Everlasting Lane (20 page)

‘But why doesn’t Mrs Carpenter like you?’

Anna-Marie gazed over the river to the Lodge. The patients had not yet been assembled and the lawn sparkled with dew like stars on the greenest of nights. ‘Because I’m
too
clever.’

‘Like a swot? But teachers do like swots.’

Mind you, I thought, Mr Gale didn’t like Melanie much and her handwriting was just like a grown-up’s. I decided not to mention this, what with an invitation to Melanie’s birthday party hidden pink and perfumed between the pages of my scrapbook.

Anna-Marie frowned as I ground a fistful of crisps into crumbs and sprinkled them into my sandwich. ‘Look, the main reason Mrs Carpenter doesn’t like me,’ she explained, ‘is because I’m like that boy in
The Emperor’s New Clothes
who realises the emperor’s naked.’

‘Mrs Carpenter?’ I sniggered, a dribble of Cresta escaping my nose. ‘Naked?’

‘Now, listen, little boy, you know how Santa Claus is just a man in a suit, don’t you?’

I—

‘Well, you do now. Anyway, he’s not magic. He’s just a man in a Santa hat and a Santa beard. Wearing a peaked cap doesn’t make you Donny Osmond, does it? I mean, how does he fly around the world in one night? Santa I mean. It’s not even possible.’

‘But it’s magic,’ I protested. ‘It could be magic.’

‘Oh, Peter,’ she said, ‘there’s no such thing.’

‘But you—’

‘Hush! Now, take Mrs Carpenter. Every Christmas she and
our friend the vicar ask all the children what Santa’s bringing them. Why? There’s no Santa, so why? The woman’s either a liar or a fool and, whilst I’m quite prepared to believe she’s a fool, I strongly suspect that she’s just a ferocious liar. And, when they ask you and you say, “Nothing, Miss, because Santa doesn’t exist,” and all the infants start crying and then they get angry and send you to the office and call your mum to come down and get her all upset …

‘Well, that’s when I realised that teachers aren’t teachers at all. They’re not special or intelligent or even particularly good at teaching. They’re just people,’ said Anna-Marie, ‘wearing teachers’ hats and teachers’ beards.’

‘What?’

‘Look, Peter, can’t you see? Teachers teach you facts. It’s their job. Facts are nice and simple and uncomplicated and don’t cause anybody any problems. They’re just the bits that join up what you understand. Understand?’

I nodded. I really had no idea what she was talking about. ‘What teachers don’t like, because they don’t understand it, is knowledge. It’s beyond them, frankly. If you know stuff, if you understand stuff, then the facts will take care of themselves. They don’t want you understanding stuff they barely understand themselves. It’s the difference between a “what-question” and a “why-question”. Ask a teacher, “What King?” or “What Queen?” and they’re quite happy. They’re on solid ground. Start asking them, “Why?” and see how long it is before their faces change colour.’

‘I—’

‘Have you ever done a jigsaw?’

‘Y—’

‘Facts are like jigsaw pieces. You know, how they’re always scattered across the carpet, disappearing up the Hoover. That’s facts. But understanding is what happens when you
start putting the pieces together and you start seeing the joins: “Oh, this fact goes with this fact. And the pair of them join up with this bit over here.” ’ Anna-Marie’s thin fingers mimed the making of a puzzle. ‘And then, gradually,’ she went on, ‘you begin to see the picture—not necessarily the whole picture; I don’t think anybody can see everything—but a bit of it. It’s like the Lodge,’ and she nodded towards the sturdy red walls and shimmering windows. ‘You start off with a pile of bricks and glass but if you put them together properly, you end up with a building. Somewhere people can live and be safe. Anyway, then you begin to get the idea that all these facts aren’t on their own. They aren’t separate. Everything joins together. And the teachers don’t like that because most of them are barely aware of it themselves.’

‘I—’

‘Well, intelligence is like how well you can do the jigsaw, but it’s not about how well you do it or how well you fit the pieces together. It’s how well you can do it when there are pieces missing. Intelligence is about using the pieces you do have to work out the pieces you don’t have: the picture and the shape and everything.

‘Now, take Alice: in this hand I have a nice bit of Alice-shaped jigsaw, and in this hand a nice Kat-shaped bit but when you try to join them,’ Anna-Marie’s face shone with frustration as she attempted to wrestle the two imaginary puzzle pieces together, ‘they just won’t fit. But hang on a mo’, here comes knuckle-head Peter with his last minute revelation regarding the old woman who lived in the shoe.’ She reached forward and stole a third pretend section from my lap and waved it in the air like an invisible trophy. ‘Hurrah, because Grandma fits in between the two and when they’re together,’ she admired her handiwork with a satisfied smile, ‘things begin to make sense.’

Her smile faded as she laid, like a daisy chain, the completed puzzle on the ground beside her. ‘The only thing we don’t know,’ she murmured, ‘is where the Peter-shaped piece goes.

‘The thing is, lots of people think they’re smart because they have lots of pieces. Teachers are like that but they have no idea how to work out what the missing pieces are.

‘Do you know what I mean?’

‘I—’

‘Oh, spare me, Peter,’ groaned Anna-Marie. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘
that’s
why teachers don’t like me.’

‘Because they’re like Father Christmas?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Because they have beards?’

‘No, you moron. Because I don’t believe in them either. And that
is
a fact.’

I couldn’t think of anything to say. I bit on my sandwich and chewed hoping that silence would encourage more wildlife to emerge from the shadows and take Anna-Marie’s mind off jigsaws and Father Christmases before she could start all over again.

I scanned the twisted trees, studied their cruel expressions for … for something. I don’t know what. And then I dug deep into the spaces between: the shadows, the remains of the night: for whatever remains in the dark when the night has gone. I tried to imagine the world that lay within. I had always thought it must be very different from my own and that was why it wasn’t in any book or on any television show and why no grown-up, except perhaps Mr Merridew, had ever tried to explain it or even mentioned it in passing.

But what was most frightening was that I wasn’t one hundred per cent sure any more that this strange, unknown world was actually any different from my own at all. Something was
telling me that these two worlds were, in fact, one and the same, like two sides of the same mirror or, as Anna-Marie might’ve put it, two perfectly fitting pieces from the same puzzle. I was scared by how little I knew about things; about how few puzzle pieces I had. And whatever pieces I did have didn’t seem to fit together at all no matter what she said. What pieces were missing? How many of them were there?

And what was that moving towards us now?

Pushing its way through the nettles.

Rustling the leaves.

Grunting.

Fangs?

Gasping.

Fur?

Faster and faster.

A ghostly bark?

My heart set my whole body throbbing as, to my horror, the shape, burst into the clearing, revealing its true form.

‘I thought you might be here,’ said the shape breathing hard.

‘Tommie!’ exclaimed Anna-Marie, leaping to her feet and clapping her hands. And then, ‘What are you doing here, you toe-rag? You’re supposed to be in bed.’

‘I climbed out the bedroom window,’ said Tommie with a big grin. ‘She thinks I’m asleep. Ooh, is anybody eating those? I’m starving. I haven’t eaten since breakfast.’

Tommie sat and began to tell us, through mouthfuls of crisp, his adventures since the cricket ball hit his head. As he told the story, I wanted to laugh out loud. One minute he was never going to walk again; the next, he was unhurt but fooling the doctors and nurses into believing he was at death’s door. It was hard to know what was true—probably none of it.

But Anna-Marie was fascinated.

Tommie’s biggest complaint was that Mr Gale hadn’t been sacked and that he was expected to go back into his class as if nothing had happened. But his anger was slightly lessened by Mrs Carpenter having insisted Mr Gale visit Tommie at home. Tommie bloomed with pleasure as he described how Mr Gale, shame-faced, had stood in his mother’s parlour and promised, promised, promised that he would, ‘Never do anything so … so … so
reck
less again.’

‘I thought he was going to cry,’ said Tommie. ‘It was brilliant. And the best thing of all,’ he went, ‘is my dad’s going to take me on a special trip tomorrow. He says he wouldn’t do it if he didn’t have to.’ He giggled with glee. ‘Hey, Peter,’ he slapped my arm, ‘I’m going to miss a
nother
day off school.’

‘Well,’ said Anna-Marie, ‘I’m sure we’re all relieved that you didn’t get brain damage. On the plus side, it must have been a great relief to your parents to have the existence of a brain confirmed. Just think: if it hadn’t been for Mr Gale we might never’ve known for sure.’

And then she smiled.

And so did Tommie.

So I said, ‘The Beast is dead.’ I didn’t even try to stop myself.

‘What? How?’

Anna-Marie’s smile vanished. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘Tell me. What happened?’ and Tommie wouldn’t give up, going on and on about it until, reluctantly, Anna-Marie began to describe our afternoon with Mr Merridew. As she told the story her face deflated like a punctured balloon but Tommie’s grew red with anger. He winced with each crunch of Mr Merridew’s stick. He was no fan of the Beast but by the time Anna-Marie finished his fists were clenched in fury. ‘Why would he do that?’ he said. ‘We should call the police.’

‘You’re too scared,’ I blurted out. ‘Anna-Marie said you’re
scared of him. Mr Merridew I mean. Didn’t you, Anna-Marie? She said you were Tommie-Titmus.’

‘I’m not scared of him,’ protested Tommie. ‘You are.’

‘I’m not. You are.’

‘Oh, shut up!’ Anna-Marie looked at us both with disgust. ‘You two morons clearly haven’t been paying attention. If you really don’t think he’s scary, you obviously haven’t been listening. Or maybe you just don’t understand. That’s probably it.

‘But they
are
scary, Tommie—not Mr Merridew—but the things he says. They scare me.’ Tommie’s mouth fell open, his tongue speckled with crisp crumbs. ‘What if he’s right?’ she said. ‘Maybe you haven’t thought about that. What if it doesn’t matter whether we live or die? Maybe we aren’t any more important than ants. And close your mouth: I don’t want to see the inner workings of your lunch, thank you very much.’

Tommie closed his mouth and swallowed. ‘That’s stupid,’ he said, meaning what she’d said about Mr Merridew but his voice was kind of shaky.

‘Oh,’ growled Anna-Marie. ‘What would you know about it anyway?’

‘Well, what about the Beast?’

Anna-Marie bristled. ‘It was only a dog, Peter.’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘Kitty’s only a cat. My dad said that animals are people too.’

‘Goodness me,’ said Anna-Marie. ‘Why does everybody’s dad have an opinion? Listen, Peter, the dog was in pain. Mr Merridew put it out of its misery. Don’t you—’

‘Well, I don’t want him putting me out of my misery,’ said Tommie. ‘I don’t want him to kill me just because I’m in pain.’

‘Well, funnily enough,’ said Anna-Marie, ‘I want to kill you because you are a pain. Listen,’ she said, ‘you know, that old poem … I mean, nursery rhyme:
The Grand Old Duke of York
?’

‘He had ten thousand men!’ I said.

‘That’s right. He marched them up to the top of the hill—’

‘And he marched them down again,’ said Tommie.

‘Well, done,’ said Anna-Marie. ‘Congratulations. You know it. When I want a recital, I’ll know who to call. Now, what happens next?’

‘Well,’ said Tommie, ‘when they were up they were up.’

‘Okay,’ said Anna-Marie. ‘Have you ever wondered, what if that’s all they do? They march up to the top of the hill and they march down again. And then they march to the top of the hill and they march down again: like that, over and over again, forever. What would that be like?’

‘It’d be boring.’

‘Why would they do that?’

‘Because they’re people and that’s what people do, isn’t it?’ said Anna-Marie. ‘That’s what people’s lives are like. They get up and go to school, come home and go to bed, get up and go to school, come home and go to bed.’

‘That’s not all they do,’ protested Tommie.

‘It’s all
you
do,’ muttered Anna-Marie. ‘But how would they feel? The ten thousand men, I mean.’

‘They’d be bored,’ said Tommie, and I nodded.

‘No,’ groaned Anna-Marie. ‘No, they wouldn’t. I mean maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe, once they realised, if they realised, that it was all pointless, once they realised that they were going to go up and down that hill forever, maybe then they’d be happy. It wouldn’t matter if they were up or down or half way up, they’d be happy.’

‘Happy? Why?’

‘Because they’re safe. Life’s never going to surprise them and they won’t ever be worried or frightened or scared. It’s predictable. It’s pointless: that’s the point. Maybe you can’t even be happy until you realise how pointless everything is.’
She growled at our blank expressions. ‘All right,’ she said, ‘you know how Jack and Jill went up the—?’

‘But—’

‘What?’

‘But,’ I cleared my throat, ‘if that’s true …’

‘Yes? What?’

‘Then why
aren’t
we happy?’

Anna-Marie stared at me. ‘Oh, shut up!’

I noticed again the procession of ants before me: shoulders sagging, stumbling over the rough edges of the branch, forever upwards, forever downwards: the ten thousand men. I leant over and began to press down on them with my thumb, one by one.

Anna-Marie gasped. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

‘Putting them out of their misery.’

Anna-Marie got to her feet. ‘That’s it!’ she said. ‘I’ve had enough of you two. I’m going to find somebody intelligent to talk to; somebody who doesn’t speak to you with a mouth full of crisps or stare at you like a moron.’ Tommie and I glanced at each other uneasily as she collected together her sandwich wrapper and crisp bag. ‘How lucky we are,’ she said, ‘to live in Amberley. After all, every village in England should have an idiot of its own, and we,’ she concluded, ‘have two.’