“No, I did that yesterday,” she said. “She’s going to think I’m faking it. I’ll be fine to walk. It’s not far.”
“Must I come with you?” Kean asked.
Instinctively I shook my head, and I know June saw me because she looked hurt. She paused for a moment as though expecting me to offer too, and I imagined I saw a flash of the same anger she’d directed at Joe. We were interrupted by the ringing of the school bell.
“It’s fine, guys. I’ll be okay. Go to school.”
I stayed on late after school, practising the piano with Madame Pandora, who’d missed our previous lesson because of a meeting at the Academy. It was also a good way to make sure I didn’t get home before Hank had finished cleaning the kitchen.
I still hadn’t given up hope of twisting Madame’s arm to let me play in the competition, even though it was only two weeks away, so I’d been practising every spare moment I got. But she was in one of her moods, and nothing seemed to please her. She interrupted me in the middle of my music with a sweep of her finger into the air.
“Do you know what I’m hearing?” she cried in exasperation.
Probably the little voices in your head again, I thought sourly, but kept quiet.
Madame Pandora beat her chest with a little clenched fist, and it wobbled like half-set jelly. “You, you, you!” she cried. “That is what I hear all the time. Listen, child, this music – it is not about you; it is not about Helen. It is about …”
Before she could complete her sentence, Mrs Smith burst in without knocking and grabbed my shoulder. “Helen, you’re friends with June,” she said curtly. “Do you have her mother’s phone number? The secretary has already gone home.”
“Why do you …?”
“Yes or no, Helen?”
I had never seen Mrs Smith so impatient. “No, only June’s cell number. But I know where she lives.”
Mrs Smith whispered in Madame Pandora’s ear and her eyes narrowed, as though she was trying to veil secret thoughts too terrible to reveal.
“We’ll stop there for today, child,” Madame Pandora said, more gently than she’d spoken to me the whole lesson. She passed me a pen and a scrap of paper. “Write down that address for your teacher.”
Why? What happened? I wanted to ask, but my mouth had become too dry to speak, so I scribbled the address in silence, watching as Mrs Smith used Madame Pandora’s phone to call enquiries and get June’s mom’s number. She dialled it immediately, and then looked up.
“Go fetch my car keys from my class,” she said, tossing me her classroom keys.
I ran off, too scared to linger, although I desperately wanted to know what she was saying. By the time I got back, she had finished on the phone and was conversing quietly with Madame Pandora.
“Thanks, Helen,” Mrs Smith said, taking the keys. “I suppose you’re wondering what happened.”
I nodded.
“It seems that June left for school this morning but never got here. She was found on the pavement by a domestic worker who phoned St George’s Hospital and took her there. They identified her school from her uniform, and when they couldn’t get hold of the secretary, they somehow found my number and called me.”
I swallowed. It couldn’t be true.
“She isn’t dead, is she?”
If she was, it would be my fault. I hadn’t wanted Kean to walk with her. If he had, he could have helped her.
“No. The doctors are not sure what’s wrong. June’s mother is going there now.”
I was so relieved, I could feel tears welling in my eyes. “Can I have her mom’s number, please?” I asked. “I’ll call her when I get home.”
“Do that,” nodded Mrs Smith. “I’ll also phone later and go round to the hospital to visit June once they’ve diagnosed the problem.”
I walked home in a daze, my mind not quite registering what I’d heard. It couldn’t be true, I kept saying to myself. Two thoughts kept flashing through my mind. One was how I’d shaken my head when Kean offered to walk June home and the expression on her face when she’d seen me.
The other was an image of her collapsing on the pavement, her blazer that always looked so clean, covered in grass. How long did she lie there? Did she hurt herself when she fell?
As soon as I got home, I phoned, even though I knew June’s mom would probably be out. The phone just rang, and then beeped onto voicemail, so eventually I put it down, but I couldn’t relax. Every fifteen minutes I tried again, even though I knew it was crazy and that I might phone all afternoon. In between calls, I jiggled Felicity endlessly on my lap, even when she wasn’t crying, just to keep my hands busy and to prevent myself from grabbing the phone.
“June, it’s me. Are you home yet?” I heard myself saying to the machine the eighth time I called. Stupid thing to say; she was hardly going to be out of hospital yet if they didn’t even know what was wrong.
Eventually, I couldn’t stand it any longer.
“Come on,” I said to Felicity, grabbing her by one arm. “We’re going to June’s house.” I probably should have left Felicity in the garage, but holding her reminded me of June and how carefully she’d watched over that ridiculous doll.
As I arrived at June’s place, their Polo pulled up into the driveway and her mom leapt out. She would have walked straight by without seeing me if I hadn’t rushed up, calling out to her.
“I heard about June,” I panted, praying she’d have good news. “How is she?”
Her mom gazed blankly at Felicity and then at me, as if trying to make sense of either or both of us, then stared into the distance, like she was trying to see all the way to the hospital. “She’s resting,” she replied curtly.
I wondered if June had told her mom what I’d done that morning. Maybe her mother was angry at me and would ban her from ever seeing me again.
“Did the doctors find out what’s wrong with her?”
Her mom shook her head and Felicity started crying, almost as though she’d heard her. “They’re still doing tests.” She kept moving her keys from one hand to another, dropping them down into her waiting palm.
“When will they know?” I asked, shushing Felicity.
The phone started ringing from inside, and she shook her head impatiently. “I can’t talk now. Excuse me.”
June’s mother ran inside, leaving me alone in the driveway. Felicity began crying again, building up to a banshee crescendo.
*
Nine
THE FIRST THING I heard when I got home was raised voices coming from Hank’s room. That was weird. Perhaps my parents were angry because they’d found out he was doing my work for me. I swallowed guiltily.
“Hello, Helen,” said a voice. I swung around to see Madame Pandora on the couch, in floating black as usual, with a glistening pendant around her neck.
I jumped. “What are you doing … I mean, hello, Madame,” I said hastily.
“Ah, that is the right question to ask.” She gestured me graciously to my dad’s chair with the plastic on it, as if it were her living room. I really hate the plastic, so I balanced on the arm.
“Sit down, child, sit down,” she said. “I cannot talk to you sitting in such a way. You look like a parrot on a perch.”
I blushed and slid reluctantly onto the chair, wincing at the smooth squish of the plastic beneath me. “What’s happening?” I asked.
Madame spread out her hands, lifting them into the air. “What always happens when dreams clash,” she said cryptically. “I came to speak to Hank.”
At that moment, my parents emerged from his room, followed by my brother and his girlfriend. She stuck out in the midst of the stifling shabbiness of the lounge; her denim cut-offs and untamed coppery hair exuded a casual, unconscious innocence that reminded me a little of my favourite poster of the red-haired Marilyn Monroe before fame transformed her into an icon.
I stiffened. “Caryn,” I blurted out.
My mom swung round to face me, her nose quivering like that of a
lawyer who was eager to rip holes in a defendant’s story and who scented blood.
“You knew?” she said sharply.
“Knew what?” I asked quickly. “I know Caryn. I’ve often seen her cycling past the house. What’s going on?”
My dad stared grimly at the floor. “Madame Pandora came to check on Hank because he said he was feeling very ill and couldn’t make his session with her.”
Hank didn’t look sick to me, although he was very pale.
“She called us,” continued Dad, “before coming to the house, and we rushed home early on the first bus to make sure he was all right.”
Madame Pandora allowed the tiniest of smiles to sweep her face. “I arrived to find he was infinitely better than expected. In fact, he was watching DVDs with this young woman.” She didn’t seem as shocked as my parents.
“When else has Hank not attended lessons?” Mom asked. “Or was this the first time?”
Madame Pandora rose to go. “It is the first time he has been so ill,” she said diplomatically. “There have been one or two other occasions when he has asked to be excused.”
“To spend time with Caryn?” my mom asked Hank dangerously.
He nodded, unable to look at her.
Caryn looked upset too, and hurt. “I’m sorry,” she said, “we didn’t mean to do any harm.”
Mom laughed bitterly. “Caryn, your family probably has enough money to send you to a top university,” she said. “Hank has dreamt his whole life of becoming a doctor, and one of the ways he can pay for his studies is to win the competition. Is it fair to take that away from him by making him waste time instead of practising his …”
“Studying medicine is not my dream,” Hank interrupted Mom.
“It’s true.” Caryn was indignant now. “I’m not destroying his goals. How can you accuse me?”
“You don’t speak to my wife like that,” said Dad very quietly.
Caryn turned to Hank. “I’d better leave,” she said and walked out, nodding at my parents as she went. The door clicked behind her.
Madame Pandora cast a thoughtful glance at us. “I will say farewell too,” she said. “Please, do not come out.”
We hadn’t been planning to, but when she said that, Dad felt obliged to accompany her to the door.
Hank, Mom and I remained frozen on the spot.
Dad came back and I considered sneaking out, but curiosity kept me standing there. Anyway, I was a bit scared to move, in case they started asking more awkward questions about how I knew Caryn.
“Sit,” Dad said to my brother.
Hank slowly lowered himself onto a chair and perched on the edge as though hoping to make a quick getaway.
“We are very disappointed, son,” Dad said.
Hank smiled slightly, his foot tapping an endless rhythm into the carpet.
“You’ve been practising for months to win this competition,” said Mom. Her voice was unsteady. “You can’t give that up, and all your dreams, just for some girl.”
“She’s not ‘some girl’,” muttered Hank, staring at the big toes protruding from his sandals.
“Girls will come and go,” said Dad tiredly. “But when they’re gone, you will still need to support yourself.”
“You know as well as we do that we can’t afford to pay for your studies,” Mom said. “This is your best chance.”
Hank looked up and stared at them blankly, then laughed. His laughter sounded even worse than the shouting I’d heard when I walked in. “Why can’t you understand?” he said. “I don’t even know if I want to study medicine. But I feel like I have no choice.”
“You never doubted before you met Caryn,” said Mom sharply, and I wondered if secretly she was jealous. Had she walked into the house and seen Hank as I’d seen him at Maths Magicians, laughing like nothing else mattered but that moment?
“It’s not about Caryn,” Hank said. “She’s not why I feel this way. If I won the competition, we could still study at the same university. It’s about me.”
“But you’ve never said anything before.” Mom’s usually tired eyes were unnaturally animated and she seemed to be fighting, not only for his studies, but against Caryn too.
“I’ve tried!” shouted Hank, standing up. “But you won’t listen.”
I thought of my brother’s walls, covered in teaching aids and the pile of magazines by his bed.
“Sit down,” said Dad, raising his voice, which he almost never did.
Hank just shook his head, over and over. I felt scared. I’d never seen him like this.
“Why can’t you hear me?” he said. He looked from my dad to my mom and repeated himself, more loudly this time, “Why won’t you listen?”
He walked out and a moment later I heard his door slam.
Mom sank her chin into her hands and stared at nothing in particular. Her hands were shaking a bit, so she sat on them instead. Dad clicked on the television and kept changing channels, as though not one of them was good enough.
“Shall I make something for supper?” I asked awkwardly.
Mom started, as if she’d forgotten I was there. “Oh, Helen,” she said, and I could see she was about to start crying, which I hated. She stood up. “That’s very sweet of you, but it’s okay. You’ve been working so hard this afternoon, cleaning up the kitchen. Dad, look at the beautiful job Helen did.”
The kitchen surface had been cleared and all the pots had been washed, dried and packed away. Even the tiles had been polished. I realised that if I told them Hank had done it, it would come out that I’d known about Caryn and they’d figure out that I’d been blackmailing him to do my jobs. So I swallowed and said nothing.
Dad reached up and pulled down my head so he could kiss me on the forehead. “Good girl, Helen.”
It felt great and terrible, all at the same time.
*
Ten
THE NEXT MORNING I walked to school alone, Felicity tucked into my bag, with just her head sticking out. As I squeezed past Eve and Joe and a group of others standing in the doorway to get into the dusty classroom, I noticed the chalk crushed into the floor and random papers scattered beneath desks, and remembered the cleaning roster that Mrs Smith had stuck up on the wall.
“June should’ve stayed after school to clean up yesterday,” I told Felicity. The doll blinked sympathetically and for once didn’t cry. I patted her head and the plastic eyelids fell as she started snoring.
“Hey, mine doesn’t snore,” said Joe, staring.
“Your doll doesn’t do anything,” Eve reminded him. “Not since you decided to baptise him.”
Joe rocked his rather rusty-looking baby proudly. “Best kid ever,” he said smugly. “Sleeps like a log and never cries.”
I turned away, looking for June. She wasn’t there, but as Mrs Smith came in, I saw June’s mom beside her, deep in conversation. Mrs Smith was nodding, her forehead wrinkling as she frowned. They kept talking in undertones, so I couldn’t hear.
Kean was pretending to write in one of his books while trying to eavesdrop. Every now and then he would forget to move his pen across the page and once it slipped from his fingers and clattered onto the floor.
“You’ll notice that June is not with us today,” Mrs Smith said after June’s mom had left, lifting up the enormous glasses that hung permanently on a fine silver chain around her neck and staring intently at us as we came into focus for her. She nodded to June’s empty space, although it seemed as though June filled the class with her absence as my questions about her hovered around me like flies, never leaving me alone.
“I am sorry to have to tell you that June has meningitis.”
I felt like something cold and hard was plummeting down through my insides and settling as a cold, hard lump in my stomach. I thought of the endless nights my mom had spent with her sister watching over my cousin.
“June is in a serious condition,” Mrs Smith was saying, her words bouncing against each other in my brain, shoving out everything
else.
ICU. Contagious. Fever. Dangerous.
I wanted to put my hands over my ears. I glanced at Kean. He sat frozen at his desk, looking not like a hero but like a frightened child. I wondered if he was as scared as I was that maybe he had caught it.
“So, if any of you start having any symptoms,” Mrs Smith was continuing, “I want you to tell me immediately. Understood? And make sure that you wash your hands regularly. Put your hand over your mouth if you have to cough. Okay, let’s move on to our work for today. Take out your workbooks and copy down what I’m writing.”
She took out the paper she was working from and began writing on the board, her face just centimetres away from it. Kean didn’t even notice or think of commenting. He glanced back over his shoulder, looking for me. When he caught my eye, he smiled awkwardly, as if looking for reassurance.
“That’s pretty scary about June,” he said to me at break time.
I was sitting alone outside on the field on my bench where I generally sat, watching some of the younger kids playing on the equipment that had been donated by a playground company. There was a long metal slide, painted bright blue, several swings, and a now-peeling roundabout. My favourite was the oldest swing, which had been there before the new equipment was brought in: a battered tyre with a soft, worn base attached with fraying rope to the frame on which it hung.
Of course I’d never use it now, but I used to when I was little. When all the other children rushed out to form groups to play squares, I would go and sit on the old swing, swaying gently and watching them. Sometimes the ball would trickle my way and I’d throw it back and they’d thank me, or even smile.
“Yes, it’s very scary,” I said, looking at Kean. “My baby cousin had meningitis last year.”
Kean became even grimmer and sat down next to me. “I keep thinking that my neck feels stiff and checking whether I have a headache. And you?”
“I try not to think about it,” I lied.
Joe called Kean from the field to join them to play soccer and he got up. “Maybe we can walk home together today,” he said awkwardly. “You know more about meningitis than the others.”
Hearing Helen Page 6