Love Lessons Read online

  ‘Oh yes, very secret, you’re all so subtle when practising it,’ I said. ‘Correction. You look like prats.’

  ‘Why are you being so horrible?’ said Grace. ‘I’m just trying to fit in and make friends. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do when you go to school?’

  ‘You could be a bit selective about your friends,’ I said, miming the handwave, while bucking my teeth and flipping my hair.

  ‘Don’t,’ said Grace, going red. ‘I like Iggy and Figgy.’

  ‘Yes, well, they obviously don’t like you, calling you Piggy. That’s a hateful nickname.’

  ‘It was my idea, not theirs. It’s not hateful, it’s funny. I think you’re just jealous because I’ve made two friends and you haven’t,’ said Grace.

  She saw me wince. ‘Yeah, it looks like you’ve been too selective,’ she said.

  ‘I wouldn’t want to be friends with anyone at this stupid school. I hate everyone in it. I don’t intend to come back here ever,’ I said.

  I started running. I dashed into the road, not thinking where I was going, acting like a crazy person. There was a squeal of brakes and a loud honking of a car horn. I stopped still, disorientated, feeling a total fool. Grace was screaming in shock behind me and some guy was winding down his car window, ready to shout at me.

  He didn’t shout. He shook his head at me and said softly, ‘You must be in a hurry to get home.’

  It was Mr Raxberry, the art teacher.

  ‘I’m sorry, I just wasn’t looking,’ I stammered. I turned round to Grace. ‘Stop that screaming!’

  ‘I thought you were going to be killed!’ Grace whimpered.

  ‘I did too!’ said Mr Raxberry. ‘But I try not to make a habit of exterminating my pupils, especially on their first day at Wentworth. Get back on the pavement before another car comes along and really knocks you flying.’

  I shuffled back to the kerb, still feeling incredibly stupid, but pleased he was being so sweet about it. I thought he’d drive off but he parked the car beside us.

  I squeezed Grace’s hand to calm her down, and show her I was really sorry for being so mean. She squeezed back and stayed clinging to me.

  Mr Raxberry smiled at us both. ‘How did it go then, girls?’ he asked.

  ‘It was OK!’ said Grace. ‘I’ve got these two friends, Iggy and Figgy and—’

  ‘Grace,’ I interrupted, scared she was going to go through the whole Iggy-Figgy-Piggy saga all over again.

  ‘We’re friends,’ Grace persisted. ‘They’re going to help me because I don’t know heaps of stuff. Still, the teachers say I’ll soon catch up as I’m still just in the first term.’

  ‘That’s great,’ said Mr Raxberry. Then he looked at me. ‘What about you, Prue?’

  He remembered my name!

  I didn’t know what to say, so I simply shrugged.

  ‘Oh dear,’ he said. ‘Yep. That was my reaction my first day here. In fact I often feel that way now. But it’ll get easier, you’ll see. And I think your class is due an art lesson tomorrow. We can check each other out then. Bye now.’

  He drove off, waving. I stared after him until his car had gone right down the road and round the corner.

  Mum was waiting for us at the bookshop door, rushing out to hug us extravagantly as if we’d just escaped from a bear pit. It felt as if I had been bitten by sharp ursine teeth and clawed by big paws. Still, it was so comforting to know that Mr Raxberry understood. Did he really get anxious too? He looked so cool and laid-back with his casual jeans and his earring. It seemed almost impossible. And he was a teacher, for goodness’ sake. No one could pick on him, tell him off or tease him. Mum wanted to hear all about our day, minute by minute. I couldn’t face telling her any of it so I pretended I had to go and get on with homework straight away. I left Grace Iggying and Figgying, munching strawberry jam sponge cake, her mouth red and glistening as if she was wearing lipstick.

  I sat cross-legged on my bed, my sketchpad on my lap. I did have heaps of homework but as I’d left it all at school I decided to forget about it. I started drawing instead, scribbling any old thing with my felt tips, just seeing what I could jot down. I drew me wearing a real square tablecloth, running like crazy, my hair flying out behind me, my mouth wide and screaming. I was pursued by a pack of bottle-green bears. I drew a car creeping along at the edge of the page, ready to run them all over. I shaded the windscreen, but you could see dark hair, a little beard and the tiny glint of an earring.

  I was left in peace until half past five, when Mum closed the shop. She hadn’t had a single customer all afternoon, but she still waited until it was five thirty on the dot, carefully consulting her watch.

  ‘Come on then, girls, off to see your father,’ she said.

  We stared at her pleadingly.

  ‘Mum, do we have to go every day?’ I said.

  ‘Of course we do!’ Mum said. ‘Think of your poor father lying there, waiting and waiting for us. How on earth would he feel if we couldn’t be bothered to come? Besides, I’ve got his clean pyjamas, and a big slice of sponge cake to perk him up.’

  ‘But Mum, Iggy and Figgy are going to be phoning me to see how I’m getting on with my homework – which I’m not; it’s, like, way too difficult,’ said Grace, raising her eyebrows and trying out a weird shrugging gesture.

  ‘Stop twitching like that, Grace. And talk properly. Don’t start talking like that in front of your father, you know it will infuriate him.’

  ‘Everything I do infuriates him,’ said Grace. ‘It will probably make him worse seeing me. He won’t mind a bit if you and Prue go and I stay at home. He’d definitely prefer it.’

  I glared at her. I didn’t want to get lumbered going with Mum while Grace escaped. ‘I annoy him too. It was me that made him have the stroke in the first place,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t, Prue,’ said Mum. ‘That’s nonsense, I’m sure you had nothing to do with it. Come on, get ready, both of you. And don’t breathe a word to your dad about going to school – that really will set him off.’

  So we walked into town and caught the bus to the hospital. When we got there Dad was fast asleep, snoring, his mouth open, his false teeth slipping sideways over his lip so he looked like Dracula. We drew up chairs beside him and waited for him to wake up.

  ‘Shall I give him a shake?’ I said.

  ‘Well, it seems a shame when he’s so peaceful,’ said Mum. She seemed content to watch him, as if he was a television. Grace and I wriggled on our orange plastic chairs. Dad didn’t seem at all peaceful to me. He mumbled and groaned in his sleep, his good left arm and leg twitching. I wondered if he was walking and talking in his dream, unaffected by the stroke.

  It must be so awful for him to wake up imprisoned in his half-dead body, unable to say the simplest thing. I felt so sorry for him that I leaned forward and took hold of his bad hand. I touched the limp fingers, as if I could somehow squeeze the life back into them.

  Dad’s eyes shot open. I dropped his hand quickly. I tried desperately to think of something to say to him.

  ‘Hello. It’s me, Dad. Prue. Well, obviously. How are you? Sorry, that’s a stupid thing to say.’ I was speaking as if I was the one with speech difficulties.

  Dad tried to reply, his face screwed up with the effort, a vein standing out on his forehead like a big blue worm crawling under his skin. ‘I want . . .’ he said, in a new strange thick voice. ‘I want . . .’

  He couldn’t manage to say what he wanted. Mum kept trying to interpret.

  ‘Yes, Bernard? What do you want? A drink of water? A cup of tea? Do you need the toilet, dear?’

  Dad groaned and thumped his good left hand on the mattress in frustration. One of the very few words he had left was a very rude term of abuse. He repeated it explosively, saliva glistening on his lips, as if he was spewing bile with his awful insult.

  ‘Ooh, you naughty boy, Mr King,’ Nurse Ray said, flitting past.

  Dad said it louder, while Mum flushed, blood flooding righ
t down her neck and across her chest.

  ‘He doesn’t know what he’s saying, poor lamb,’ she said quickly.

  Dad obviously knew exactly what he was saying. He said it louder still.

  It was so sad we wanted to cry, but it was embarrassingly funny too. Grace and I suddenly started spluttering with laughter. We put our hands over our mouths and bit our cheeks, but couldn’t control it. Mum was furious with us.

  ‘How dare you mock your father when he’s so poorly!’ she hissed.

  We apologized meekly, but we couldn’t catch each other’s eye without collapsing. Mum glared at us and produced the slice of sponge cake, making ‘yum-yum’ noises and licking gestures. She tucked it into Dad’s left hand but he tossed it indifferently onto the bedcovers.

  ‘Can’t you eat it, dear? Shall I break it up into mouthfuls, would that be easier? Come on, Bernard, you like my special sponge cake.’

  ‘Can I have some, Mum?’ Grace asked.

  ‘Of course not! It’s for your dad,’ said Mum.

  ‘But he’s not hungry,’ said Grace. She nodded across at his supper tray, still barely touched, though the sandwiches were starting to curl and the sliced banana on his bowl of yoghurt was going brown. ‘Can I finish his sandwiches then?’

  ‘No! It’s a disgrace – that nurse should have seen to him. He obviously can’t manage by himself.’

  Mum complained bitterly behind the nurses’ backs, but couldn’t steel herself to say anything at all to their faces. When Nurse Ray popped her head round the door I dared mumble that perhaps my dad needed to be fed at meal times.

  She roared with laughter. ‘We’ve tried that lark, dearie. He spat gravy and mash all over my apron front. He’ll eat if he wants to. His left hand’s fine, and if he’d only co-operate with our physiotherapist his right hand could get back into some sort of working order.’

  Dad said his rude word again when she said the word physiotherapist. Nurse Ray laughed, shaking her head at him.

  ‘Yes, you’ve fallen out with her, haven’t you, Mr King!’ She turned to us. ‘He won’t let us dress him in his shorts, and yet the physio needs to see his legs properly to check the right muscles are working.’

  ‘My husband’s never been keen on shorts,’ Mum apologized.

  ‘Maybe you’d like to try to get him to practise his exercises? Little and often! These first three months are vital. He needs pretty intensive speech therapy too. His vocabulary is pretty limited at the moment.’

  Dad said his swearword again.

  ‘Mr King! Don’t say that naughty word in front of your wife and daughters!’ Nurse Ray said, pretending to be shocked.

  ‘You could help your dad, Prue,’ said Mum. ‘You could teach him to say new words.’

  ‘Respectable words!’ said Nurse Ray, giggling.

  ‘I – I don’t know how to,’ I said lamely.

  ‘Just chatter to him same as always, darling, and then try to get him to say stuff back,’ she said.

  I’d never chattered to Dad in my life. He’d always interrupted us. ‘Is there any point to this story?’ he’d say. ‘Or are you just in love with the sound of your own voice?’

  Dad was the one who always commandeered the conversation. My mouth dried as I tried to think of something to say.

  ‘I’ve got two new friends, Dad,’ Grace said unexpectedly. ‘Iggy and Figgy.’

  ‘Shut up, Grace!’ Mum said sharply.

  ‘It’s OK, I’m not going to mention you-know-what. I’m just going to tell him about my friends. Can you say Iggy, Dad? Can you say Figgy? They’re easy words.’

  Dad didn’t try.

  ‘Maybe you’d like to try ultra difficult words,’ I said suddenly. ‘Like . . . antidisestablishmentarianism?’

  Dad had told us that this was the longest word in the English language. He stared at me. His face wobbled and a weird howling sound came out of his sideways mouth. He was laughing!

  ‘An-ti,’ he said. ‘An-ti.’

  ‘Yeah, ant et cetera, et cetera, et cetera,’ I said. ‘Or maybe you’d like foreign words? I know. Tell me the name of an Italian Renaissance painter.’

  Dad struggled. ‘Bot,’ he said. ‘Bot – bot-bot.’

  ‘Botticelli,’ I said. ‘Yay! You’re not only talking, Dad, you’re talking Italian.’ Dad thought hard, his brow wrinkled. ‘Spag,’ he said.

  ‘Spaghetti!’ I said.

  Dad nodded, but he wasn’t finished. Saliva dribbled down his chin. ‘Spag bol,’ he said.

  ‘Spaghetti bolognese, what else?’ I said. ‘I bet you’d nosh on a plateful of spag bol if they’d serve it up to you!’

  Dad frowned. ‘No – nosh,’ he said, prodding at me with his good hand.

  He’d always hated any slang. For once I didn’t mind him nagging about it. It was such a relief to know that Dad was exactly the same inside – even though I’d longed all my life for him to change.

  I gave him a kiss on the cheek when we said goodbye. He batted me away furiously, but he didn’t call me the bad word.

  ‘You’ve always been able to handle your dad,’ Mum sighed, as we trailed home from the bus stop.

  She was wearing her comfiest shoes, awful boy’s lace-ups she found at a jumble sale, but she still lagged behind Grace and me. She was breathing heavily, shuffling Dad’s dirty laundry bag from hand to hand.

  ‘Here, Mum, let me carry it,’ I said, ashamed.

  ‘That’s nice of you, dear,’ Mum panted. ‘Let me take your arm. You come the other side, Grace. There, isn’t that cosy?’

  It was anything but. I hated lumbering down the street linked to my mum and sister. I felt a total fool.

  ‘I’ll run on home and get the kettle on for a cup of tea for you, Mum,’ I said, breaking free.

  The telephone was ringing as I got the door open. It always unnerved me. It hardly ever rang. Had Dad had a sudden relapse?

  I snatched up the phone and said hello anxiously.

  ‘Hi, Piggy!’ two voices squealed in unison.

  ‘Oh for heaven’s sake. OK, hang on a minute, she’s coming down the road,’ I said.

  I hollered out the door to Grace. She came thudding down the street, cheeks bright pink, her pale eyelashes fluttering, looking alarmingly aptly nicknamed.

  She was still on the phone long after Mum had had two cups of tea.

  ‘Do say goodbye now, dear, it’ll be costing Iggy’s or Figgy’s folk a fortune,’ she said. She looked pleased, even so. ‘Isn’t it lovely Grace has made two friends already?’ she said.

  I barely responded.

  ‘You’ll make friends soon too, Prudence, just you wait and see,’ said Mum.

  ‘I don’t want to make friends,’ I said.

  I knew I sounded pathetic. I stole up to my bedroom, stared at my bear pit drawing and suddenly crumpled it up because it looked so weird and stupid.

  I lay on the bed, my face buried in my pillow. Jane came and lay beside me, nestling up close. She understood without my having to say a word. She’d attended Lowood School. She knew how awful it could be. But even Jane had found a friend, Helen Burns. I had no one.

  Grace came bouncing up to bed, going on and on about Iggy and Figgy. I pulled the covers over my head.

  ‘Prue?’

  I wouldn’t answer. I hoped she’d think I’d gone to sleep, even though I was still fully dressed in my terrible tablecloth frock.

  ‘Oh Prue, you’re not crying, are you?’ said Grace, thumping down on the bed beside me. Her hand squirmed under the duvet. She patted me like a puppy. ‘I know, it’s so batty, me being the one to like school and make friends and stuff, but it’s easier for me. I’m in Year Seven so we’re all new. And I’m all silly and smiley so people can see I want to be friends.’

  I couldn’t bear Grace being so kind and understanding. Her sympathy somehow made things worse. I still wouldn’t talk to her.

  I lay awake for hours, hating myself for being such a mean sister. No wonder no one liked me.

  ‘I
like you,’ Tobias whispered.

  Jane had long since stolen away in her shabby button boots, but Tobias was there in the dark, holding my hand. He told me that he liked me precisely because I was strange and passionate and peculiar. He said all the girls in my form were banal and ordinary by comparison.

  ‘I wish there was a boy in my form just like you, Tobias,’ I whispered.

  I felt sick when I woke up the next morning. I decided to stick to my original plan and not go back to school at all. What did I care about Mr Raxberry and his art lesson? He might be sweet to me but everyone else was so awful. Why should I put myself through such horrors?

  I could walk to school with Grace and then keep on walking right into town. I didn’t have any money to spend but I could window shop or go and browse in the library or walk in the park.

  I packed my shoulder bag with sketchbook, crayons and my well-thumbed copy of Jane Eyre to keep me going all day long.

  ‘Are you reading Jane Eyre in your class?’ Grace asked. ‘How lovely for you, as it’s your favourite book! I bet you’ll be top in English, and art, and everything else. I think I’m nearly at the bottom but at least Dad won’t know and get mad at me. And Iggy and Figgy aren’t, like, total brain boxes. Figgy kept getting the wrong answer in maths yesterday, but she didn’t care a bit, she just got the giggles.’ Grace giggled too just thinking about it.

  I let her ramble on, deciding to keep quiet about my plans. I knew she’d worry and fuss. I didn’t want her unwittingly giving me away to Mum.

  But as we were walking down Wentworth Road there was a little toot of a car horn. I looked up and Mr Raxberry gave me a little wave.

  ‘Is that the art teacher?’ said Grace, as if she really wasn’t sure.

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘He’s quite nice,’ said Grace vaguely. She was looking all around. Then she suddenly grinned maniacally, did her two-handed fool’s wave, and scurried forwards on her fat little legs. There were Iggy and Figgy at the gate, grinning and waving back.

  I told myself to walk on smartly past the school. Grace was so keen to see her silly new friends she’d barely notice. But somehow my feet in their old red strap shoes were marching me in through the gate.