‘I don’t know.’
‘Does anybody else have an idea?’
They all looked blank.
‘Maybe if you gave us more options?’ said Carly, ever helpful. ‘Clever or stupid, patient or impatient, like that.’
I felt myself deflating. I could deal with their frequent lack of enthusiasm most of the time, but today I was tired and running low on patience. ‘This isn’t supposed to be a quiz, Carly. I don’t want you to guess at the answers, I want you to have an opinion, based on what you’ve read. It doesn’t matter if you feel the same way about the characters as I do, or if you agree with each other. It just matters that you have a response of your own.’
She put her pen back down on the desk, and looked at it, hard.
‘So my question was, what do you think about Oedipus as a human being? Would you like to talk to him, or do you think he’d be obnoxious or boring or rude or aggressive or what?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, refusing to look back up at me. ‘I’m sorry. I was ill, so I didn’t read as much as you asked us to.’
I wanted to bang my head on my desk. ‘Remember how you all said you wanted to study drama? Has anyone done any actual reading? Because it’s going to be difficult for us to discuss anything if none of you bothers to read any of the books. Though it isn’t none of you, is it? Annika, you’ve read to the end – yes?’ She shrugged a vague assent. ‘And Mel, you read it too?’
‘Yes,’ she said, uncertain. ‘But I haven’t been ill.’
I ignored the defence of her friend. ‘And Ricky, you don’t know, so that just leaves Jono. Did you read it, Jono? What do you think?’
He ignored me.
‘Jono? Hello?’
‘Christ, does it matter?’ he yelled, kicking the frame of his desk so hard it leapt to one side. It came out of nowhere, and I felt myself jump. I smelled something sweet and familiar on his breath. He’d been drinking cider, at a guess, during the lunch break. The one time I’d lost patience with a class since I’d started teaching there, and I’d managed to pick a fight with a boy who was drunk.
‘Ricky doesn’t know. I don’t know. And it doesn’t matter because it’s just a fucking play. What difference does it make if he’s nice, for fuck’s sake? It’s not like we’re going to meet him, is it? Even if he wasn’t fictional, he would have been dead thousands of years ago.’
‘Don’t shout at her.’ Mel was on her feet. She shoved Jono, but his bulk didn’t move. He swatted behind him as though she were an insect. ‘It’s not her fault you’re retarded.’
I wanted to remonstrate with her for using such a vile word, but found myself oddly touched by her decision to defend me. I said nothing.
Jono turned to her. ‘Fuck you, you little cunt,’ he said, spittle dripping onto his chin with the force of the words.
‘I’m not taking sides or anything,’ said Annika. ‘But just for the record, that,’ she pointed at Jono’s face, ‘is gross.’
He spun round to swear at her, and sweat beaded off him, landing on her desk.
‘Oh my God, you fucking freak. Who sweats like that?’ she shrieked, leaping away from the shiny discs of water. Then she spat at him, her beautiful mouth twisting to give it momentum. Her saliva landed on his left cheek, and he raised a disbelieving hand to touch it.
There was a moment of silence. Then Jono barged past his chair, spinning it across the floor, his fist pulled back to punch her.
I started to get up, but found myself completely frozen. The staffroom was always full of stories about fights between students, but no-one ever seemed to take them very seriously. Did the other teachers just step in between the kids and hope for the best? Would I be assaulting Jono if I grabbed him? He was nearer than Annika: I couldn’t get to her without going past him, and her desk. Or did everyone else on the staff just have more authority than I did? Perhaps they could simply raise their voices and order would be restored. I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.
Of course it should have been me and I knew it, but as I stood immobile, it was Ricky who jumped up in front of his friend, grabbing his arms without thinking. He looked like a mouse intervening with a bear. A mouse doing his teacher’s job.
‘Could we all take a moment and breathe?’ I asked. ‘And try to calm down. Please.’ I meant it for me as much as for them. I was so ashamed of myself, doing nothing while Ricky – a child – didn’t hesitate to act.
But it was too late. Jono pushed past me, so close I had to shift to the side to avoid getting hit by his bag. He turned to look back at Ricky, who was sitting down again.
‘Are you coming?’ Jono asked.
Ricky was hunched over behind his desk. ‘I might just sit here for a bit and do some drawing,’ he said, quietly. ‘I’ll see you in a bit.’
‘Fuck’s sake.’ Jono slammed the door behind him. This time, we all jumped.
‘Where the hell did that come from?’ Carly asked Ricky.
He was almost doubled over, desperate not to have to answer.
‘It’s alright,’ I told him. ‘You aren’t responsible for your friends. You’re only responsible for yourself, OK?’
He nodded.
‘Is there anything more disgusting than an angry fat kid, though?’ said Annika.
Mel began to giggle. ‘Spitting at one?’ she asked.
‘I’m serious,’ Annika said. ‘Oedipus couldn’t be fat. We’d just laugh at him.’
‘There’s no need to be unkind,’ I told her. ‘And there’s never any need to spit at someone.’
‘Whatever,’ she sighed.
I knew I needed to send Annika to Robert’s office, but I didn’t want to run the risk of her bumping into Jono on the stairs. I looked out of the window, and saw the problem disappear: his bulky frame was running out of the front gate.
‘Annika, could you go up and see Robert, please?’
She glared at me. For a moment, I thought she was going to refuse. And what would I do then? I gazed back at her, hoping like hell that she would give in.
She rolled her eyes, picked up her bag, and stalked out without speaking.
I looked back at the remaining three.
‘I don’t think we can really carry on with this lesson now, do you?’
No-one spoke.
‘OK, I’ll see you next time.’ I turned away, and followed Annika out of the room. I was back in my flat, a mile away, before I stopped shaking.
DD,
So, today was awful. Carly told the other three what Robert had told us about Alex. I don’t know why. We should have kept it to ourselves. It’s OK for us to know about Alex, but I didn’t really want everyone else to, because obviously Alex doesn’t want everyone to know. And telling them made everything go weird.
Alex could tell there was something wrong. We were all way too polite. Then Jono went off on one for no reason, because that’s the kind of self-centred prick he is. Carly thinks he’s OK, because about three months ago he told her she looked pretty, and she thinks that’s a sign that he’s a good person. I said at the time, she is pretty, so it just means Jono isn’t blind. I asked her how good he can be when he’s so obnoxious to me, and to basically everyone at Rankeillor except for Ricky and her. She said he’s misunderstood. By her, is what I wanted to say, but I didn’t.
Anyway, even she didn’t defend him today, after he started screaming at Alex. He’s always like that: completely fine one minute, bug-fuck mental the next. He was drinking with some other kids at lunchtime and he was fucking stocious by the time we had Alex’s lesson. Ricky was pished as well, but it doesn’t turn him nasty like it does Jono. It’s easy to see how he ended up at Rankeillor.
But here’s the worst thing about today: when Annika spat on him, and he went for her, Alex went completely white. I mean it, she looked like a statue. She just sat there, completely still, drained of colour. If Ricky hadn’t stepped in, I honestly don’t know what would have happened. Jono would have pasted Annika, I think. It only lasted a secon
d – Alex disappearing, I mean – and then she was back asking everyone to calm down. But it was really, really strange.
And the fight fucked everything up. I was hoping we’d be able to ask her about why she moved here. And then she might have told us about her fiancé. We’d have that in common, you see – me and Alex – because my mum and I moved to Edinburgh after Jamie died. When we first moved here, my dad was going to be joining us in a few weeks, and then after a while he wasn’t meant to be joining us any more. So we stayed here, and he stayed in Leeds, and now I hardly ever see him.
My mum has always blamed him for what happened to me and Jamie. She told me she didn’t, but she did. And every time there’s another story on the news about how the MMR vaccine was safe all along, and how it was stupid not to get your kids inoculated, she blames him all over again. Now she thinks that even if the injection had been dangerous, she should have had it done anyway. An autistic kid would have been a lot better than a dead one.
This is why I like the play we’re reading. It’s about the things which can’t be forgiven, even if no-one meant to do the wrong thing.
My mother would ring, invariably, on Monday evenings, and this week was no different. After a day at Rankeillor, the last thing I felt like doing was talking to her.
‘You sound tired,’ she said, as I answered.
‘I’m sure you can’t deduce that from two syllables.’ I don’t know why I was always so tetchy with her, except that my mother is someone whose entire life philosophy could be summarised with the words ‘I was only trying to help’, and there are few things more irritating.
‘Well, you do,’ she replied, defensively.
‘I’m just trying to do two things at once.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Making dinner.’ This was true. I had the phone sandwiched between my head and my shoulder, at an uncomfortable angle. Luke had been the keen cook, always trying to track down a place which sold tamarind paste or palm sugar. I just heated things up.
The kettle was boiling noisily, and I was about to pour water over half a packet of tortellini. I had no idea what they were filled with. They all tasted identical, orange, brown or green. I had half a jar of pesto open on the side.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I had mine already. Shall I call back when you’re done?’
‘No, it’s fine,’ I said, as the pasta bubbled to the top of the pan.
‘I would have called yesterday,’ she said, ‘but we had a parish meeting and a fund-raising committee brainstorm and—’
‘It’s OK,’ I repeated. ‘I know Sunday is your busy day.’
‘And I couldn’t call on Saturday because I still had my sermon to write for yesterday, and there was a rumour that the bishop might drop by, so I wanted it to be a good one. And then he didn’t come, so I could have just recycled an old one.’ She sighed.
‘Blah blah, thou shalt not kill?’ I suggested.
My mother laughed to fill time. Then she asked, ‘Have you found a church in Edinburgh?’
I could feel my jaw setting as I drained the pasta. ‘Edinburgh is full of churches. I live behind one, actually, but not your kind.’
‘I wouldn’t mind if you went to a Catholic church,’ she said, her voice rising to a pitch which suggested she would probably prefer it if I joined a Satanic cult.
‘Well, I would. I don’t go to church. You know that.’
‘You used to.’
‘I used to do a lot of things.’
There was a long pause, which I ignored, because I was stirring the sauce through the pasta and grinding pepper onto the top. I might not be cooking, but at least I was seasoning.
‘Well, I thought you might be ready…’ she said. My mother never knowingly ended a difficult sentence.
‘Really?’ I snapped. ‘Ready to go to church and accept the love of a God who let my father die, and then my fiancé? You thought I might want to bathe in his warm embrace, did you?’
‘I know you’re angry,’ she said. ‘But Luke…’
‘Don’t even say it,’ I told her. ‘Don’t even try to tell me his death has meaning, because you know it doesn’t. You know it.’ I could hear my voice growing harsh and ragged. ‘If you want to find consolation in the trite words of idiots, be my guest. But don’t tell me he’s gone to a better place, because he hasn’t. I know he hasn’t and so do you. This was the better place. Here, with me. And now he’s gone, and you want me to just accept that. To move on.’
‘I had to,’ she said, quietly.
‘Dad was fifty-four.’ I was shouting now. I wondered if the woman downstairs could hear. ‘I know he wasn’t old, but he had cancer. You had time to prepare, and so did he. So did I, for that matter. Don’t compare what we went through with him to what happened with Luke, because they aren’t remotely comparable. I can’t believe you could even suggest that they are.’
‘I didn’t mean to upset you,’ she said.
‘And yet, you’ve succeeded.’
‘I’m sorry. I only want to help you.’
‘I’m sorry too. I have to go.’
I could hear the muffled sounds of her crying as she said goodbye. I was too angry to cry, but I could feel the tears building up behind my eyes. I looked at the food, which was developing an opaque sheen as it cooled. I took a fork from the cutlery drawer, and slid the pasta into the bin.
7
‘Where’s Ricky?’ I asked Jono when they arrived in the basement for the next lesson a couple of days later. Jono had written a terse apology to me in Robert’s office the previous afternoon. The letters were pressed so hard onto the page that it had ripped in two places.
‘I’m not his keeper.’
‘OK.’ I tried not to sound martyred; I knew how annoying that was. ‘Does anyone know where Ricky is?’
‘He’s not in for the rest of this week,’ said Carly. ‘He punched a kid on the stairs this morning.’
‘Oh no. Really?’ I don’t know why I was surprised. Keeping track of these kids was like spinning plates: it was always the one you weren’t watching that hit the floor.
‘Get to fuck,’ Jono said, turning round to Carly. ‘Donnie Brooks isn’t a kid. He’s a wee scrote.’
‘So the punching is uncontested? He definitely hit another child?’ I wanted to be sure of the facts. Ricky was so spindly and quiet, I couldn’t see him as an aggressor.
‘Donnie Brooks has been asking for it since last term,’ Jono said. ‘Eventually he was going to get a crack. And now he has, and Ricky’s the bad guy who gets sent home for a week.’ He looked furious, again. Robert always reminded us, his teachers, that the children didn’t enjoy being angry. Jono had purple shadows under his eyes: maintaining this level of rage must be exhausting.
‘Wait. Is Donnie Brooks that tiny boy with the runny nose?’ I asked. I remembered seeing a cluster of third-years gossiping on the stairs when I’d come down to the basement earlier.
‘Don’t be fooled by appearances,’ said Jono. ‘He’s a little cunt. He’s been going after Ricky for weeks. Asking for a slapping. His brother knows Ricky’s brother. They’ve been fighting for years. Ricky tries to ignore him, but eventually it gets to him.’
‘OK. So Ricky finally cracked and punched him?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And now he’s not here till next week?’
‘Donnie’s parents complained to Robert,’ said Carly. ‘It was probably the trip to A&E that clinched it.’
‘That’s it,’ said Jono, his face darkening as they recounted the injustice. ‘Donnie’s parents don’t like hospitals. It must remind them of all the people their fucking kids have put in there. Anyway, it was only a broken nose. And only a fucking woman goes to hospital with a broken nose.’
‘Because women are…?’
‘You know what I mean, miss.’
‘I think I do. What a horrible situation. Poor Ricky. Has anyone spoken to him? Do you know if he’s OK?’
‘He’ll be fine,’ said Carly.
‘It isn’t the first time he’s been suspended.’
‘Could you be more of a fucking grass?’ Jono snapped.
‘Alex can see our forms anytime she wants,’ she replied. ‘Do you think she doesn’t know this stuff?’
‘Could we redirect this analytical zeal to Sophocles, please?’ I didn’t really care how this lesson went now. I just wanted to get through it without anyone punching anyone else, or storming out, or getting suspended, or, in my case, fired. I wondered if they were all making the same choice. Only Annika looked like she was actually enjoying herself. She loved a fight.
‘I’ll take that silence as a yes. We’ve mainly focussed on Oedipus up till now. So today, I’d like us to think about Jocasta. Do you think she suffers a worse fate than her son?’
There was a long pause. Jono was clenching and unclenching his hands. I looked over at the girls, hoping he’d calm down if I left him alone.
‘Yes,’ said Mel.
‘Because…?’
‘Because she lives with it for longer,’ she said. ‘She knows from the minute he’s born that something terrible is going to happen. She tries to get around it by getting rid of him, and that must have been awful. She must spend her whole life thinking about him, and what she and Laius have done. And then, when they find out what really happened, she kills herself. She can’t live with it.’
Carly shot her a look, which I couldn’t read. Mel didn’t notice, or if she did, she didn’t respond.
‘And her husband died,’ Annika added. ‘And she thinks her son’s dead, too. So she might be lonely?’
‘Those are really good answers,’ I said. ‘Both of you. Well done. Since there are four of you, and since we’re all in need of a bit of empathy today, I’d like you to each take on a different character. You can make notes for ten minutes, and then we’ll do it as a debate. Annika – you be Oedipus. Try to think about why he’s so angry and how his pride causes him harm, yes? Mel, be Jocasta. Jono, you can be Laius, and Carly, you be the shepherd. Work out why you’re the most tragic figure in the play, and be ready to argue your case. OK?’
They settled down to work without too much fuss. I could feel my bunched shoulders relaxing again. It was almost impossible not to have a physical response to the fury that spun between them most of the time. I wondered how the hell their former teachers had coped with them when they were in classes with thirty other kids.
The Furies: A Novel Page 8
