The Three Rs

by Ashe Barker

  It’s not even seven o’clock in the evening yet, and I am curled up in bed. I am surrounded by archaeology textbooks although I’m not in the mood for serious reading, and I do have Ludwig for company. But still—in bed by seven and trying to teach myself about the mysteries of ancient Egypt out of sheer boredom is just pathetic. I so need to get a life.

  The phone has somehow disappeared under the duvet. I know it’s there somewhere because the budgie’s still screaming its silly head off. It gets louder after a few rings. God, what overpaid nerdy whiz-kid thought that little gimmick up? A pushy phone—that’s all I need. I get enough nagging from my mother. ‘I just want what’s best for you, dear…’

  “Sod ringtones.” Now I know I’m losing it, because I’m actually talking to myself. I suppose the real danger sign is if I start answering. An uncomfortable thought. I shudder as I shove it brutally aside. I’m fine, absolutely fine. Now.

  On that thought, I finally get my hands on the screeching HTC spawn of Lucifer and drag it out to face the light, punch the passcode into the keypad and answer.

  “Hello, Eva Byrne…?” Always that expectant little pause, my name turned into a question as though I might not after all be me. Wishful thinking.

  “Eva…? Evangelica, is it…? Ange, is that you? It’s Natasha…” A little pause, no doubt to give me time to remember who Natasha might be. It doesn’t work—my mind’s a complete blank. And no one I know calls me Ange. Or Evangelica—unless it’s my mother in a very bad mood.

  “…from the agency.”

  Right, that Natasha. The snooty bitch with fuck-me heels and killer red talons glued onto her fingernails who looked at me like I was a lesser life form when I called in at the Little Maestros musical tuition agency a couple of weeks ago. I was looking for some alternative way of making a living, and if I could find something I actually liked doing, so much the better. I love music, and I quite like teaching, so I dropped off my CV and qualifications with a few agencies, just in case they might have some temp work going somewhere. Natasha looked a fraction more respectful when she spotted my first class honors degree in music from King’s College, London, but rather spoiled the effect by asking me for proof of identity. Obviously she thought I’d stolen the degree certificate.

  On reflection, I think her suspicions were aroused by my skinny black jeans, No Fear gray hoodie and psychedelic Converse trainers, topped off by a mop of wavy—or should that just be plain frizzy—red hair falling to the middle of my back. I’m not your archetypal music teacher.

  My unruly hair is a constant nuisance, the bane of my life. It bounces, frizzes and waves everywhere, and short of shaving it off I have never found a way of controlling it. When I was a child my mother tried everything to get it into some semblance of order, and brushing it every morning became a war of attrition. The hair was winning, hands down, until eventually my mother had one of her Hiroshima moments where she takes decisive, drastic and usually disproportionate action. She marched me along to The Cutting Shop down on Stamford Hill High Street and had the lot chopped off. It curled more than ever in defiance after the vicious assault, but at least it would fit under a hat.

  At five-four in heels and looking about sixteen—I am twenty-two, but like to tell myself I have worn well—I guess I didn’t fit the image of a serious violin teacher as I perched in a trendy little black leather bucket chair in front of Natasha’s pristine white desk, while she sneered down her aristocratic nose at me and suggested I was an impostor.

  I wasn’t especially desperate to impress Natasha the super-bitch—other agencies are available—so she was treated to my scruffy, sullen teenager look. Maybe my unpromising first impression was why it took her so long to get back to me. Oh, well—I need the work so I’d better make an effort now. If humble and well-mannered is called for, that’s what I’ll do.

  “Ah—hello, Natasha, how are you?” Always polite, that’s me, whatever the provocation. It’s my mother’s influence.

  “There’s a job come up you might be interested in.” She pauses to let this sink in, make sure I’m listening. “Music tutor to an eight-year-old girl. She’s learning the violin.”

  I am listening, and suddenly I’m very interested. I need to get a life, we’ve already established that, and here’s one that might just do. I really want a job as a musician if possible, at least for now. I’m not bothered about earning much, and I know that private tuition is hardly going to keep me in shampoo and tampons, especially with the agency creaming off most of the fee. But with my somewhat unique talents I can earn enough in a single evening to cover pretty much anything I might need. This job sounds just right, just what I’m looking for. I can play a mean violin—shouldn’t be too difficult to teach a little girl the basics. I put Ludwig on pause for a few minutes and resolve to be very polite indeed to Natasha.

  Natasha rushes on with her explanations, obviously in a hurry and clearly desperate, which is probably why she’s ringing me. “Valerie was doing it.”

  Valerie—do I know a Valerie?

  “She’s been teaching her for the last three months, but she busted her leg skiing and she’s laid up somewhere in the French Alps.”

  French Alps—all right for some… But still, she’s got a broken leg and now I’ve got her job, so I guess life sort of levels itself out.

  Natasha is still gushing on. “Our contract with the client says we’ll provide a replacement, and you’re it. If you want to, of course… I need to know now, though, because we’ve already blobbed for two days and the client is not best pleased.”

  No need to ask me twice—I’m sold. “I’ll do it. When do they want me, and where is it?”

  “Ah, well, that’s the thing. You start tomorrow, at nine—the client is very definite about that. Doesn’t want little…whatever her name is…ah, yes, Rosie, little Rosie, missing any more of her lessons just because of a broken femur.”

  Sounds reasonable. “Okay, give me the address.”

  “Black Combe, Oakworth.”

  “Where?” Quick flick through my mental A–Z of London—nope, no Black Combe that I know of. Probably one of the new high-rises in the Docklands. Can’t place Oakworth either, come to think. But not to worry, that’s what satnavs are for.

  “Oakworth. It’s in Yorkshire. It’s near Haworth. Where the Brontës lived. They wrote books.”

  “Haworth!” I know where the bloody Brontës lived, and what they got up to. I’ve read all their novels God knows how many times, and I know Yorkshire is up in the north of England somewhere. How far up north?

  Not too far, actually. I dump the London A–Z and start rifling through my mental UK atlas. I have a photographic memory for maps, as well as pretty much everything else I see or read, so I can visualize it perfectly and I know exactly where Haworth is. And what it’s like—I have a mental image of a Wuthering Heights rolling moorland scene. Windswept, dramatic wilderness. These images rush through my head as all goes quiet on the other end. Natasha wisely gives me a moment to collect my scattered wits.

  “But I’m in London.” Stating the obvious is one of my many talents. I’m in North London, admittedly, but Yorkshire, Haworth, is still two hundred miles away. “How am I supposed to get there ready to start work tomorrow at nine? Which station do the trains to Haworth go from?”

  “King’s Cross, change at Leeds, then again probably, not really sure…” Always helpful and well-informed, our Natasha. “But the job’s not in Haworth. It’s in Oakworth and that’s another train ride on top, assuming there’s a station there. These places up north can be a bit cut off, you know. The train’s no good—you’ll have to drive up. You could be there in four hours. Five tops.”

  No station? What sort of place is this? And I happen to know she’s wrong. Haworth does have a station, and so does Oakworth. I must have read about this once, because I know that they are on the Worth Valley line and that quaint little steam trains run along there every weekend, full of Thomas the Tank Engine groupies and railway
enthusiasts, no doubt. Not much good to me now, though. I need a high-speed rail link or, better still, a helicopter, not the timeless magic of steam.

  I glance at my bedside clock. It’s just turned seven now, so even if I can set off within half an hour that means arriving in a strange mainline-stationless town after midnight, finding a hotel—if they have one—getting checked in and settled, and up in the morning in time to find this Black Combe place before nine in the morning. Bloody hell.

  Even while I’m panicking quietly to myself, though, I know I’m going.

  “No need for a hotel.” Is Natasha a mind reader now, or did I say all that out loud? “The job is live-in. You’d get all expenses and accommodation, and a tuition fee on top. Shall I tell them you’re on your way?”

  Pushing all unhelpful irrelevancies out of my head—for example, if I felt like being really picky, I could ask Natasha why anybody would need a live-in music tutor—I jump into action. Too right, I’m on my way. Natasha promises to make the call and I leap out of bed to chuck a few clothes in my holdall and grab my violin. I’m going to Yorkshire.

  * * * *

  Since my hasty exit from the dreaming spires of Oxford six weeks ago, I’m going out of my mind with boredom. I can’t stand it. The last few weeks of bunking up with my mother have been just barely bearable. She means well, I know she loves me, but she always worries about me and my future. She desperately wants me to be safe and settled, but can’t for the life of her understand what mental aberration made me dump a distinctly promising career in academia—at one of the most prestigious colleges in the world—and show up on her doorstep without warning, rhyme or reason.

  I tried to pass it all off as something fairly casual, told her that I’d seen enough pomposity and pretentiousness at St Hilda’s venerable College to last me as many lifetimes as I might be blessed with, and I am desperately longing for a slice of real life. I appreciated it didn’t sound convincing, even to me, though I happen to know it’s true. Well, some of it. As far as that story goes.

  But by the look on her face I had apparently lapsed into some obscure dialect of Swahili—one language I am not especially familiar with—for all the sense I was making. I don’t think I was able to articulate my present dilemma very well—unusual for me, I’m normally a precise and persuasive communicator, probably because I usually have the advantage of knowing what I’m talking about. But for once, I don’t. I have no idea where the sudden and overwhelming panic came from that drove me to pack in a perfectly nice and well-paid job, a job promising me academic prestige and offering glittering prospects, and present myself instead on her doorstep.

  It started weeks, maybe months ago. I was suffocating at Oxford. At first it was just a feeling of inadequacy. Me—inadequate! I couldn’t work out where it was all coming from. I’m bloody good at what I do. Used to do. My perfectly logical brain told me there was absolutely no reason to doubt myself. But the doubts still grew. They grew into fear, then into panic attacks. I started forgetting things—appointments, names, deadlines. I started arriving late at work with no idea why or how I got delayed. I was losing track of time. And some days I didn’t turn up at all, just stayed under my duvet and ignored my phone as it rang and rang. All the time I was becoming more frightened, more confused.

  My memory is exceptional. Truly, truly exceptional. My attention to detail is outstanding. I had no idea what was happening to me. My life, I suppose, was generally crap enough and tedious much of the time, but at least I had my work and I was proud of what I’d achieved in so short a time. Without that, I had nothing. Was nothing.

  My team leader and mentor, Professor Benson, spotted that I was slipping up, losing my grip. He commented on it. He was kind, concerned. He said that I looked ill and tired, told me to take some time off. I said I was fine, so he insisted. Ordered me home for a fortnight to rest, recharge. Big mistake. Big, big mistake,

  I spent my enforced holiday perched on the end of my lonely little single bed, in my tiny flat on the outskirts of Oxford, eating next to nothing apart from the occasional Pot Noodle, and sleeping for no more than an hour or so at a time. I was turning over and over in my head all the things that were wrong, all the things I didn’t believe I could do anymore, all the ways I was letting myself and everyone around me down. Even small, simple tasks became huge, insurmountable problems, and planning anything was completely beyond me. I even found myself sticking Post-it notes on the fridge one day to remind me to put the bin out on the following Tuesday, desperately afraid of the dire consequences that would surely follow if I missed that crucial deadline.

  And all that fortnight, the monstrous specter of my return to the college loomed closer. I counted down the days, then the hours, my panic mounting, my desperation gripping me so fiercely at times that I couldn’t breathe.

  I started to have asthma attacks—a problem I’d thought I left behind in childhood. I managed to scrounge some Ventolin from the girl in the flat below, saying I’d just run out, when in reality making a doctor’s appointment to get a prescription was beyond me. It was a pity, really. A doctor was probably exactly what I needed, though I would never have admitted that to myself. Not then.

  I sat in my flat and imagined myself in a cell awaiting execution, conscious of every passing moment, trying to hold onto each second as it slipped inexorably past me and out of my reach. I spent the night before I was due back at work crouched on the floor in my bathroom, shivering. By the time I could put off the evil moment no longer, I was numb with fear. I’d rather have stuck pins in my eyes than go to the college and face a day at work. Worried about being late again, I left my flat about two hours early, determined to walk to the college and clear my head on the way.

  I might as well have tried to remove my own spleen with a knife and fork and a couple of aspirins. It just wasn’t happening, and by the time I arrived at the college I was little short of sleep-walking, forcing one foot in front of the other by sheer willpower. My all-consuming panic couldn’t have been any more compelling if there really had been a pillow over my head, because that was how it felt to me. I was gripped by utter terror and absolute desperation to escape.

  That morning is something of a blur now, but I vaguely remember that I made my way on autopilot to the small office I shared with two postgraduates and sat down at my cluttered desk. It was all just as I’d left it, and all the more terrifying for that. Everything that had so scared me before my enforced leave was all still there, waiting for me. Only one of my colleagues was in residence, and Susie’s cheery ‘hello’ only served to prove to me how mentally mashed up I was. I couldn’t even remember what the right response was, so I just ignored her, sat down and pressed the button on the front of my PC to fire it up.

  “Are you okay? Eva?” The disembodied voice from somewhere nearby eventually penetrated my consciousness and I turned to look. Susie was there, standing just behind me. So was Professor Benson—Ben to us—and they both looked worried, perplexed. Ben stepped forward, reached out for me, and I thought he was going to put his hand on my shoulder. I leaped to my feet, my every confused instinct screaming at me to run for the door. But they were blocking my way. I was trapped. I caught sight of the clock on the wall—nine-forty—and realized I’d been sitting, staring at the blank screen, for over half an hour. I suppose Susie had noticed, become concerned—no flies on that girl—and had gone to fetch the professor. Their sympathetic concern was the final nail in the coffin of my flimsy composure, and I had no other thought in my head by then but to get out of there—just make a run for it and never come back.

  So that was exactly what I did. I picked up my bag, went to put my coat on and only then realized I’d never even taken it off. I asked them politely to excuse me, and I left the room. Slowly and calmly, I made my way along the corridor, heading for the outside, and only started to run as though my life depended on it when I hit the fresh air.

  Looking back, I know now that I had some sort of mini breakdown. Or maybe not so m
ini. Nothing else explains my overwhelming desperation, my phobic need to get out of there, to fight my way out if need be and to make my escape. Maybe I should have presented myself at the university health center. They might have cured me. But instead I went back to my poky little flat, sent an email from my phone resigning my fellowship in the Faculty of Linguistics, apologized to Ben for letting him down, then got in my car and headed for my mother’s apartment in North London.

  She was delighted to see me at first, thinking I’d come for a little flying surprise visit. Her joy was short-lived. She was as horrified as Ben had been when I told her I’d resigned and was staying. Indefinitely.

  Ben was on the phone constantly, talking to my mother because I flatly refused to take his calls. Through her, I learned that he understood—which was more than I could say for me. That he knew I needed more time off, and he thought maybe I should go and have a chat with my GP, but I was not to come back until I felt well enough. Through my mother, I asked him what part of ‘I resign’ was not perfectly clear to him, and refused to take part in any further discussion.

  Despite my mother’s pleading, I flatly refused to go anywhere near a doctor either. I knew something was wrong with me, badly wrong, but the last thing I needed—or so I thought, was to be labeled unstable. I knew what they’d have to say. The talk would be of mental health issues. Depression. The very words terrified me, left me feeling weak and inadequate, somehow tainted, and I was having none of that.

  So it was just me, my duvet and my mother’s home cooking, and for the next four weeks or so that was all my world consisted of. It was enough, and eventually I began to peep out. I began to think it might be safe to actually come out, just briefly. I could always scuttle back if things went wrong. What those ‘things’ might be, I wasn’t sure, but the very thought of them scared me rigid. And the first few times I did scuttle back, but eventually I got a bit braver, and began to think maybe I might like to do something after all. I wasn’t sure what, as long as it wasn’t too challenging. As long as I didn’t have problems to solve, new systems to create. I wasn’t sure where I wanted to be—as long as it wasn’t St Hilda’s College, the scene of my terrifying humiliation. I just knew that if I ever, ever had to return there I’d be dragged back down into that dark and terrifying place, and maybe I’d never manage to scramble out again.