First Fruits (22 page)

'Why, Lydia!' she exclaims, and there,
now we've both noticed it, the small half hearted attempt to close the book
before we see what she's been reading.

Lydia gasps and goes pale. She darts forward
in a sudden, almost graceful, movement and scoops the book out of her mother's
lap. 'This is mine. You must have got it from under my...'

 She stops, but it's too late. Because
now we all know exactly where Lydia's mother got the book. From under Lydia's
pillow.

Isn't that funny? Just the place where I
keep my horse. There must be something about pillows, something that makes us
think they are safe, places too private for anyone else to disturb. But Lydia
was wrong, wasn't she? Someone else did come along to disturb, even in this
house. Which suddenly makes me wonder. And worry. About who might be disturbing
what at home.

But for the moment, the trouble is here
and nowhere else.

'How dare you, how dare you,' Lydia is
mumbling over and over. 'How dare you.' And that's all she can come up with. No
imagination, you see. It's all been used up, back there in the street and on
the bus. After a moment, she turns and flings herself out of the room.

A comical sight, I'll grant you. All
that heaving and passion on the part of someone who still looks as if she is
made out of pipe cleaners. Down on the floor, Laura giggles. Only a tiny sound,
and understandable really. But the effect is astounding. Because the second she
hears it, Lydia's mother darts forward and cuffs her round the ear. Laura hiccups
and stares at her, eyes round, mouth slack, suddenly not pretty any more, not
even minutely enchanting. Just profoundly shocked, as if this is something that
has never happened before in her all her life.

'Mrs. Morris...' I start to say, because
with Lydia gone and Laura in disgrace, this is my chance. I'll be able to show
her that not everyone in this house is behaving badly. That there is someone
here she can to turn to.

But it's no good. Because when Mrs.
Morris turns to look at me, her eyes show it all; she's been reading the book.
Reading all about him, and the way things are. Reading about how everyone will
have to follow
him
otherwise there's no hope, not even for those who
have been Chosen. Because this is the truth he writes about. God may choose but
it's Dad who delivers. That's the way it is. And it's not fair. She can hardly
bear to look at me now. As if it was my fault. As if I was the one to blame.

Lydia has the book strapped
into her satchel
as we set off for school.

And her mother knows it, because when we
say goodbye, Mrs. Morris smiles at me exactly the way she did on Friday
afternoon. The way she would smile at anyone, the way she would smile at
him
.
Nobody in their right minds would take us for mother and daughter now. It's
like losing someone after you thought you'd found them. Losing them all over
again.

And it's all Lydia's fault, not knowing
how to act, looking as if she hated everyone in the entire house. All because
someone sneaked a little something from under her pillow. If only Lydia would
learn to smile when it matters everything would be fine.

As we walk out of the house, her mother
says wearily, 'Don't come straight out today, Lydia. Laura has her ballet
lesson, remember. Last week you forgot. Stay in school until you can both come
home together.'

If looks could kill, then believe me,
Mrs. Morris would be lying stretched out on the pavement right this minute. And
why? Because
he
will be coming to pick me up tonight, will be right outside
the school for anyone who wants to see him. Now Lydia's been told she has to
stay inside and wait.

Looks can't kill, naturally, but I never
realised a grown up could be so visibly upset by a bit of common or garden
glaring. Mrs. Morris looks as if she doesn't know whether to shout or burst
into tears. But why the fuss for heaven's sake? She's still got Laura.

And there's me of course. If she would
only stop blaming me for everything.

IN
Greek, Miss Jamieson can't make out what's gone wrong.

Last week she mentioned we were going to
be reading Plato and Lydia was positively ecstatic. A girl after Miss
Jamieson's own heart. But that's all in the past, absolutely prehistory. That
was before Lydia went to church. Now Lydia couldn't care less. She isn't even
remotely listening. For nearly the whole of the lesson she just sits there,
clutching her satchel, and staring into space. Every now and then, her cheeks
flicker with sudden flashes of red, and you don't have to have
It
to
know what's going through
her
mind.

'Forgive me for asking, but is there
something valuable in that bag, Lydia, something that needs to be kept safe?'

The sarcasm is cutting - but it's lost
on Lydia. She merely clutches the satchel closer than ever to her chest, and
nods. Carries on as before.

So it might as well be just the two of
us sitting there, Miss Jamieson and me. Yet she should look at it this way;
half a loaf is better than none, and at least
someone
is listening, even
if her star pupil is a hundred miles away. Lydia may be not be, but
I'm
taking in every word. I don't know when I last paid such attention.

Maybe it's because, just this once,
Jamiseon has found a subject that is interesting.

Apparently this Plato person had a
teacher, a man called Socrates, who taught him everything he knew, but seems to
get only half the credit. And Socrates had all sorts of tricks up his sleeve.
Like pretending to be simple when he was with clever folk just to get them to
say things they never would have dreamed of saying otherwise. Jamieson called
this a philosophical trap. Which is odd, because I'd simply call it having
It
.
In the end, though, it got him into all sorts of trouble, because then the
young folk went round repeating everything he said, such as not liking the government,
and how there should be just a few good men in charge. Their trouble was, they
were young, which is the way Socrates liked to catch them, in their teens, the
way he caught Plato. An impressionable age.

I might have asked a question here, such
as whether Socrates included girls. But what would have been the point? I doubt
if Jamieson would have even heard me. She was too busy watching Lydia, looking
for signs of life.

Back to Socrates then. And another
question. In fact, the only question that really matters. The one we should
always ask. If Socrates had been alive today, would he have been Chosen? Would
he have been one of us?

And the funny thing is, Jamieson
actually manages to answer it.

Because then she goes on to say that one
of the most important things he taught was how there is only the one truth
about anything. Only one proper way of looking at a thing, ruling out every
other way there is. Which doesn't leave much choice. Choice is all about
exploring the alternatives, which means once you start exercising
choice
you get into all sorts of trouble, upsetting the way things are meant to be. In
Socrates' ideal world therefore, no-one tries to choose who he is or what he
does. Each man sticks to what he was when he was born. That way, rulers get to
rule and poor men do as they are told. A place for everyone and everyone in
their place.

No wonder the government didn't like
him; Athens was supposed to be the world's first democracy. It's what she was
famous for.

Was Socrates one of us then? I'd say he
was. Without a shadow of a doubt in fact. Because I've heard all this before,
haven't I, from a completely different quarter. Forget Socrates, it's my dad
they should be teaching to children in the schools.

You'd think Lydia would make the
connection, but she doesn't. It's all lost on her because the truth is that,
although she's read his book, she's only understood about a half of it. The
rest she has ignored. Miss Jamieson takes a look at her and sighs. Tries one
last time to prod the interest of her favourite pupil.

'There you are, Lydia,' she says,
handing her a book with a picture on the front. 'That's what he looked like,
Socrates himself.'

She's talking about a bust, carved out
in purest white marble. A powerful head that makes you think he must have had a
body to match. A forehead twice the size of anybody else's. Not what you'd call
handsome. But it hardly matters. Handsome is as handsome does. Besides, there's
something else about it, something that makes me look again, more closely this
time. Something familiar... .

At the same time, something beside me
stirs. It's Lydia waking up at last. One glance at the book and suddenly she's
pulling it towards her, and stammering, hardly making any sense, until:

'It's your f...father, Kate. Look at
him. It's your f...father.'

There, she's beaten me to it, put a name
to what was so familiar. And she's right of course. Ignore the beard, and you
could see the resemblance, right down to the shape of his nose.

And it's like a miracle, the effect it
has. Suddenly you'd think she was her old self again, more alive than she's
been all morning. Lydia puts her head down and starts paying attention to
what's in the book, reading what's there, like a little pig truffling about for
nuggets of information. Miss Jamieson smiles, convinced everything is back to
normal.

But then, little by little, the smile
disappears. Because even Jamieson can see it; this isn't the old Lydia after
all. The old Lydia would have been interested in Socrates for his own sake. Now
there's a different reason altogether. And it has nothing to do with the love
of learning. This is what you might call the result of a one track mind.

Much more of this and Miss Jamieson will
be wishing she'd never brought up the subject, not if this is going to be the
effect. But there you are. You can't teach Greek without mentioning Socrates.
Even I know that. It would be like history without The Spanish Inquisition. Or
Attila the Hun.

OR
school without Moira MacMurray. By which I mean that you may not think very
much of someone, but you notice if they're not there. And Moira wasn't at
school today. So I couldn't ask her. I couldn't ask if she had come - uninvited
- to the Bingo hall yesterday; and if she had come, then what she was doing
there; and how it is she always seems to know where I'll be and what I'm doing.
As if her only purpose in this whole life is to watch me. Never take her eyes
off me.

Come to think of it, it's probably a
good thing she's not here to ask. All those questions suddenly pouring out like
that. She'd have got the impression it was important for some reason, that what
she did mattered. And nothing could be further from the truth.

On second thoughts then, it's a probably
a splendid thing, Moira not being at school today. Even better if she doesn't
come tomorrow either.

ON
the way home, I told
him
what Lydia had said, about looking just like
Socrates. He laughed, but he was pleased, you could see that. Told me he
thought the world of Socrates, and Plato too for that matter. Then he rubs my
knee and tells me it's a proper treat to have me home, that there's nothing in
the world like having me to himself.

It's at moments like this when a person
knows. What is it to be the luckiest girl alive.

Then suddenly he looks at me again, and
the car goes quiet.

Kate love. You're wearing your hair
differently
.

And he's right of course. I've pulled it
back with one of Lydia's bands, into the tightest of ponytails. That way it
looks darker, less...noticeable. At least that's what I thought.

But I was wrong. All I've done is made
him look the harder.

That's when I begin to talk, about Lydia
and her family. Or to be more precise, about
her
, Lydia's mother.
Because for some reason she's important. What she says goes. And because for
some reason he's interested, perhaps because she's a challenge. Or perhaps just
because she's so very soft...

...Oh no, that has to be wrong. That's
the reason I'm interested.

But it works. His eyes leave my hair,
return to the road as I tell him everything about her, every single thing I can
remember - and more besides. Such as how much she liked her chocolates. How she
popped one into her mouth straight away, how she closed her eyes and smiled,
because of the sweetness perhaps, or maybe another reason besides. Dad listens
and drives. Fiddles with the loose change in his pocket and doesn't once look
at my hair again.

That's how important she is.

I think he may be trying to make up his
mind about her. Usually he can tell straight away with people simply by looking
at them. It's what he does when he's outside the school: watches the big girls
go by, spotting souls. Could it be that, just this once, he has to think about
it? Because he isn't sure about her yet, about what she is, and where she's
going?

And if she's been Chosen.