Still Falling

by Wilkinson, Sheena;

  Brendan bites off a grin. ‘Luke. It’s a Belfast grammar school. It’s nothing like Eton.’

  Like he’d know. He comes from Ballymena. ‘But the work, the standard – you’re coping with that OK?’

  ‘Yep.’

  I look down into my cappuccino. I know he isn’t fooled. Brendan’s not a genius but he has known me for three years.

  ‘It’s bound to be a big jump – from GCSE. I’m sure everybody –’

  ‘It’s fine.’ But he’s fixing me with that terrier look, and I won’t get him off my case until I give him a bit of what he wants. ‘It’s just – at Belvedere it was easy to be top. Everybody else was thick. Nobody even wanted to work. So I thought I was smart. And now – everybody’s smart.’ I shrug, to show I accept this, to show that I was never so naïve as to think I was anything special.

  ‘But you got great GCSEs.’

  I can’t explain. That all I had to do for GCSE was learn everything. And Hel– the teachers helped: they couldn’t get over the fact that someone actually wanted to work, and they used to give me extra help at lunchtime. It was something to do, and somewhere to go away from all the psychos. Even after the epilepsy, apart from that first load of meds that turned me into a zombie, I could still learn enough to do well. I got the best GCSEs anyone in Belvedere had ever got in the entire history of the school. Four A stars and five As. The teachers were practically crying on results day. The headmaster shook my hand.

  But now. I do everything they tell you. Read over my notes every night. Spend all my free periods in the library. But I don’t understand everything. Not all the economics and maths anyway. History and English are OK. Walsh, the history bloke, gave me A- for my first essay. I’ve read all the set books in English even though we’re still on The Great Gatsby.

  ‘Only Sandra mentioned you seem to be working very hard. In your room for hours every night. She’s worried you’re not getting enough sleep.’

  Aha. I should have known he’d be having cosy chats with Sandra.

  ‘Sandra’s just not used to people doing homework.’

  ‘She says your light’s on when she’s going to bed.’

  ‘Brendan – I can’t believe I’m getting hassle for doing homework!’ And the idea of people spying on me makes my skin shrivel.

  ‘I just don’t think you should be working so hard. Maybe if I had a word with the school you could drop a subject –’

  ‘Don’t you dare!’

  He changes tack then, slickly. ‘And the epilepsy?’ He always keeps this for last.

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Seizures?’

  ‘One. First day of term. In school.’

  Sandra will have told him this; he just wants to make me talk about it.

  ‘Ah.’ He nods sympathetically. ‘Unfortunate.’

  ‘Yep. You only get one chance to make a first impression.’ I say it as lightly as I can and for once he takes the hint and drops the subject.

  ‘Friends?’

  ‘Yeah. Some.’

  Toby, I suppose. I first started talking to him because he was Esther’s friend, but now I like him for himself. He always keeps me a seat in economics and he has a way of seeming uncomfortable in his body that I sort of understand. And Esther, though I don’t know how I feel about her now she knows so much about me.

  ‘You know –’ Brendan leans across the table as if he’s about to share some amazing insight – ‘you should give yourself a break about the academic side of things. Why not join something?’

  I shrug and say maybe, just to get him off my back, and then it’s time for him to go, thank goodness. Brendan offers me a lift but I say I’ll get the bus.

  I don’t get the bus; the thought of having a seizure on a bus is too horrible, so I’m getting used to doing a lot of walking, which is probably why, despite Sandra’s meals, I’m thinner and fitter than I’ve been for ages. Unlike Brendan.

  _____________

  Maybe that’s what makes me think, next morning, about Brendan’s suggestion. Social workers always want you to join stuff; it probably gives them an extra box to tick. But there’s one thing here at Mansfield that I wouldn’t mind joining. One thing that seems to give you instant acceptance.

  I put my name down for rugby.

  Last week we didn’t have games because of some careers talk, so this is the first proper games class. There are five other new boys. We stand at the edge of the pitch, sizing each other up with sidelong looks. One of the boys is built like a gorilla, with black stubble that seems to grow as you watch it.

  Holden, the coach, surveys us like an identity parade. When he gets to me he looks me up and down. I concentrate on standing tall in my new Mansfield sports kit.

  ‘Played before?’

  ‘Soccer.’

  He curls his long upper lip. ‘We don’t play soccer here.’

  That’s why I’ve put my name down for rugby, you dick.

  ‘I’m fast,’ I say.

  ‘Name?’

  I tell him. He scans the list in his hand, then looks up. His red jowls wobble in discomfort. ‘Ah, you’re the epileptic boy?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. I have epilepsy; I’m not defined by it.’ OK, I know I sound like a wanker. I suppose I’m quoting Helena.

  A couple of the other boys titter.

  ‘Och, aye, son, you know what I mean.’ He taps his pen on his list. ‘Look, lad, rugby’s a contact sport. Very physical. I don’t think it would be a good idea. If you had a – problem – in the middle of a scrum – no. Too risky.’

  ‘I wouldn’t.’

  ‘Sorry, son. What about hockey?’

  ‘It’s a girls’ game.’

  Holden looks like he secretly agrees with me. The other boys have fallen out of line into chattering groups.

  ‘You don’t have to do games,’ Holden says. ‘Not in your condition.’ He makes it sound like I’m nine months pregnant. ‘You can sit it out in the library. Probably safer.’

  ‘Sir, I have a right to join in.’

  ‘And I have a right to say who plays what. No, son. Different, maybe, if you’d a bit of experience.’

  ‘You have to let me exercise. It’s a statutory right.’ Shut up, Helena’s voice. You’re not in my life now.

  But Holden is already wetting himself in glee at whatever the gorilla is telling him. He barely glances back at me. ‘You say you can run? Well, join the cross-country group. Over there.’ He points down the steps to the far corner of the grounds, where a clump of people are hanging round chatting, doing the occasional warm-up stretch when they catch him looking over.

  Another battle lost. I might as well wrap myself in a blanket and wait to die. In the meantime – well, cross-country running doesn’t sound too bad.

  I set off at a steady pace.

  Esther

  I squidge myself into a more comfy position on the wooden bench. Over on the pitches, people are doing real exercise. Ugh. Beside me, Toby and Cassie half-heartedly swing their arms to warm up. Two spotty asthmatic boys push their glasses up their noses and carry on talking about Minecraft.

  ‘My counsellor says exercise is good for me,’ Cassie says after two swings. She waits, clearly wanting me to ask why she has a counsellor. If it’s to help her not to be a jealous psycho bitch it’s not working. She looks mournfully into the distance where Jasmine, captain of the second eleven, is doing her hockey thing. I think I see the twins buzzing round her with their matching long blond plaits. ‘But I have to be careful not to overdo things.’ After another swing, she flops down beside me with a groan and stretches out so there’s hardly room for me. ‘Time of the month,’ she mouths.

  Toby looks mortified and shuffle-wobbles away towards the fence, exercise clearly being the lesser of two evils. The other boys sniff and study their phones. Suddenly Cassie narrows her eyes. ‘Someone’s coming,’ she says. She’s still lying on the bench, but she’s turned her head in the direction of the rugby pitch up
above us.

  ‘So?’ Sometimes Miss Dickie comes and checks up on us, but as long as you aren’t actually horizontal she never minds much. We’re too hopeless to bother with.

  And it isn’t bad out here in the air. It gets nasty by November, but right now, on a golden September afternoon, with the sun warm on my bare arms, it’s OK.

  I look in the same direction as Cassie. The figure walking towards us isn’t Miss Dickie. It’s a tall, determined-looking blond boy.

  Luke.

  Immediately my skin prickles. I haven’t seen him since the day in the juice bar last week. I mean, I’ve seen him, but we haven’t spoken apart from, Did you read Chapter 3? and Isn’t that essay title impossible? He has definitely backed off.

  I pretend not to notice him and even consider following Toby round the fence. But no matter how much my brain might order my feet to run in the other direction, they are rooted to the ground, and my heart has swelled to about three times its normal size.

  ‘It’s the new boy,’ Cassie says. Without Jasmine she’s a lot friendlier, because she always needs an audience.

  ‘So it is.’ I sound like nothing could interest me less. I open Tender is the Night.

  ‘Hi,’ Luke says, to me more than Cassie, since Cassie has her eyes closed and is groaning faintly. He looks down at her with an expression of distaste and moves away. ‘Is this the cross-country running group?’

  ‘Well,’ I say. To my amazement my voice sounds bright and confident, even though my heart is banging against my chest. ‘I wouldn’t exactly call it that.’

  The asthmatics slope off. Cassie waits for attention, eyes closed.

  ‘So what is it, then?’ Luke demands.

  Obviously I’m not going to say it’s a rejects club. Instead I say, ‘Running is an available option. Cross-country – not so much.’ I spread my hands as if to show him an amazing view. ‘You have the perimeter of the netball pitch, round behind the bike sheds, the main driveway, down by the war memorial – that’s quite nice actually – up past the mobiles and then the glorious sweep round the rugby pitch so everyone can actually see you and laugh at you, because by then you’re half dead and hyperventilating.’ I don’t know where the words are coming from. I seem to have been colonised by a helpful alien power – some sassy, confident girl. ‘Or,’ I carry on, turning a page of Tender is the Night even though I haven’t read the one I’m on, ‘you can read.’

  ‘So,’ he says, ‘you’re not in training for the Belfast marathon?’

  ‘Marathon skive,’ I say. Or rather, Sassy Girl says it for me. ‘And some people don’t need much training.’

  Cassie lets out a little groan and Luke moves further away. ‘What’s up with her?’ he asks in an undertone.

  ‘You’re meant to ask her how she feels. Only I wouldn’t advise it, because she’ll tell you. In detail.’

  ‘I don’t give a damn how she feels.’ He gives a sudden grin. ‘So – are we going for this run, then?’

  ‘Um.’ Sassy Girl scarpers. I want to spend time with Luke but I’m not so keen on getting red and puffy and sweaty in front of him. ‘I’m not much of a runner.’ He looks at me quizzically and I’m suddenly very aware of how unattractive I must look in my black track bottoms and white polo shirt. The track bottoms are huge – bought by Mum to last – and the shirt strains across my chest. When I look down I can see the Mansfield crest stretched out of shape by my left boob. ‘As you can see.’

  Toby huffs pinkly towards us, looking hopeful and sweaty and exactly the way I don’t want to.

  ‘So shall we go for a very gentle jog?’ I ask. I feel a bit bad, wanting to get going before Toby comes back – how often have I been grateful for Toby? – but if he starts talking to Luke, this lovely chance will evaporate.

  ‘It can be a very gentle stroll, if you like.’

  We set off at a fairly brisk walk. I don’t want him thinking I’m a complete couch potato.

  ‘War memorial?’ Luke suggests. ‘That sounds better than the netball pitch and the bike sheds.’

  The war memorial, a tiny hedged garden with a marble Celtic cross, is at the other end of the grounds, beside a side gate that is always kept locked. I haven’t been here for ages. I had a phase of hiding out here in fourth year, when I was obsessed with the war poets, and when Cassie was being so mean. I loved the clean white marble and I used to know the order of the eighty-three names almost by heart.

  ‘Look.’ I sit on the wrought-iron bench and point to the bottom of the cross. ‘My name – nearly. My middle name’s Grace.’

  Luke kneels down and reads aloud, ‘Wilson, Edward G.’ He traces the carved initials with a fingertip. The letters are green and mossy. ‘Any relation?’

  ‘Not as far as I know.’

  Luke’s lips move as his eyes scan down the list. ‘Eighty-three. That’s like – nearly all the boys in our year.’ He leans back on his haunches, and then sits on the bench, his long legs stretched out beside mine. I suck my tummy in as hard as I can.

  ‘I know. If that was today – you’d all have to go.’ I think of all the boys I’ve been in school with for years – marching off to die or be maimed or maddened. I can’t imagine it. Even the rugby boys, though they think they’re tough, have their kits washed by their mummies every week. Toby, marshmallow-soft, bowed under the weight of a rifle and pack, sickened and terrified by everything.

  Luke’s face gives one of those strange twists. ‘Not me.’

  ‘Why? Oh. I suppose not.’ An epileptic seizure in a trench would have been pretty catastrophic. ‘Well … that’d be one advantage, I suppose.’

  Luke raises one eyebrow. ‘Being left out of a war that happened a hundred years ago?’ He kneels down again, and runs a finger over the name under Wilson – ‘Wright. Like Jasmine.’

  ‘Ugh,’ I say without thinking. No! scolds Sassy Girl, appearing from nowhere. Don’t let him think you’re the kind of girl who bitches about prettier girls, so I turn it into, ‘Oh, yeah, so it is.’

  ‘Esther?’ he says suddenly, without turning round. He is hunkered in front of the cross, one hand still stretched out to the white marble. ‘Can I ask you something?’ His voice is serious.

  My breath curdles in my throat. He can’t be going to ask me –

  He isn’t.

  ‘Is there always this much homework and that?’

  I try not to let my disappointment show. I shrug, stupidly, since he still has his back to me. ‘I don’t do the same subjects as you.’

  ‘English and history.’

  ‘We don’t get that much.’

  He sighs. ‘It takes hours, though. Every night.’ He scrapes at a piece of moss under the words PRO PATRIA.

  ‘Well, that’s what you get for doing maths and economics. They sound really hard.’ Actually Toby says economics isn’t too bad except that you’re meant to read the boring financial bits of the newspapers.

  ‘Yeah. But even history …’ He leans back from the cross but he still keeps his back to me. ‘How long did that essay take you?’

  I try to remember. Walsh gave the essay on a Friday to be handed in on the Monday, and all the ones with social lives grumbled that it wasn’t fair. I put it off on Friday night, and made excuses not to do it on Saturday because it was a lovely day and I went to the Botanic Gardens to take photos for my art project, and then ended up doing it on Sunday afternoon, partly to annoy Mum and Dad, who don’t approve of schoolwork on a Sunday.

  ‘Two hours? Something like that.’

  ‘OK.’ He goes on scraping at the moss.

  The sun is shining on my back, but the war memorial is in shade, and my arms are goose-pimpling in the cool air. I rub them.

  ‘That essay took me all weekend,’ Luke says. ‘Well – about six hours.’

  ‘That sounds a bit much.’

  ‘I can get the grades,’ he says in a sudden burst of words. ‘So far. But I didn’t think it would be this hard. And I wondered if … if it’s the same for everybody or i
f I’m just –’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Stupid.’ He flicks some moss from his fingers and it lands on the gravelly path. ‘Like your dad said – the standards of Belvedere High are not the standards of Mansfield Grammar.’

  He imitates Dad’s voice and I wince.

  ‘Luke – of course you’re not stupid. You wouldn’t have got in here if you were stupid.’

  ‘I learn it all, but then I forget it. We had this economics test and I spent all night revising and then I got a C.’

  ‘A C’s OK.’

  ‘Do you get Cs?’

  I guess I’m not really meant to answer this. Instead I say cautiously, ‘Luke, could it be your meds?’ I’ve been kind of reading up on epilepsy, but I don’t want him to know that.

  ‘I can’t use that as an excuse.’

  ‘But it might be a reason. Maybe they can change the one you’re on?’

  ‘I don’t want to change again. This is the best one so far. The first one turned me into a zombie. The next one made me – ugh! – fat and spotty.’ He shudders. ‘This one is the best.’

  I can’t imagine Luke fat and spotty. Even his back view is so desirable that I have to sit on my hands to stop them reaching out to stroke the nape of his neck where it rises from his white PE shirt.

  ‘Well, maybe you could drop a subject. Some people only do three. Half the rugby team. You could ask my dad. He’s in charge of –’

  ‘No.’ His ferocity startles me. ‘I don’t want special treatment.’ He says it like it’s something disgusting. ‘I’ll just work harder.’

  I lean forward so I’m kneeling beside him. ‘Don’t work all the time,’ I say, and some instinct – or desire – makes me put my arm on his shoulder. It’s rigid. He turns his head. His face is so close I can see the smattering of tiny freckles on the bridge of his nose.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because …’ I’m just reassuring him; I’m just being good old Esther, and then suddenly I’m not. Sassy Girl, just when I need her, takes over. ‘You won’t have time for other stuff.’