by Susan Swan
Directly below, on a knoll beside the patio, I saw the canopy where the parents were still having their tea party. The sun was now almost fully out, and I could hear the adults’ happy voices chattering like birds after a rainstorm. I walked around my room aimlessly. It was plainly furnished: three continental beds evenly spaced between three dressers. Lined white cards were stuck inside the mirror on each dresser. On one I read the name Victoria Quinn, and on the other, Pauline Sykes. A bulletin board hung over each bed. A grainy old poster for the movie King Kong was pinned to the first board. The second displayed a picture of the Calypso singer Harry Belafonte next to a scroll in embossed yellow script, which read: “Woman is descended from Adam’s side to be his equal, near his arm to be protected and close to his heart to be loved.” I guessed the poster belonged to Victoria Quinn. On her dresser sat a framed photograph of a blond boy in a brush cut. The photo was signed, “As always, Rick.” Next to it I saw a matted hairbrush, a bulging makeup case, a crockery pot spilling over with alpine flowers, and a package of Cameos. I smiled. I had something in common with one roommate.
“Aye, that’s the spirit,” the dwarf said in a friendlier tone. He handed me a black licorice in the shape of a pipe. “Would you have one of my sweets?”
I shook my head no, even though licorice candy was my fav, and he laid it down anyway on top of my trunk.
“Now, don’t mind if you’re homesick for a bit. It passes. And then one day—bingo! You wake up and, just like that, you’re an old girl.” He stood on tiptoe, looking up at the Cameos. “The matron will have Victoria’s head for that. She’s a careless girl.” Suddenly we both heard a noisy commotion outside the window, and the dwarf stood on one of the trunks to look. “What have we here!” He clapped his little hand to his forehead. “Trespassers! Don’t they know old Sergeant is king of the castle?”
Behind the tent, a row of male bodies was slithering over a tall wire fence, which I realized must encircle the full length of the grounds. I watched as, one by one, they dropped to the ground, some falling on their sides or backs. Their bodies looked toy-sized from my high window. Quickly they unfurled a banner and began to chant in unison at the startled tea-party guests.
Ripping folly!
Beastly jolly!
Bath Ladies College
is ours—rah!
On the lawn, some of the girls in navy tea dresses screamed as their parents stood looking at each other in confusion. Then the boys began to chant their verse again, even more loudly. A few of their members shook cowbells. In front of me, the dwarf banged the window with his fist. “Now where is that bloody Lewis when we need him? Wait! There he is! No, by God—it’s the Virgin!”
I looked down. The headmistress stood in the midst of the crowd. In her hands she held a garden hose. She stood with her legs squarely apart and pointed the hose at the intruders, who stared for a moment in shock at the iridescent spray of water falling on their heads. A moment later, they turned and scrambled back up the wire fence. The water soaked their banner, changing the words “Bath Ladies College is ours” into a watery smear.
Then I noticed a turquoise convertible winding its way through the weeping willows. I made a little choking sound and looked around, in case Sergeant was listening. But he’d disappeared. I heard him cursing as he ran down the long hall, on his way to chase off the last of the intruders.
5
Mouse, you are grotesque, I told myself in the drafty bedroom. I stood staring into the mirror, hating the sly, wise face that stared solemnly back at me. The lips of its thin, lopsided mouth didn’t move. See, it agrees with you, I thought.
I lay down on my bed. I didn’t want to unpack or do anything else that felt like admitting I was there. I decided not to change my clothes. The moment I took off my blouse, some girl would walk in and see my twisted shoulder, Alice Hump.
Most of the time I hardly knew she was there. Of course, Alice aches a little when I’ve done something like climb five flights of stairs, and there are days when she wears me out entirely; she’s like a suitcase that gets heavier the longer you carry it. But she’s not really a nuisance. It’s only when I undress and notice my vertebrae sticking out like tractor treads on my left shoulder that I know for sure that Alice will always be with me.
Finally, I sat up and stuck my best photo of Morley in my dresser mirror. I also put up one of my real mother and a few of President Kennedy. Then I opened my trunk. On top of the neatly folded tunics, Sal had left the school’s list of outfits, each checked off with her messy blue ballpoint:
Navy winter coat
Green woollen tunics
Navy woollen knickers
Navy beret (for use with tunics)
Cotton bodices or brassieres (for older girls only)
Navy afternoon dress for teas and church
Purple Viyella long-sleeved blouses with collar (to wear with tunic)
Beside the list lay Sal’s going-away present to me—a new copy of The Power of Positive Thinking. I slammed the lid of the trunk back down and went off to find the washroom.
He was standing in front of the bathroom mirror, a cigarette dangling from his lips. Lewis. He looked slighter in the shadowy cubicle, washing his face. He had the kind of insolent mouth fathers and ticket takers hate. A full mouth that spread like a hostile ripple across his bony face.
He wasn’t making a sound, although he was obviously enjoying his masculine ritual. He was lost in it, daydreaming, the way I’d seen Sal do as she sat for a perm, or he’d have noticed me by the door. First he pulled out a brush from a brown shaving pot and began to smear white foam over his cheeks and neck. Then he took out an old-fashioned long-handled razor and began to shave slowly. He used one hand to pull the skin up by his left eye as the other scraped the razor down his left cheek. He did the same thing with his throat, only here he used his hand to pull the skin down while the razor slowly shaved up his neck. Then he pulled his upper lip down over his front teeth so he could shave under his nostrils, careful not to cut his lip. He moved now to his right cheek, pursing his lips the way I’d seen Morley do when he didn’t know I was watching.
Now he stopped and wiped his hand on a towel, sucking on his cigarette so deeply that it pointed to the floor. After this virtuoso act, he took what was left of his fag and placed it on a window ledge, where it began to burn a black mark into the wood. I must have made a startled sound, because he looked up and saw me.
Before I could stop myself, I let out a little screech. Lewis quickly threw his butt out the window and sprayed the room with hair spray from a nearby shelf. Pushing past me, he hissed: “Say a word about this to anyone and you’ll be sorry.”
I listened for his footsteps, but the tower seemed to have swallowed Lewis up. The scent of hair spray lingered around me.
My screech attracted two matrons. I didn’t mention Lewis by name, but I said I’d seen a boy in the washroom. They set off in a panic, flinging open bedroom doors up and down the hall. Their peevish voices questioned the other new girls, who must have been unpacking. And then they came back and questioned me all over again. I began to feel uneasy about protecting Lewis, and the second matron misunderstood my evasive tone. With a snakelike flick of her tongue, she loosened her front teeth from her gums and then snapped them, clacking, back into place. I realized she was too angry to speak. Then she said: “We don’t appreciate practical jokes at Bath Ladies College. Any more complaints like this and I’ll give you a gating.”
6
That evening I was sitting on my bed with my hands over my ears when my roommates walked in. A bell as loud as a fire alarm was reverberating through the tower. Now it died away, and the school seemed weirdly quiet except for the sound of running tap water coming from the bathroom. Up and down the corridor, girls were getting ready for bed.
I didn’t know what to say to these two grade-eleven girls. I’d skipped two grades, so they looked years older and bigger than me. One was very tall, with dark, heavy-lidded eyes and a
skinny, sneering mouth. She moved with the confidence of an acrobat and wore her oily black hair combed across her forehead, while a long braid hung like a tassel between her shoulder blades. She reminded me of somebody.
The beauty of the other old girl made me stop breathing. Her milk-blond hair and high, plump cheeks made me want to hum Morley’s favourite song about the girl that he marries having to be as soft and as pink as a nursery. I guessed she belonged to the gold-script poster and the alpine flowers—Victoria Quinn in the flesh. And her friend had to be Pauline Sykes, whose brother, Lewis, I’d caught shaving in the washroom.
“Are you goin’ to get your bath ticket?” Pauline Sykes asked, breaking our silence. I noticed she dropped her g’s the way people did in Dollartown, a village outside Madoc’s Landing. When I don’t eat my vegetables, Sal always asks if I’d like to move to Dollartown, where all people have to eat are Dollartown steaks—i.e., slabs of fried baloney.
I didn’t answer. I felt a little frightened of Pauline Sykes without knowing why.
“Do I have to tell you again? Get your bath ticket.”
“I don’t want a bath,” I whispered finally.
“C’mon, Paulie. Drop it,” Victoria Quinn said.
“Spoilsport.” Pauline Sykes withdrew to her side of the room and sat down on a chair facing the wall. Then, slowly and loudly, she began to bang her head against the wall. Each thump made the wall quiver with a little ringing noise, and the mirrors above our dressers shook. Almost immediately our door opened, and the frightened-looking matron seemed to fall into the room. She’d taken out her rollers, and two springy kiss curls sprang out of her forehead like the coiled horns of a ram.
“Who is making that racket!” She looked angrily around the room. “Is it the Sykes girl?”
“I hate this hole,” Pauline said. Her back was still turned to us, but she’d stopped her awful head banging.
“Are you listening to me, Pauline?” she said. “You realize that this term Miss Vaughan expects you to play your part in the boarding school. And that means thinking of others besides yourself. I expect you haven’t given a thought to looking after the new girl, have you?”
Pauline made a rude sound that the boys in the Landing call a raspberry. I wasn’t sure if I should take it personally, and I sat on my bed, my head in my hands. The matron sighed and walked quickly past me to my dresser. I smelled a funny odour, like lamp oil. “Who’s this?” she sniffed, and snatched up my magazine photograph of John Kennedy with his daughter, Caroline, aboard his yawl, the Manitou. His nice wavy hair was lying flat and thick against his scalp, even though a strong wind was blowing the boat’s flag straight out like a banner.
“The American president,” I said in a small voice.
“He’s a Catholic, isn’t he?” the matron said. “He’s very young to be president.” She pulled down the photo of my real mother and my favourite picture of Morley, a colour snap taken last August. It showed Morley and Sal and me picnicking at the Indian reserve near Lennox Point. Morley was sprawled in a deck chair on Thebus. (Next to Blinky, Morley’s cruiser was his second-favourite top-down toy.) The colour photograph had turned Morley’s two shiny gull wings of grey hair the same shade as the golden fur on Lady. Lady had her nose over the gunnel, wagging her tail. I was sitting far away from Morley, stuffed into an orange life preserver. Sal, in dark green sunglasses, was sitting in a deck chair beside Morley.
“Oh, Miss Phillips. Why don’t you let us leave our snaps up?” Victoria said as the matron took down my photographs. “What harm does it do?”
“There are to be no personal effects on your mirrors,” Miss Phillips said. “There’s a bulletin board over your bed for that purpose.”
“But then our photographs get holes in them from the thumbtacks,” Victoria continued. “It’s better if we can slide them inside the mirror frame.”
The matron used two fingers to pick up Victoria’s matted hairbrush and dropped it inside my roommate’s top drawer. “Victoria, you know how your father and Miss Vaughan feel about you smoking on school property.”
“Oh, don’t tell my father about the cigarettes,” Victoria said. “Please, Miss Phillips. I just had one puff of the first cigarette. I was buying them for someone.”
“I’m afraid you’ve left me no choice.” The matron snatched up the pack and put it in her pocket. “You can take up the matter with Miss Vaughan.”
“Miss Vaughan doesn’t give a shit, and you know it,” Pauline said, jumping to her feet. “And anyways, those are my fags. Not that it’s any of your business.”
“Is that true, Victoria?” The matron ignored Pauline.
“What are you asking her for?” Pauline said. “I told you the fags are mine.”
“Very well. Pauline’s foul mouth has brought her an orderly mark.” Miss Phillips sidled out of the room, her back to the door so she could watch my tall roommate. “And there will be lights out early for this room.” The overhead light flicked off as she slammed our door.
I couldn’t see in the sudden darkness, but my two roommates appeared to be lying on their beds staring at each other and whispering. I thought I heard Pauline tell Victoria she’d always be there for her and not to let the matron get her goat. Then the two of them stood up and began to rummage in their dressers for their pyjamas, as if I weren’t there. Victoria noticed me still sitting in my tunic and smiled. “You’d better hurry,” she said, “or old Phooey Phillips will catch you.” She giggled. “Doesn’t she smell fusty? It’s because she uses naphtha to take the stains out of her clothes.”
Another bell rang, and the door opened. A sudden circle of bright light blinded me. “I hope everyone is settling down nicely in there,” a singsongy English voice said. The flashlight beam waved wildly across the room until it lit up Pauline’s bed, where she lay with the covers over her head. “I don’t want to hear that you are up to your old tricks, Paulie. I should think someone in your position would want to be more careful.” A grinning, disembodied head hovered above us, lit from below by the beam of the flashlight. Its plump, powdered cheeks made me think of the giant puffball mushrooms that grew in the farm meadows outside the Landing. “And why is the new girl not undressed?”
“She’s having trouble with the lights off,” Victoria said, and I felt a sweet blush spread up my spine to the top of my torqued shoulder. Oh, Alice, I thought, she likes us.
“I see. Well, perhaps she’ll do better when I close the door,” the new matron said.
“May I please be excused?” Pauline said. “I have to answer a call of nature.”
“So do I,” I said miserably.
“Both of you should have thought of that before. We at Bath Ladies College need to think ahead. No toilet privileges now.” She shut the door.
My eyes began to water. Mouse, don’t be a baby, I told myself in Sal’s meanest shaming voice. Button up, now. If Morley knew what they were putting you through, you wouldn’t be here for a second. I turned away so that Victoria couldn’t see me and lay with my eyes tightly shut.
“Don’t worry,” Victoria whispered from her bed after what seemed like ages. “That’s only Mrs. Peddie, the English teacher. She’s harmless. She lives up in the tower and Phooey lives down in the Blue Wing. Mrs. Peddie is supposed to look after us but she’s so busy she asks Phooey to do it.”
“Victoria, I think I have to go to the washroom now,” I replied.
“Call me Tory,” the other girl said. “And listen. You can pee in a glass, then. Paulie and I have done it before.” She pointed to the glasses on our dressers and giggled. “I’d recommend two for floating bladders.”
Silently I took a glass from my dresser. I pulled down my knickers and squatted over the glass. I missed by a mile and warm pee spilled over my hand and gushed down onto the side of my bed. Pauline made a groaning noise in her sleep.
“It needs a bit of practice.” Giggling, Tory helped me strip my bed and spread out the sheets on the red-tiled window ledge.
&nbs
p; “You’ll get used to this place,” she said, and opened the two narrow windows. They swung outward on hinges, away from the metal bars that kept you from sticking your head outside. “That’s the ravine,” she said. “There used to be a hole in the fence, but they patched it up. We aren’t supposed to go there because sometimes a man stands in the woods at lunch hour and opens his coat at the day girls.” She lowered her voice. “Paulie’s brother told me.”
“Lewis?” I whispered.
“Yes. The Virgin lets him do odd jobs on weekends because he’s too old to be in high school. And he’s not much on books. But wherever Paulie goes, Lewis goes. Paulie and Lewis don’t have parents.”
“Oh,” I said, impressed.
“Paulie was at an Anglican home for problem girls when the Virgin found her. She persuaded the board to let Paulie come here on a scholarship. Before Ridgeley House, Paulie had been living on the street. Can you imagine? And her brother, too.”
“Is he nice?” I asked, thinking of how he looked when he was shaving.
“Lewis and I are in love,” Tory whispered huskily. “You know what that’s like.”
I nodded as if I did, and we stood for a moment, shyly letting our shoulders touch. In the ravine below, I noticed the dark feathery tops of two old jack pines. I listened for the wind in their boughs, but all I could hear was the noise of car horns and motors rising up from the highway in muffled waves. Oh, Morley, I thought, how could you let Sal lock me in a place where you can’t even hear the wind! It had started to rain again, and a moment later Tory closed our window, to keep my sheets from getting soaked. She gave me her extra blanket, and I crawled under it, shivering. “You still haven’t got undressed, Mary,” she said softly. I heard her clear her throat. “I understand. You’re shy. Well, good night, then,” she said, and turned to the wall.
