Love Lessons Read online

  I imagined myself walking into that bleak building.

  ‘It won’t be Wentworth High, will it?’ I said.

  Boys from Wentworth sometimes came banging and shouting into the shop, throwing books around, asking if Dad stocked crazy rude titles. He’d order them out of the shop and threaten to call the police. He tried phoning the school to complain, but he said the teachers sounded as uncouth as the pupils.

  ‘Your dad would die if you went to Wentworth,’ said Mum. Then she clapped her hand over her mouth. ‘No, no,’ she said indistinctly. ‘We’ll send you to Kingtown High. Your dad went there, when it was a grammar school. He’d like to think you were following in his footsteps. Though maybe he’d feel happier if it was an all girls’ school. That’s it, we’ll find you a nice decent girls’ school.’

  She said it as if she could conjure up a demure convent directly down the road. I saw myself in a straw boater and blazer, arm in arm with my best friend Jane. We’d giggle together and share secrets. It wouldn’t matter if we were the odd ones out, because we’d have each other.

  I pictured Grace tagging along behind us on our way to school. I felt sorry for her, so I gave her a best friend too, a roly-poly red-cheeked little girl who loved Grace dearly and stuck up for her whenever she was teased. I even imagined Mum making friends with some of the other mums while Dad nodded benignly in the background, a gentle, frail invalid . . .

  We had to go to Wentworth. All the other schools were full up, with long waiting lists.

  ‘We can’t go to Wentworth, Mum!’ I said. ‘We won’t go. You need me to help out in the shop now, anyway.’

  ‘We can’t risk it. If that education inspector chappie comes back and catches you working then we’ll really be prosecuted,’ said Mum. ‘No, Prue, you’re starting at Wentworth next Monday, it’s all fixed.’

  ‘But Mum, I don’t want to go to Wentworth. Look, you said—’

  ‘I know what I said. But I can’t help it. I don’t know what else I can do. For God’s sake, can’t you try to make this easier for me? Don’t you see I’m at the end of my tether?’

  I wasn’t sure what a tether was. I imagined a long fraying rope with Mum tied on the end, fat legs dangling.

  ‘OK, OK. Don’t you worry, Mum, we’ll go,’ I said.

  ‘But it’ll be awful,’ Grace wept in our bedroom that night. ‘When I go to the sweet shop these girls from Wentworth are always making faces at me and whispering and giggling. I know they’re talking about me. And they steal stuff, I’ve seen them. And the boys are worse, you know they are.’

  ‘Don’t go on about it, Grace,’ I said, because I wanted to drift off with Tobias into our own private world.

  ‘It’s all right for you. You’re pretty and skinny and clever. You’ll make heaps of friends. But what about me? They’ll all pick on me and tease me because I’m fat.’

  ‘No they won’t. Well, if they do, I’ll bash them up,’ I said fiercely, though I wasn’t sure I could bash so much as a boiled egg.

  Grace looked a bit doubtful too.

  ‘Look, if it’s really really awful we simply won’t go,’ I said. ‘We’ll pretend we’re going, but we’ll just hang out round the town, go for walks, whatever, just like I did when I was supposed to be seeing that awful Miss Roberts.’

  ‘Really?’ said Grace. She sat up in bed and blew her nose. ‘Oh Prue, don’t let’s go at all. Let’s just bunk off right from the start. It will be fun!’

  ‘Well, you’ll have to keep it absolutely quiet. No blurting it out to Mum!’

  ‘I’ll keep my lips totally sealed, I promise,’ Grace said.

  Mum started fussing on Sunday night about what we were to wear.

  ‘I phoned up on Friday and explained it might be a problem getting both of you kitted out for uniform. I hoped I’d find something in BHS but no one does that green, and even so, the prices are ludicrous. They told me there’s a second-hand school uniform shop open every Friday. It’s meant to be very reasonable, so you’ll be able to get yourselves sorted out. Meanwhile you’ll just have to wear your dresses and cardies and explain if anyone asks.’

  ‘Yes, Mum,’ we said meekly.

  ‘You’ve to be at school at quarter to nine tomorrow, to see the headteacher. I expect she’s going to give you a little pep talk. There’s no need to be nervous. Don’t worry, I’ll come too.’

  We blinked at her.

  Mum smoothed down her skirt and then looked at it properly. It wasn’t really a proper skirt at all; it was a length of chintz curtain material Mum had hastily stitched together in a depressing dirndl shape. She’d put on even more weight meanwhile. She stared at the big red roses stretched to the limit around her vast thighs.

  ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘I wonder if my good suit still fits.’

  ‘You don’t have to come to Wentworth with us, Mum,’ I said quickly.

  ‘Of course I do,’ said Mum. ‘Your dad can’t go, obviously, so it’s down to me.’

  ‘No, Mum. We’ll look stupid, going with you,’ I said.

  Mum looked at me, her face flushing as red as her roses.

  ‘Look, I didn’t mean because you’re you,’ I said hurriedly. ‘We just don’t want to walk in with our mum. The other kids will laugh at us.’

  ‘Then they’ll have to laugh,’ said Mum, her chin up. ‘I’m coming, Prudence. I need to be there. I’ve got to make sure you go there for a start.’ She looked me straight in the eye. It was my turn to blush.

  ‘Oh Mum, we don’t want to go,’ Grace wailed, and started howling.

  Mum sat down on the sofa and pulled Grace onto her lap. ‘There now, baby,’ she said, rocking her.

  ‘Everything’s so horrible and scary and different,’ Grace wept.

  ‘I know, I know,’ said Mum, rubbing her cheek across the top of Grace’s mousy hair. ‘I don’t want you to go to school, poppet. Heaven knows, I hated it myself. But now your dad’s not able to teach you we’ll just have to give it a go. And maybe . . . maybe it’s time you two learned to fit in more. I just want you both to be happy.’

  We looked the picture of misery the next morning, walking to Wentworth in our ridiculous home-made clothes. Mum’s suit wouldn’t fit her so she was squeezed back into the red rose number, with a red knitted jumper rammed down over her big bosom. Grace was wearing her pink pandas. I told her it maybe did look babyish, which hurt her feelings, but she insisted on wearing it because it was her favourite frock.

  I cordially hated all my frocks, but chose the red and white check as the least offensive. I wore my new black and pink lace underwear underneath, for courage. I hoped it might make me feel like one of the Wentworth girls, confident and sexy and streetwise.

  As soon as we set foot inside the great gates everyone stared at us. We trekked across the playground. It seemed as large as the Sahara Desert. I realized that two little strips of hidden lace weren’t going to make the slightest difference. Some of the kids had big grins on their faces. It was as if a circus had stopped at their school. We were the clowns.

  The girls stood in little groups, giggling. The boys started jostling each other and shouting. Mum looked at Grace and me anxiously and then reached out to hold our hands. She was trying to reassure us but this was a big mistake. I snatched my hand away immediately but Grace clung to Mum. That made their jeers increase.

  ‘Let go!’ I hissed.

  They took no notice, clutching each other. I sighed and marched ahead. I kept my head up and didn’t look round, no matter what they shouted. Now I’d jettisoned Mum and Grace I imagined Jane on one side of me, Tobias the other. We didn’t care what they called. We were a threesome, cool, aloof, artistic . . .

  ‘God, what do they look like? Mum’s a walking sofa, the little blobby one’s a duvet and the skinny stuck-up cow’s a tablecloth!’ someone yelled.

  I couldn’t stay cool. I felt tears pricking my eyes. I turned round and stuck my finger up at them. They all shrieked delightedly. Mum looked shocked.

 
; ‘Prudence! Don’t do that.’

  ‘What did she do, Mum? Prue, what does it mean, doing that with your finger?’ said Grace.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I lied. I’d seen the boys from the estate gesture to each other and worked out exactly what it meant. Grace didn’t seem to have any idea at all. She was looking younger than ever, and very frightened.

  ‘I want to go home,’ she said, hanging back from the school door.

  Mum looked as if she might relent. ‘I don’t see you two learning much in this sort of environment,’ she whispered. ‘Your dad’s going to kill me when he finds out.’

  ‘Let’s just leg it back across the playground,’ I said.

  We looked at Mum pleadingly. She bit her lip, swaying from one Scholl sandal to the other, plucking helplessly at the roses on her hips. ‘I don’t know what to do for the best,’ she said.

  Then a man with black hair and a little beard came up to us. He was wearing a denim jacket and black jeans, and he had a diamond earring in one lobe. We looked at him uncertainly. He seemed very young but the beard surely meant he couldn’t be one of the pupils.

  ‘Can I help?’ he said.

  ‘My girls are starting at the school. Well, I think they are,’ said Mum.

  He smiled at Grace and me. I usually couldn’t stick men with beards but his was small and trimmed and looked cool, especially with the earring.

  ‘I hope you’ll be very happy here. Don’t look so worried. It’s always a bit weird starting at a new school.’

  ‘They’ve not been to any school, not for years and years,’ said Mum, starting to launch into a long and unnecessary resumé of our lives.

  He listened politely while Grace and I rolled our eyes at each other, agonized.

  ‘Well, I’m sure everything will be fine,’ he interrupted eventually. He nodded at Grace and me. ‘I’ll maybe see you in the art room sometime. I’m Mr Raxberry. I’m one of the art teachers here.’

  ‘I’m rubbish at art but Prue is brilliant,’ said Grace.

  ‘I’m not,’ I said, blushing.

  ‘Yes, you are,’ said Grace.

  I had to shut up or we would have got stuck in a ludicrous pantomime routine.

  Mr Raxberry glanced at me. He had a very intent way of looking, as if he was actually drawing me, noting everything about me. I wished I didn’t look such a total idiot in my tablecloth dress. His dark eyes seemed very warm and sympathetic, as if he understood exactly what I was thinking.

  He showed us to the office and introduced us to one of the school secretaries. ‘Gina will look after you. Good luck! I hope you enjoy your first day,’ he said, and then went hurrying off down the corridor.

  Gina stared after him wistfully. She would obviously have preferred to look after him. She gave us forms to fill in and then told us to wait on chairs outside the headteacher’s study.

  We crouched there, all three of us, totally unnerved, while great gangs of students careered up and down the corridors, laughing, calling, shouting.

  ‘Why don’t the teachers tell them off?’ Mum whispered. ‘Still, the teachers seem a pretty rum lot. Imagine, that Mr Raxberry had an earring. You wouldn’t think they’d allow it.’

  ‘He teaches art, Mum,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know what your dad would say.’

  There was a little pause. We were all horribly aware that Dad couldn’t manage to say two words together at the moment.

  I hunched up on my hard chair, guilt stabbing me in the stomach. Grace reached out sympathetically, and smudged the ink where she’d written her name on her form.

  ‘Oh rats,’ she said, sighing.

  ‘Grace! Don’t make it all messy,’ said Mum. ‘Do your name again, and try to keep your writing neat. Look, it’s all over the place. Make it smaller, to fit on the line.’

  ‘It won’t go smaller,’ said Grace, gripping her pen so tightly her knuckles went white. She stuck her tongue out as she wrote, concentrating fiercely. Then she peered at my form. ‘Oh no! I’ve done my address wrong. I’ve mixed up the postcode letters,’ she wailed. ‘Shall I copy it out?’

  ‘No, it’ll look even more of a mess. Just leave it. As if it matters!’ I said, though I’d written mine in my neatest printing, using my fine-line black drawing pen.

  A smart blonde woman in a black trouser suit and high-heeled boots walked past us into the headteacher’s office without even knocking.

  ‘What a nerve! We were here first,’ said Mum. ‘Do you think she’s his secretary?’

  She wasn’t the secretary. She put her head back round the door in two minutes and beckoned us in. She was the headteacher, Miss Wilmott.

  ‘We didn’t think you’d be a woman,’ Mum said stupidly.

  ‘Well, I promise you I’m not a man in drag, Mrs King,’ she said.

  Mum looked dreadfully embarrassed. Grace and I sniggered uncomfortably.

  ‘Welcome to Wentworth,’ said Miss Wilmott. ‘We’re all new girls together. I’ve only been here since the beginning of term.’

  She indicated three chairs in front of her desk. She sat behind it, resting on her elbows, her hands crossed in front of her. They were very pretty hands with beautifully shaped nails, pink with bright white tips, as perfect as a porcelain doll.

  Mum hid her own bunch-of-bananas hands in her floral lap. Grace sat on her own bitten fingernails. I made myself sit with my hands by my sides, pretending to be relaxed. I looked past Miss Wilmott at the paintings on her wall. They were mostly creation myths, but I recognized one Nativity scene, with a host of angels flying round above the stable, playing a heavenly version of ‘Ring-a-ring-a-roses’. The painting had been in the same room as Tobias and his angel.

  Miss Wilmott saw me staring. ‘Do you like my painting? It’s Italian, by Bellini.’

  ‘No, it isn’t!’ I said, astonished. ‘It’s a Botticelli. He paints very differently, in a very poetic and ethereal way. I just adore his work.’

  ‘I’m so pleased,’ said Miss Wilmott, though she didn’t sound pleased at all.

  ‘She’s very into art, our Prudence,’ said Mum. ‘My husband takes both girls to all the galleries, fills them in on all the details. He’s taken such pains with them.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Miss Wilmott briskly. ‘Well, I’m determined there’s going to be a big emphasis on the arts in Wentworth. I’m sure your daughters will appreciate their art lessons.’

  ‘Oh, not me!’ said Grace. ‘I don’t want to do art, thanks, because I’m useless at it. I’ll just do English and history and geography and some nature stuff, but not anything hard.’

  ‘You’ll be given a timetable, Grace,’ said Miss Wilmott. ‘You’ll find you’ll be doing all sorts of subjects. But first of all, I’d like both of you to do a little test for me so we can sort out which year group to put you in.’

  ‘I can’t do tests,’ said Grace anxiously, seemingly determined to convince Miss Wilmott she was totally bonkers.

  ‘She panics,’ Mum said. ‘She’s not really that clever – she takes after me, poor girl.’ She laughed a false little ha-ha-ha. ‘Prudence is the bright one,’ Mum continued. ‘She’ll be top of her class, no problem.’

  Miss Wilmott’s smile was getting strained. ‘We’ll have the girls do their assessment tests and then we’ll see,’ she said. ‘Meanwhile, Mrs King, I’d like to remind you that we do have a very strict uniform policy. Can you make sure the girls are kitted out in the regulation green uniform, please?’

  ‘Oh yes, I’ve got that all in hand. They’re going to buy their uniform at the special shop,’ Mum said.

  ‘I see,’ said Miss Wilmott. She paused delicately. ‘Are you on benefits, Mrs King? We do have an excellent free school lunch if that’s the case.’

  ‘Oh no, they’ll take a packed lunch,’ said Mum. ‘We’re not on any benefits at all, thank you.’ Her cheeks were burning.

  Miss Wilmott had no idea how she’d insulted her. She’d never heard one of Dad’s rants about the Great Unwashed living
off the State. Maybe Miss Wilmott thought we were the Great Unwashed, and possibly barking mad to boot. Her perfectly manicured nails were starting to fidget impatiently.

  ‘Right then. We’ll get Prudence and Grace settled in. School finishes at three thirty.’ She gave Mum one more tight smile of dismissal.

  Mum sat still, smiling back, not understanding. Grace sat gawping too.

  ‘I won’t have to do running or jumping or any games, will I?’ Grace said.

  ‘You’ll have a games lesson twice a week. I think you’ll find it fun,’ said Miss Wilmott, getting up.

  ‘But I can’t, I’ve got a bad heart,’ said Grace, putting her hand on her chest in a theatrical gesture.

  I stared at her. She didn’t have anything wrong with her heart. She could obviously lie as fluently as me when she was desperate enough.

  Mum blinked at Grace, wondering what she was on about. Miss Wilmott didn’t look convinced.

  ‘If you want exemption from games you’ll have to bring a letter from your doctor,’ she said. ‘But I’m sure a little gentle exercise won’t do you any harm at all. Now, I really have to go to assembly. I’ll settle you down with your tests, girls. Goodbye, Mrs King.’

  Even Mum couldn’t fail to get the message that it was time to go. She heaved herself upwards and gazed at Grace and me. Her eyes brimmed with tears but she did her best to smile. ‘Have a nice day then, girls,’ she said. ‘I’ll be waiting for you in the playground after school.’

  ‘No, Mum, we’ll walk home ourselves,’ I said.

  ‘Well, take great care, dear. Make sure you mind the roads and don’t talk to strangers.’

  She was treating us as if we were six. It was a relief when she waddled off down the corridor. She turned to wave at us again and again, as if she thought this was the last time she’d see us.