Hearing Helen

by Carolyn Morton

  “So, do you enjoy your school?” I asked, trying to find out subtly if the Music Academy really was that great.

  “Love it,” Karen replied. Of course, she looked like the kind of person who would be happy anywhere she was. “The teachers are great.”

  “You mean, they’re friendly?”

  “Strict though. Music is the best.”

  “Does Madame Pandora teach you?”

  She shook her head. “I play clarinet, and she only teaches the piano kids: the top ones, like your brother. He’s super-cool, Hank. Really funny. What a fantastic dude.”

  Hank, funny? The guy spends his life monopolising the piano or with his nose shoved into a book.

  “Serious?”

  “And he’s so interesting too. We never stop laughing and talking when we’re together. I can’t wait to meet your parents to see where he got it from.”

  I decided not to disillusion her that he didn’t get it from either of them and that the Hank she was describing sounded like an alien. Maybe there’d been an intergalactic invasion and his body had been beamed into space and replaced with a clone who actually had a sense of humour.

  We pulled up outside my house.

  “Thanks, Caryn!”

  She disappeared with a grin, a wave and another coppery shake of her head.

  I snuck in, hoping my parents weren’t home early, in case they asked questions about who had dropped me off, but I needn’t have worried. The only being around to welcome me was the next-door cat, who rubbed the top of his head against my school socks, probably begging for attention. He didn’t get much from the neighbours.

  I tossed Felicity down on the couch and he curled himself up around her, purring like a tractor.

  After packing away the butter and dumping the rest of the shopping on the counter, I called June. She and Kean had found lots of information on pregnancy, which would form the first part of the project, but we still needed more about parenting and how it changed one’s life, to tie up with our personal reflections on the experience of fostering Felicity.

  “Perhaps you and I can go together tomorrow,” I said, hoping she’d suggest that Kean come too.

  “Sounds fine. We’ve written down the name of a good book but our library cards were full, so we’ll need to take it out on your name.” June’s voice sounded far away, as though she wasn’t on the end of the line but speaking at a distance from the phone.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Sure.”

  But when I got to school the next day, she obviously wasn’t. She gave her bag to Kean without even looking at him, and her face was pale, as if she hadn’t been in the sun enough. I glanced at her once we were seated in our class and she smiled, but ended­ the smile with a shiver, even though it was so hot.

  “What’s wrong with June?” Kean asked me during break. I was sitting out on the field on my usual bench, trying to get a tan and praying that it would come without more freckles.

  I shifted up so that he could sit next to me and he gave me a skew smile that made the pulse in my throat beat furiously, protruding then retracting like a miniature hammer gone mad.

  He nodded his head towards the window of Mrs Smith’s classroom, where I could see June’s back as she sat in her desk, hunched over.

  “Is she sick?”

  I was tempted to say no to stop him going over to the window, but it would have been pointless to lie; anyone could see she felt lousy. I frowned, trying to listen to the voice that told me not to bother, and that nothing mattered as long as Kean was sitting next to me with his muscled calves showing off their healthy tan.

  As I sat looking up towards her, June lifted her head and seemed to retch. I realised, reluctantly, that I couldn’t leave her there.

  “She doesn’t look good.” I said it to myself, not to him.

  “You’d better go see what’s wrong,” Kean said awkwardly.

  I ran across the field, pushed up the classroom window and ducked to crawl inside.

  June had been crying.

  For a moment, I forgot all about Kean. “What’s wrong?” I asked gently. “Are you ill?”

  She licked her lips and shook her head, but her body jerked again as she retched. Just then the bell rang, but she just sat there huddled in her blazer, like an old woman wrapped up in a rug.

  As soon as Mrs Smith came in, I told her. She nodded as I spoke to her and beckoned to June, whose hand was held over her mouth as though she was trying not to vomit.

  “You’re going straight home,” Mrs Smith said firmly, steering her out the door towards the office to call her mom.

  After school I wanted to phone June to check how she was doing, but I had to hurry to the library to get the extra book we needed for our project. Seeing that June wouldn’t be able to come, I tried suggesting to Kean that he come with me, but he said he was busy, probably going to visit June and spend the afternoon staring at her like an idiot. If I’d known a tummy bug would make her so interesting, I’d have faked it myself for his benefit long ago.

  “Here’s the name of the book we found, though, Helen,” he said casually, and I realised that thanks to June he’d recently been talking to me almost like I was as popular as he was.

  I took advantage of June’s not being there by risking an attempt at my most dazzling Marilyn Monroe smile. I’d once read in an article that before she’d become famous, Marilyn’s roommate had helped her develop that alluring smile that was almost a pout. I wondered if, like me, she’d stood in front of the mirror, trying to leave just the right gap between her top and lower teeth without stretching her lips too thin. I usually end up looking like a goldfish.

  “See you,” Kean said, grinning back. I bet he never practised smiling. People like Kean were just born with smiles that made people’s knees wobbly. I knew his smile probably meant nothing. But I hoped June would stay home sick for another day or two, just in case I had a chance.

  I had to race to Maths Magicians first because Hank had borrowed my library card to take out an extra book for a project and he still hadn’t returned it. When I got there, he was sitting on a low brick wall near the garage, waiting for Mrs Meintjies to arrive.

  “Hank!” I called.

  Caryn was with him, her head on his shoulder. As I came closer, he whispered something to her and gave a laugh that brightened up the afternoon in the same way a turn of the kaleidoscope twisted dull shapes into a mirage of colour.

  He pushed her playfully, then grabbed her to stop her toppling off the wall, like my dad used to do when I was little. It was like I was looking at a stranger, his shoulders loose and relaxed, instead of taut as they usually were, like a boxer steeling himself against the final blow.

  “Hank!” I shouted more loudly. For a moment, it even felt absurd that I knew the name of this stranger.

  They glanced up and Caryn grinned. “I think Helen wants your job,” she laughed jokingly. “She’s here almost as much as you are.”

  “No, thanks, he can keep his weird diagrams and models,” I said. “I just want my library card.”

  I stared curiously at my brother to see if his face looked any different, but he still had the same thin, lean-boned cheeks and wiry orange spikes around his face.

  “You’d better hurry,” he reminded me. “The library closes early today.”

  I nodded, glancing at my watch. Ten minutes to closing time.

  “Remember Madame Pandora said no lessons today!” I hollered over my shoulder, shoving the library card into my blazer pocket as I rushed off. As I rounded the corner, just before they fell out of sight, I looked back once more at my brother­ and his girlfriend. His arm was around her again and his ear was bent to her mouth to catch every word she whispered. They didn’t see me.

  I made it just in time to the library. The security guard was about to lock the outer doors and he frowned as I dashed past him, like I was some sort of criminal.

  “What do you think I’m going to do?” I muttered behind his bac
k, gasping as I almost got stuck in the turnstile. “Rifle the petty cash for thirty rands’ worth of late library fines?”

  Out of breath, I shoved the piece of paper with the book’s title under the librarian’s nose. If she’d worn glasses, she would have peered over the top to make sure I understood what she thought of people who kept her working when she should be shelving her last book.

  But she didn’t have glasses, so instead she stared at me over her beaked nose and at a snail’s pace reluctantly moved to the shelf where it was kept, as though she were determined to make me late for whatever I was doing next as well.

  “Thanks,” I muttered, grabbing the book after she’d swiped and stamped it with extra force and handed back my card in disapproving silence.

  Back home in my room, I started summarising endlessly boring notes on the joys of parenting: Potty training your toddler, five ways to overcome nappy rash … Gross. I sighed, gazing enviously at Marilyn Monroe above my bed, tanning in tiny cut-off shorts and chunky heels. I bet she never had to do projects about babies’ bottoms.

  I heard a car door bang outside, followed by the slam of the front door, and I glanced at the alarm clock next to my bed: after eight. There were some banging sounds of cupboard doors being swung open and slammed and then jumbled voices tumbling out of the television, drowned out by more banging.

  “What’s going on?” I called, peering out of my room. My dad was slumped down in front of the television on his plastic chair. Mom was shoving groceries into random cupboards and slamming them, each with a louder bang.

  “The car broke down,” she said tersely. Her limp hair was stuck on her cheeks and her hands looked sticky and oily.

  “Where? What happened?”

  “We had to push it to the BP garage, and they managed to start it up for us, but then it cut out again at the end of our road, so we had to push it the last part.”

  “I think the alternator is the problem,” said Dad, twisting his head to look at us for a moment and depositing a shower of brick dust and grime on the carpet. “Dammit,” he swore and shoved himself up to get the brush and pan, throwing open cupboards in his search.

  “I went to the library today,” I said, hanging around.

  Dad turned to me and nodded, but his eyes only focused on me for a second. Mom patted my shoulder and turned to the fridge.

  “That’s good. Was that for your project?” she asked. “Heaven alone knows what we’re going to eat for supper.”

  “Yes, do you know that babies actually …”

  “Helen,” Mom interrupted me in that tone that made me wish I was somewhere else, “why didn’t you put all the butter in the freezer like I told you, or at least higher up in the fridge? You know the bottom shelf isn’t working properly.”

  “There wasn’t space,” I said.

  “Nonsense, what do you mean …?”

  She opened the freezer and a cascade of butter tumbled out.

  “You told me to buy bulk,” I retorted. “I couldn’t fit it all in the …”

  Mom sank down onto the kitchen chair, trying not to lose her temper.

  “Bulk means enough for three months, not the next de­cade­!” she snapped. “Look at this!” She waved the soggy butter at me. “This whole pat is wasted now.”

  “It’s only R25.99,” I said. “It’s not that much.”

  “We don’t have R25.99 to waste!” she snarled.

  It felt like enormous invisible hands were pushing down on my shoulders, crushing me.

  “I’m sorry,” I muttered, although I wasn’t really. If Mom was so picky about the fricking butter, why didn’t she go and get it herself? I’m only fifteen, after all. I don’t have a degree in housekeeping.

  “It’s fine, I can still use it for cooking.” She shoved the soggy butter to the back of the freezer and hugged me tiredly. I was so mad, I wanted to push her away, but I didn’t because it would only make everything worse, so instead I kept quiet and fumed.

  “Anyway,” Mom said, wiping her eyes when she thought I wasn’t looking, “let’s see what there is for supper. I think it’s down to toasted cheese and beans.”

  I felt like pulling a face but only said, “Why don’t you ask Hank to get something on his way home?”

  Dad had found the brush and pan and was carefully brushing all the mess he’d made into the bin, totally unaware of the trail of fine sand he was leaving every time he took a step. “The shops might be closed then. Your brother SMSed to say his music lesson was going on for longer than he’d expected.”

  As Dad spoke, I heard the clang of Hank’s keys against the kitchen door and he walked in, tossing his cellphone down on the counter.

  “We were only expecting you later. How was your music les­son?” I asked innocently.

  Hank coughed and his cheeks went red, but no one seemed to notice. He nodded at my parents and muttered something about going to practise his pieces some more.

  “But you’ve been working for hours,” protested Mom. “Don’t you want a break?”

  Hank went even redder and mumbled unintelligibly. He wouldn’t look at my parents and I realised that he hated lying to them. He never usually lies – or at least, he didn’t until he started seeing Caryn when he was supposed to be practising.

  “What happened to the car?” he asked, changing the subject. “Why is the bonnet up?”

  “Long story,” Mom said. “We’ll have to catch the bus until we can sort it out.”

  “There’s a mechanic’s shop at the BP garage next to Maths Magicians. I’ll ask Bill, the owner, to tow it and have a look at it tomorrow,” Hank offered.

  Mom nodded, and her eyes filled with tears again. Hank looked at the mess my dad had made all over the carpet and at the frozen bread Mom had unearthed from under the butter for our supper.

  “Let me just go and practise for half an hour,” he muttered. “One day, you won’t have to live like this.”

  “Thank you, Dr Booysens,” Mom said, smiling a little.

  Hank looked again at my mom and walked away, shoulders bowed like the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

  *

  Eight

  JUNE WAS WAITING outside my house the next morning as I trailed out with Felicity on one hip, so I presumed she was feeling better.

  Mom leaned out the kitchen window, pointing to the Handy Andy bottle, and I waved, waiting until she’d closed the window before rolling my eyes.

  “What was that about?” June asked.

  “She wants me to clean up the kitchen if I get home early,” I muttered. Then I brightened. “But I can get Hank to do it.”

  “Your brother’s really kind.”

  “Yes.” I smiled rather smugly to myself. I didn’t mention that he was also going to be in major trouble if anyone ever found out he’d been bunking music to go out with a girl. It should be worth at least six months of chores.

  As the school came into sight, Kean and Joe met us. Kean took one look at June and lifted her bag from her shoulders without even asking. “You still look pale,” he said. I noticed then that he was right. There were panda-like smudges under her eyes, and she was wearing a jersey under her blazer, although the sun was already starting to make me hot.

  “You don’t look pale,” Joe told me, smirking. “I can count every freckle. So I won’t be carrying your bag.”

  June looked at him, frowning, but when Kean laughed, she said nothing. Joe, encouraged by Kean’s laughter, and probably wanting to pay me back for my jibes the other day about living near the abattoir, bent over to stare at my case. It was on my shoulders, so I couldn’t see what he was doing. For a moment, I wondered if that was how Mrs Smith had felt when Kean had pretended to write in his book to make a fool of her. It sucked.

  “Oh. My. Word.” The sarcasm Joe injected into those three words made me think that even swearing would have been better. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his grubby hand shoot out and grab the strap of my bag so that I had to stop.

  “Can you belie
ve it? She actually fixed her bag with staples. What’s your problem, Booysens? Are your parents so hard up, they don’t even have money to buy you a new bag?”

  Kean laughed, but this time June didn’t even notice him. “Shut up,” she snapped at Joe, who was startled.

  Her chest, which was unnecessarily curvaceous, was rising as she breathed more quickly. Usually when she got annoyed, she looked saintly and slightly martyred. Today, she looked like a sword-wielding Joan of Arc, leading the troops. She flung Joe’s hand away from my case, and it reminded me of a picture in a children’s Bible we have at home of Jesus knocking over the moneychangers’ tables.

  Kean quickly wiped the smile off his face. “Sorry, Helen,” he said awkwardly. “Joe is such an idiot.”

  Joe was too taken aback to say anything that made sense but a jumble of words, of which I could only make out “sorry” and “joke”, tumbled out of his mouth as though if he said them quickly, it would be less painful for him.

  “Are you okay?” Kean asked me, with a smile that was less confident than it normally was.

  I saw his eyes shift to June’s face to check that she was listening, and I felt sick for a moment. Then I looked at him more closely and saw, or imagined I saw, real concern in his face, like he was noticing that I counted.

  Maybe the way he felt about me really was changing. My heart raced and I smiled back, wishing that I dared reach out and touch his arm in front of June, so that she could see that it was me, not she, who was going to get him.

  June wouldn’t have noticed, though. She was trying to stretch her neck towards her shoulder, and all the colour in her face seemed to have faded.

  “Hey, what’s wrong?” asked Kean, catching her shoulder.

  “Just a headache,” she said, but she was shaking and her face looked sweaty.

  Trust June to get all the attention for herself again, I thought bitterly, wishing I could knock Kean’s hand away.

  “Maybe you should go home again,” he suggested.

  I thought it was a good idea. So did June.

  “I’ll call the secretary and ask her to ring your mom,” I said, but June shook her head.