Authors: Margot Livesey

Homework (23 page)

BOOK: Homework

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I retreated into the bedroom and went to the window; I kept to one side, in the shadow of a curtain. There was still no sign of Selina. Jenny and Stephen came out of the back door, and Jenny led the way across the grass. They disappeared from view behind the shed. After a couple of minutes they reappeared; Stephen held Selina in his arms. I saw his lips move. Jenny nodded and tentatively reached out her hand to stroke Selina.

Cleaning the table gave me an excuse to remain in the bedroom, and I emerged only when summoned to lunch. The meal was brief, and conversation between Stephen and Jenny camouflaged my silence. They talked about her history project. It was on Napoleon, whom she liked, she said, because he was small and French; she and Anna were going to work on it this afternoon. I wondered what kind of syllabus took one from the Vikings to Napoleon in a week, but I did not feel inclined to enquire. While they got ready to leave, I cleaned up the lunch things, and when Stephen called, “We're off,” I called back, in what I hoped was a sufficiently cheerful tone, “Bye-bye, Jenny. Have a good time.”

The door closed behind them. I finished putting things away in the fridge, then I went into Jenny's room. A book lay on the floor, and even as I bent to pick it up, I knew that it must be the one about Napoleon which she had made such a fuss about getting from the library the night before.

I felt an almost paralysing tiredness at the prospect of talking to Stephen. He had suggested that we go out for the evening, but I had argued that it would be more romantic to
eat at home. We so seldom had the house to ourselves that it seemed a pity to waste Jenny's absence by our own. Now I wished that we had decided to go to a film or to have supper with friends, anything to avoid the inevitable confrontation.

When Stephen returned, I was sitting on the sofa in the living room, the book about Napoleon open on my lap.

“Hi,” he said, putting his head round the door. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Well, maybe I'm reading a book about Napoleon.” I held it up so that he could see the map of Europe on the cover.

“Oh, damn. I forgot to remind her to take it. I suppose she'll manage without it.” He came into the room and sat down in the chair on the opposite side of the fireplace.

“I'm sorry about the ruptions this morning.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. The word “ruptions” seemed a splendidly neutral choice.

“The business with Jenny and Selina. I can imagine what happened. As soon as she felt better, Jenny sneaked out into the garden to see Selina, accidentally on purpose let her out, and then panicked about getting her back in.”

“Is that what she told you?”

“You heard what she said. You were there.”

“You might have discussed it with her in the garden, or on the way to Anna's.” I wanted to say, “Your daughter was trying to kill her rabbit,” but the notion of telling Stephen what he so clearly did not wish to hear only deepened my fatigue. When he saw that I was not going to speak, he rewarded my silence by crossing the room to sit beside me.

“She was really upset at the thought that she had scared Selina,” he said. He put his arm around me and gave a small, apologetic smile. “I feel that I didn't handle matters very well. I was flustered. I didn't mean to sound as if I were contradicting you.”

I tried to return his smile. Perhaps I had been mistaken, I thought. Perhaps all I had seen was Jenny trying too vigorously to drive Selina back into her cage. But then, as Stephen embarked on a list of suggestions as to how we might spend the afternoon, I remembered the scream. No amount of vigour could have elicited that heart-rending sound.

CHAPTER 21

For two days following the attack on Selina, I succeeded in avoiding Jenny. On Sunday afternoon I excused myself from swimming on the grounds that I had a headache, and by the time she and Stephen returned home my lie had become a self-fulfilling prophecy; I had retired to bed. Next morning I hurried to work, pleading an early meeting. I could not bear the thought of treating Jenny as if nothing had happened; to do so seemed tantamount to forgiveness. Not until Monday evening did I find myself cornered in the kitchen. I was getting potatoes out of the vegetable basket when I heard her voice.

“Can I help?” she asked.

“There isn't anything to do,” I said. I did not turn around.

There was a brief pause, during which I continued to feign absorption in the vegetables. Then Jenny said, “I could peel the potatoes.”

As a rule she complained vehemently about this chore, and I saw no way to refuse her offer. She fetched the potatoes and carried them over to the sink. They were a gift from Edward, thick with mud, and I would have liked to caution her that they needed to be washed with especial care, but I did not want to utter a single unnecessary word. I remembered how the headmistress of my school had had the gift of apparently effortless silence, in the face of which I had always found it impossible not to rush into speech. For a moment I wondered if my silence might have a similar effect upon Jenny; then I
thought that was absurd. I was much more likely to give in than she was. I kept my back to her and concentrated on slicing mushrooms. From the sink came the sounds of scraping and the tap going on and off.

Presently I heard footsteps. Her hands appeared in my field of vision. She laid the potatoes next to the board on which I was chopping the mushrooms. “Celia,” she said. “I'm sorry about Selina.”

I said nothing. I was determined not to accept any more of her lies and blandishments.

“It was sort of a game, to start with. I was pretending that she was a wild animal and that I was an animal tamer. I forgot she was only a rabbit. I didn't mean to hurt her.”

“But couldn't you see you were terrifying her?”

She nodded. “In a way,” she mumbled.

What would I have said, I wondered, if someone had asked me why I took pleasure in reducing the maths teacher to tears? I could imagine only too well my halting answer. I looked down at Jenny's hands, her small fingers reddened by the cold water, her nails neatly bitten down to the quick.

“Do you want me to cut up the potatoes?” she asked.

“Yes, please. I'm going to roast them. If you cut them into little pieces, then they won't take too long.” I tipped the mushrooms into the frying pan. “Do you have any ideas about what we should have for supper tomorrow?”

“Maybe I could make us an omelette.”

“I didn't know you could cook,” I said.

“Just omelettes. Oh, and fudge, but sometimes that turns out like bullets.”

She began to cut the potatoes, measuring each slice as if it were a piece of a mosaic. When she had finished, she returned to the sink. I watched as, standing on her stool, she leaned over to scoop out the peel and grit with which the drain was stopped.

The relief that I experienced immediately following Jenny's apology soon gave way to another concern. Since she had vindicated my account of events with Selina, I felt that Stephen in turn owed me, if not an apology, at least an acknowledgement that I had been right. But there was no opportunity to talk. On Tuesday he arrived home late. On Wednesday I was just settling down at my desk when Suzie came into my office to ask if I wanted to do something that evening; Tim was visiting his grandparents.

I hesitated. “I'm not sure,” I said.

“Come on,” said Suzie. “You're always telling me how you and Stephen don't go out anymore. We could eat, see a film, whatever.”

She sat on the edge of my desk, swinging her legs, looking at me eagerly. I picked up a pencil and began to twist it in the sharpener, trying to shave off the wood in one continuous spiral. After a couple of revolutions the coil snapped. “Okay,” I said. “It's Stephen's turn to cook. I expect he'd be relieved if I was out. Then he could make cheese dreams for himself and Jenny without guilt.”

“Oh, good. I'll buy a newspaper at lunchtime, and we can consult.” Suzie slid off my desk and bounced out of the room.

We left the office shortly before six. It was a cold, clear evening, and as we crossed Queensferry Street the moon, slightly fuller than half, was coming up behind the Castle. Suzie said that she thought we might have frost tonight, and I agreed. We walked briskly to Hendersons, where we were going to have supper before the film. I had vowed not to discuss Jenny, but as soon as we were seated in the restaurant with our food before us, I found myself telling Suzie about the events of Saturday. “The worst thing was that Stephen seemed to believe Jenny rather than me.”

“But I thought you were saying you believed her too,”
Suzie said. She sliced down into her lasagne.

“I believed her when she finally apologised to me, but I didn't believe what she told Stephen.”

“All parents have differences, though,” said Suzie. “If you and Stephen had a child together you'd argue about how to treat him or her and what was fair and all kinds of things. Given that you're both new to being full-time parents, it sounds like you do remarkably well.” She gestured towards my untouched plate. “You should eat before your food gets cold.”

I picked up my knife and fork. There was a pause while we both ate in silence. At the next table a couple of young men sat down. They began to discuss a bicycle race for which they were in training.

“You know,” I said, “it's really a strange experience living with Jenny. She's so unpredictable: some of the time she's angelically sweet, and then at other times it's as if she can hardly stand to speak to me. She reminds me of the man I was going out with before I moved to Edinburgh. I never knew from one day to the next how he was going to treat me.”

“Jenny doesn't have to like you just because her father is in love with you. Tim thinks some of my boyfriends are idiots, but if they stick around he usually becomes friends with them, and if he doesn't that's his prerogative.” Suzie paused to drink some wine. “When you told me about Harry you made him sound like an understudy for Hitler.”

I stared at her, dumbfounded. Suzie saw my expression. “Sorry,” she said. “Of course it's different. I only meant you don't like everyone, and not everyone has to like you.”

“Jenny lives with us,” I exclaimed. “Your boyfriends don't have to share a house with someone who wishes they were dead.”

“Celia, you're getting carried away. I'm sure Jenny does sometimes wish you would get run over, but that's normal. I can remember having long daydreams in which my parents
were painlessly killed in a car crash or drowned at sea. Half the stories in my comics were about girls who had lost their families, and I thought being an orphan was incredibly glamorous.”

She took another mouthful of salad and chewed thoughtfully. “It's hard to accept a lover having a child. At least I know it would be for me, and it certainly is for some of my boyfriends. I can be head over heels in love, but I still have to be home by eleven so that the baby-sitter can leave. Whatever happens, Tim comes first.”

I knew that Suzie meant to be consoling, but her reaction only strengthened my desire to explain. “I do find it hard to suddenly have Jenny living with us,” I said, “but that's mainly because of her attitude. When I first learned that Stephen had a daughter, I was pleased. I was sure that she and I would become friends. Now I don't feel that I can trust her.” I held my knife and fork tightly and leaned across the table, as if I could wrench understanding and agreement out of Suzie.

“But it's only been a few weeks,” she said. “It's not surprising if Jenny is moody. After all, she's adjusting simultaneously to a new home, her father's presence, and her mother's absence, never mind you.” She smiled at me. “I have to go to the loo.” She headed off in the direction of the ladies'.

While she was gone I counted over the various mishaps that had befallen me since I met Jenny. From that first day, when she had dropped her bag on the stairs, my life had been full of small disasters. I thought again about the ten pounds I had mysteriously lost; then I remembered how shortly afterwards Jenny's expensive new book had appeared. I raised my glass of wine and emptied it. All at once I was convinced that she was responsible, for the theft of my money and for everything else. There was no other explanation. The zeal with which she had helped me search for the money was simply a ruse.

“Did I tell you about Kate?” Suzie asked as she sat down
again. I shook my head, and she began to describe her latest encounter with the new editorial assistant, a massive woman who terrified everyone at the office with her intimidating manner and irreproachable typing.

We went to see a film by a new Indian director. To my own surprise, in spite of the conversation over supper, I was engrossed, and afterwards, as Suzie and I walked to the bus stop and sat on the bus, neither of us could stop talking about the characters and their tribulations. We were still deep in discussion when we reached Suzie's stop; she tried to persuade me to get off and have a drink, but I said I was too tired. She kissed me goodbye and hurried to the exit. As the bus moved on, I saw her disappearing across the street.

Two elderly men were sitting in front of me, and now that I was alone, I could hear their conversation. They were discussing a football match; each was convinced that his team had been unfairly penalised. As they argued back and forth I found myself thinking about my father, who had been the first to teach me that knowledge depends on the eye of the beholder. I had asked him to help me prepare for a chemistry test. To begin with, all went well. “Which element has the simplest molecule?” my father asked. “What happens when you pass an electric current through water?” I answered his questions promptly, proud of my expertise.

“Good.” He turned to a new page in my notebook. “Now about subatomic particles.” He frowned. “Who told you that electrons and protons are the smallest kinds of particles?”

“Mr. Fergerson.”

“God knows what he's thinking of. This is thirty years out of date. They've already discovered several smaller kinds of particles, and who knows what else they may find.” He wrote a list on a piece of paper, which he taped into my book. In the test I answered with the exotic names he had taught me.

At the end of the next class Mr. Fergerson said, “Celia, I
want a word with you.” As the other girls trooped out of the room I approached his desk; it stood on a raised dais, and my chin barely reached the top. “Where did you get the answers you gave to questions six and seven?” Mr. Fergerson demanded, looking down on me through his bifocals.

“My father.”

“Your father.” He let the word hang in the air so that I could appreciate fully its inadequacy. “Well, Celia, quarks may or may not exist, but in this classroom my answer is the right answer. Is that clear?”

I knew better than to mention the incident at home; my father was perfectly capable of complaining vociferously to the headmistress. Instead I began to keep in my head two parallel systems of knowledge: what I learned from my father and what I learned at school. When asked a question, what I wanted above all was to please my questioner.

As I walked down our street, I saw that the light above the front door had been left on. Inside, however, the house was in darkness, and for fear of waking Stephen, I undressed in the bathroom. I climbed into bed as quietly as possible. He leaned over and stroked my arm, then turned his back towards me. I lay sleepless beside him. The conversation with Suzie had brought home to me the strength of my own convictions, which had previously lain hidden beneath a smooth facade of common sense. My desire to talk to Stephen was intensified. It seemed crucial to tell him what I knew as soon as possible, but when would that be? I wondered. It was true that we were ostensibly alone most eveningsânowadays Jenny seldom disturbed us after she had gone to bedâbut her mere presence was inhibiting. I could not quell the fear of being overheard or interrupted.

I got up to go to the bathroom, and as I washed my hands I had an idea: I would suggest to Stephen that we go out for
a drink tomorrow evening. If he did not want to leave Jenny alone, then Charlotte could come over. Back in bed, I fell quickly asleep.

The Star was thronged with people, and as I pushed my way through the crowd I wondered if perhaps it had been a mistake to come here for an intimate conversation. Then I saw Stephen, sitting by the window. I kissed him and sat down. He had already bought us each a drink.

“Thanks, Celia,” he said, raising his glass of lager to me.

“Thanks for what?” I asked.

BOOK: Homework

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