by Patrick Gale
The Chapel tower was just visible from her bedroom. It seemed to stick up to one side of the cathedral and she had always assumed it was just another church, not part of a school. As Kieran led the others through its high doors, Sophie stood in Flint Quad, transfixed. House martins were swooping down from their nests under the eaves, almost brushing the four quadrants of flints that divided its paths and gave it its name. Scholars lolled on battered sofas and armchairs they had dragged out into the sunshine. Some wore the black uniform, some sports clothes or jeans. Some played cards or chess, others kicked footballs against ancient buttresses. She saw all this and felt herself claimed.
‘They have a special exam,’ Kieran explained. ‘You can take it at twelve or thirteen but you have to have Latin or Greek, algebra, all sorts. Stuff they don’t teach at St Bonnie’s.’
‘But if I did learn it,’ she asked, ‘could I do the exam?’
‘Sure. Anyone can. We’d just have to enter you. Hey! Wilf! Put that back where you found it. Now.’
Necessarily dependent on whatever entertainment could be had for nothing, she had long been dividing her free time between the city baths, to which the council gave Wakefield House children free passes, and the city library. This was her home from home. She knew her way around it, how to read the Dewey Decimal System, how to consult the deep drawers of card catalogues, how to order books she couldn’t find. She tried looking under Tatham’s, Exams and Scholarships and eventually found several bound volumes of past Tatham’s scholarship papers and a syllabus. Greek was not essential but Latin was and French (which she had barely begun) and areas of maths and history that were a mystery to her.
It was daunting but she was methodical and she had two years. She also had a supporter on the staff at St Boniface’s who agreed to let her work on at her own pace provided she continued to participate in some classes too. She suggested they put Sophie in for the exams at twelve as a trial run and was almost as astonished as Sophie when Sophie was summoned for an interview and offered the last available scholarship. It was only when everyone congratulated her that Sophie understood they had never expected her to succeed and had been supporting her purely out of kindness.
Financial assistance was discreetly found through the county council to buy her uniform and pay her a modest monthly sum of pocket money. Any books she needed were provided under the terms of the scholarship, second-hand. She had far fewer possessions than most other pupils and was certainly the only Daughter to arrive on her own with her things crammed into an army surplus rucksack. Even the pupils who came from overseas, passed through a succession of International Aunts and stewardesses, arrived with trunks. And most Scholars were dropped off by at least one parent, some by entire, gawping families. Margaret offered but Sophie hated fuss and Margaret was showing signs of fretfulness so Sophie insisted she would be fine on her own, said her round of goodbyes at home and presented herself at the Porters’ Lodge on foot.
Armed with the knowledge of Lucas Behrman’s div, it was easy enough to track him down. Div was the class in general culture and essay-writing, common to all parts of the school and designed to round out the specialized knowledge of the scientists and classicists in particular. One’s position in the school was indicated by one’s div class, from lowly JP4 to the exalted heights of Al, the most senior classics div. All divs met at the same time so it was simply a matter of pretending she needed to be excused just towards the lesson’s end then racing across from her div room to his, on the other side of Brick Quad.
She arrived just in time to see him come out. Seeing him in male clothes, house tweed jacket and sensible shoes, it was hard to imagine him in a dress. But there was something very neat and self-contained about him. He was not gossiping or horsing around like the others but was studying the blurb on the back of a novel by someone called Mary Renault, moving within the crowd but not of it. She saw at once how he had learnt, as she had, the knack of being overlooked when it suited him, of switching himself off like a torch.
The Chapel clock was striking and a groundsman was raking a last load of fallen leaves across the grass. Lucas had dark brown hair and the kind of pale complexion that must betray every emotion. She stood in his path on purpose but he stepped silently around her, murmuring, ‘I’m so sorry,’ and without making eye contact. Watching him go, she felt breathless until Kimiko arrived at her side, releasing her from the moment with her questions and the chance to escape into familiar scorn.
The Michaelmas term ended with Illumina, a pyromaniac’s delight. This was the lighting of a giant bonfire on Schola Field, the playing field nearest the school’s historical centre and of hundreds of candles tucked into holes in the ancient walls on three of the field’s boundaries. The Chapel bells rang out carol tunes, smuggled bangers and sparklers were lit, even the occasional rocket. Under cover of darkness and in the knowledge that no meaningful punishment would be handed out on the last night of term, a harmless carnival anarchy was loosed on the air along with the tang of gunpowder.
This and the thought of being reunited with their families sent Kimiko and the other Daughters into an outbreak of sickly nostalgia – a kind of reverse homesickness in which they could hardly bear to leave school since it meant leaving one another. Sophie pretended to join in so as not to seem cold but her mind was elsewhere, riding an imaginary bicycle up and down his street, looking for places from which to watch him unobserved and excuses to knock on his door. She was consumed by a fantasy in which she saw his mother – who of course looked like him as the mother in the play – let slip a gold bracelet while hurrying in from the snow, thus giving Sophie the reason to call and be warmly welcomed.
CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS
(thirteen years, eleven months)
Christmas in Wakefield House was a happy but moderate business. To avoid wild expense or upsets caused by favouritism, it was agreed that the children draw names from a pudding basin, then buy just one present each, for whoever’s they drew. Anything else – cards, decorations and so on – they were encouraged to make themselves to save money.
Sophie had a pact with Wilf that they each folded the paper with their name on it into a triangle rather than a rectangle so that it would be easy to spot. Then they went shopping together so that each could be sure of getting exactly the present they wanted. It was unspontaneous perhaps but, like many people from unstable backgrounds, they hated surprises and it was preferable to the torture of knowing someone you despised had drawn your name and would be buying you something hideous.
Wilf was two years older than her and had an older brother’s protective instincts towards her but he was far less bright, which lessened the gap between them. He was actually a William but his nickname – arising from his mumbled delivery of Will Franks – had stuck long after the original scurrilous tease had been forgiven and forgotten. His mother was in prison for armed robbery and assault, following a raid on a supermarket that had gone horribly wrong. He despised his mother and was counting on her hot being released until he was sixteen and independent. He adored Margaret and was always hanging around the kitchen, jealous of the younger children’s claims on her attention, so she was always happy to send him off on errands with Sophie to help him.
He bought Sophie a dynamo kit for her bicycle because people at school kept nicking her batteries. She bought him a new Dark Side of the Moon cassette because his first one had got tangled in a tree during a fight. They bought Margaret paper chains and tinsel in Woolworth’s. Then, on the pretext of wanting to see how rich people had decorated their houses, she pedalled furiously ahead and led him up to Tinker’s Hill.
In the fading light, they passed bungalows and sprawling haciendas, a Tudorbethan manor and twin mock Georgians that seemed more garage than house. Sophie pointed out details; twinkling lamps, a Father Christmas climbing a chimney, a hedge lit with fairy lights, a wishing well converted into an outdoor crib. Her mind, however, was on counting the numbers as she did so.
Number seventeen, u
nnamed, was one of the older houses on the hill, a white 1930s structure with elegant lines and curved metal windows painted a cheerful green. Standard bushes formed a guard of honour along a path of curious green stone chippings, which Wilf pointed out were like the sort one saw in a cemetery. There was a glimpse of a swimming pool, a cover pulled over it.
‘Why’ve we stopped here, Soph?’ Wilf asked. ‘All they’ve got is that spastic lantern thing.’
He was right. She hadn’t noticed at first but there were no decorations, not even a holly wreath. There was merely a branched lantern, a sort of pyramidal candelabrum really, glowing in an upstairs window.
‘Maybe they’re Jehovah’s Witnesses?’ she suggested.
‘Too rich,’ he said. ‘Jehovahs are never rich coz they don’t believe in saving. Do Mormons do Christmas? The Osmonds are Mormons. They’re rich. Look. They’re coming home. They’ve got a Jew’s Canoe.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Mercedes. Definitely not Jehovahs. Nice one.’
He stood openly staring in a streetlamp’s glare at the big black car as it slowed to turn in. Sophie hastily backed her bike into the shadows, barking a shin, and watched from behind a tree. The Mercedes pulled in and stopped in front of the garage. A man in a dark blue overcoat got out, unlocked the garage and flicked a switch which set the car gently turning on a concrete turntable until it was facing the way it had come in. (Wilf let out a low whistle of admiration.) Then the man stepped back into the car and reversed it into the garage.
The garage light was on and, for a few seconds before the man shut the door, Sophie had a glimpse of a small woman in a hat and fur coat and Lucas Behrman in a suit and a smaller version of his father’s overcoat. Their clothes were more elegant than anything Sophie had seen at close quarters, like clothes in a film, but it was the absurd luxury of the turntable and the formal restraint with which mother and son had remained in the car until it was safely inside that had told her most strongly these were people of another race entirely.
‘So who are they?’ Wilf asked as they wheeled their bikes on up the hill. ‘Who lives there?’
‘No one,’ she said. ‘Just a boy at school. I was curious, was all.’
‘Do you fancy him?’
‘Don’t be a wally. Did you see what he was wearing? Will that dynamo make my bike slower?’
‘Not so as you’ll notice. Race you back?’
‘Okay.’
She had worried that Wakefield House would feel strange after a term away and that the others might have begun to resent her in her absence. Margaret and Kieran seemed pleased to have her back however and, far from feeling envious, the others continued to show only incomprehension and pity, as though her scholarship landed her in a kind of prison, like ordinary school only harder and even more dull. Just once or twice, one of them mocked something she said when she unwittingly lapsed into laconic Tatham’s idiom or forgot herself and said actually or gorgeous.
The scant four weeks of holiday flew by in an orgy of afternoon television and long lie-ins with a book and a bowl of cereal; luxuries forbidden at school. Along with the usual drum of Quality Street and hamper of Christmas food, the town council gave them Twister, a game they played so obsessively and in such fits of laughter that Margaret threatened to get rid of it because she worried it was stopping them sleeping properly. But it was only a craze. They had one most holidays, like a benign bug passed around the house. Once it had been Racing Demon, banned when a girl reverted to bedwetting from too much excitement, another time it was Slinky races on the stairs. By Easter, Twister would be just another battered game in the toy cupboard, as unfashionable as Kerplunk or Go.
The first day of each term brought chaos to Jago’s as every boy and girl joined in great queues to buy stationery and collect and sign for the set texts and textbooks assigned to their classes. The books were piled up neatly on thick mahogany shelves kept empty for the purpose but few pupils were sure of which classes they had been put in beyond their div. This meant that most students had to consult crazily arcane lists to find out then take a note of that information to Miss Jago who sat at a high clerk’s desk at the shop’s cavernous rear, where she presided over the term’s reading lists, then take their list of books to one of the queues for a sales assistant.
Being given books was one of the best parts of the scholarship for Sophie and she wanted to relish the moment this time without being jostled in a scrum. She also had a mind to read some of the books in advance and so steal a march on her peers. But when she called in soon after Christmas, Miss Jago told her firmly that the lists were never made public before the start of term. It was as though the old woman had sussed that Sophie was planning a kind of cheat.
‘If you’re a local girl, though, and you want to beat the queues, try calling in on the last day of the holidays. We’ve usually got the lists together by then.’
So Sophie contented herself with reading ahead in Greek, a subject in which she was still struggling to catch up, and physics, which was proving elusive. She knew she had done well in her first term and would be moving up the div ladder a little.
‘Ah yes,’ Miss Jago said as she took her name two weeks later. ‘Miss Cullen.’ She liked to pretend she knew everyone by sight or at least by reputation. She had the new term’s div and form listings before her and was enjoying her access to knowledge not yet made public. ‘A double remove. You’ll be joining Master Behrman, here, in the Middle Part. So that means Eysenck’s Introduction to Psychology, Seven Types of Ambiguity, The Golden Bough. Huh. Long read. The Secret Agent and Metamorphosis. Keep you going. Science and maths books as for last term. For French ditto but you’ll need Les Mains Sales. Greek as for last term, Latin ditto. Oh. English. Yes. Henry V. Sign here please. And enjoy them.’
Sophie hadn’t recognized him at first because his duffel coat and stripey scarf were so far removed from the most recent, elegant image she had of him. But perhaps the suit and cashmere overcoat were his teenage equivalent of a smaller boy’s clip-on bow tie and flannel shorts; enforced party wear.
He pushed back his hood. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Lucas Behrman.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I’m Sophie. Cullen.’
‘I’ve seen you around with that Japanese girl.’
‘Kimiko Matsubara.’
‘That’s the one.’
He blushed and looked down at their respective book heaps. He was shy. She would never have predicted that. Or perhaps the blush was for another reason.
‘How did you wangle second-hand copies?’ he asked. ‘New ones cost a mint. My father always complains.’
‘I’m a Daughter. We don’t pay so the school gets us secondhand stuff whenever it can.’
‘Oh. Of course. Sorry.’
They walked together, she wheeling her bike, chatting of neutral school subjects until she began to break off, explaining that she lived in the other direction. Which was when he invited her back for coffee.
‘Lucas, your father’s not in for supper so I thought it might be nice if we – Oh. Hello.’ She broke off, seeing Sophie in the hall with him. It was Audrey Hepburn, or as good as: petite, brown-haired, immaculately groomed without seeming artificial. She held out a hand and searched Sophie’s face with the huge, kind eyes of a Disney mouse. ‘I’m Heidi,’ she said. ‘Lucas’s mother.’
‘Sophie,’ said Sophie. She noticed Heidi’s hand was small and soft then saw that she was in stockinged feet.
‘Sorry,’ Lucas said. ‘No shoes. It’s a house rule.’
Flustered, Sophie stooped to unlace her shoes and copied Lucas in putting them on a low rack beside the front door. She saw how the house had deep cream carpet everywhere. It flowed from room to room and up the stairs, lapping the wainscots. Back at Wakefield House there were only rugs here and there which slid about on dark-stained floorboards or dull lino.
‘I think it helps people relax,’ Heidi said. ‘Shoes indoors, especially men’s shoes, are a bit like wearing armour
to bed. Would you both like coffee? I just made some.’
Real coffee, brewed in a gurgling percolator. Buttery Dutch shortbread. Proper coffee cups with saucers. Sophie could hardly breathe.
‘I apologize for the kitchen, Sophie.’
‘It’s lovely.’
‘It’s a museum piece. Same age as the house. It’s all coming out later this year, once Mr Perfectionist here will make up his mind.’
‘Mum!’ Lucas groaned.
Heidi caught Sophie’s eye, taking her into her confidence in a we-girls-understand way at once intoxicating and appalling. ‘Twenty brochures was it? Thirty? You’d think something in there would be right for him. But the finishes were wrong or the drawers or the way the cupboards met the floor. My son the architect.’
‘Mum!’
‘Sorry, angel.’
‘Sophie’s in my class from next term,’ Lucas explained. ‘We just found out in Jago’s. She lives on the other side of town.’
‘Oh. That’s nice. Are you a day student too, Sophie?’
‘Er … No. I’m a Daughter. We have to board.’
‘That must be hard.’
Until now Sophie would not have agreed but, seeing the comforts Lucas came home to every night, she hesitated.
‘It’s not too bad,’ she said.
‘I bet your mum misses you.’
‘Actually she’s dead,’ Sophie blurted out. ‘And, well, my dad’s not very well so it’s probably better this way.’
Heidi’s face was all concern and she reached out to touch Sophie gently above the elbow. ‘That must be very tough for you,’ she said.
‘It’s fine, Mum,’ Lucas said. ‘You can see she’s fine about it. Haven’t you got a patient or something?’
Again that girls-together smile. ‘Aren’t I terrible? He never brings anyone home, you see. You’re extremely honoured, Sophie. Now don’t let him bully you. If you want more coffee and biscuits, help yourself and do stay to lunch. The fridge is groaning.’
