Love Lessons

by David Belbin

  Or didn’t.

  Ten

  The notices went up on Monday lunchtime. Rachel and Becky saw the first one on their way to registration. Reading it made Rachel late.

  “Romeo and Juliet,” Becky said. “We’re starting that in English soon.”

  “I’d love to be in it,” Rachel sighed.

  “I can see the casting now,” Becky mused. “You as Juliet, Nick as Romeo: a marriage made in heaven.”

  The second bell went before Rachel could think of a witty reply. Becky rushed to registration. Rachel couldn’t be bothered. She sometimes skipped registration after spending lunchtime at Nick’s. Nothing ever happened. She went straight to her first lesson of the afternoon.

  She was the first to arrive. Mr Steadman was in the room when Rachel walked in. He smiled at her. It felt odd, being in the room alone with him. To fill the hollow air, she asked him about the play.

  “Are those notices up already?” he asked her. “Ms Howard asked me to tell you about the production. I was going to do it today.”

  “Could I borrow a copy, sir?” she asked, making a sudden decision. “I’d like to read it before the auditions next week.”

  “No need,” he told her. “We’ll be starting the play today. I’ve just got the stock-cupboard keys from Ms Howard so that I can collect the books. Would you give me a hand carrying them up here?”

  Rachel followed the teacher to the stock cupboard on the floor below.

  “Have you ever done any acting?” Steadman asked on the way.

  “I was in the school production last year,” she told him. “Bugsy Malone.”

  “And who did you play?”

  “A gangster’s moll.”

  He gave her a surprised look. “I can’t picture you as a floozie, somehow.”

  Rachel smiled. “You’d be surprised what a bit of make-up and a wig can do.”

  “I’m sure.”

  The stock cupboard was behind an insignificant door near the drama studio. Inside, though, it was huge. Rachel followed the teacher into the room.

  “Any idea where I’d find Romeo and Juliet?” Mr Steadman asked Rachel. “I’ve not been in here before.”

  “I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

  “Me neither. But a light switch would help.”

  Rachel fumbled around near the door. “Here.”

  The light came on.

  “That’s better,” Mr Steadman said.

  The space between the bookshelves was cramped. They were standing very close together. The teacher looked uncomfortable.

  “Perhaps you wouldn’t mind waiting outside the door, Rachel,” he said, with a boyish grin. “We don’t want people to talk.”

  “Sure,” Rachel smiled back, feeling like she’d been paid a compliment.

  From inside the stockroom, the teacher gave a running commentary on the books he was rummaging through.

  “Oxford Secondary English. The Outsiders. I Am The Cheese - what on earth’s that? Creatures Moving. There’s some weird things in here. The Art of English - that ought to have gone in the flood. The Long, the Short and the Tall - at least we’re getting to plays now. Ah ha, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and yes, here it is, Romeo and Juliet.”

  He counted out fifteen copies and gave them to Rachel, then counted out a similar number to carry back himself.

  “And what part did you have in mind?” Mr Steadman asked, as he closed the door behind him, then locked it.

  “I don’t know,” Rachel said. “Something small, I guess.”

  “Why?” the teacher asked. “I marked your first essay last night. It was really good. Perceptive. If you act half as well as you write...

  Rachel flushed with pride.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  Back in the classroom, Steadman gave back the essays. He’d given Rachel an A. She’d never had an A before. Mr Scott was always stingy with them. The best he’d ever given Rachel was a B+, which was what Becky got today. As Mr Steadman was handing out copies of the play, everybody compared marks. No one else had done as well as Rachel, not even Nick.

  Steadman started talking about Romeo and Juliet. It was written at about the same time as A Midsummer Night’s Dream, he said, and covered several of the same themes, but in a more serious way.

  “For instance, there’s this boy, Romeo, and, at the beginning, he’s crazy about a girl called Rosaline. However, by the end of the first act, he’s fallen for Juliet and Rosaline isn’t mentioned again. This could be the material for a comedy, like Dream, about how fickle young lovers’ hearts are. But this isn’t a comedy, it’s a tragedy. Juliet is forbidden fruit. Anyone know why?”

  “Is it because she’s under age, sir?” Lisa Sharpe suggested.

  A couple of people laughed.

  “Actually,” Steadman said, “today, she would be. Juliet’s not quite fourteen at the beginning of the play. Romeo’s age isn’t made clear. He’s probably older, but still in his teens.”

  “When were you allowed to get married at that time?” Becky asked.

  “Girls as young as thirteen married then, but fourteen would still have been seen as unusual. Sixteen or seventeen would be the norm. However, Juliet’s the most eligible girl in Verona, so there’s pressure on her parents to marry her off as early as possible.”

  “And how old would the bloke she marries be?” Lisa asked.

  “Convention would make him much older than Romeo. Late twenties mostly. Older, some of the time.”

  Lisa made a face.

  “Anyway,” Steadman went on, “the reason that Romeo and Juliet’s love was forbidden is that they belong to rival families. He’s a Montague. She’s a Capulet. Two households, both alike in dignity, but bitter enemies.”

  Rachel wasn’t listening. She already knew the story of Romeo and Juliet. Mum had made her watch the animated version when she was still at primary school. But Rachel wasn’t thinking about the play itself. She was thinking about what the teacher said earlier. Could she play Juliet?

  All the school’s most experienced actors, the ones who competed for the main parts in previous productions, had now left. Rachel couldn’t think of anyone better qualified than her in year eleven. There might be some talented people in year ten, of course. In fact, Mr Steadman had just said that Juliet was only fourteen, so even girls in year nine might be in with a chance. But Rachel could make herself look younger as well as older.

  Acting in the play might interfere with her exams. But the notice said that the production was on at the end of the Spring term. She would have Easter to revise in and, anyway, doing the play would help with the English Literature exam. She wondered if Nick was interested in ...

  Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door. Rachel looked up to see Mrs Bethell, her form tutor, walking into the room.

  “Excuse me, Mr Steadman, have you got Rachel Webster in here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Could I have a word with her outside, please?” Reluctantly, Rachel left the room. Mrs Bethell wore a serious expression. Rachel worried. Suppose Mum had been taken ill? But there was no sympathy in Mrs Bethell’s voice when she spoke to her.

  “Do you know what this is about, Rachel?”

  “No, Miss.”

  “You’re in trouble.”

  Mrs Bethell took the register out of her bag and opened it to the third week in November.

  “Three days in a row you’ve missed afternoon registration. You know, Rachel, usually truants in year eleven do the opposite of what you’re doing. They turn up to register, then skive off the rest of the afternoon.”

  Rachel apologized. “I didn’t think it made any difference. I’m always on time for my lessons.”

  “It makes a big difference,” Mrs Bethell explained, sternly. “You’re affecting the school’s unofficial absences statistics. And you’re making me miss part of my free period. So I’m afraid, young lady, you’re in trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  �
��Since this is your first offence, I’m going to count this as three lates, rather than truanting. That’s an automatic Head’s detention. Tomorrow’s is already full, so yours will have to be a week on Thursday.”

  Rachel shrugged acceptance as Mrs Bethell walked away. She’d never had a Head’s detention before. It felt silly to be getting one now, in her final year. But it wouldn’t hurt. All it meant was an extra forty minutes after school on ...

  “Hold on!” she called out to her form tutor.

  “What is it, Rachel?”

  “I can’t go next Thursday, Miss. It’s the auditions for the play. Can’t you make it the week after?”

  Mrs Bethell shook her head.

  “I’ve already put the form in, Rachel. You should have thought of that when you decided to skip afternoon registration.”

  Rachel went back into the classroom, where Mr Steadman was getting the group to chant the prologue to Romeo and Juliet. They were repeating the lines again and again, until they got the metre right. Rachel, seething with frustration, listened silently, oblivious to the words and what they meant. Mr Steadman gave her a reproachful glance, disappointed that she wasn’t joining in.

  Eleven

  Rachel was surprised when, on Tuesday, instead of reading the play, Mr Steadman brought in a video. Normally, when teachers showed videos, it was as an end of term treat. But there were four weeks to go. In the film, a gay man used the Auden poem that the class were studying as a eulogy for his dead lover.

  Mr Steadman gave a definition of a eulogy.

  “What about a definition of love, sir?” Nick asked. “Do all writers mean the same thing when they use the word?”

  “Love’s a pretty subjective thing,” Steadman said. “That is, it means different things to different people.”

  Next to Rachel, Becky gave a cynical frown.

  “What about you, sir?” Kate Duerden piped up. “Have you ever been in love?”

  Steadman winced. You didn’t ask teachers that kind of question.

  “Let me try to clarify,” he said, with the put-on voice he used when he was getting too intellectual for the class. “We usually draw a distinction,” he went on, “between loving somebody, and being in love. When we talk about love, we’re often talking about the latter state, which most people agree is transitory, something which happens at the beginning of a relationship.”

  Rachel smiled, enjoying the way the teacher had ducked Kate’s question about his love life. Nick, though, was like a dog with a bone.

  “I don’t see the difference, sir,” he said. “Why can’t they be one and the same thing? Like, in the poem, the guy’s saying that he was wrong to think that love lasts for ever, but he isn’t wrong because love can’t last a lifetime. He’s wrong because his lover died.”

  Rachel squirmed, worrying that part of Nick’s performance was for her benefit. People might realize. So far, only Becky and Carmen knew that she was going out with Nick.

  “Maybe you’re right, Nick,” Steadman replied. “Maybe we need to agree on a definition of love before we go any further. The transitory thing I was talking about - the first flush of love — might be better described as a crush, or sexual obsession. There’s also a deeper, almost religious sense in which we use the word and - yes - we’d all like to think that it can last for ever, although divorce statistics tell a somewhat different tale.”

  The bell went, and the teacher looked relieved.

  “You’d better watch Nick,” Becky told Rachel, as they left school. “You heard what he said: when he mates, he mates for life.”

  Rachel laughed uncomfortably.

  “Hey, look, sir’s got a new car,” a voice called out as Mike was finishing for the day on Tuesday afternoon. It was Paul Wilks, the cheekiest member of Mike’s year-seven group. Paul could talk up a storm, but had trouble writing a sentence.

  “Well, not so new, actually,” Paul added. “I preferred the old one, sir. What happened to it?”

  “I didn’t own that one, Paul. This is mine.”

  Mike looked ruefully at the ten-year-old Ford Escort, its various bumps and scratches touched up with paint which didn’t quite match. Then he got in and drove back to Sheffield, thinking all the while about the past few days.

  On Saturday, he’d bought the Escort from an ad in the Nottingham Evening Post. With Emma away, there’d been no one he wanted to see in Sheffield. His friends from the PGCE course had all moved away and Emma’s friends were ... Emma’s friends. So he’d arranged to visit Phil on Saturday and stay over. Phil had helped him to choose the car, then driven Mike’s Escort over to Sheffield on Sunday while Mike returned Emma’s Peugeot.

  “Nice place,” Phil commented, as he looked round the flat. “Is that Emma?” He was pointing at a photograph over the fireplace. Mike nodded modestly.

  “She’s lovely. You’re a lucky guy.”

  They drove back to Nottingham together and Mike stayed another night there. Phil’s house was rapidly becoming his second home. He wished that he’d stayed there on Monday night, too, because, when he got in on Monday evening, there’d been a message from Emma on the machine, saying that she wouldn’t be back till Tuesday. He tried to ring and find out why, but his girlfriend wasn’t in.

  At least he’d got a lot of work done last night. Without Emma there, wanting attention, concentration was easier. And he’d slept well. Today, every single one of Mike’s lessons had gone OK. Usually, there was at least one disaster. Even the last lesson of the afternoon was pretty good. Mike’s year-eleven group enjoyed the extract from Four Weddings and a Funeral. For once, they’d got a decent class discussion going. Mike felt that he was beginning to build a rapport with them.

  Driving home took longer in the Escort. It seemed even longer because the car had no radio or cassette player. Mike worried that the car wasn’t up to making the trip ten times a week. At least Emma would be pleased that he no longer needed to borrow hers.

  She was there when he got in, sitting at the kitchen table, working on an essay. He was about to tell her how much he’d missed her, but Emma got in first.

  “How come you didn’t take my car to work today? Something wrong with it?”

  Mike explained. Instead of being pleased, his girlfriend seemed annoyed.

  “Why didn’t you come over at the weekend? I thought you might show up on Sunday at least, have dinner with Mum and Dad, drive me home.”

  She was being unfair. Mike protested. “Your note said See you Monday! I had loads of work to do on Sunday.”

  Emma wasn’t satisfied. “You had time to go to Nottingham — which is more than halfway — and buy a car, but you didn’t even have time to ring me once!”

  He should have rung, Mike realized. But he’d had the feeling that Emma was annoyed with him, and he’d wanted to avoid a fight. Now he was getting the fight anyway.

  “I meant to ..

  “Yeah, but you were too busy getting drunk with your teaching buddy. Maybe you ought to move in with him. You two seem to have more in common than we do these days.”

  Mike tried to put his arms around her. “Don’t do this, Emma. This is just ...”

  She burst into tears, stopping his words. Mike held her, but the tears didn’t cease, smearing her make-up, giving her face a child-like vulnerability. Mike was tired. The last thing he needed was a big scene. Emma wasn’t usually like this.

  After a while, she stopped. Her voice became sombre. “We have to talk,” she said.

  Mike sat down. “What is it?”

  Emma didn’t look at him, which was a bad sign. When she began, her voice went up in pitch, making her sound younger. “I can’t take much more of this, Mike. I’m a student. I hardly have any responsibilities. This is meant to be the best time of my life! But we never have fun any more. It’s been like this all year. I feel like I’m missing out.”

  Mike was quiet. He understood how Emma felt. Her first term here had been great. They’d found this flat. Emma was excited to be living away
from home. She liked her course and he liked his. But the following term, he’d started on teaching practice, and they’d seen a lot less of each other. Things were better in the summer. They went to the Glastonbury festival and had a couple of weeks travelling around France. But his failure to get a job had cast a pall over things. And since he’d started at Stonywood ...

  “I’ve spent a lot of time thinking this weekend,” Emma said. “And I’ve talked it over with Mum and Dad, and with Steve ...”

  “What is it?” Mike asked.

  “You know Carol?”

  She was a friend of Emma’s, the one she’d gone to the Sugar concert with.

  “What about her?”

  “There’s a spare room in her house. I’m going to move into it.”

  “What?”

  Mike was staggered. He’d had no idea that this was coming. The ground shifted beneath him and, for a moment, he felt like the earth would swallow him up.

  “You can’t do that, Emma. I love you. We’re ..

  “I’m sorry,” Emma said, her face hardening. “But this isn’t working. I feel like you’re holding me back. You’ve changed this year, and I don’t like it.”

  “People change all the time,” Mike argued. “It’s just that I have to live in the real world now. I have a job ...”

  Emma shook her head so that the hair fell in front of her face. He couldn’t see her eyes.

  “I know you do,” she said. “But I don’t have to live in the real world yet, Mike. I feel like you’re boxing me in. When I’m with you, I’m still the same person who idolized you at fifteen. I need the space to be myself.”

  “You can’t leave,” Mike said. “Not now. I’ll give you space, all you need. But don’t leave. I need you.”

  Suddenly, Emma’s voice became less sympathetic. “Oh, come on, Mike. If you need me so much, why didn’t you call me all weekend? And it’s stupid, you living in Sheffield. This place costs a fortune. Why don’t you give it up and move in with your friend, Phil?”