Educating Simon

by Robin Reardon

  “From what I’ve seen so far, there must be a book full of them.”

  “Yes.” She took a sip of wine. “So, do you like your room?”

  “It’s fine. Large, nicely furnished.”

  “The bathroom is lovely.” So she’d peeked around up there.

  I decided to throw her a crumb. “I like the skylights.”

  “And after the weather cools down, the roof garden looks like a wonderful place to read.”

  So far we’d spent only a few sentences on Persie, who represented the most disruptive aspect of this living situation, barring the move itself, and Mum wanted small talk about the house’s features ? I took the elephant by the tusks.

  “Why wasn’t I introduced to Persie last night? Or to Anna, for that matter?”

  More wine for Mum. “You missed Brian’s explanation. He’s been preparing her for our arrival for some time, so Persie knew she’d see us, and she even knew where we’d sit at table. You chose the right chair, by the way.”

  “Oh, good.”

  She ignored my sarcastic tone. “Some people with Asperger syndrome—I’ll just refer to it as AS, the way Brian does—handle social interaction better than others. Persie finds it more difficult than many AS sufferers, evidently. If Brian had introduced anyone at dinner—I wasn’t introduced either, just so you know—not only would it have been a break in Persie’s dinner routine, but also she would have been forced to interact with you socially. Brian says she remains much less agitated if the people she’s expecting just show up, and she isn’t required to interact with them until she feels ready.”

  “She certainly interacted with me.”

  Mum actually chuckled. “She told you that you were late, yes, but it was not exactly an interaction. You never spoke to her, and that was the right thing to do.”

  “So we’re to learn her rules and follow them?”

  Mum’s smile was almost wry. “It would seem so.” She sighed. “Actually, I expected this. One thing I remember about living with Clive is the routines, the insistence on no change. AS isn’t the same form of autism that he had, but Persie’s condition is severe enough that the two types evidently have this in common.”

  “I wasn’t introduced to Anna, either.”

  “There’s that routine again. Persie allows conversation, but it must follow certain parameters. An introduction is its own routine.”

  “Persie allows—?”

  “I know, I know, Simon. It seems extreme. But Persie’s condition is extreme. And it helps explain why Brian’s first wife—whose name was Miranda, by the way—had such a hard time dealing with it. Brian hasn’t told me much about her, but I gather she had her own brand of inflexibility going on. Perhaps she had a touch of AS, herself. I don’t know.”

  I sat back and studied Mum’s face. “How much of this did you understand before you agreed to live with it?”

  Mum watched a few people stroll past, and I was thinking she hadn’t heard me when she said, “I knew as much as Brian could explain. Understanding, though, is going to take a while. If you recall, I did visit him here once, but I stayed at the Taj. I didn’t meet Persie. But Brian talked about her a lot. He gave me as clear a sense as he could of what it would be like to live with her.”

  “And how do you think you’ll do?”

  She looked directly at me. “With time, better and better. And in case you’re wondering, it’s unlikely Persie will ever be able to be independent.”

  “So you’ll be saddled with her as long as you’re with him?”

  “Don’t say ‘saddled,’ Simon. But, yes, unless something changes, she’ll be around, always.”

  It occurred to me that I don’t know my mother very well. This sacrifice, this penance, or this generosity—however you look at it—does not jibe with my picture of her.

  BM was in the car that picked us up and whisked us off to Cambridge. On the way, he said, “I’m trying not to overwhelm the two of you by showing you too much in one day. Boston may not be London, but there’s a lot of history here, and lots of things to do. At home, I’ve got some guidebooks for you.” Mum smiled at him. I stared out the window, carefully not saying that Boston barely knows what history is.

  Harvard Yard was so much smaller than even I had thought it would be. I had expected this supposedly prestigious school’s centrepiece to look like more than it does—just an odd assortment of buildings that people here seem to think are old and charming, around a bit of greensward that’s more bare earth than grass, crisscrossed with walkways the students obviously ignore. I realise there are other buildings outside the “yard” that are part of the university, but—really, it’s nothing like Oxford, where there are thirty-eight colleges all over the city with their own “yards” to brag about. To be sure, many of them are quite small, but still. If this were Harvard College, I might be more lenient. But it calls itself a university. And Cambridge—the one in Massachusetts, I mean—is . . . well, tiny. They make a big fuss over Harvard Square, but really most of the fuss should be about the horrible traffic.

  Back in Boston, BM had the car drop us all off at St. Bony, which is farther down Marlborough Street from his house, in the opposite direction from the park. The front of the main building is unassuming and fits right in with the area, row houses along the tree-lined street. The street entrance opens to a hallway with a tiled floor, large black-and-white squares, and that hideous fluorescent lighting that makes everyone look sick. School won’t start until later this week, and there was a guard at a desk who told us we couldn’t go any farther without a school ID or an escort.

  After the walk down Marlborough Street to the house, Mum said she was exhausted and needed to rest a little. I mumbled something along the same lines and went upstairs to be with Graeme.

  He answered on the first ring.

  “Hey, Sexy Simon.”

  My throat started to close with emotion, but I managed, “Hey, Gorgeous Graeme.”

  There was silence as we listened to each other breathe for a few seconds. Then he said, “How were the sights? Did you see St. Bony? Anything worth a few minutes of complaining?”

  I chuckled. “I’m not that bad, am I?”

  “Perennially. It’s one of your charms.”

  I love this guy. “Puny parks, puny Harvard Yard, puny Cambridge. I’d say puny school, but all we did was walk in the front entrance.”

  “Which was—let me guess—puny.”

  “How did you know?”

  “So, what will the test tomorrow be like?”

  This wasn’t what I wanted to talk about, so I made short work of it. Basically, I’ll spend most of the day in a room with a monitor and some number of other students, and take some kind of test in several different subjects, so they’ll know what my course load will be.

  Then I asked, “You all ready for your upper sixth?” Graeme, of course, is also extremely intelligent and aiming for Oxford as well.

  He sighed. “No way I can be ready for that. You’re supposed to be helping me.”

  With an effort I kept my voice from breaking. “We’ll still be at New College together.”

  “We’ll sing in the chapel.”

  “We’ll lounge in the back garden when it’s sunny and quiz each other for exams.”

  “We’ll have the best table in the dining room. Everyone will want to sit with us, and we’ll select only the people we like.”

  My teeth ground together. “A year, Graeme. A whole, fucking year.”

  “I know.”

  More silence, maybe thirty seconds. Then there was a knock at my door. I covered the phone and nearly shouted, “What?”

  BM’s voice said, “Dinner is always at six thirty, Simon. Please don’t be late tonight.”

  I glanced at my watch: a quarter past. “Be there shortly.” To Graeme I said, “I’m not to be late to dinner tonight, which Persie insists is served promptly at half six. I wasn’t in my seat on time last night, and I thought she was going to have a cow, shouting, �
�Late!’ at me. Honestly, the way they let that girl dictate terms around here . . .”

  “I guess you’d better go down.”

  We agreed I’d ring him again on Wednesday night. Then I needed a few minutes to collect myself. Blow my nose. Throw some water on my face.

  Ned was here tonight—a bonus, as far as I’m concerned, as I’m sure he’s gay. And he’s attractive. Maybe twenty-five or so? He’s black. I do hope I’m not expected to say African American all the time; it’s too long. How do I know his family aren’t from Jamaica, or whether he was born in Kenya? His voice is rich and incredibly deep. And he understands cuisine, which is huge in my book, especially since I don’t want to be lumped in with that antiquated idea that there’s no good food in England. Anyway, he’s tall and slender and has the most gorgeous eyes.

  He gave a brief description of each dish as he served it, and he knows what he’s doing. Tonight’s main course was the tenderest pork medallions in a red wine sauce, served with an Oregon pinot noir I would have loved to take to bed with me.

  Of course I got no introduction to him, either. I’m sure I caught his eye a few times by the end of the soup course, though.

  BM is so ignorant about most things English. For example, he keeps referring to what would have been my final UK school year before Oxford as my senior year. Over dinner he sang the praises of St. Bony.

  “So you know, I’ve informed the administration at St. Boniface that you intend on going to Oxford. They said they’d make sure your classes reflect that. And, believe me, they know what Oxford requires. Their baccalaureate programme is excellent. Something tells me you haven’t spent a lot of time looking into what the school has to offer, but many St. Boniface graduates have gone on to universities such as Oxford and Cambridge. You can be as prepared as you want to be.” Then he added, “And more challenged than you might expect.”

  Mum said, “That’s good news, isn’t it, Simon?”

  “The best.” I kept my tone even and low; no enthusiasm, no rebellion. And, if BM was listening carefully, no credibility.

  I wasn’t expecting to be called on the carpet by little Miss Prissy Persie tonight, but it seemed I could do no right. She hadn’t spoken at all, and I was trying to speak as seldom as possible, per my usual practice for months now, but for some reason I used the term “join the dots.” Evidently in the US they say “connect the dots.” It wasn’t in any of those resources Brian had pointed me towards, wasn’t amongst the host of Britishisms I’m expected not to utter. As soon as the phrase was out of my mouth, Persie’s head snapped up, her attention on the calculations necessary to even out portions of the various food groups on her plate forsaken in favour of shouting at me.

  “Connect the dots!” she shrieked. “Connect! Connect the dots! Connect! Connect!”

  It went on like that for a while, and it took both BM and Anna to calm her down. At one point Anna suggested taking her upstairs, but BM, irritated, said that Anna knows that just makes things worse. It wasn’t clear to me how this could be true; she’d be shrieking in her own rooms, which would certainly have been better for most of us.

  No one spoke for a good five minutes after Persie quieted down, and then BM turned towards me and, in a low voice, explained, “Figures of speech, metaphors, anything represented in the abstract, can be extremely challenging for her. The expression you used is one of the few she’s mastered. But she understands it in the American usage, and hearing a different version of it was profoundly disturbing.”

  “So, can she participate in a conversation at all?”

  “Of course I can.”

  I jumped. I think Mum did, too. I said, “All right. Why is it important to divide up your food portions so precisely?”

  “So I can finish them all together.”

  “I get that, but why is that important?”

  “Because they’re all on the same plate.” A plate she never looked up from.

  I decided not to pursue that further. But I wanted to know what else she focuses on. “What did you do today?”

  “I woke up. I put on my slippers. I took three drinks of water. I went into the bathroom. I sat on the toilet. . . .”

  “I’m sorry, Persie,” BM said as he leaned towards her and gently laid a hand on her arm. “I think that’s probably more than Simon wants to know. Why don’t you tell him about your new book? You read that today, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. Analysis of Tonal Music: A Schenkerian Approach. By Allen Cadwallader and David Gagné. September 3, 2010. An introduction to the fundamental principles of Schenkerian technique. Oxford University Press, USA. Four hundred and thirty-two pages. I read one hundred and sixty-seven pages today. It focuses more on the music and less on reduction itself than Allen Forte and Steven E. Gilbert’s Introduction to Schenkerian Analysis: Form and Content in Tonal Music. I don’t know yet whether I like it more or less, because I do like reduction. But I also like music.” She stopped and turned her head towards BM as if she wanted to know if she should say more.

  BM leaned over and kissed the side of her forehead. “That’s my girl.” I didn’t see any indication whether the kiss or the implied praise meant anything to her.

  Schenkerian analysis? And she’s how old? Eleven? Twelve? Ye gods. I have only a vague idea what it’s about, and this girl is reading graduate school texts on it. And, it would seem, understanding them.

  I did my best to bring my jaw back into position from where it had fallen and asked her, “Are you a music savant?”

  “I don’t know what that is.”

  “Like Rain Man? The Dustin Hoffman film where he plays the mathematic savant?”

  She shook her head, then harder, then harder still. BM leaned over yet again. “It’s all right, Persie. I’ll explain. You don’t need to.” She calmed down immediately. To me he said, “Persie doesn’t watch movies. She’s tried, but they upset her. Fiction is rather a foreign concept.”

  “So is she a savant?”

  “That’s not an easy question to answer. Certainly she has astounding comprehension of music. But from what I’ve seen, she doesn’t mix her experience of music with her analytic abilities. I mean, she either listens and is transported, or she applies only intellect and analyses.”

  “Done,” Persie announced, and suddenly Ned was there to take her plate. And as though she meant “done” to apply to the discussion of Schenker, we all fell silent again. I caught Ned’s eye, lifted an eyebrow and dropped it again, and he winked at me.

  As Ned was serving the pudding (slap my wrist! I mean dessert), key lime pie with whipped cream on a chocolate crust, Mum and BM chatted about something, and Anna was focused on Persie. Ned set my plate down and whispered, “It really is easiest if we all follow the rules.”

  Sotto voce, I said, “Where is that book, anyway?” I turned my head to look into his eyes.

  His hand landed oh, so briefly on my shoulder. “Don’t worry; you’ll get it.” And he moved on.

  If there’s anything I’m going to like about living here, it’s going to be all about the kitchen: Ned, good food, and wine. Things could be worse.

  Later, I had just gone upstairs and was puttering around my room, working out the best placement for things that belonged back home in my room in London, when BM knocked on my door. Whether I wanted to hear it or not, he was here to tell me more about Persie’s behaviour at dinner. He went on for a few minutes about how in the worst cases, people with AS don’t always understand how other people want to be treated, that they might not know how to have a conversation that doesn’t relate directly to them, that they might have trouble understanding what it means to be polite, or considerate. He added that Persie’s case is rather extreme.

  I guess I must have looked interested, because he didn’t stop there.

  “The extreme degree of her condition means that there’s very little understanding of, and almost no empathy for, other people. On the other hand, she doesn’t expect empathy from anyone, either. Also, many people wi
th AS and other forms of autism don’t want to be touched. Persie doesn’t mind some people touching her. I can, and so can Anna, as long as it’s a firm, definite touch and not just a light one. But she seldom makes eye contact.”

  “She doesn’t expect empathy? She sure expects to be obeyed.”

  “I understand that it seems like that. Not all people with AS are as removed from others as she is. Many people with AS work through their issues and manage to lead fairly normal lives. Persie will not.”

  “How can you be sure? She seems extremely intelligent.”

  He gave me a wan smile that somehow seemed patronising. “You’ll have to trust me.”

  After he left, I pictured Persie, heard her voice in my head explaining about Schenkerian analysis, her voice a fairly flat monotone. And then I remembered how puzzled she’d looked, even panicked, when I’d asked her about Rain Man. And then there was the kerfuffle of the connecting dots.

  Maybe he was right. And it wasn’t my problem, anyway.

  Boston, Day Three, Monday, 27 August

  The material from St. Bony, in talking about what today would be like, neglected to indicate whether I was to follow the dress code. School isn’t in session yet, but I erred on the side of caution and donned a pair of khaki slacks and a light blue Oxford (of course) shirt. I was too nervous for breakfast, though of course Mum made me eat as much as I could. A few spoonfuls of a muesli were all I could manage; the tiny bits of dried mango in it made me suspect Ned had put it together. I wished I could have enjoyed it more, but all these tests were hanging over me today.

  There was an insulated satchel on the counter and a piece of paper in front of it that said, “Good luck, Simon—in case you need any.”

  “Who’s this from?” I asked Mum. It wasn’t from her; it wasn’t her handwriting, and it’s unlikely she’d have left it because she’d be walking me down to the school so she could talk with the headmistress, whom she hadn’t met yet. Evidently BM had pulled quite a few strings to get me into St. Bony, and Mum wanted to thank Dr. Healy in person.