The Boy Who Could Keep a Swan in His Head

by John Hunt

  “It’s big.”

  Someone else cackled. Since the heartless laughter was caused by her manipulation, this was allowed, almost encouraged.

  “I’ve already said that. What else?”

  “It’s got snow.”

  “It’s got snow? That’s all you know? For tomorrow a five-hundred-word essay on Al-as-ka. And don’t use wide spacing. I’ll count the words.” She smiled again and withdrew her midriff.

  The class let out a collective groan, half in sympathy and half in relief that it was not them. And that was the pattern of the day. Mrs Smit would maximise the absence of the Leb by keeping “her bunnies”, as she suddenly started calling them, in purgatory. She would talk softly and be gentle as she put the knife in. She would try and keep her face one level above a smirk as she exacted her revenge. Only Hettie Hattingh and Margaret Wallace were not targeted. Hettie was rewarded for her ongoing ingratiating support and Margaret was skipped because everyone knew her parents were important and rich. She was dropped off each day in a large Pontiac. Even Vernon MacArthur, normally protected by his endless AS, felt the flick of her tongue as it slithered out of her smiling mouth.

  “Vernon, what did you get for your arithmetic test?”

  “Ninety-three per cent, Mrs Smit.”

  “It’s funny how so many boys who do well at school just don’t go on and achieve later in life.”

  Phen sat terrified and dead still. Like some small animal in the jungle, he knew his absolute lack of movement was his only protection. Even when the teacher moved past him to attack children in the back of the class he didn’t turn around. He made it past second break yet could not shake off the feeling that he was being kept for last. Not substantial enough for the main course, he would make a perfect dessert. The final period of the day was Eng. Lit. Pot. He stared at the three words he’d had to amputate to fit into the last box of his timetable. The shadow that fell over his anthology book appeared patient, even serene. It just stood there. Phen therefore lifted his head slowly to find the cause.

  “Glad you could join us.”

  Mrs Smit’s domination of the class was now complete. They begged for her approval. They howled to be part of her tribe. They were the most ardent supporters of her pogrom even as they were the subject of it. In return, she now let them participate. She would create the wound; they could then join in the frenzy and splash themselves in blood.

  “Haven’t seen much of you lately.”

  Phen disappeared down the inkwell. He imagined himself the size of an ant crawling upside down along the underside of the desk, dark with splinters the size of trees, but safe. He’d find a place where the uneven, rough wood had created a crevice and crawl in there. He would wedge himself deeper and deeper into the crack until he disappeared entirely. No one would find him there. Ever.

  At the same time Mrs Smit was referring to a page number and suggesting he read from it. Because he was a little slow she opened his book for him and broke its spine. It lay disabled and spreadeagled on his desk. This mock politeness was cheered on by the class. Kobus Visser showed his delight by smacking his plastic ruler against his leg in superficial applause. Those at the back stood up for a better view.

  “Turn around. Face your audience.”

  Mrs Smit pulled him up, spun him around and placed him at Adan’s desk with his back to the blackboard. Like an unruly mob at the Colosseum, everyone leaned forward to watch the spectacle. Phen looked down at the page and saw the words dig themselves deeper into the paper. They weren’t going anywhere without a fight. He cleared his throat and placed his finger under the first word. If he could just get started. The nursery-schoolness of his pointing brought a loud guffaw from Kobus, who offered his ruler instead. He passed it to Carlos de Sousa who brazenly walked across the classroom and offered it to Phen. Phen shook his head. Carlos threw it nonchalantly onto his desk with a shrug. Philip Denton drew circles next to his head with his finger. What can you do with a spaz?

  “Frost, Robert,” said Mrs Smit.

  “Two,” said Phen, mightily relieved. He heard laughter but tried to keep it outside his head.

  “Yes?” she goaded.

  “… roads … diverged … in … a … yellow … wood.”

  The victory was genuine enough. A whole line was out. He didn’t know how long it had taken; still he knew it was done. For a moment his courage gathered. He briefly wondered if this could perhaps create a sprint of sorts. A crazy rattling off of words. This was not to be. Phen had concentrated so much on the first line, he hadn’t seen the awaiting ambush.

  “And?”

  “And s-s-s-s-s-s-sorry …” The class went wild. Phen was the funniest thing they’d ever seen. Cheeks puffed like a chipmunk and lips quivering with sound on repeat. Philip Denton gave his best impersonation and even Mrs Smit had to put her hand to her mouth. However, not before everyone had heard her laugh.

  “… I could … not … tr-tr-tr-travel … both / And … be … one … traveller, long … I … s-s-s-s-stood.”

  When Philip Denton said “You’re not joking”, the class became uncontrollable. In the midst of all the hysteria, Phen kept his chin on his chest. He continued to subdivide the sentence into individual words and those words into individual sounds. Sometimes he even broke the letters away from the words and wrestled with them individually before bringing them back together. He chopped up each word then moved his eyes right and hunted down the next one. By using this method, he finally arrived at the end of the first verse.

  “And … looked … down … one … as … far … as … I … could / To … where … it … bent … in … the … undergrowth.”

  He said “undergrowth” twice to emphasise a completion of sorts. No one cared. Mrs Smit had moved back to her table on its raised platform. It was time to restore a semblance of order. A number of his classmates now looked like blowfish. They stared at each other to see who had the biggest cheeks and the poutiest trembling lips. Even Hettie Hattingh looked unbalanced. Somehow one of her two pigtails had become undone. She laughed and cried at the same time as she tried to rethread it. The Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary, a newer version than his father’s, was one thousand, six hundred and forty-nine pages thick. Phen knew this because Mrs Smit had often given them this information during her weekly threat to make them copy each and every page. He watched her lift it and bring it down three times on her desk. Aardvark to zythum smashed in her quest for silence.

  “Thank you.”

  Phen moved to sit down.

  “It’s not a one-verse poem.”

  The class groaned. No longer sure if they were allowed to laugh, they felt comfortable in sharing their teacher’s pain. Mrs Smit exhaled wearily, appreciative of the class’s understanding.

  “Alright, just the last verse.”

  “I … s-s-s-shall … be … telling … this … with … a … s-s-s-s-sigh / S-s-s-somewhere … ages … and … ages … h-h-h-hence.”

  “Alright! Alright! Enough! Class, open your books. We will all read to the end of the last verse.”

  Two roads diverged in the wood, and I –

  I took the one less travelled by,

  And that has made all the difference.

  Phen sat down slowly. The consummate reader, the boy who had read more books than anyone else in the class, had needed their help to finish a poem. Their chorus of words had been sing-song and sarcastic. With a hot mist rising in his head, he moved towards the edge of the inkwell. Maybe it was Mrs Smit’s barbed comment earlier that made Vernon MacArthur need to show he wasn’t just academically bright, but street-smart too. As Phen dropped himself into the darkness, he heard Vernon address the class. He didn’t turn around but imagined him standing with a thumb behind each lapel of his blazer.

  “He doesn’t get his school clothes from McCullagh & Bothwell, or John Orr’s, or even Anstey’s. He buys everything from Stuttafords.”

  13

  Simpatico

  /sim’patikeu/ adject
ive

  The rest of the week came in dislocated pieces that refused to fit. Not that Phen tried too hard. He stopped battling to make sense of things and just watched. His life was zigzagging of its own accord anyway. Everyone spoke their half-truths and he just nodded. He began to listen with his eyes. He now understood that when Mr Trentbridge “Boyo-ed” him with a firm slap on the back, he was also asking him not to mention that he’d found his flying duck tiepin in Zelda’s flat. He’d uncovered it in the twisted strings of her shaggy white carpet next to the flattened bean bag. A wing had snapped off as the thick heel of his school shoe had squashed it flat.

  “Well,” said Zelda. “Stuck to a tie, I suppose, it wasn’t flying anywhere anyway.”

  Straight after that on the way down from number forty-three, Mrs Kaplan caught him in the lift. She said she’d heard and offered him and his family a prayer. The words bounced around in the wooden box and ended perfectly with their arrival on the ground floor. The fact that he couldn’t understand a word of her Yiddish seemed to make it all the more important and mystical. Like doctors, God had his own language. He pulled the metal grid back for her and she placed her hand on top of his head and squeezed. He wasn’t sure if she wanted to force something in or out. As he peered down her sleeve he knew what was written underneath her forearm. Mr Trentbridge’s eldest daughter, who was as precocious as Phen was shy, had asked her about it while she stood in the foyer waiting for her son. Mrs Kaplan had looked down at the tattooed markings and then into the eyes of the little girl. “That,” she said, “is the telephone number of Hell.”

  Everyone was talking about the new tenant who had moved into Ziggy’s old flat. It had been thought no one could be more exotic than the long-haired saxophone player, but Romolo Rossi, fresh from Florence, came close. He was immediately renamed Romeo in acknowledgement of his tight pants and sleek hair, jet black and shaped in the front like the bonnet of Margaret Wallace’s parents’ Pontiac. His T-shirt shamelessly revealed all, including the packet of cigarettes he kept tucked up his sleeve. The fact that he preened in public, often using the mirror in the crowded lift to admire himself, was considered outrageous by all.

  “Catholic,” said Mr Trentbridge.

  Another layer of gossip was added when the caretaker, a man who normally kept to cleaning, plumbing and the spaghetti electricity board, declared that he’d have to watch him. As he scratched his one lamb chop of a sideburn, he said he’d heard that the new tenant liked a little bit of dark chocolate. Previously Phen’s thoughts might have wandered to the potential evils of Cadbury but now he was beginning to understand the code. He saw the nudge of the elbow and the knowing smiles from all the men. They were in his tiny office, not just to collect their mail.

  “Have to be careful,” he said, handing out envelopes. “They sent a government inspector to check only last week. They call it the Immorality Act. I call it something else! Myself, I’m a milk-chocolate man.”

  Phen laughed along with the others.

  Although the Leb returned to school and held his ground, it wasn’t quite the same. The damage had been done. It would now be a more personal, one-on-one battle. The rest of the class were more muted in their support. His lisp hardly brought a reaction and even when he taped Mrs Smit’s lunchbox to her ruler, the snickering was restrained. She stared at it like a fisherman with a surprise catch, yet fear flashed through the class more than hilarity. They’d lost their nerve. Vernon MacArthur, now deeply insecure about his future, offered his Swiss army knife to cut it free.

  Phen continued to hide behind the Leb even though his cover was blown. His moves were less precise as he sensed he was of little or no importance to her. Mrs Smit had decimated him almost to the point of non-existence. His evaporation was confirmed by all the others. They didn’t talk to him at break or include him in any of the teams. He tried to place himself equidistant between groups so he couldn’t be accused of attempting to attach himself to anyone. He wasn’t even important enough to make fun of any more. The last act of acknowledging his presence was the strawberry jam someone had scraped off their sandwich and into his history book. Paul Kruger’s Republic 1883–1900 would forever stay sealed by this red, sweet-smelling stickiness. He suspected Philip Denton. He’d overheard him saying he wanted to fuck up Stuttafords but wasn’t sure he was worth the effort. “Like smacking candyfloss,” he concluded.

  “You are a somewhat withered oak today,” said Miss Delmont. This time there was no poncho. Instead she wore a flowing tunic with a round cut at the neck. It was the sort of thing the Indians wore at the East African Pavilion when they served your curry. “Do your roots perhaps need water?”

  He tried to smile. She stuck her arms out sideways and began to droop. The swirling mist, impossible to stop, moved into his head. Although he was far from his desk he went down the inkwell anyway. It was becoming a habit. Like with the black curtain behind the stage, he could just take a step to the side and disappear. A tear in his mind he could slip through. He would still be standing there but really be somewhere else.

  “Chin up!” She patted him firmly on his trunk before spinning around to Margaret Wallace. “Sweetness, you’re Titania, queen of the fairies, not a Barbie doll. Use those wings. Let’s see them flap!”

  Headmaster Kock made a brief entrance. He kept telling the children to sit, but only after they all stood up for him. Although his suit jacket was buttoned, his tie was a little long and tongued over his belt buckle. He walked in a slow circle around the entire hall, inspecting his troops. Occasionally he’d stop at a flower made of crinkle paper or a stuffed rabbit to give his approval – “Nice, very nice. Spot on!” – and then continue his tour. He was particularly impressed with the hollow head of a donkey made from cardboard and covered with the panels of brown carpet tiles. He poked his fingers through its sightless eyes. “Excellent, excellent.” By the time he’d completed his circle he was standing in front of Miss Delmont and a tree with green baize up to its waist.

  “I hope you asked the owner before you pulled that off his snooker table!”

  “For never anything can be amiss, when simpleness and duty tender it,” the director replied.

  The headmaster didn’t know what to do with the deep bow that followed and stepped back to ensure he didn’t stand on her hair. English was Mr Kock’s second language. He preferred Afrikaans, which, to his mind, got straight to the point. English was finicky. And when people did this Ye Olde English thing it intimidated and irritated in equal measure. He had hoped for a more South African play – maybe a re-enactment of the Battle of Blood River and the slaughter of the Zulus. Instead, he had fairies and donkey heads and half-dressed trees. He tucked his tie tip behind his belt and stared at Phen one more time.

  “Good luck. I hope the drought in your forest is soon broken.”

  Phen returned home to find Pal watching a corn cricket. It had lost two front legs on the right side and one on the left rear but otherwise seemed no worse for wear. Phen wasn’t sure if his dog or the cat from number two was the cause. Either way, the armoured insect now jumped sideways. Although it could see the open door to the balcony, it could not stop ramming itself against the wall next to it. Phen felt simpatico with this strange ballet as he scooped up the cricket with a comic book and flicked it into the garden.

  It wasn’t much better in his father’s bedroom. The patient no longer had the agility to sit upright and stretch for the Off button. Once the end of the reel was reached, it spun continuously until someone came into the room. Phen found that the brown tape had unravelled, first across the chair, then onto the floor and finally under the bed. It lay in vaguely concentric heaps as it tried to head for the wardrobe.

  “I need the WC. The comfort station. The can. The head. The lavatory. Privy. Latrine, cloakroom, restroom, loo, bog. The throne.”

  Going to the bathroom had become a matter of pride. Especially as his mother had had to go back to work and Mairead was forced to deputise. The slow shuffle took fo
rever with every loose parquet strip being cursed along the way. His father had become so annoyed he’d kicked two out and refused to let them be placed back. The daunting indent lay just before the smooth tiles of the toilet. Clutching his pyjama pants in one hand and his walking stick in the other, he’d poke at the offending canyon.

  “I fear not the Great Rift Valley.”

  As he leaped across he’d lift his foot a quarter of an inch higher and give an imperceptible hop. The only sign of additional movement was a slight ripple in his ruby-coloured dressing gown. The threadbare silk rolled up to his shoulders and splashed against his neck. The sound of flushing meant Phen had to open the door. His father could lift his pants up to his knees, but no further. It was a complicated task to help the folded body into an upright position while simultaneously lifting the bottom of his pants. The drawstring waistband often hooked on the toilet handle and occasionally the belt of his gown ended in the bowl.

  By the time his father made it back to bed he was exhausted, and the waxy yellow of his skin full of perspiration. He looked like a candle melting drop by drop. Immediately the damp flannel was placed on his forehead like a headband and the oxygen mask fixed over his face. The brass knob on top of the cylinder was turned to full, his sunken cheeks flattened and pushed downwards by the force of the air. The loud hiss made talking difficult but they tried anyway. His father gave a sarcastic thumbs up and tried to pull a tough-guy face.

  “Mission accomplished,” he said.

  Mairead spent much of her time circling without actually entering the bedroom. A Scottish vulture, according to his father, who enjoyed riding the thermals of his discomfort. She stayed within earshot, hoping not to hear anything. She tidied, shopped, cooked then reverted to the chair in the corner of the lounge to read, knit and listen to the radio. Every hour, on the hour, she opened the door and called through the crack to see if Dennis wanted anything. Dennis normally didn’t hear anyway; when he did he usually said uninterrupted sleep was at the top of his list.