by Jade West
***
“You’re seriously not going? I thought you were joking. Wow, you must be embarrassed.”
“It’s no big deal,” I lied. “I have English coursework to be doing, anyway. I need to hang in the library sometime this week, it may as well be today.”
“Yeah, like he won’t notice.” Lizzie brushed down her blazer, freeing it of the cat hair she’d accumulated in my living room that morning. I’d become a lot better at avoiding it. “Like it isn’t going to make it all the worse when you don’t rock up all day.”
“I can’t face him,” I sighed. “Not yet.”
“It’ll be way worse tomorrow, Hels. You should just walk on in there, face him head on.”
Not on her life.
I avoided the art block all day Monday, which was fine considering I didn’t have art scheduled, and on Tuesday I had a stomach upset, my first day off sick in the forever since I’d been crushing, besides a flu bug that had knocked me out for over a week in grade nine. I couldn’t face school on Wednesday, either, and stayed holed up at home doodling kinky scenes to the backdrop of daytime TV. Lizzie called and called and I didn’t answer, and I hardly slept a wink before dragging myself back to reality on Thursday.
I’d never felt so sick as I did at the thought of the inevitable confrontation, and since art class was last period I had a whole day to dwell on it.
I may have considered bailing then, too, if Lizzie hadn’t crossed my path in the corridor and practically pushed me into the art room.
I was a shaking leaf when I stepped over the threshold. I was late, just a minute, but enough that every set of eyes in the room turned in my direction, including his. I propped myself on a stool behind Kelly Merrick and looked anywhere but at him.
Despite my greatest nightmares, Mr Roberts didn’t freak out and order me from his classroom. He didn’t stare in horror, or lose his flow, in fact, he didn’t do anything out of the ordinary, just talked us through our mock practical exam with the same composed tone he always used. When we broke from the discussion to work on coursework, I made sure to sit with my back to him, and his presence burned my skin the entire time until the bell sounded.
I shoved my art supplies away as quickly as I could, but he was ready. I stopped in my tracks as his voice sounded across the room.
“Helen, stay behind. I’d like to speak with you, please.”
He wiped down the whiteboard as the rest of the group left, and I stood, like a fool, with my heart in my mouth and my insides in knots. I’d thought this through, over and over, everything I’d say, how I’d brush it off, but my preparations meant nothing. I was tongue-tied and awkward, like being twelve all over again and forgetting which classroom I should be in.
The door thumped shut behind the rest of my group, and I was alone, alone with him.
He sat down at his desk and stacked up some of the art pieces he was marking, then gestured to a seat the other side of him.
I sat. Slowly and reluctantly, with my knees clenched together and my foot tapping against the tiled floor.
“You’ve been ill?”
“Stomach bug,” I said.
“That’s unlike you, Helen.”
“I think it may have been food poisoning.” I stared at his hands on the desk, avoiding his eyes. “Katie, my little sister, she had it, too. Worse than me.”
“I see.” I could feel his eyes on mine. “I’m pleased to hear your absence had nothing to do with our little incident last week. I’m sure something like that wouldn’t keep you away from class, would it, Helen?”
“No, Mr Roberts, definitely not.” My cheeks sprang into a blush.
“I’m glad to hear it. I hope you’d feel able to talk to me, if you felt uncomfortable over a little incident like that.”
“Yes, of course.”
“But you don’t want to?” His voice was so strong. My fingers danced in my lap. “Helen, look at me.”
In horror, I forced my gaze to his. I shook my head. “No. I’m good. I mean, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, but I’m good. I’m fine.”
He smiled. “If you’re sure.”
“Very sure.” My smile was strained, but it was the best I could do. Relief flooded me, sweeping through my limbs in euphoric giddiness, but when he stood to signal I was free to go, the whole sensation came crashing down.
It was over. Never to be spoken of again. Dismissed.
I should have been happy, but I wasn’t. It confirmed everything I already feared. He was my teacher, and this was nothing. This would always be nothing.
I turned away, staring out through the window as the weather changed as quickly as my mood. A downpour, a heavy one at that. Rain bounced off the windows, and horror and nerves and crazy emotion bounced right the way through my body.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, yes? Now that you’re feeling better?” He was gathering up his things. Piling year seven sketchbooks into a box to take home with him.
I nodded. “Yes, Mr Roberts.”
“Good.” He lifted the box in one hand, gripped a box of pastels under his elbow and his case in his other hand. “Grab the door for me, please, would you? And get the lights?”
I switched the room into a dull gloom, and opened the door for us. He smiled as he left, backing himself through the main entrance and disappearing out into the rain towards the car park.
I should have felt good. I should have felt relieved. I told myself so.
So, why did it feel so bad?
Emotions bubbled up. Days of tension and thoughts of the big embarrassing showdown had all been for nothing, and maybe I hadn’t wanted them to be. Maybe I wanted the questions. Maybe I wanted the showdown. Maybe I just wanted him to know.
Yes, I wanted him to know.
I needed him to know.
Even if it ruined everything, and made things awkward for the rest of my life, at least he would know, at least it would be something. Something more than this, this nothing.
I was following him into the rain before I knew it. Crazy, impulsive, ridiculous.
I reached him by his car, and he didn’t see me at first, bent into the backseat as he loaded it up. His hair was already soaked, messy curls dripping with rain as he noticed my presence, and my hair was drenched too, it clung to my face, my blazer doing little to protect me from the torrent, my bare legs feeling the chill.
“Helen?” he asked. “Don’t you have a coat?”
I shook my head, holding out my hands to shush him before I lost my nerve. “I lied,” I said. “I lied about food poisoning, I lied about not talking, I lied about everything.”
“Ok,” he said.
“I want to talk.”
He nodded. “Tomorrow?”
“Now.” My words sounded crazy. “Please. If you can. I mean, if you have some time. I know school is out, I just…”
He opened the passenger door, and my stomach turned over. “I have time,” he said.
***
Helen
Mr Roberts’ old Jag smelled of pine air freshener and oil paint, its interior artistically chaotic. Old rock blared from the stereo before he silenced it, ejecting a rattling old cassette tape. He cleared a box of paintbrushes, some notebooks and a stained wooden palette to make room for my legs in the footwell, turning in his seat to dump the collection in the back.
“Sorry, Helen. I usually travel solo.”
The thought warmed my heart. Maybe there was no Mrs Roberts. No string of artistic supermodels clambering into his car every evening. I clipped myself into the seatbelt as the engine rumbled into life, and he steered us out of the school grounds and onto the road.
I was aware of him. So aware of his body at my side, his hand gripping the stick as he worked up through the gears. I didn’t ask where we were going, and I didn’t care. Somewhere. Anywhere. I’d have ridden alongside him forever and not complained a peep. He turned onto the bypass, and put his foot down on the open straight, sending us parallel to the river Arlbrook for a while before nipping
into a turning. The ground was gravelly, and the car bumbled along before he idled it, its nose to the fence with the drop of the bank and the swollen river beyond. A good spot.
“I like it here,” he said. “It’s good for thinking.”
My impulsive bravery seemed to have vanished. I stared ahead, through the windscreen, watching the water ripple as it twisted its way downstream, but Mr Roberts wasn’t watching the river, he was watching me. Seeing into me. Seeing through me.
“There’s a picnic bench over there.” I followed the gesture of his hand and saw a rickety looking table through the rain. “But it isn’t really the day for it.”
I tried to think of something to say, and what came out was the lamest excuse for a question in the whole entire universe.
“Do you come here often?”
His lip curved into a smirk for just a second. “Yes, I do come here often. I like the water.”
“Me, too. I mean, I like water, not this water. I mean, I do like this water, but I’ve never been here before, so.” I made myself take a breath, knowing my cheeks were burning. “That’s why I’m going to Aberystwyth, or I hope I am.” I chanced meeting his eyes, and his gaze was intense and curious. “For the water. For the sea. And the art, of course.”
“You like the water, too. Yes, that figures.”
“I like boats,” I said. “My uncle has one, moored down at Brixham. He lets us go on it sometimes, I love it. My grandad used to fish off the beach at Saundersfoot. He used to catch allsorts, would be out there all day. I guess it’s in my blood. Not my parents so much, they don’t like boats. Not like me. It’s not boats, it’s the water, being on the water.” I put my palms to my cheeks. “Sorry. I’m just. I don’t know.”
“Relax,” he said. “Listen to the rain on the roof, feel the river.” He took a deep breath, inhaling through his nose, his gestures flamboyant. “Breathe it in. Can you feel it?”
I felt myself smiling. “Yeah, I can feel it. Water is life.”
“Yes, and emotion and soul, and the unconscious, the dark deep, the primordial soup of inspiration.” He wound down his window, and I realised just how old the car must be. Vintage. Soulful. It suited him. I’m sure my jaw dropped as he pulled a packet of cigarettes from his blazer pocket. “Do you mind?”
I shook my head and he lit up, blowing a wispy curl of smoke out into the rain. I stared at the way it billowed from his lips, the way his fingers gripped the cigarette like he’d done it a million times, not like the awkward clusters of cool kids struggling to look experienced with their ten-packs of Malboro Lights.
“I smoke, too,” I said. It sounded a lot cooler in my head. Between us, in the car, the words sounded pathetic and juvenile. Like me. “Sometimes. Well, not very often. I don’t mind, I mean, if you do.”
He smiled, and there was amusement in his eyes as he offered me the pack. “It’s hardly breaking the law. You are legal.”
I shivered at his words. Yes. I’m legal. In every way that matters.
My hand dithered, then retreated to my lap. “I don’t usually smoke a whole one, I just take drags from Lizzie’s. Smoking a whole one makes me cough.” Shit. I must sound like the biggest dork.
“It’s a bad habit.” He slipped the pack back in his pocket and watched me, undoubtedly soaking in every breath of my discomfort. He took a long drag, and then offered me his own cigarette, fresh from his mouth. My heart thumped. “Can’t have you coughing, but you look like you could do with this.”
I took Mr Roberts’ cigarette with shaky fingers, stomach fluttering at the thought of it being between his lips. I sucked hard, trying to look impressive, but his cigarettes were stronger than Lizzie’s and the smoke burned my throat. I handed it back before I got a headrush, transfixed as he placed his lips back to where mine had been.
“Talk to me, Helen.”
I willed myself into the depths of the soft leather seat. “I, um… I just… I just don’t know where to start.”
“Start anywhere you like.”
I smoothed my pleated skirt over my thighs, wiping my clammy palms in the process. “The drawing. I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I should have been more careful.”
“You can forget about the drawing, Helen. I understand artistic expression, the fiery impulses of imagination as the muse calls. There is nothing to apologise for, you should maybe just consider being more discrete with your private sketches. Your peers may be less sympathetic. I’d hate to see you suffer for your creativity at the hands of those who don’t understand it.”
“Or understand me.”
“Precisely. Creatives rarely find their natural home amongst their peers, Helen. I never did.” He stubbed the cigarette out in the ashtray. “Youth is a cavern of creative potential, rife with tempestuous emotions and new, emerging sensuality. I think that sketch was tapping the wellspring. I don’t think it was about me so much as about you, making sense of your sexuality. There is such power there, Helen, such beauty, ripe to be channelled and explored. The picture was skilled, and it had life. That had little to do with me, and everything to do with you. The fact it was me was secondary to the pursuit of the art itself. The figure could have been anyone.”
But he was wrong. I was shaking my head before he’d even finished.
He raised his eyebrows. “You don’t agree?”
“I agree that it’s about something deep, something… sexual… some emerging me. I get that, and yes, my peers can be spiteful, most of them are total idiots, and no, I don’t belong there, and I never have and I never want to, and that’s ok, and they could be as spiteful as they wanted about my art, because I wouldn’t even care. I just care that it made you uncomfortable.”
“I’ve been a teacher a long time, and an artist for a lot longer. Little makes me uncomfortable.”
I took a breath and pulled up my bag from the footwell, and then I spat out the words in my throat. “It couldn’t be anyone, Mr Roberts. It’s never just anyone.” I dug out the sketchbook and held it between us. Contemplating the unthinkable. The whole scenario was unthinkable.
He stared at me for long seconds. “You want me to look?”
I nodded. “There is no other anyone. Only you. It’s always you.”
He took the sketchpad. I couldn’t watch as he flipped to the back. My stomach was churning, foot twitching, fingers twisting in my lap. I flinched as I finally heard the pages shut.
“These are very good. And very flattering on my part. Thank you. I maintain it’s about you, Helen, not about me.” He handed me back the book. “You have an incredible imagination, and a whole lifetime ahead of you to put it to good use.”
And it hurt. His tone hurt. The dismissal of my feelings as something that could ever be real and adult and viable hurt. “You think I’m a stupid kid, don’t you?”
His fingers shocked me, hot against my chin, his grip firm as he turned my face to his. “I’ve never for one second thought of you as a stupid kid. I think you are an incredible artist, and a vivacious, soulful, gifted young woman.”
And I said it. I just said it. “I like you, Mr Roberts. I really like you.”
“And I like you, Helen. Very much.”
My skin mourned the touch of his fingers as he pulled away, and tears were pricking my eyes, tears of frustration and shame and surrender to the inevitable rejection. “I draw the things I think about, the things I want, and I know you don’t like me back, and I know you may think I’m just a kid, but I’m not. I know how I feel, Mr Roberts. I know how I feel about you. And I want you to know, because next summer I’ll be gone, to university, and I may never get to tell you.” My lip quivered and I cursed myself for being such a blubberer. “I guess I’m in love with you.”
And this time the words seemed to hit him. His eyes softened and I watched him swallow. I swatted tears away with the back of my hand, and smiled at my own ridiculousness.
“Helen, I…”
I held up a hand. “It’s ok, you don’t have to say anything.”
“Oh, but I do. I very much need to say something.” He took my hand in his. “Helen, I’m your teacher. I have a responsibility towards you, a responsibility for your wellbeing, a responsibility for your education.”
“What if you weren’t my teacher?”
He sighed, and it sounded wistful. At least, I wanted it to sound that way.
“I am your teacher.”
“I know there are prettier girls, Mr Roberts, but maybe one day, when you’re not my teacher anymore…”
He squeezed my hand so hard it hurt. “You are a very beautiful young woman, Helen. Smart, and talented, and sweet and kind. You’re an artist. A real artist. You’re going to meet a lot of people when you get to university, and I’ll be just a memory, I promise. A good one, I hope.”
“You’ll never be just a memory.” My throat was tight and hot.
He leaned closer, as though he was going to share a secret. “This thing you’re feeling, it’s very powerful. It happens sometimes with a relationship like ours. We share creative vision, it’s a beautiful thing, and it can get… confusing…”
“Like transference? I don’t think this is transference, Mr Roberts. I think this is real.”
“I’m sure you do, Helen. I’m sure it may feel like everything in the world, and you can use that. You can use that to create something magical, something beautiful. You can use that to put you in touch with your very soul.”
I shrugged. “How? How can I use this? It consumes me, this feeling, these thoughts. These things I think about. I can’t escape them, I can’t stop them. It’s real.”
“It needs expression. It needs exploration. It needs transforming into creativity.”
Oh God, how I wanted him to understand. Spilling my troubled little heart out in the passenger seat was turning into nothing but poetic impotence. A big fat disaster.
I’m not a baby.
“Help me,” I whispered.
Two simple words changed everything. Two whispered words sucked the air from the car and set us on fire. He swallowed, and his eyes were darker, showing me his soul, churning like the river outside.