Love Lessons Read online

  ‘If you’ve set your heart on further education, then you might as well go to a proper university,’ said Dad. ‘We’ll show that interfering berk from the education authority. You’ll pass all his exams with flying colours. How are you getting on with your maths tuition?’

  I blinked. ‘Fine, Dad,’ I said quickly.

  ‘I thought you said you couldn’t understand a word she said?’ Dad said suspiciously.

  ‘And you said I just needed to apply myself – and I have,’ I said. ‘Dad, I’m sure your poached egg’s ready. I’ll make a pot of tea.’

  I clattered around, and felt very relieved when Mum came thudding downstairs in her old pink mohair dressing gown. She’s been wearing it ever since I can remember. It was a mistake right from the start. She looks like giant walking candyfloss.

  ‘You two are early birds,’ she said brightly. ‘Oh, are you making breakfast, Prue? You’re a good girl. Poached eggs – mm, lovely.’

  ‘No, she’s not making the poxy poached eggs; I am. And mine’s ready now, but I suppose you want to nab it, so I’ll just have to start all over again for mine,’ said Dad.

  ‘Oh no, dear, you have it. I’ll make my own,’ Mum twittered.

  They started a totally pointless argument about eggs, while I packed up my painting and made tea and toast for four, thankful that I’d somehow managed to skirt round the maths tuition inquisition.

  I relaxed too soon. We were still sitting at the breakfast table fifteen minutes later, Mum fussing, Dad irritated, Grace in her teddy pyjamas sleepily scoffing half a packet of cornflakes, when we heard the post come through the shop letter box.

  ‘More blooming bills,’ said Dad. ‘Run and fetch them, Prudence.’

  I ran. I fetched. I didn’t even think to sort through the little wad of envelopes. I saw there was one white handwritten envelope but I didn’t wonder who it could be from.

  I’d written a very good showy essay for Dad on the significance of letters in Victorian fiction – and yet I was thick enough to hand it straight to him. Dad shuffled the envelopes, opening them with his eggy knife, chucking several bills straight into the bin.

  ‘We can’t just ignore them, Bernard,’ Mum said anxiously.

  ‘Yes we can,’ said Dad.

  ‘But we’re going to have to pay sometime.’

  ‘I don’t know what with,’ said Dad, flapping another sheet of paper at her. ‘This is from the bank. “Overdraft . . . not acceptable . . . blah-di-blah.” Jumped up little penpusher. I don’t need him to point out my financial circumstances, thanks very much.’

  That letter went in the bin too. Mum twitched, peering over at it, ready to whisk it out the minute Dad left the room.

  He binned the next letter too, barely reading it.

  ‘What was that about, dear?’ Mum asked anxiously.

  ‘That interfering creep Miles from the education authority. He’s still banging on about Prudence’s GCSE coaching. Demanding details, tutors’ names, timetables! God almighty!’

  ‘Well, that’s OK, dear. We’ve got Prue started at Miss Roberts’s. Then maybe we can manage some science tuition later on. But you’d better write and let him know. Just in case he might turn nasty.’

  ‘Let him try! Now, what’s this?’ said Dad. He slit open the white envelope, took out the sheet of paper and read the letter. He sat very still.

  ‘Prudence?’ he said quietly.

  My heart started thudding under my red-and-white checks. ‘Yes?’

  ‘This is a letter from Miss Roberts,’ Dad said ominously.

  I swallowed. Grace nudged up close to me.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Mum. ‘Doesn’t she think Prue’s been making any progress?’

  ‘Well. You could say that,’ said Dad, spinning it out. His whole body was tensed, ready to spring.

  ‘Now don’t go getting cross with her, Bernard. It’s not her fault she finds maths a puzzle. I’m sure she’s doing her best,’ said Mum.

  ‘Yes, she’s doing her best, all right,’ said Dad, his voice rising. His pale face flushed purple. ‘Doing her best to make a monkey out of me!’

  He shouted it, spit spraying into the air. Then he wavered, wobbling sideways so that he had to clutch the table.

  ‘Don’t get so het up, please,’ Mum begged. ‘Are you having another funny turn?’

  ‘Yes, I am – and it’s no blooming wonder!’ Dad said, through clenched teeth. He leaned over the table at me. ‘How dare you!’ he yelled, thumping the old scratched pine so hard that all the plates and knives and spoons rattled.

  Grace reached out and held my hand under the table.

  ‘What has she done, Bernard?’ Mum asked. ‘Has this Miss Roberts complained about her? Maybe she’s simply too strict for our Prue.’

  ‘Miss Roberts hasn’t complained, as such. She’s simply a little perturbed. She hasn’t seen hide nor hair of Prudence for the last three weeks.’

  ‘What?’ said Mum. ‘But – but why? Did you get lost, Prue? Why didn’t you go?’

  ‘Well?’ Dad shouted, leaning so far over the table his face was nearly touching mine.

  ‘I went once and I couldn’t understand a thing. I just didn’t see the point,’ I muttered.

  ‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this!’ Dad bellowed. ‘Why didn’t you come and tell me, after your one obviously disastrous visit?’

  ‘I didn’t want to,’ I said, right into his face.

  ‘You didn’t want to. Even though you knew Mr Miles is all set to leap into action and slam your mother and me behind bars for not giving you a proper education?’

  ‘He won’t put us in prison! Will he?’ Mum said weakly.

  ‘Of course you won’t go to prison, Mum.’

  ‘Oh, Miss Know-It-All! Only you know damn all, even though you think you’re so smart. You need to get to grips with maths, even if you’re just going to waste your time at art college. Remember that, missy. You thought you could swan off and do your own thing, tell bare-faced lies to your own father, waste everyone’s time and money—’

  He stopped short, his mouth still working silently though he’d run out of words.

  ‘Bernard? Do calm down – you’re getting yourself in such a state. You’re making yourself ill!’ said Mum, catching hold of his arm.

  He brushed her away as if she was some irritating insect. He focused on me. His face was still purple. Even his eyes were bloodshot with his rage. ‘What about my money?’ he screamed. ‘What have you done with my eighty pounds?’

  ‘Sixty. I paid the first time.’

  ‘Don’t you dare quibble with me! Sixty, eighty, whatever. Hand it over immediately, do you hear me?’

  ‘I can’t.’

  Dad struggled to draw breath. He looked as if his head was about to explode, shooting eyes, teeth, tongue all over the table. ‘I said hand it over immediately!’

  ‘I can’t, Dad. I’ve spent it,’ I said.

  Dad reeled. ‘You’ve spent eighty pounds of my money?’ he gasped.

  ‘Sixty pounds, Dad. Yes. I’m sorry,’ I said weakly.

  ‘Whatever did you spend it on, Prudence?’ Mum whispered.

  I swallowed, unable to say.

  ‘She spent it on me. On chocolate. Lots and lots and lots of chocolate,’ Grace gabbled desperately.

  ‘I might have known. You greedy little fool!’ said Dad in disgust. ‘So you stuffed your great gut with my hard-earned money.’

  I was suddenly so angry I wasn’t frightened of Dad any more.

  ‘Don’t talk to Grace like that, Dad. It’s horrible, and it’s so unfair. I didn’t spend the money on chocolate. Grace is just saying that to protect me. I spent it on other stuff.’

  ‘What stuff?’ said Mum, who’d never spent sixty pounds in one go in her life.

  ‘I went to McDonald’s, I bought magazines, I got a special box of watercolours from the art shop—’

  ‘That wouldn’t use up eighty whole pounds! Give me what’s left!’

  ‘Sixty, Da
d, sixty! I spent all of it. I bought some underwear too.’

  ‘Underwear?’ Dad gasped. ‘What sort of an idiot do you take me for, Prudence? What did you really buy?’

  ‘Oh my lord, you’re not on drugs, are you?’ said Mum.

  I’d never had the chance to smoke so much as a Silk Cut, never swallowed anything more sinister than an aspirin. The idea that I’d somehow been hobnobbing with drug dealers was so ludicrous I couldn’t help smiling.

  Dad’s hand shot out. I felt such a whack on my cheek that I nearly toppled sideways.

  ‘Take that smirk off your face! Now tell me what you spent eighty pounds on, you little liar.’

  Grace started crying, but I was too angry for tears.

  ‘It was sixty pounds, Dad – don’t you ever listen? And I told you, I bought my watercolour paints, some food in McDonald’s, some magazines . . . and some underwear.’

  ‘Show me!’ said Dad.

  ‘Don’t, Bernard! Of course she can’t show you,’ Mum said. She looked at me worriedly, putting her hand on my scarlet cheek. She rubbed at it, as if she could wipe the slap away.

  ‘I’ll show him,’ I said. ‘I’ll go and get it.’

  ‘No – don’t, Prue!’ Grace wept. ‘She really did buy me chocolate, Dad, a great big bunny, I swear she did.’

  ‘Ssh, Grace. Dad won’t believe you. He thinks we’re both liars. Well, we’ll show him.’

  I strode to the bedroom, pulled open my drawer, found my beautiful new bra and knickers, took hold of them in each hand, ran back and threw them down on the table in front of Dad.

  He recoiled as if they were hissing vipers. We all stared at the pink satin bra, the padded cups standing out proudly, edged with black lace. The wispy matching knickers curled in an S shape, barely wider than a ribbon.

  Behind the table the family’s damp underwear hung limply on the airer, grey-white, baggy, slackly elasticated, almost interchangeable.

  ‘You sleazy disgusting little trollop!’ Dad shouted. ‘You’re no daughter of mine.’

  ‘I don’t want to be your daughter. You’re the worst father in the whole world!’ I shouted back.

  He clutched his chest as if I’d punched him. Then he fell forward, his head going smack against our old table. I thought he was literally banging his head with rage. I waited for him to sit up again.

  Dad stayed where he was.

  ‘Oh Bernard!’ Mum whispered.

  ‘Dad?’ said Grace.

  The kitchen was suddenly appallingly silent. I stared across the table.

  I had killed my own father.

  We stayed sitting still for a second, staring at Dad. It was Grace who suddenly sprang into action, surprising all of us.

  ‘We should bang his chest and give him the kiss of life!’ she said, running round the table towards Dad.

  She took hold of him fearfully, pulling him backwards into an upright position. Very bravely, she tilted his head, took a deep breath and blew into his mouth in a ghastly parody of a kiss.

  We had never kissed Dad on his mouth in our lives.

  Seeing my poor sister behaving so valiantly jerked me into action too.

  ‘An ambulance! I’ll dial nine nine nine,’ I said.

  ‘No, no, your dad won’t go to hospital,’ Mum wept, though Dad was clearly past arguing.

  I dialled anyway. Someone at the end of the line asked me which service I wanted. I asked for an ambulance and gave our address.

  ‘I should have asked for the police too,’ I said. ‘So they could come and arrest me.’

  ‘Don’t be so silly,’ said Mum, rushing round, starting to clear the table. Her hand hovered over my pink and black lace underwear. ‘Take these, Prue, quick!’

  I stuffed them in the pocket of my frock and went and stood beside Grace. I watched her labouring over Dad.

  ‘You’re doing it too quickly. And shouldn’t you pinch his nostrils?’

  ‘You do it, Prue,’ said Mum.

  I had a go, although it was awful shoving my head so close to Dad, feeling his coarse moustache scratching my lips, his false teeth clunking against mine. I scooped them out, feeling I was violating my own father.

  Mum tried too, though she seemed as reluctant as me. She kept stopping and peering at him fearfully, as if he was about to strike her for being so impertinent.

  My cheek still throbbed from his slap. I started pacing up and down, peering out of the window for the ambulance, as if I could summon it up instantly by willpower.

  ‘Get . . . Dad’s . . . pyjamas,’ Mum gasped, in between breaths.

  ‘I’ll pack a case for him, Mum,’ Grace said quickly.

  It seemed bizarre, finding nightclothes and a toothbrush and a flannel for someone who might already be dead. He still wasn’t moving at all, and his eyes were semi-shut. Mum hovered above him, bent over awkwardly, her head on his chest. I thought she might be hugging him, but she was listening for a heartbeat.

  ‘I think I can hear it. You listen, Prue. It is his heart, isn’t it?’

  I couldn’t tell if the drumming in my ear was my own blood or his. I hated breathing in Dad’s stale old-book, old-sweat, old-jersey smell. His mouth was lopsided now, as if he was silently groaning. He looked like an old, old man.

  ‘Oh Dad,’ I said, and I started crying. ‘I didn’t mean to make you so angry. I’m sorry. Can you hear me? I’m so so sorry.’

  There was a knock on the shop door downstairs. The ambulance people were here. They gently prised me off Dad and examined him carefully.

  ‘Is he dead?’ I sobbed.

  ‘No, no! He’s unconscious, dear, but he’s not dead. We’ll get him to hospital as soon as possible.’

  ‘He hates hospitals,’ said Mum.

  ‘Can’t help that, love. We can’t leave him here in this state. Are you coming with him?’

  ‘Yes, of course, he’s my husband.’

  ‘What about the girls? They’d best stay here.’

  Mum looked at us, biting her lip.

  ‘Do you want me to come, Mum?’ I said.

  Mum drew in her breath, hugging her huge chest, her hands hanging onto her elbows. ‘No, dear, you stay and look after Grace. I’ll ring you from the hospital. You be good girls and – and try not to worry.’

  The ambulance people strapped Dad onto a stretcher and manoeuvred him out of the kitchen and down the stairs, Mum treading heavily behind with the carrier of his things. Grace and I followed them downstairs and through the shop, as if we were in some strange procession. We watched from the shop doorway as they slotted Dad’s stretcher into the ambulance and helped Mum clamber inside too.

  The Chinese people stood on their restaurant doorstep, watching. They nodded at us sympathetically. ‘Your dad?’ they said, and the woman pointed to her heart.

  When the ambulance drove off she asked us if we’d like to come and sit with them.

  ‘No, no, it’s very kind, but we’re fine,’ I said firmly.

  Grace pushed me when we were back inside our own shop. ‘I wanted to see what their place is like. And they might have given us some chow mein and chop suey – I so want to know what it tastes like.’ Then she clapped her hands over her mouth. ‘I didn’t mean that. Dad’s right, I am a greedy guts. Oh Prue, this is all so awful. I can’t believe it, can you?’

  ‘Remember when we were little and Dad sent us to bed in disgrace and then we’d curl up and pretend to be different people?’

  ‘Yeah, I liked it best when I was Kylie Little Bum and you were Janet Air and I sang and you painted and we lived in our own penthouse flat,’ said Grace, sighing. ‘You’re always so good at making everything up.’

  ‘Maybe it isn’t good. It takes over from your real life and you start to believe it. Like when I bought the knickers and bra. I was pretending to be like the girls in the magazines and then when I argued with Dad I was kidding myself I was like little Jane Eyre standing up to Mr Brocklehurst – and yet look what I’ve done.’

  ‘He’ll get better, P
rue. The ambulance people said he was just unconscious. So maybe he just fainted because he was so mad at you?’

  ‘Don’t be daft, Grace. He wasn’t just fainting,’ I said.

  ‘Well. Whatever. But it wasn’t your fault. You didn’t make him ill.’

  ‘I did, I did. I don’t know how I could have yelled back at him like that.’

  ‘I thought you were brave. I’d never dare. But I get on Dad’s nerves more than you do. It’s because I’m so fat and so stupid. No wonder he likes you best,’ Grace said, with no hint of resentment.

  ‘I think Dad’s the stupid one. You’re much much much nicer than me. You’d definitely be my favourite, Gracie,’ I said, and I put my arms round her.

  We had a long hug and then broke away, looking at each other anxiously. The kitchen seemed spookily quiet in spite of the loud hum of our old fridge and the tick of the clock. We both watched the second hand edging its way round each numeral.

  We’d rarely been in the house by ourselves. We’d frequently fantasized about days of freedom together but now we were too frightened and guilty to do anything but stand and stare.

  ‘When do you think Mum will come back?’ said Grace. She swallowed. ‘I mean, I know you don’t know either, but do you think she’ll be back by lunch time? And what should we do about the shop? Will we open it up?’

  ‘There’s not much point. How many customers do we get?’ I said.

  I went to the waste bin and fished out all the bills. ‘Look, final demand, final demand. And – oh God, look at this one – they’re threatening to take Dad to court, Grace. I think he’s going to have to close the shop anyway, even if he gets better.’

  ‘But what will he do? Do you think he’ll publish his Magnum Whatsit?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Grace, he’s never going to finish it.’

  I thought of Dad only an hour ago, admiring my Tobias and the Angel painting and telling me I could illustrate his precious book. I started howling.

  ‘Oh don’t, Prue! Dad will be all right, I’m sure he will be,’ Grace said, clutching me.

  ‘I was so mean to him. I let him down so. And if we’re really in all this debt it’s so awful that I spent all his tuition money. No wonder he was so cross. How must he have felt when I thrust my bra and knickers right in his face?’ I pulled them out of my pocket and tugged hard at them, but they wouldn’t rip. I rummaged in the kitchen cupboard for the scissors.