What Was She Thinking?: Notes on a Scandal: A Novel

by Zoe Heller

  “My goodness, Sheba, your work is so … sweet,” I said.

  “Oh dear.”

  “No, not sweet. These things are lovely. I mean, when I think of pottery, I think of … not lovely things like these.” I pointed to a large bowl trimmed with a winding trail of yellow roses and plump, blue sparrows. “Look at this. I do envy you being able to make things. May I?”

  She nodded. “Go ahead.”

  I picked it up carefully. “How did you do it? These colours … so clever. I love these birds.”

  “Have it,” she said.

  I put the bowl down. “Oh, God, absolutely not. Please, Sheba, I wasn’t fishing, I promise …”

  “No, I know. I’d just like you to have it.”

  “Oh, but I …”

  “Barbara, don’t be tiresome about this,” she said, smiling. “Take the bloody bowl.”

  It is always difficult, the transition from noisy refusal to humble acceptance. “Are you sure?” I said.

  “Absolutely.”

  “Well, thank you,” I said. “I’m terribly touched. I haven’t received such a lovely gift in a very long time. It’s beautiful.” I paused, aware that I was being a bore. “Polly’s a very pretty girl,” I added, to change the subject.

  “Yes,” Sheba murmured. She unfolded two chairs that were stacked against the wall and gestured at me to sit down on one of them.

  I thought that was all she was going to say about Polly, so I opened my mouth looking for other topics. But just as I opened my mouth to remark on how peaceful it was in the basement, she started speaking again. “No one ever expected Polly to turn out so nicely,” she said. “She became beautiful quite suddenly, at the age of eight. Before that, she was an ugly little thing. A little rat of a girl. People were always telling me tactfully that she was very robust. I never cared. Her ugliness made me love her more. For the first two years of her life, I could hardly put her down. I carried her everywhere, as if I were bearing the infant Boudicca on her triumphal litter.” She paused. “It’s probably a good thing that your kids turn into difficult adolescents,” she said. “The feelings you have for them as infants are much too intense, too enervating, to sustain.”

  “Polly’s a bit difficult, is she, then?” I said.

  Sheba looked at me wryly. “You needn’t pretend, Barbara. Yes, Polly is an absolute pain in the arse. She’s got a lot of ‘positions’ on things. Vegetarianism. Feminism. All that. And she doesn’t like it at all if you happen not to share them with her.”

  I smiled.

  “She’s always rejecting boys on the basis that they’re not political enough, or that they’re ‘sexist,’” Sheba went on. “Don’t you think there’s something a bit hard, or just a bit unimaginative about a young woman who can turn down a suitor on those grounds? I mean, surely at seventeen, you’re allowed to just fancy people?”

  I shrugged. “Each to her own.”

  “I was a lot sillier and more innocent at her age, I know,” Sheba said. “And infinitely more woundable. But I had more fun, I think. I was so excited by things. So looking forward to becoming an adult! I used to practise rolling around in bed at night with my future boyfriends. I had a whole collection of fantasy lovers. The cowboy, the doctor, the Arab sheik. I was the proud, rebellious one in the sheik’s harem. The one with ‘spirit’ …” She laughed. “When I think back to all that, I feel almost sorry for Polly. You know? I mean, what men does she dream of? The district leaders of Animal Rights Now?” She stopped abruptly, as if embarrassed at how passionate she had allowed herself to become on this subject.

  “Well, anyway,” she said, after a moment, “that’s it. Teenagers are hard work. You know that.”

  I nodded. “Where did you learn to do this?” I asked, gesturing at her work. “Did you study art somewhere?”

  She smiled a little wanly. “Not really. I took a foundation course at St. Martin’s. But then I met Richard—he was one of my lecturers—and we got married.”

  “Oh! You must have been so young!”

  “Yes, twenty. And I wasn’t even pregnant. He asked me, and it seemed like something to do.” She laughed. “I was always a bit of a scaredy-cat about the big wide world. I told myself that it was subversive of me to be doing something so conventional.”

  “What did your parents say?”

  “Oh, they were appalled—Daddy especially. He said he hadn’t raised me to be a ninny housewife. After we were married he was always on at me to get a job. I did try various things to please him. I took a typing course and temped for a bit. I got a job with one of his friends, working at a charity for the homeless, but I got sacked for not being efficient enough. After that, I did a teacher training course. And then I got pregnant. My starting salary in teaching wouldn’t have covered the cost of the nanny, so that was that. I always said I’d go to work when Polly was five. But, just after her fifth birthday, I found out I was pregnant again. And then Ben turned out to be … Ben. It was only last year, when we finally got him settled into a good day centre, that the question of work came up again.” She stuck out her chin. “There. Now you know how I find myself so hopelessly without achievement.”

  “How can you say such a thing?” I protested. “You have two beautiful children. Ben is so marvellous. You can’t possibly regret devoting your energies to him. To have brought up two children—one with handicaps—I mean, that’s huge, a huge achievement. Certainly bigger than anything you could have done by having a career.”

  Sheba nodded impatiently. “Oh, yes, I know. I know all that. And, believe me, I allow myself plenty of private gloating about my selfless parenting. But raising kids is not the same as what I’m … It can’t possibly offer the same satisfactions as doing things out in the world. I don’t care what you say, it’s a terrible bore to have never made or done anything noteworthy, to have laboured in such absolute obscurity.”

  I was just stuttering a protest when she interrupted. “Barbara—sorry, I don’t mean to impose on you—but could I ask your advice about something? I need very badly to talk to someone at the moment. I’ve got a little problem. At school.”

  I nodded earnestly, trying to look worthy of her confidence. “What is the—”

  “Well.” She patted nervously at her hair. “It’s about one of the pupils. Actually, it’s that boy, you know, the one you helped me deal with last term.”

  “Which boy?”

  “The very blond one? Steven Connolly?”

  “Ah, yes.”

  She went on to give me a heavily bowdlerised account of their relationship. They were friends, she said. He had an interest in art, and he often came to see her out of school hours, to discuss his drawings. She had been teaching him about pottery. But, lately, she had sensed that he was developing some sort of crush on her, and she was concerned about how to proceed. When I asked her what cause she had to suspect a crush, she hesitated, as if embarrassed. Then she explained that the previous week, as she was leaving school, Connolly had approached her on the street and tried to kiss her.

  For all its omissions, it was a long narrative, which she told with many fastidious digressions. Listening to her, I had the impression that she was trying to be very, very scrupulous and accurate. Several times, she stopped to correct herself on tiny points relating to the exact time that a conversation had taken place or precisely what salutation she had used on a specific occasion. It was almost as if she were giving a police report.

  “What day was it again, that he actually attacked you?” I asked, when she had finished.

  “Oh no, it wasn’t an attack … ,” she said.

  “All right, whatever it was. When was it?”

  “Um, last Thursday.”

  “Have you seen him or spoken to him since the incident?”

  “He’s come to my studio a couple of times, but I sent him away.”

  I thought for a while. “If the situation is really as you have described it,” I said, “your course of action seems to me quite clear-cut. The b
oy has been harassing you and needs to be stopped. You must inform the headmaster straightaway and have the boy disciplined.”

  Sheba looked at me, horrified. “Oh no!” she said. “No, no. I couldn’t possibly …”

  “But the boy tried to kiss you. It’s very serious.”

  “No, no, Barbara,” she said. “I’ve given you quite the wrong impression. He’s the most harmless boy. When I say ‘kiss,’ you have to understand, it was a terribly sweet, romantic thing—not at all aggressive—and the moment I protested, he stopped. He’s got a crush, you see. It would do nobody any good to make it a discipline issue.”

  We were both quiet for a moment.

  “Sheba, I have to ask you this. Do you have feelings for this boy?”

  She blushed. “Well, yes. What—You mean, do I fancy him or something? God, no. Absolutely not. I’m fond of him. He’s a sweetie. I just, you know, need to know how to handle this, without hurting his feelings.”

  I nodded. “I’m going to tell you something now that you’re not going to like,” I said. “You’re new to this game, and you have a lot of worthy, completely impractical ideas about what your role as teacher should be. The fact is, it isn’t your job to be a friend to your pupils. When you blur the lines of the teacher-pupil contract—when you try to be soft and chummy and ‘one of them’—you are actually doing your pupils a disservice. I don’t pretend to know what ails this boy, but it would seem fairly obvious that he has formed an intense attachment to you. I strongly advise you to refer this to the head. If you won’t do that, you must at least make it clear to the boy that you’re prepared to do so. You have to tell him, firmly, that there is to be no further contact between the two of you.”

  Sheba had been nodding vigorously as I was talking. When I was done, she said, with great fervour and determination, “You’re right, you’re right. I know you’re right. Oh, Barbara, I’m going to do just as you say. I’ve been a terrible silly. But I’m going to be very, very tough from now on. I promise.”

  She went to a cupboard, took out some old newspaper, and began wrapping my bowl.

  I took this as a signal that our conference was at an end, and I got up from my chair.

  “I’m so glad I spoke to you about this, Barbara,” she said, handing me the package. “It’s been preying on my mind all week. I knew you’d put me right. You must think me awfully foolish …”

  I shook my head, and then—a little tentatively, because casual affection is not my forte—I patted her on the shoulder. “Not at all. Not at all. These are difficult matters for a new teacher to deal with. I’m very glad you spoke to me about it.”

  At the foot of the stairs, I turned to her. “Forgive me for asking, but have you told anyone else about any of this?”

  “No. No, I haven’t,” she said.

  “Not even Sue?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Well, no, I was just thinking it would probably serve you best not to tell Sue. She’s not a bad person. But she’s not …” I chuckled. “She can be a bit of a goose, can’t she?”

  Sheba nodded. “You’re quite right. I shan’t tell anyone else.”

  Much later on, when Sheba finally told me the truth about her relationship with Connolly, when I found out all that she had omitted from this first, bizarre faux confession, I was very angry. I couldn’t understand why she had gone to the bother of telling such a radically compromised truth. Just two nights before she had me over to her house, she had been rutting with Connolly in a public park. Had it given her a thrill to play at confessing to me? Or had she offered this innocent version of their relationship in order to counter any suspicions among the staff of something worse?

  In the beginning, I was willing to attribute the worst possible motives to her deceit. But, as time went on, the more melodramatic theories lost credibility. It is mad to describe a middle-aged adulteress as innocent, and yet there is something fundamentally innocent about Sheba. It goes without saying that she is capable of all kinds of sin. But she is not one of life’s schemers. She does not have the cunning that is required to connive and plot—at least not in any sustained, committed way. I am more inclined at this point to see her first account as the sort of quasiconfidence that young children impart when they want relief from the burden of a secret but are unwilling to face the ramifications of full disclosure. Down in that basement studio, I believe that she wanted to tell all. Her courage simply failed her. The queasy look that I mistook at the time for general anxiety was, in fact, a thwarted desire for absolution.

  Upstairs, the children had disappeared to their rooms and Richard was in the kitchen making coffee. Sheba and I went to sit in the living room and, shortly afterwards, Richard came in with the coffee tray. He made a great song and dance about it—tootling a fanfare and wearing a tea cosy on his head. From this and from the extravagant gratitude with which Sheba thanked him, I gathered that Richard’s contributions to the domestic commonweal were rather infrequent.

  The three of us sat and talked for forty-five minutes or so. The conversation was mainly about our plans for the summer holiday. Richard and Sheba were going to be in Provence for a month. “We go every year,” Sheba said. “My family has a house—well, more of a shack, actually—that my father bought a hundred years ago for tuppence halfpenny. It’s completely primitive but very pretty. Near Avignon, if that means anything.” I mentioned a tentative plan to travel to Madrid, and Richard, who had spent some time in Spain as a young man, had a great deal of advice about what I ought to do and see while I was there. Then it was ten thirty and time for me to leave.

  On the way home, I stopped in at LoPrice, the supermarket at the end of my road, to get a pint of milk and some bread for the next morning. The man in front of me at the checkout laid his purchases on the conveyor belt with a terrible, shy precision: a jar of instant coffee; a single kaiser roll with a smudge of dirt on its hard crust; a tin of tuna; a large jar of mayonnaise; two boxes of Kleenex. I thought of the casually extravagant meal that I had just eaten at the Harts’. They surely never shopped at overpriced, unhygienic little supermarkets like this one. No, they would take advantage of their economies of scale and make jolly family expeditions to the flagship Sainsbury’s in West Hampstead. I could just picture them bouncing along the aisles, throwing economy packs of toilet paper into their carts and shouting, “What’s the rice situation, darling?” at each other. The man at the checkout watched his things being rung up with careful attention. Back home, he would make his grim tuna sandwich and his cup of sawdust coffee. He would eat in front of the television, as single people do. And then he would turn to his bounteous supply of tissues … . For what? Tears? Sneezes? Masturbation?

  There was a small confusion when the girl at the till mistakenly included my milk and bread as part of the man’s basket. “No, no,” the man murmured angrily. Shooting me a nasty look, he grabbed the little metal divider and slammed it down on the conveyor belt to section off my things from his. Lonely people are terrible snobs about one another, I’ve found. They’re afraid that consorting with their own kind will compound their freakishness. The time that Jennifer and I went to Paris together, we saw an airline employee at Heathrow ask two very fat people in the check-in line where they were both off to. The fat people were not a couple as it happened, and the suggestion that they were panicked them. Leaping apart, they both shouted in unison, “We’re not together!”

  I understood their horror. Even Jennifer and I were prey on occasion to a certain self-consciousness about the impression we made as a twosome. Alone, each of us was safely unremarkable—invisible, actually—as plain women over the age of forty are to the world. Together, though, I always suspected that we were faintly comic: two screamingly unhusbanded ladies on a day out. A music hall act of spinsterhood.

  For a second, I had an impulse to shout at the man in LoPrice—to tell him that I was not like him at all, that I had friends. That I had just come from a warm and delightful family dinner at someone’s house. B
ut of course I didn’t. I merely lowered my head and pretended to look for something in my handbag until he was safely out on the street.

  Later, in bed with a cup of tea and Portia, I reflected on the evening with some satisfaction. Notwithstanding the bloody ankle, I had made a good showing, I felt. I had been mannerly and appropriate with the children. I had gotten along well with the husband. And, when asked by Sheba for advice, I had responded with wisdom and sympathy. Sheba had clearly been very grateful.

  How deluded I was! But how happy!

  7

  Location, I believe, was the predominant concern of the lovers in the early days of their romance. Where to meet. Where to do it. For want of any more agreeable alternative, they returned to Hampstead Heath many times. (Sheba is uncertain of the exact number, but she estimates at least twenty.) The alfresco aspect of their sexual relations has greatly exercised the press but, contrary to all the reporters’ salacious innuendo, Sheba and Connolly did not feel that there was any erotic bonus to their trysting outdoors. It is quite difficult, apparently, to disport oneself with convincing abandon on sodden London parkland. In early April, the evenings were so cold that Sheba would often lose all feeling in her lips and hands. And even in more clement weather, fear of insects and of dog shit made complete relaxation an impossibility. Once a man stumbled into the clearing where Sheba and Connolly were huddled together. Sheba panicked and screamed, causing the man to scream himself and run away. Afterwards, Connolly tried to soothe Sheba—assure her that the man wasn’t coming back. But she could not be convinced, and the evening was ruined.

  Later, she discovered that she and Connolly had unknowingly set up camp in the area of the heath frequented by homosexuals. The man who disturbed them had been not a Peeping Tom but a queer Lothario in search of a conquest. Still, Sheba remained sufficiently unsettled by the episode to arrange her next meeting with Connolly back in her school studio. She locked the door and drew the curtains, of course, but the school cleaners, who kept uncertain hours, had keys to the room. The risk of being caught was high.