Come and Tell Me Some Lies (17 page)

Poppy and I lashed ourselves into fevered misery, then Flook phoned and told us not to be so bloody stupid. ‘He's only ill because it's hot.' He spoke slowly, enunciating very clearly, as if talking to an imbecile. ‘He'll be fine when he gets home.'

Thoughts of his never getting home faded with Flook's words. Two days later, a long white car drew up at Mildney. Out came Mum, pale and blotched, with dark-ringed eyes. Out came Dad, wrapped in a white cashmere blanket, suntanned and wearing dark glasses. He was thin. Bones I had never noticed before were crossed by veins fragile as birds' feet, and his nose reared patrician in his sunken face. We prepared to carry him, reverential and praising the Lord, into the house, but he would have none of it. Seizing his stick, he walked round to the front of the car and asked the driver to raise the bonnet. Poppy and I gawped. Dad and the driver began to examine the engine.

‘He's thrilled by this car,' whispered Mum. ‘As soon as he saw it, he cheered up. He's been talking about engines all the way from the airport.' We made Mum some tea. Dad did not appear for half an hour.

On my seventeenth birthday I took my first driving lesson and tasted independence. A-levels were looming, but their significance receded in the face of three-point turns and hill starts. I was relieved to find that I had inherited driving skills from Daddy rather than Mummy, and took my test three months later.

In the car park outside the test centre, my examiner, who smelt strongly of cheese biscuits, licked his lips until they shone wet pink and said, ‘Miss Lincoln, I am happy to tell you that you have passed your test. Congratulations.' I remembered stories of people embracing their examiners at this moment, but although elation pounded in my heart, I had no urge to get any closer to Mr Tibbins. I ran across the car park to Mummy; she was reading the Highway Code. She fumbled with the car door when she saw my face.

‘I've passed! I've passed! I can't believe it, Mummy, I've passed.' We embraced, staggering back and forth in front of our car.

‘Do you think it's a good omen for me, or a bad one?' asked Mummy when we were in the car and I was driving proudly
towards school. Mummy was taking her test a week later, and had ordered tranquillizers from the doctor.

‘I bet you'll pass too. It must be a good omen.' I executed a substandard manoeuvre and parked clumsily outside school.

‘I can always pretend I'm you if I fail,' Mummy shouted, as I ran in through the school gates feeling lithe, successful and confident.

Deflation in the form of an unseen Latin translation awaited me. I was the only pupil taking A-level Latin, so there was no one I could hide behind. Honesty was the best policy.

‘I'm awfully sorry, Miss Doball.' I ran my fingers through my hair and schooled my face into an expression of appealing contrition. ‘I haven't learned any Latin this week because I've been doing the Highway Code. I've just passed my driving test, you see.'

Miss Doball, her face white and bunched like a crumpled paper bag, shied back on her chair and shrieked at me. ‘What use is a driving test to a Latin scholar! You are not applying yourself. You don't know even the most basic grammar. I am beginning to doubt your ability, Gabriella, I really am. We shall attempt Virgil now. Do not fail me, I beg of you.'

Furious at Miss Doball's reaction I opened Virgil. The words became gibberish before my eyes, and I fidgeted with frustration. I had not even read through the text. Desperate but still spiked with bravado, I closed the book. ‘I don't know this, but I've learned some Catullus. Shall I recite it?'

Miss Doball's ivory knuckles twitched; she pushed her glasses further up her sharp nose and sighed, rasping and brief. ‘If you must, but it's not on the syllabus; however, I'm delighted to hear that you are reading round the subject.'

I began, standing up to recite, hands clasped behind my back, eyes modestly lowered:

‘Thallus you pansy, softer than rabbit's wool,

The down of a goose or the lobe of an ear,

Softer than an old man's penis and the cobwebs hanging from it.

Thallus none the less rapacious …'

‘That will do,'
stormed Miss Doball. ‘You are insolent and unteachable.' Taking off her glasses, she picked up her books and scurried out of the classroom, anger stamped in red spots on her knobbly cheeks. I remained at my desk, smirking defiance at the blackboard, trying to ignore shame as it scratched and burned its way up my body. ‘She should know what Catullus is like,' I muttered sulkily; to assuage my guilt I spent the next hour learning Virgil off by heart.

At lunch-time, a small girl with freckles and a brace found me. ‘The headmistress wants to see you in her study,' she piped, then whisked away with her giggling companions. Sweat rose on my palms and breathing became shallow and painful as I knocked on the headmistress's office door.

Miss Floyd was looking out of the window. In her long black gown, with her mouth turned down and her expression cold and unamused, she looked like an executioner. I had a hysterical urge to laugh and bit my tongue.

‘Miss Doball tells me that you had a disagreement this morning.' She swivelled her head towards me, lashless eyes unblinking as a baldheaded eagle viewing its prey. ‘Mrs Benton
tells me that you have not written a single history essay this term. Mr Graymer tells me that you have written no essays for your A-level class, and have insisted that your English scholarship class is enough work.' She turned her bulk at last; I stood with one leg twisted around the other, as near the door as possible. ‘What have you to say for yourself, Gabriella?'

Rage erupted and rushed headlong through me. With both feet braced against the floor, my fists clenched, my eyes bulging with a vision of freedom, I said, ‘It is typical of the staff here to tell tales without consulting the person concerned. I have nothing to say except that I have no respect for my teachers, and although I want to do my A-levels, I won't work for those teachers. I should like to leave this school and do the rest of my A-level work at home.'

Immediately my anger evaporated. I slumped, almost overbalancing. What had I said? What was she going to say? What would happen next? I thought I would die of suspense. Miss Floyd had turned back towards the window. She did not look at me again. She waved one hand towards the door. ‘I shall discuss this conversation with your parents. You may go.'

I walked out, at once exhilarated and appalled at my daring. It had been so easy. I should have done it years before; then I could have avoided O-levels. Everyone should do it. That I had dared to speak to the headmistress in such a way confirmed my previously unrecognized contempt for the staff, and I ran towards the bus station smirking with satisfaction. I would do my A-levels at home. Mummy could teach me Latin, and Daddy could do English and history. It would be much more fun than going to school.

I walked home from Aylthorpe, where the bus dropped me, wrapped in rosy plans for my new, free life. I would be helpful to Mummy and Daddy, of course. I would get up early and drive the boys to school before settling at the kitchen table to read about the Reformation with Daddy. I would write essays in the afternoon before collecting the boys, and I would study Latin when they were doing their prep. Mummy and Daddy would see the sense of this. At the end of the drive I quickened my step, eager to reach home and tell them.

Mummy was leaning against the Aga, her hands on her hips, looking on sightlessly as the cat Angelica crouched on the floor, batting a limp dead mouse between her paws.

‘You're back early,' said Mummy when she saw me. ‘Are you all right?'

‘Fine,' I said brightly, edging towards the kettle. As soon as I saw Mummy, my plan became absurd. She was not going to see it my way. ‘Where's Daddy?' I was playing for time. Skipping around the kitchen as if on springs, I made toast and uncharacteristically offered some to Mummy.

She didn't notice anything untoward. She slumped in a chair, resting her head in her hands. ‘Darling, I have some very serious news. Helen is in hospital; she's extremely ill. Daddy has gone to see her with Liza. We should hear something this evening.'

‘God, how awful. Will she be all right?'

Mummy shook her head. ‘I just don't know. It's to do with her liver, and Liza is terribly worried.'

I pulled a chair forward, tumbling a sleeping cat to the floor, and sat down opposite Mummy. I tried to think about Helen,
but my head was too full of my own news, and nothing could rest in my brain until I had confessed.

‘I've left school,' I said baldly.

‘Don't be so ridiculous. You can't leave school, you aren't old enough to. What has given you this idea?'

She was angry. I wished more than anything that I could unsay the words, all the stupid arrogant words I had uttered that day. But it was too late, and I had a penitent urge to tell all and somehow be absolved.

Mummy paced round the kitchen. Her face sagged and she looked old. Lines I had never seen before were etched into the pallor around her eyes and mouth.

‘I told Miss Floyd that I have no respect for the teachers and that I want to do my A-levels from home.'

‘Well, that was bloody stupid.' Mummy picked up the hairbrush, glaring into the mirror as she pounded her scalp. ‘Not to mention downright rude.' Her hair fanned crackling outrage. ‘You will go to school and do your A-levels there and that is that. You must ring Miss Floyd and apologize at once.'

She was right, but an evil pride within me would not let me back down. ‘No, I will not,' I said. ‘I'm never going back there, and I'm not staying here either. You are so narrow-minded. You think that school is the best thing ever, and it's not. I hate it and I hate you.'

I stormed out and ran down the drive. Then I couldn't think of anywhere to go or anything to do. I caught sight of the telephone-box, found a coin in my pocket, and rang Merry-Curl. Trying to keep my voice level and relaxed, I asked
him to come and pick me up. ‘I've just passed my driving test, so we've got to celebrate.'

Merry-Curl was surprised. ‘It's only half-past four,' he pointed out. ‘Where can we celebrate now?'

I abandoned my pretence. ‘Oh please, James, come and get me and I'll explain. I've done something awful.'

Merry-Curl duly arrived, but not before I had spent five minutes skulking behind the phone-box to dodge Mummy when she passed on her way to Aylthorpe to collect the boys from the bus.

Merry-Curl listened to my explanation in shocked silence, then he laughed. ‘Let's go to Cromer for fish and chips.' He sniggered as we drove. ‘I'm not surprised Eleanor was angry.' His companionable use of her name jarred. ‘You've got to go home and apologize. How could you ever have thought you would get away with it?' And he laughed, his eyes closing into little slits in his face.

I felt utterly, self-pityingly alone. Merry-Curl was supposed to be my friend, and even he made no effort to see my point of view. Exhausted and defeated, I agreed to apologize. ‘But let's not go back yet. I'd like to learn how to play snooker,' I said untruthfully, cravenly seeking delay. Merry-Curl, still chortling to himself from time to time, beat me in three games and bored me into a stupor by explaining all the rules of snooker. I escaped to the loo, and he took on the pub champion. At ten o'clock we left.

Back at Mildney I prevaricated. ‘James, you go in, I've just got to get something from my bedroom.' I pushed open the front door and ran upstairs. Merry-Curl went through into the
kitchen. I opened my bedroom door and turned on the light. In the bed, head muffled beneath the pillow, a figure was curled in sleep. I couldn't see who it was, and no clue was offered among my strewn clothes on the floor. Silently I backed out of the room and turned off the light. ‘How dare they, how dare they,' I hissed to myself as I ran down the stairs, fear lost in a bubbling pit of indignation.

‘Where am I supposed to sleep?' I demanded angrily as I entered the kitchen. ‘There's someone in my bed. Get them out now.' I slammed the door and aimed a kick at a purring cat.

‘Va Va, why don't you shut up?' Brodie's quiet words poured over me like cold water. His eyes were pink-rimmed and strained.

Mummy spoke. ‘Vinnie is in your bed. Her mother is dying. How dare you be so inconsiderate and selfish?'

And I remembered about Helen with a loathsome slap of remorse and sorrow. ‘I didn't know she was that ill,' I whispered. ‘I'm sorry, I'm sorry.' I bowed my head and stumbled to my mother, climbing on to her knee like a child, crying into the soft scented wool of her cardigan.

August 1990

Dan's leg and its endless complications made it impossible for him to leave home. He was nineteen and had nothing to do. He hated it, but even though he was frequently in pain, he never complained or revealed it by so much as a wince. Poppy was reluctantly boarding at a girls' school where Mummy taught Latin three days a week, so Dan and Dad were alone together in the house. They spent their mornings dismantling cars. It was hot, Dan never wore a shirt and his shoulders turned deep brown beneath a chain of tattooed mermaids whose busts expanded when he flexed his muscles. Dad leaned on his car, his head bowed low over the engine. Dan drove alongside and opened his own car's bonnet, and they traded parts.

‘I'll swap my carburettor for that old gasket of yours,' said Dan. ‘It's a good deal, I can find you a much better one.'

Dad was always taken in and always furious about it.

‘I can't refuse Dan anything,' he complained to Mum, when his car had to be pushed back to the garage because its vital organs were all missing. ‘He is the most consummate con-man and he breaks my heart. He'll have my wheels next.'

Dad was haunted by Dan's accident. He could not bear to visit him on the numerous occasions he was in hospital, patiently playing cards and waiting, endlessly waiting for an improvement.