Schooling

by Heather McGowan

  The eye craves analogies, it’s human nature.

  Unseen on her return, she leaned against the banquette, hungry for analogy, reviewing the scene around the table. Well it seemed a festive occasion for all. The wife in her slipped wig, Father showing the man her new camera. The man concentrated on the dials, How will your girl ever learn to use it?

  She’s clever for her age, like I was, Father told him. The wife righted her wig lazily, But a sullen girl, isn’t she? Somewhat sullen?

  Catrine coughed. Sullenly. They turned.

  Moving on then . . . the docent looks at a boy crouched examining the floor, elbows between knees . . . In your own time, Junior.

  On the drive home Father turned down the radio, You had no business disappearing like that. None at all. I couldn’t think where you’d gone.

  Come on, darling . . . the mother extends a hand . . . You’ll like the ships.

  A different kind of Christmas doesn’t seem so long ago . . . she told the dash, touched it, there it was, an oil still life knocked askew by a tree branch . . . Christmas in America.

  Father kept his eyes on the dark road where it unlashed before them. Well. The night went on. Now we’re in London.

  His answer to many questions. In London, Father eats his toast standing as he calls down the corridor, Get a move on, Cahhtreen. From swirled blankets she answers, Please let me sleep. I’ll take a tube to the museum this afternoon, while having no intention of taking the tube to anywhere but sleep. Father comes to the door then, triangle in hand. I don’t know what you get up to all day, but I can at least rest easy you’ve had an educated morning. Henceforth taxi, briefcase, combination, art because she is a lucky girl, and then the long wait for Father, home at six balancing a tin of something to cook as he shuts the door behind him. To his knowledge, she has never been to the quay, Shepherd’s Bush or crossed the bridge on foot. When she said she had seen Lawrence of Arabia at the cinema in Notting Hill, Father said, What, old Larry again? then stopped spooning out rice. Gripping her arms, he sat her down on the plastic chair. Did anyone speak to you because if they did or if they do again I want you to scream your bloody head off. Did they? Yes, she said, yes someone did speak to me, Father, I didn’t know I was supposed to scream. Father went very still. Tell me, he said. Tell me. Well, she said and maybe it wasn’t so funny, A lady carrying a tray asked wouldn’t I like a Cornetto. Father’s face took on a look but then he laughed and laughed. You had me there, he said, spooning rice again. You had me. No, don’t scream at the concessions. Then he passed her a plate devoid of vegetables, You can look after yourself, I never doubted it.

  Cemetery. Unhappy farmer in an overcoat, face covered in boils. Girl with a parasol turning turning.

  She seems happy . . . a man in a rumpled suit quickly next to her, cigarette behind his ear . . . Doesn’t she? Full of life, this one.

  Oh yes. The gallery is empty, Junior and his tour have sailed away. Yes, a cough. She does. She does. New habit that, repeating. From Sophie or.

  Dearie me . . . the man glances toward the muffled noise of the tour in the next gallery . . . You’ve lost your group.

  I’m alone.

  Ah . . . the man moves to the next painting . . . You’re American. Austrilian . . . yes, Sydney or Melbourne. Perth perhaps.

  Course they don’t much like Americans here. Not to worry, you’ll blend in soon enough. Pick up the slang, enunciate your r’s. I was a boy in Tanzania for two years. You learn to cultivate other voices.

  I like my—

  Oh, God . . . the man dips his face sharply.

  What’s the matter? Is there something in your eye?

  The man stands before Giotto, cradling his head . . . Ten in the morning, what on earth am I doing?

  Looting her pockets for a handkerchief she’s never carried. But the man has already appropriated his sleeve in a way that piggies his nose. Vaguely, she returns to the bench but does not sit. An ocean reaches up to the horizon, flat, grey. Analogy for what it’s like as seen above.

  Sorry . . . he sniffs . . . Not doing so well.

  When the man glances up at her, she considers a painting over his shoulder.

  Minerva . . . he wipes his eyes . . . Beaut-Beauty.

  Beauty’s ugly.

  Oh no no. It’s all in the look . . . the man blinks, sniffs, draws nearer the painting . . . You see the way she regards this soldier. Spirit, the eyes you see. And the soldier. The soldier too seems. Very. Happy . . . the man twitches as if to free his malaise but instead shakes free his cigarette which shoots across the gallery to land at her feet.

  What about you? . . . he goes to pick it up . . . You. Happy?

  Behind him, the ocean remains unmoved, grey. Above, a speck dot of white, a sail perhaps, difficult to see or is it imagine. Is it imagine when viewing those small dots of color or something you should know.

  You don’t seem particularly overjoyed.

  Minutes until lights out. At the noise, she stopped brushing, hand stilled on the toothbrush. Turned slowly. Maggone stood in the middle of the washroom, hands clasped behind her back. She wanted a word. Silently, the two of them waited for Maggot to find it. A clatter from dorm two. Zuzz of fluorescents. She wouldn’t move though the toothpaste stung. Maggot unspooled her antennae to feel out the situation. We mustn’t welter in misfortune, Evans. Sometimes life does not offer us epic proportions. Tapping it out—

  Sometimes you simply have to make do.

  What an odd thing to say . . . the man sits beside her on the bench. Deliberately he places the cigarette between them . . . I had a piece of land near Scotland, a cabin for drawing. When it burned to the ground, I stopped, telegram in hand, on my way out the door and I thought, life will forever disappoint. I can’t tell you what happy means per se, simply that there are moments when you face yourself and say, I am or No, I am not. Or even, I am destined to remain.

  Is that why you’re crying, because of Scotland?

  Dear me no that happened four years ago. There are other things, adult things.

  Are you a politician?

  No, not that adult.

  They sit for a moment in silence, contemplating the ocean. Abruptly, the man speaks . . . You have your whole life, the marvelous hope of ignorant youth.

  Ignorant?

  No lines on your face, no worries. Too young for regret. Nothing weighing you, a clean conscience.

  Little did he know. A hill, a tire, two girls out of control. A man soaring into the ether. Malice sir I have seen malice for ten.

  I regret things.

  The man pauses, searching . . . I have—disappointed my wife. A different guide, a woman with frosted hair, a hipsway, leads a small group into the gallery. Art lovers cluster on folding stools, ready for culture.

  The guide opens a book . . . Before we begin. Some perspective on the nude.

  That’s what I needed . . . the man picks up his cigarette. Everyone regrets things.

  For example?

  I killed a man.

  The man collects himself. Well it was plausible. True. Who could survive a fall like that. It was a fact. Indisputable. Hadn’t she seen the telltale bleeding. It was difficult from the top of that hill but she was sure there was blood all the same.

  Right . . . the man breaks the silence . . . Make do, you say. I shall remember that. Have a safe trip back to Sydney.

  Perth. It’s Perth.

  The more easily distracted members of the nude group watch the man shamble past. Guide intoning The Nude. The ocean is flat, one sail, one gull. She could be from Perth. Only the female nude aspires to beauty.

  Yes there are questions and strangers will ask them of you in public spaces. You will aspire to beauty, they will march up with a coat folded overarm demanding to know about happiness.

  Well, are you, Catrine?

  Through the ears of the cow, she watched Sophie lean back on her palms . . . Not for Christmas, no.

  I would like to go someday.

  It’s
not what you think. Hot and oranges, oil wells.

  I know . . . Sophie stopped drumming her heels . . . I hate England I hate. All this.

  All what?

  Green. Give me a desert. Enough of Shakespeare. You’d think the man was God.

  Catrine’s cow began to shift, she touched its bristly hide. I like the desert because it is clean. What did Lawrence mean. Sand is less confusing than shrubbery.

  You’d better get off, she wants to stand . . . Sophie slid down her cow’s stomach . . . Enough of Monstead, old Betts trying to keep the tragedies straight.

  He likes you.

  He likes Madame Araigny. We’re all exactly the same to Betts . . . Sophie slalomed mines of hardened cowshit . . . Year after year, we’re simply different heights, different degrees of poor eyesight.

  They made their way across the field, it was after five, trees began to lose their outline.

  Something happened to him.

  Damn . . . Sophie struggled with the metal latch on a gate . . . What are you talking about?

  Betts. Why is he always writing in that notebook? What’s he scribbling?

  Catrine . . . Sophie looked up from the gate . . . You think too much.

  Into the next gallery.

  The first guide, wattled, beet-red, stands before a scene of dead animals . . . Decay . . . he whispers . . . You see it in the decadence of the brushstroke, the brutal application, the shock of color.

  Another ocean. A girl, bonnet. Valley. Dark as Gilbert’s scene. His democratic painting. Amsterdam, he said. Or was it Denmark. In Portland, neither sky nor land was favored one over the other, no God-driven shafts of sunlight or dappled elk, just the rotting passage of time. The day was all wrong, they missed one train, Father failed to meet them. Mother’s voice filled the museum as if she were cursing

  The rotting passage of time.

  They were in Portland to consult a specialist. She was a child then, a believer in daytrips for art. Mother said, Decay can be beautiful, you must forever question your assumption of beauty. No. Mother said, I like to work at a painting. Loudly. Frightening Catrine that she might suddenly blaspheme the lesser Impressionists or mock a bystander’s interest in Wyeth. But Mother quietened. They went for lunch as if they were old friends not related, to a French restaurant with no prices and animated snails on one wall. She was allowed small sips of Mother’s wine and somewhere near dessert, before, it was before dessert because right afterwards the crème caramel appeared, but before dessert Mother slapped her on the face, hard. Once. Then turning to the waiter, who was setting down dessert, she informed him that crème caramel was the hallmark of inferiority. She had always led Catrine to believe the hallmark of inferiority is lying but it was crème caramel the entire time. The waiter retreated, she looked out the leaded window at one of the oldest buildings in Portland. It had once been a hotel. A dog stood uncertainly in the middle of the street. She didn’t raise a hand to her cheek. Outside, a man gripped a baguette. They had never hit her. Mother paid the bill. Mother finished the dregs. Mother had slapped her because Mother was dying.

  Stewed tea with Blackened Banana. Across the museum café, the ting of dropped silver. School next week. Return without a house. The chair presses a mondrian into the back of her legs. She drains her tea.

  Returning the cup weaving the stark tables past the woman pushing scone crumbs with the edge of her map past Soloman scrubbing newsprint from his fingertips through the swing door up the stairs past the grave guard good morning through the Romans earthenware dominoes Greeks one grand gallery oils second one with red walls sketches last corridor bleached with light. Sculpture Court.

  Rodin’s hand. Two lovers entwined. Bashful woman on a rock, hands strategically planted, ohmygoodness. Cousin of Gilbert’s blue muse. Naked figure of man throwing plate. Girl kneeling for a better view. Man completely naked. Girl a step closer. Light cue and.

  Here’s a painting children love. Four ruddy schoolboys posed against a swampy backdrop. Flash shoe difficult to. Hurry the fuck up, Yank. Mutiny of the odalisques. Hold on. Struggling with the F-stop as the boys marble with the cold, ruining her composition. Yank hurry the—suddenly the boys yelp, stumble and scamper away.

  She whirls around, letting the camera fall to her side.

  A figure stands silhouetted against School House, arms akimbo. Appalled.

  You, Evans? You?

  Interruption. Trouble. Two days into term two. So this is how it will be. Trouble in the form of Mr. Betts, he of English inflamed with French, the married denying thinning blonde man who, when staring into his Shakespearean ether, sees only Madame Araigny’s expressive fingers which, for ambiguous reasons, number only neuf. Trouble is courage taken after months of Mr. Betts are you alright sir you look a bit peaky shall I fetch Matron? A Comedy of Errors as the English master, spying the object of his philandering thoughts on so many lyric afternoons, four emotive fingers of a left hand in midbring of coffee cup to gentle gallic lips, stiffened his resolve, strode across the staff room and troubled the Widow Araigny for an afternoon stroll. A choice made to forsake the usual path in favor of the pastoral route by the old swimming pool. So.

  When trouble interrupts on that flat January horizon it does so in the besotted form of an amateur botanist looking up from nine adorable French fingers to a scene—

  Right out of de Sade . . . Mr. Betts fusty strides . . . Indecent. Almost, Headmaster I don’t even like to but . . . hesitant but not at all to mention . . . Pornographic I could say.

  Yes . . . Cyclops, doubtful . . . That will do I think.

  Camera in her lap, finger wrapped with the edge of skirt wiping the camera lens around and around.

  Mr. Betts marches to the window as if to locate decency behind the curtains . . . Our rules may not explicitly prohibit alfresco nudity, but—

  Oh we have seen far worse, Betts. This was hardly catastrophic. I think perhaps you should return to your Dickens—

  Molière it is, Headmaster. Fourth formers.

  Yes. And allow me to deal with Miss Evans here.

  As you wish . . . at the door Betts spins on his heel struck by the thought . . . Headmaster, I believe this nasty incident may have unfortunate repercussions for Madame Araigny.

  Ahem. I can only implore you then to keep extra counsel on Madame’s health, Mr. Betts. For the good of the school.

  Sir . . . a lozenge of light on the carpet and Betts has gone. Cyclops, inaudible. Then holding out a hand . . . I should think that lens clean by now.

  He takes the camera.

  Catrine Catrine . . . a sigh over her his eyepatch his eggshell three scribbles on his forehead . . . I realize that last term’s incident with the Gredville boy might have its ripples felt in some disagreeable ways—

  That had nothing to do with it, Mr. Stokes. They asked me— And we all want to be liked—

  That was not the reason.

  But it is not in keeping with the academic code by which you have agreed to abide, by which we all, in order to live harmoniously at Monstead, must agree to abide, to take photographs of your classmates undressed and on the hockey pitch.

  He is ridiculing her.

  You understand my obligation to ensure this sort of thing does not happen twice.

  It was meant to be art.

  Cyclops swivels his chair to the window. After a moment . . . Where are you getting these ideas, girl?

  Father gave me the camera for Christmas, sir.

  So it’s Teddy who’s responsible.

  A joke but answer even more seriously . . . Oh no, Mr. Stokes it wasn’t Father’s idea.

  Swivels back to her . . . Evans.

  Sir, I saw paintings and at the Modern—

  When boys do such things you should walk away—

  There was a sculpture—

  I’m inclined to forgive this brief excursion into your artistic—

  I can’t really draw but I thought well—

  Character, of course a show of remorse should be
swiftly undertaken—

  I have a camera and art has naked—

  Evans. The behavior you have chosen to display is not in keeping with the tenor of Monstead life. Now your father is ahem an old friend, you are a confused little girl and I can only think additional focus on your studies and less focusing of your lens will result in a happier situation all round.

  Yes sir.

  I have brought your ahem. Incident before the Conduct Committee. Since art appears to be your downfall, I propose an immersion in the sciences. Therefore you will spend an hour before breakfast each morning for the period of one month assisting Miss Dyer from the fifth form in cleaning, sorting and preparing Chemistry materials. Mr. Gilbert specifically requested your help.

  Requested her specifically.

  Stokes flicks at a blemish on the desk . . . Apparently Miss Dyer is somewhat preoccupied, certain matters at home seem to require her concentration.

  Specifically.

  Monday morning then at seven o’ clock sharp you are to meet Miss Dyer at the chemistry lab. I hope this month will encourage you to see our world in a more scientific light, that you may put some of these foolish notions behind you, leave them behind as child’s play and approach the world with the mind of a scientist. Our Mr. Gilbert seems to think you have some real talent in this area and it’s not too early to begin bending your thoughts to your A level subjects. Perhaps you will be one of our science girls, Miss Evans, there aren’t many, most seeming to prefer English or the dramatic arts, but there’s always room for an exception . . . standing moving around the side of his desk . . . I think your father will regard this as fair, don’t you?

  My father? Please don’t tell my father, Mr. Stokes.