read things that none of us understood with your voice trembling with passion, then looked at us with your eyes shining, and we thought you were crazy. I can remember twitching with embarrassment for you but liking the way you were getting turned on. I tried to learn those lines you read…
Not poppy, nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou owed’st yesterday.
You were saying, listen to the sound of the words, the pattern of the stresses – mandragora, you said, lengthening the middle syllable as far as it would go. Mandragora. Drowsy syrups. I thought of the cough linctus my mother used to give me when I was small, but I knew that was wrong, only you get these weird associations sometime. You told us how darkly beautiful these lines were, but the truth was, I didn’t understand them, they didn’t make sense to me. The effect they had was to unhitch me from the reality of the classroom and make me dream.
It was a small seminar room on the third floor where we had our lessons, grey plastic chairs around a scored wooden table. It overlooked tennis courts fringed with ragged trees. We were grouped around the table, one or two boys, and the girls, each one of them set and determined in their own way to get whatever it was they wanted. They scared me. Lucy had her head down scribbling notes as if her life depended on it; Melissa sat there weighing up everything you said as if she could strike you down at any moment. She had her hand over her mouth. Fliss and Toni sat together as perfectly groomed as air hostesses. I don’t remember the others.
What I do remember from that day – the day I think it all began – was the sense of unreality that crept into the classroom. Like an animal, it rubbed itself against my feet and entered me, and I felt myself become detached and able to see very, very clearly, as if I was the only person in the universe, the only person who counted. I had X-ray vision. I saw behind your eyes as you were explaining the text that you were tired, harassed and anxious to get home. That Melissa was all spite and venom, glittering like a snake. That Lucy never had an original thought in her head and she was supposed to be my best friend. That Fliss and Toni were entirely plastic and even though they boasted about pulling blokes, they were so fake they wouldn’t have felt a thing.
These were nasty thoughts, and I didn’t like myself for being so bitchy. Does that surprise you, that I have such a bitchy side? It’s not the real me. But nor is the nice girl that you know who obeys the rules and smiles at all the teachers. Nor is the Cath who flirts with boys and samples their kisses. Or my parents’ daughter – she’s not real either. Just for one moment my eyes drifted to the text of the play we were reading and I thought, here are a bunch of characters, but where is Shakespeare? And me too – I was just a bunch of characters – does this make sense? Or will you write in the margin, avoid colloquialism, say precisely what you mean.
What I mean was at that point reality receded for me and I wasn’t really sure whether I was alive at all. My breath caught in my throat and I shivered. A prickling all along my veins made me want to run out of the classroom there and then but that was crazy – what would people think – and how could I explain? Was I having a panic attack? I’d heard people use that label before but I didn’t know what you were supposed to feel if you had one. I tried to calm myself down by biting the sides of my fingers – they’re red and raw, even now, like eczema. Bit by bit I went back to normal. My breathing regularised, my heart began to beat more slowly and I came back to the present and even felt slightly giggly.
But then real panic set in. I hadn’t heard a word you’d said and I knew you were setting us an essay on that part of that play. Of course I could always photocopy Lucy’s notes but the truth was they never made sense to me. I would have to work it all out by myself. There was nothing to be learnt now because Melissa had taken over. She was telling you that her parents had taken her to see the opera, Otello. You said that was wonderful!, and asked her about it. She criticised the tenor and talked about the set, pushing her hair back as she talked. The boys made faces and grinned at me which made me feel a whole lot better.
I want to know, did you ever see through Melissa? That was what really got us. That the teachers thought she was wonderful because she walked like you and talked like you and got high grades, effortlessly. Your approval of her shone out of every orifice. But the truth was, she despised you all, all the teachers. She got everyone believing that Miss Bradwell was a lesbian and no one was to go in to the changing rooms with her alone. She brought poppers into school one day and gave one to Afsheen without telling her what it was. Her mother did her GCSE coursework. Her father’s a consultant surgeon and took her to his old college in Oxford to meet some professor or other and she said it was all arranged, she’d be offered a place there next year.
Sorry – I’m going off the subject. I can imagine you annotating this with the brown-inked pen you used for marking our essays – stick to the point, Cathy, don’t waffle. I can tell you now I never did know when I was waffling. Everything I wrote seemed relevant to me, just like Melissa is relevant to my story too. Only perhaps she’s in the wrong order. So back to me. Sorry about the meandering.
I was really worried about the essay you set. It was partly because I’d been drifting in the lesson, and partly – or mainly – because of all the other stuff I had to do. There was a History essay hanging over me which had to be in on Monday. There was a test in Economics. You wanted us to read Frankenstein for our coursework. I had my oboe practice. I’d promised to come back to school that evening to serve coffee at the parents’ evening. And the Geography lesson was next and he always set us loads of things. I’d been invited to a party too, and knew if I went to that I’d be tired all Sunday. And I was so tired now. I guessed that was why I felt so odd in your lesson. Are you like that? The more you think about the work you have to do, the more tired you feel? I get a dragging sensation in my arms and the beginnings of a headache. That’s one of my worst points, getting tired when I shouldn’t. No one else seems as tired as me.
Will that do as an introduction?
I walked home from the bus enjoying the open air and the quietness. I know you like our neighbourhood because it’s so peaceful. You told us you need to be able to come home and relax totally, and with your job it’s not surprising. Dad likes the house because it has such a big, mature garden, which is unusual for a modern housing estate. You liked the fact the house was new and a bungalow because it was less housework. I was glad when we moved here eight years ago as I had friends in the area and so it seemed an OK place to live.
I left Windermere Crescent where there was just the occasional car – no pedestrians – and then turned into Wasdale Close, where we live. There was no one about. I don’t know why Dad thinks the garage door needs painting because it looks fine to me, but as you say, it’ll keep him happy. I could tell by the closed look in the windows and the silence of the house that you were still at the surgery. That was OK. I quite like having the house to myself.
I unlocked the door, both the Yale and the Chubb lock, and stepped inside, flinging down my bag, scooping up the letters and hoping, stupidly I know, that there might be something for me. There was one for Dr & Mrs Holmes which I knew would make you mad. It should have been addressed to Dr & Mr Holmes. You’re the doctor. As I hung my jacket over the banister and made my way to the kitchen for some coffee I was feeling kind of weird, as if I was acting in my own life. Perhaps it was because the house was empty, and there was no one around to remind me I was real.
I grabbed some coffee and opened the biscuit tin, but it was empty. Naïve of me, I know. You think it’s important that I eat healthily. You’re proud that I’ve always eaten three regular meals a day. Snacking is a bad habit, and undereating is another danger for teenagers. You like proper, family, sit-down meals. I have told you we’re one of only a handful of families I know who still do that, but you shrug and your eyes go all hard and defiant. I love you, and admire the way you