Read Me Like a Book

by Liz Kessler

  We were supposed to read the first three chapters before this morning’s lesson, but I could barely get to the end of the first page. It’s all “capital fellow” and “soliloquised in an undertone of peevish displeasure.” By the time I got to the “range of gaunt thorns . . . craving alms of the sun,” I’d pretty much given up.

  To be fair, between agonizing over Dylan and trying not to get drawn into my parents’ marriage troubles, it’s fair to say I’ve had other stuff on my mind too.

  Thing is, though, once we get talking about it in class, the book doesn’t seem so bad. Miss Murray says it’s one of her favorite novels ever, and you can tell. She walks around the room, holding it in her hand all the time and breathlessly reading bits out loud. She seems to know half the book by heart. She asks questions about every little thing: How does the setting reflect the characters? Did Lockwood have a nightmare or was it real? What is Nelly Dean’s role? What have we learned of Catherine and Heathcliff’s relationship so far?

  If anyone says anything good, it’s as though she’s just unwrapped her perfect Christmas present. “Yes, exactly, Tom. Brilliant!” Or “Fantastic, Robyn! That’s just how I see it.”

  You can see how her compliments make people feel. It’s like she switches a light on inside their eyes. There are great big smiles whenever someone gets a tiny compliment from her. It almost makes me wish I’d tried harder with the book. I’ve nothing to offer, so there’s no smiley light switch for me.

  I think about guessing at an answer or two, but decide not to bother. I’ll only get it wrong and make a fool of myself. I don’t want her to think I’m stupid. Not that it would matter if she did. She might be a good laugh at times, but she is a teacher, after all.

  Still, when she tells us to read to page 65, I sneak my pen out and write it on my hand so I’ll remember to do it tonight. Can’t do any harm to give it another go.

  At the end of the lesson, I take my time packing up so I’m the last to leave. I’m going to give her the song lyrics.

  Miss Murray’s shuffling papers together at her desk; she looks up and smiles as I approach. Does she smile at everything?

  “Here.” I shove the crumpled piece of paper across the table. “That song I told you about. Sorry I’ve not brought it in before. I kept forgetting.”

  She looks blank for a second. Now I feel like an idiot as well as a nerd. I’m about to grab it straight back when she says, “The song lyrics that you said were like a poem? Excellent. Let’s have a look.” She picks the paper up.

  I stand in front of her desk, my face burning up while she reads. She’s frowning at the piece of paper, and I suddenly realize what a fool I must look.

  I’m miles behind in everything we did last year, I couldn’t be bothered with even the first page of a book everyone else seems to love, and now I’ve given in some stupid song lyrics when she’s expecting a poem. Right, that’s it. I’m dropping English. I’ll see my tutor next week.

  “It’s great, Ash,” she says, breaking into my thoughts. “Generally, I think that a song needs all of its component parts in order to work. If you hear the music without the words, there’s an emptiness to it. Do you know what I mean?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “And the words never seem to stand up to much scrutiny.” She looks at me like she’s waiting for me to say something. “Synergy,” she adds.

  I nod slowly. What’s she on about?

  She laughs. “It means when the whole of something is greater than the sum of its parts.”

  “Right.”

  “I don’t know this song, but I agree with you — some of the lyrics have a real sense of poetry in them.” She leans forward so we can both see the words. “Look, I like this verse:

  ‘And they sing

  At the end of the beach,

  Out of reach.

  And the rest of the world

  Tightly curled

  In its nest

  Of content, happy dreams.’”

  “Yeah, I know,” I say. “It’s like everyone thinks they know what it means to be happy, but they’re not even awake — it’s as if they’re not really alive. But these others, they’re the only ones who really understand how to be happy, and that sets them apart. It sets them free.”

  She looks at me as if she’s only just noticed I’m there.

  “What?” I ask.

  “That’s absolutely it. Brilliant!” She looks back at the song. “Yes. I like it.”

  “It’s one of my favorites,” I say, hoping she won’t remember me saying I didn’t know any of the words.

  “Who’s it by?”

  “Just a small indie band. You won’t have heard of them.”

  “Try me.”

  “Angel’s Rock.”

  She laughs. “You’re right, I haven’t. But I’ll look out for them from now on.” She hands the sheet of paper back to me.

  I look at my watch. I’m late for sociology. Maybe I’ll skip it and have another go at Wuthering Heights while it’s fresh in my mind.

  “Ash,” she says as I reach the door. “Page sixty-five. Don’t forget this time.”

  How does she know I hadn’t read it?

  “I won’t,” I say and tramp down to the cafeteria, something new and unfamiliar lighting me up inside.

  Mum’s acting really weird with me when I get home, but she doesn’t say anything till we sit down for dinner. Doesn’t say anything then either, actually, but I know she wants to. You can always tell when my mum’s in a bad mood. She doesn’t speak, but her actions are like words with a megaphone. Her body gets really tense, and her face is all pinched up. If you ask if anything is wrong, she’ll always deny it, but in a way that lets you know that there definitely is. You can almost feel her hedgehog spikes of anger.

  And I don’t know why, but I just haven’t got the patience for it anymore. I’m getting pissed off now. I mean, I am their daughter. It might be nice if perhaps one of them could, at some point, consider me. Whatever’s going on between them, it’s not my fault. At least, I don’t think it is. So keep me out of it. Put on a happy front for the kids and all that. But, no. Neither of them has considered doing that for a second. Which means that at this moment, I have zero inclination to make an effort with them either.

  So we’re eating in silence as usual, only this time, instead of doing everything she can to ignore Dad, Mum keeps trying to get his attention. Banging her cutlery on her plate, then looking at him pointedly and coughing. He’s got the Telegraph open in front of him and doesn’t notice any of it. I guess I learned most of my switching-off tricks from Dad. He’s the master of deliberately not having a clue what’s going on around him.

  Which is how he manages to politely put his knife and fork together, fold up his paper, and say, “Right, that was smashing. I’ll just be off to —”

  Except he stops when he sees Mum’s face. Even he can tell that this wasn’t what he was meant to say.

  “Gordon, we discussed this,” Mum hisses.

  He looks blank for a second, then he suddenly nods and says, “OK. Right you are, then.” He turns to me. “Ash. We, ah, well, you didn’t by any chance nip out last night, did you? It’s just that when we got up this morning, the porch light was on, and we noticed a pair of your boots at the bottom of the stairs, and, well, it just seems a little odd, that’s all.”

  I weigh up my options. Do I go for the casual approach: a quick “No, course not, Dad” or the emotional “How could you?” with lots of eye contact, an emphatic denial, and a tearful exit to my bedroom? Or the truth?

  I can get away with almost anything with Dad, except lying. The one and only time I tried smoking, he caught me at it. He came home from work early and spotted me sitting on the wall around the corner, holding Cat’s cigarette and trying to inhale without coughing.

  “All those times you denied it,” he said that evening, shaking his head sadly. “I don’t like lies, Ashleigh. Especially from those I love.” He never mentioned it agai
n. It crushed me more than if he’d screamed and yelled and grounded me for a month. It’s probably why I never bothered smoking again. That and the sore throat I had for a week afterward.

  So I decide on some form of the truth. But before I’ve opened my mouth, Mum squeaks from between tight lips, “Is that it, Gordon?”

  “Hmm?” He looks at her, genuinely bemused.

  “Is that it?” she repeats, growling the words like a pit bull on a bad day. “The Gordon Walker school of discipline. That’s it, is it?”

  Dad’s face has gone slightly pink and seems even thinner than usual. “Give the girl a chance to answer, love,” he says calmly, but with a bit more force than you usually get with Dad. Think “poodle,” but with attitude.

  “It’s obvious she was out. I heard the door, Gordon! You must have heard the door.”

  Dad’s pink deepens into mauve.

  “The door?” I break in. “When?”

  “You tell me, young lady,” Mum replies without moving her eyes from Dad.

  If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s when Mum starts calling me “young lady.” The only thing that annoys me more is when she uses my full name.

  “Yes, Ashleigh, I’m talking to you.” She turns to me. Face like a brick wall.

  Seriously? This is what we’re doing here? The pair of them give each other the silent treatment for days on end, and then, instead of sorting out their marriage problems, Mum decides to turn her anger on me?

  Something’s starting to bubble inside me, like the beginning of a pan coming to the boil. How many times have they been through this? How many times have I tried to block it all out, left them to fix it, convinced myself it’ll get better if I don’t say anything? How many things have I told myself I haven’t seen, haven’t heard, because if I admit I have, it means admitting how awful things really are around here? And while I’m doing all this, nothing gets better; it gets worse and worse. And then they turn the whole thing on me? Like that’s fair?

  “Steady, Julia,” Dad says, trying to crack a smile. “Even criminals have a right to defend themselves before being hung, drawn, and quartered, you know.”

  I kind of appreciate Dad for trying to make a joke of it, but it’s a bit sad too. His inability to stand up for himself and deal with what’s going on is just as annoying as Mum taking out her frustration on me.

  The bubbles boil more fiercely.

  “What if I did go out?” I grumble.

  They both turn to look at me.

  “I mean, can you honestly blame me for not wanting to be in this house? Do you know what it’s like living with you two, day in, day out?”

  Mum’s jaw drops open. Dad blinks at me.

  “Let me tell you. It’s horrible. When you’re not scrapping like wild dogs, the atmosphere around here is cold enough to give us all hypothermia. You’re so busy scoring points off each other, neither of you has noticed I exist for months. And then, when do you notice me? When I’m not bloody here!”

  “Ash.” Dad reaches a hand across the table toward me.

  “No, Dad. Forget it. I’m sick of you both. You can’t even tell me off without it turning into a sparring match between the pair of you.”

  Under normal circumstances I’d storm out at this point, but I’m sitting at the far end of the table with Mum and Dad on either side and I think it would take the lightning out of my storm if I had to squeeze past them saying “excuse me” along the way.

  So I stay put and fold my arms.

  Dad’s looking hurt. Why does he always have to be hurt? Why can’t he just get angry? Mum’s glaring at me, then turns to him. “See?” she says.

  “What?”

  “This is what happens when you don’t stand up to her. This is how she talks to us. What do you expect when she knows her father will never tell her off?”

  “For God’s sake, Julia,” Dad says, quiet anger rising in his voice. “I told you I didn’t want to bring it up. Why didn’t you do it if you were so bothered?”

  “Why do I always have to be the baddie?”

  “I could ask the same thing,” he says between his teeth.

  “So it’s all my fault, is it?” She slams his plate onto hers and takes them over to the sink, throwing them both in so hard I can’t believe either will come out in one piece. “What a surprise!” she says without turning around. “Of course, none of this is your fault. You’re so bloody perfect, aren’t you? Never do anything wrong, I’m sure!”

  “See?” I shout, pulling away from the table now that Mum’s moved out of the way. “Even when you’re supposed to be angry with me, you just turn it into an excuse to have another argument with each other. You don’t care about anyone except yourselves! You’re the most selfish pair of —”

  Mum grabs my arm. “Ashleigh, don’t you dare speak —”

  “No, Mum.” I shake her off. “I’m not having it. You’re not telling me what to do anymore. And until you stop acting like five-year-olds, I don’t want anything to do with either of you. Just get it sorted one way or another, and leave me out of it till then.”

  This time I do storm off, slamming the kitchen door behind me. And the hall door, and my bedroom door. And then, because there just aren’t enough doors between the kitchen and my room, I open my closet door and slam that too.

  Next morning, it crosses my mind to leave home, but I’ve done that once before and it wasn’t much fun. It was last year. I’d gone into town. It had poured with rain and I was sheltering in a shop doorway, waiting for it to stop. I couldn’t even afford a cup of coffee. All I had was two quid for my bus journey, God knows where to, but I knew I’d have to end up going somewhere.

  So I was standing there minding my own business — well, feeling totally sorry for myself — when this woman came up to me and started yelling.

  “Why don’t you go and get a job, you lazy scrounger?”

  “I’m a student,” I replied, looking at her in amazement, too shocked to get angry.

  “Yes, I’ll bet. At the University of Life, is that?”

  “No, St. Martin’s.”

  “Don’t get clever with me, young lady.”

  I switched off after that. I thought, if I’m going to get lectured by mad old bints who shout at me and call me “young lady,” I might as well be at home. At least I can get a cup of coffee there.

  So, no, I’m not going to run away.

  Walking to school in a daze, I’m suddenly aware someone is calling my name. I look around and see a load of people stumbling along in the rain, heads down, hoods dripping water in front of their faces, like miserable versions of those Mexican sombreros with little trinkets hanging on strings from the brim. Then I notice Cat, waving like a mad thing. I wait for her to catch up.

  “Bloody hell, Ash, I’ve been yelling at you for the last half a mile,” she gasps between wheezes as she gets out her cigarettes.

  “Sorry.”

  “What’s up, mate? You look like a zombie.”

  “Nothing. Just my parents.”

  “I know what you need,” she says as she lights up.

  “Let me guess, I need to ditch school and come into town with you.”

  “Oh, go on, Ash. It’s been ages since we’ve gone out and had a laugh together. We can go to all the clothes shops and —”

  “I haven’t got any money.”

  “Who needs money? We’ll just go window shopping.”

  I don’t really want to miss school. We’ve got English this morning. The good thing about shutting myself in my bedroom for most of yesterday evening was that I managed to read a good chunk of Wuthering Heights. And, shock horror, it’s actually pretty good once you get into it. Not that I’d tell Cat that; I’d never hear the end of it. Teachers and books and lessons are not on Cat’s list of favorite things.

  We go back a long way, me and Cat. We met when we were both eight. She’d hung a flier; she had a hamster who’d just given birth to seven babies, and I persuaded Mum to let me have one of them.
Cat had sold all the rest and she missed them, so I said she could come and visit mine. It all took off from there.

  A few years later, I had my first boyfriend, Scott Brown. I was twelve. I’d been going out with him for three weeks and he hadn’t kissed me. Finally, we were dancing to the last song at the school dance and I practically made him snog me. I was nearly sick. He thought the idea was to stick his tongue as far down my throat as possible. I did actually retch when he did it, but I don’t think he noticed because he didn’t stop. The next day, Cat confessed she quite fancied Scott, and I told her she could have him. After all, she’d given me her hamster. So that was that. He was hers. About three weeks later, we both agreed I’d gotten the better deal.

  I’ve lost count of the number of scams and deals we’ve hatched up since then. If it’s her idea, it’s usually a bit crazy, occasionally dangerous — and always a laugh.

  So I agree.

  Cat breaks into a grin, and I can feel my mood lift as we head into town.

  Half an hour later, we’re in Boots, experimenting with anything we can find that has the word “tester” on the side.

  “What d’you think?” Cat holds up her wrist and I try to distinguish this latest aroma from the four I’ve been offered already. Her arm smells like a garden center.

  I cough loudly.

  “Yeah, maybe not.” Cat withdraws her arm and moves on to the makeup.

  I sniff a classy-looking bottle and try to find a bit of skin that I haven’t already sprayed. I’m like a junkie looking for a virgin piece of arm for the next fix.

  “Nice,” Cat replies as I shove my wrist in her face.

  “Yeah it is, isn’t it? Sea Mist.” I look at the bottle and nearly faint. “Thirty-eight quid! That’s a rip-off! I could get to the bloody sea for that.”

  I put the bottle back reluctantly and join Cat. We find these mini bottles of hair dye testers that you comb into your hair. Cat combs a bit of purple into my bangs; I’m about to pick one up to try on her when I notice her slip one into her pocket.

  “Cat!” I whisper in alarm.