the door. “What is it?”
“You didn’t come down for dinner.” He half grinned. “Persie will have your head. Anyway, I’ve brought your dinner up for you, along with mine. Why don’t you get dressed, and then come out to the roof. We can eat together.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Come out anyway. I’ll be waiting.” He turned and left.
Feeling stunned and empty, moving slowly, I located a box of bandages and applied one in case the bleeding started again. In my room I peeled off my damp underwear, put on a dry pair, and wrapped myself in my bathrobe. Ordinarily, this robe gives me pleasure. It’s a rich gold silk with dark blue silk edging sewn around the cuffs and along the shawl collar. But tonight, it was just a robe. Stepping into slippers, I made my sluggish way out to the roof.
Ned had the table set, complete with placemats, cloth napkins, and sterling silver. There was a half-bottle of wine in a marble stone cooler and two glasses. On the plates were Cornish game hens, something that looked like haricots, and something white and red.
“Gorgeous robe. It’s almost dark enough for the light. Do you need it?”
“There’s a light out here?”
“Sure.”
I sat. “No. No light.”
He poured some wine into the glasses. I didn’t look at the label. I didn’t care. Then he picked up his glass, holding it in my general direction. “Prosit,” he said, practically forcing me to lift mine. Once I had it in my hand, I took a sip. It was chilled, but it felt warm and buttery. “One of the Mersault selections. There wasn’t a lot in half bottles. But I like this one.”
It was an effort to set my glass down carefully, I felt that weak. And then it was too much effort to pick up my utensils. So I just sat. So did Ned.
“I know something happened today that upset you very much. I hope you’ll tell me what it was.”
My head wouldn’t raise, but I did my best to look at him. I didn’t want to talk about it. And I did want to talk about it. I didn’t say anything.
“Is it about school?”
Was it? Yes, but so much more. I have no boyfriend. I have no cat. I have no parents. I have no home. I have no friends. I have no chance. I have no hope. How much of that could I say? To anyone?
“It’s everything,” I managed finally. “There’s nothing left. Nothing of me left. It’s all someone else’s life now.”
“Someone else? Like, who?”
My life has felt like a sham for so long. So I cast the blame in the most obvious direction. “My mother. It’s her life. It’s all about her. Everything that was me is gone. And they keep dumping more and more and more”—my head lifted now, and my voice got louder—“and more crap on my head. More shit I have to do that I don’t want to do. More shit I have to deal with. It’s like—it’s almost like someone’s cast an evil spell over me. And everyone keeps telling me to accept it, to work wit
h it, or I can’t go home. I feel like fucking Dorothy. And the witch who cried, ‘Surrender, Dorothy’ has had her way.”
“So you want to go back to Kansas?”
I glared at him. “This is not funny!”
“Sorry. Couldn’t help myself. So, getting back to London would make everything all right?”
I took a very, very shaky breath. Would it? Oxford or no Oxford, would I rather be in England? Yes. Absolutely, yes. “Every shred of me is back in England. I could be myself there. I can say ‘biscuit’ there. I feel out of it here, out of everything. I want my cat back. I want to be able to visit my father’s grave. I want a chance to build my life where I started it, where my roots go back further into history than people here can begin to imagine, where I feel like I belong. They ripped me away from it, and they’re trying to make me believe that I can’t have it back unless I do all this shit they’re telling me to do.”
His face had an odd look on it. Almost angry. And as I realised that his own African roots were as old and as deep as mine, knowing that his ancestors had been yanked much more cruelly out of their soil than I had been, I shrank back into my chair. A challenge in his voice, he said, “What shit would that be?”
But he didn’t have the right to challenge me. My problems were no less real than they had been five minutes before, and he wasn’t the one who had arrived on these shores in the stinking, crowded cargo hold of a small ship. I stood so suddenly that the chair went over backwards. “All of it! Boston, this house, Brian, Persie, the fucking school, a course load that could kill me when I’m feeling good—and I’m feeling like shit—and now this latest thing—”
Turning away from the table I walked quickly to the far end of the roof, to the waist-high brick wall. I leaned my hands on the granite that tops the brick and looked over. It might or might not be fatal to fall from here. Everything would depend on the position I’d be in when I landed. Plus I’d have to be sure to clear the fire escape that’s back here.
Educating Simon Page 11