Schooling

by Heather McGowan

  Yes, but you don’t have to feed him. Or smell his breath. Have him on your leg all the time needing to go out.

  Betts stops . . . You’re right. Shakespeare is marvelously well behaved. You only take him out on your terms. There’s an essay for you . . . Betts looks over at Owen.

  For Royal College.

  Well, perhaps not Royal College.

  And they laugh like old friends and talk about some lecture series and she falls into the role of mute dog-hater. They will dissect her afterwards, Fancy saying there was no point to dogs. There’s a girl with no detachment. A third former mind you, not one of the younger ones, but old enough to know about consequences.

  I heard about a kid, a kid in America . . . interrupting their lecture projections . . . Who dropped a—a bowling ball off a—a bridge to see what would happen. Onto a car.

  Ah . . . Betts looks confused.

  In terms of detachment . . . switching between them to see if they understand . . . What you were talking about before, the rabbit. You see, the boy couldn’t understand that a person might be hurt. Because, like you said, he had no foresight.

  What happened to the man in the car?

  The man in the car . . . she picks at her hand . . . The man in the car ran off the road. And. They didn’t see what happened next.

  They?

  He, I mean. The boy. Never knew if the driver was hurt . . . again they look at her oddly . . . It happened to a friend of mine. A personal friend.

  Well, personally . . . Betts picks up, Owen still watches her . . . I think it’s a problem of early attachment. Some children are too reliant on parents to make decisions for them. Especially moral ones. A boy drops a bowling ball because he has had no previous experience making decisions. Everything laid out before him, tea, bed, mummy with a dishcloth tied about the waist. Put that boy in the service, see what happens when he has a revolver pointed to his head.

  An odd silence. Then old Betts is off and running on ex-pats, T. S. Eliot’s book of cats after all she is American, does she agree that poetry is in fact an escape from emotion rather than a headlong hurtle toward it. And while she’s turning that conundrum over, Owen’s getting pebbles caught in his treads. Finally they leave him stooping to scrape them out with a twig.

  Upon reaching the baths she is the first to see the group, Araigny, Devon, Spenning, and most interesting of all far more fascinating than the English teacher’s fondness for poetry or Wharton’s for pebbles, or even Spenning cantering up in slow motion to ask if Betts wants to lecture next and where is Thorpe or should he himself talk about the baths for he can’t find his notes, what is equally interesting is the sight of Gilbert, jaunty, one knee bent, foot on the railing, leaning forward, smiling down, pointing out something to Fi Hammond who sights along his outstretched arm much as she herself has done on more than one occasion.

  Old Spenning . . . Owen arrives . . . The man’s a gibbon . . . pulling her to sit on the wall next to him.

  She reaches into her blazer for cigarettes.

  What’s this? . . . Owen snatches the pack, launching it behind him . . . Smoking’s not in your character. I’ll have to have a word with Sophie Marsden.

  Simon Puck lands under a nearby tree, staring beadily at them. Owen waves him away. . . . What are you seeking there in the dust, Evans? America?

  No.

  Then what are you up to?

  Pebbles by his boots make the head of a man.

  Careful of inventions . . . Owen glances over his shoulder at Gilbert . . . They’ll invent you back.

  You don’t know what I’m thinking.

  Let’s play a game. It’s called Hazard a Guess. What’s the date I think to myself. Hmm, what could it be. Hmmhmm. Now here’s a coincidence, looks like we’re coming up on Easter, and lo the girl goes gloomy. Why might the clouds hang on her so? What do we recall happening at Easter besides the resurrection of old whatsit.

  She stands.

  Owen yanks her back down . . . Resurrection doesn’t sound right. What else could it be, let me think, just a minute, it’s right on the tip of my—

  Owen, please.

  I’ve got it!

  Don’t.

  I’ve suddenly remembered what happened at Easter exactly one year ago.

  Shut up shut up.

  Your moth—

  She turns, Betts, Araigny, someone.

  Sorry, bach. No one interrupts me . . . Owen grins . . . Wouldn’t dare. Easter month. Your mother died at Easter, am I right?

  What’s that, Evans, say something?

  A fear. Fearful meditation. Sad mortality.

  Well now, you see, that’s Shakespeare you’re quoting. And in fact, I’m asking you. Give yourself the speech for it, Catrine. Suit the word to the action and the action to the word, if you will.

  I can’t.

  Surely you know what must happen if you don’t. Why make yourself go through it.

  I can’t hypothesize.

  For god’s sake, you’re not a rabbit lashed to a car.

  I can’t.

  Open your eyes.

  But she’s fallen asleep in the forest. She will wake with rabbit ears.

  4

  A man from the town appears wearing a peaked cap emblazoned with a crest.

  Our resident expert . . . Spenning jabs him as if the man too is mesolithic . . . Mr. Reggio.

  They all watch the man describe the baths, rounding his eyes though it soon becomes clear that the alarm is in fact impediment. The man organizes them into a line to drink stinky water from paper thimbles. Araigny wrinkling her nose in a petite French moue. Fi Hammond. The girl is clean you have to say that. White socks to an exact length and short so no need of constant hitching. The water tastes deliciously bad. White shirt tucked into skirt, yellow pullover draped over her shoulders as if after eggwater she might well engage in a set of tennis. Shiny hair girl, bergamot lass.

  Guaranteed to cure any illness, after all it was rumored beneficial for Leprosy . . . pop-eyed Reggio circulates, refilling cups.

  Like a garden party . . . Gilbert says it right into her ear, coming up behind her.

  She starts.

  We were interrupted earlier.

  Sipping, she studies him silently over her tipped cup, taking in his long nervous fingers strumming the railing, the other hand grasping, that’s right, his waist, one knee thrust out to show he is relaxed, the sort of young master capable of joking with his students, of not taking it all too seriously. He smiles at her, she takes away the cup, looks into it. Listens to the song, Another outing, To paint this time, Somewhere with nicer food.

  Don’t tell me that if it’s not true, Mr. Gilbert.

  She watches him run a hand through his hair as he walks away. Don’t let go. In Howlands, struggling for portraits, the sound of his sleeve as he reached for the light. She can’t. Can’t seem to hold on.

  Three steps away, Gilbert swings around . . . You like those lads in leather do you? Wharton, I mean. Best stay away from him. Another Paul Gredville if you ask me . . . Gilbert crumples his cup . . . Wednesday then.

  5

  At the interval. Brickie and Owen in lobby consultation. The filing in. The squeezing past knees. The unsettled. Audience of rustle audience of toffee offerings and assessing Bath fashion. Yellow winter wear in the gallery. Bad hat in the second row. Man down front rehearsing the cough he’s excercised nicely during Act 3. Chime. And a sharp dig between the wings.

  You’re hurting me.

  Brickie, on the edge of his seat jabs her again . . . If you’re desperate to know, eyebrows jerking each jab, I’ll give you a quest.

  Quest? Another chime, imminent theatrics.

  On the other hand, if you don’t want to know—

  I do I do want to know.

  Do you have it in you?

  Yes. I accept. Any quest.

  Noise in the back of his throat, skeptic ocean.

  I have done things, Brickie. I have gone against their rules. Led men acros
s deserts.

  Shh . . . this from some Mareka, Daphne.

  Brick—

  It might kill you.

  Nothing here could.

  Alright, his mouth by her ear breath tickling . . . The way you’ll know at last is.

  Their lights fade, Brickie’s voice drops.

  The way you’ll know at last is.

  Drumroll.

  Found in.

  Cleante and Tartuffe step onto the stage beauty-marked and powdered.

  Number 26.

  They’re all talking about it. This is the time to tell you bluntly After school when our English Tutor is earning and ensuring the affections of a certain coquette, steal into his office. Up the door through the stairs. Disturb the papers flooding his desk, rummage in books piled thereon shhhh old man’s compiling a new history of Monstead says the actor or Brickie pardon the o fense one or the other sacrifice your resentment finally putting all those scribbles to use. In the office of Monsieur Betts is where you will discover the ghastly tale of yore I mean your father. Unjustly accused. If you fail, Evans, if you fail you are just a girl who cannot read between the lines then you Lose glory deserve not to know shhh neither what your father did nor how it is that an apple never falls far from its tree.

  6

  They prepare to return to Chittock Leigh, for the hypocrite has been flushed out, the lover tested and found sincere.

  And here he is. In the shabby cloakroom, extricating his coat from a pile of duffels.

  Mr. Gilbert?

  He turns . . . Ah, Diogenes. Searching the streets for an honest man?

  Do you like her?

  Sorry, what’s the question?

  Fi Hammond . . . outside, the sound of a cheer . . . Whether you like her.

  Fiona out there, Fiona taking her chemistry O level, that Fiona?

  Another cheer, Puck’s voice clear above the others.

  Whatever it is, come out and say it. You burst in here like your hair was on fire.

  I didn’t.

  Do I like her, I think the question was. Let me see. Fi Hammond seems intelligent enough. Has always displayed respect for the science. Seems to do her Prep. Has always been courteous. Has never, to my knowledge, tampered with the levels of dangerous chemicals while entrusted with the upkeep of the chemistry lab.

  What can she say to that.

  All in all, I would say that Fi Hammond is quite likable.

  You had your hand on her back. Maybe she’s not sure about your motivations.

  Which are?

  Pressing a finger against the window, watching the tip of it whiten . . . I don’t know.

  The school rules are quite clear. I suggest you go back and review them . . . Gilbert’s tone changes, becomes serious.

  He turns back to his coat. When she is inches from the door, sullen inches, Gilbert calls . . . Wait.

  She stops.

  Come back.

  She does.

  I have a gift . . . pulling out a square of cloth, he hands it to her . . . My handkerchief from our day in Oxbow. Paint won’t come out. It’s an accidental canvas.

  Greens she tried to rename.

  Don’t scrutinize it, not much good at the abstract stuff.

  She folds the handkerchief into tidy squares.

  A tug. He has hold of her hair. Pulls it gently . . . What goes through this mind at such warped speed, funny Punchinello? I’m going to conduct a study. Something to make my fortune, hum? . . . winding the theory in his fingers her hair . . . Oh . . . letting go . . . Was that unkind? I was trying for a joke.

  Sometimes you’re funny.

  Halting by the window, he registers the comment, face changing from a big intake of breath to a stunned expression involving his chin . . . Sometimes? . . . folding arms . . . Well how often would you say? . . . down his nose at her . . . If you were forced to estimate?

  What is he talking about.

  What’s the number? Come on, you’ve done it in maths, percentages. I’ve seen it.

  Mr. Gilbert—

  No, no. I’m fascinated . . . folded arms forming channels in his sweater . . . What’s the percentage of my success?

  Seventy—

  Seventy?

  Eight.

  Seventy-eight. Not so bad. And yours . . . he does the math . . . Ninety-one.

  That’s high.

  Yes. But I’ll have to try harder or make fewer jokes.

  Maybe I miscalculated.

  You seemed quite sure.

  I wavered a bit.

  It came out very absolute. Seventy-eight. There was no questioning it at the time.

  But now I’m remembering some things you said in Oxbow that were pretty funny.

  As a scientist, hindsight is not your friend. As a scientist, you must back up your data before going public with it.

  But. You were standing there like that. Waiting. I was pressured.

  Ah . . . crossing . . . You’ll be better prepared next time . . . over his shoulder . . . To stand the pressure . . . at the door . . . I’ve given you a Gilbert original. And you can rest assured that however promising a student Fi Hammond proves to be, she doesn’t own art like that.

  Paint thick in spots. Doesn’t have him, is that what he means, Fi doesn’t have him. Gilbert opens the door. Pulls on his jacket, shirt creasing as he shrugs it over his shoulders. She runs to the window to watch him walk.

  Outside, Owen is leaning against the building, bored, arms folded. The doors swing open. Here comes Gilbert pulling at his sleeve as he jogs down the steps. As he passes Owen, Gilbert stumbles, lurching forward abruptly. She lurches with him, bumping her forehead against the glass. Awkwardly, Gilbert manages to catch himself on the railing. He looks at Owen in disbelief. Owen takes out his toothpick, throws it to the ground and walks away. Gilbert runs his hand through his hair. But she saw. Owen’s foot flick out.

  7

  Back at school, Pythagoras proves to be the final unraveling of Duncan Peaks. The Maths teacher has disappeared in the night, baby, cough turned fatal, no one is certain. Spenning stands at the front of the room holding a ruler in one hand. Rulers go with mathematics, this he knows. Sophie goes to the blackboard. Mr. Spenning, we are onto triangles, scribbling out a = Mr. Spenning, sir, b2 + c2. We have moved onto the stupidity of the Obtuse, the sagacity of the Acute. Gently, Sophie takes the ruler away from him, We are done with metrics, sir. But Spenning, frozen and paling, stares at the back of the classroom. Sophie looks up, her eyes widen. One by one they turn. Duncan Peaks lies in the corner of the classroom wrapped around an abacus, shucking the beads, rocking himself.

  8

  Boys had differently shaped heads in the nineteen forties. Square back then. Boys crossing hockey sticks, half-men in tennis whites. Trophies. Classical music dribbles down the corridor from the short part of the L. Photograph after photograph. Red carpet. Courage. Lawrence in all that sand. Contending with the breath of camels and poisoned spiders in his blankets. 26. A swan and a beckon. She pushes open the door. The office is empty.

  9

  Four days ago I asked for your replies to Hitch’s letters. Today I hold before me seven pages of quasi–William Butler rip-offs from Chambers in the Third. Apparently this pitiful sheaf comprises your concern for overseas friends greeting death. You boys recall the meaning of the word comrade, don’t you? Yes, well, think about what it’s like for your old friends now in aeroplanes, now staring down the wrong end of a Howitzer. These are boys with whom you once sat around a fire, boys who once advised you in your quotidian schoolday struggles. These same boys dare I say friends are today huddled in trenches, barbaric and confused. And you think you suffer you with your lessons in temporary classrooms. Yes perhaps they once housed farm animals but Western Literature will not be diminished by the faint trace of pig. Need I remind you what’s happening across our river? Your fathers are dying. Where the devil do you think poetry will get the O.M starving in a trench? Darvish, Treat. Give our boys incentive, feed a boy’s soul with
school stories, boost him with tales of less haunted days. Set it down, set it down. If a schoolgirl in the second half of our century steals through these secrets won’t she want our history? Shattered eardrums! Lost fathers! Banished children! Alright, alright, so I digress. Brickman, I asked you to signal when I began repeating myself. Assembly notes. 15/3/47 I have been informed that older boys have been beating out the younger for their share of the squish. Any boy caught doing so will lose games privileges for a week. It tries my patience it really does. We will not behave like castaways during our time in this Welsh hell. A word concerning the frisson which took place in the science laboratories yesterday. Not very amusing, it nearly set fire to the dormitories above. Boys doing science will remember that Tangley and Duke are housed overhead so wash the vegetables carefully don’t run on wet floors please remember delousing at four remember your FATHERS ARE DYING. Wash your hands. Please. Please. Vegetables are not bootscrapers. Please, your letters to Hitch in Italian trenches please, a warm word for Stokes who recuperates in Sussex please remember our masters departed in service, M. Drake, Dr. Bovart, S. E. Powers and R. C. Farthing-Smith in your prayers in our dirty nights. Don’t forget India, don’t forget the Maharajah. Remember V. Banks his gypsy moth a dark dart in the flaming skies of Africa, he was a target, boys. Your fathers are targets, YOUR FATHERS ARE CRYING. And our beloved D. E. McGraw, shot down over France. Bad luck. We will miss them all. But, Negland, dear Negland, who only returned to Monstead last month, has already led the cricket elevens to our biggest victory streak ever adding a win over Cheltenham to those over Monmouth and Bromsgrove. Round of applause. Word of warning to those engaged in private wars. Tangley and Duke have formed an alliance and last night undertook an ambitious raid on Conwell via the vegetable passage. Do you understand that your friends will die do you understand that if this is what passes for strategy, we might as well rip off the bedsheets and surrender before Prep. No. This is not how it will be. We will not have scattershot attacks. Boys will first present tactics to Prefects. You will calculate risks. You will project casualties. Yes, this includes midnight feasts, dorm raids, ratcheting a child to his bedsprings. Each act of arbitrary ostracization, all your works of torture. Boys will be men about the whole thing or see me. What would Hitch think had he witnessed the scene I came across last night while making the rounds of houses. These blubbers youknowwhoyouare will take yourselves suitably to task via self-mutilation, suicide attempts or psychiatric disorders in your mundane futures. I won’t have boys thinking of their fathers I won’t have namby-pambys longing for Sussex and the dear departed you will pull yourselves together you will you will try to remember