Fay

by Dulcie M. Stone

  Before following the boys to the quadrangle, Mark counselled his wife. ‘You

  mustn’t worry about Fay. She’ll be back when she’s ready.’

  ***

  ‘Is Jenny going to come every Friday?’

  ‘Yes, Fay.’

  ‘Ruth’s better.’

  ‘Ruth made a special effort. She has other duties.’

  ‘I like Ruth.’

  ‘Fay, when are you going to stay for Jenny’s lessons?’

  ‘Fay!’ He must make a stand. ‘Stay in the room.’

  ***

  ‘Where’s Fay?’

  ‘She went to the toilet.’

  ‘She’ll be back soon.’

  But she wasn’t.

  ***

  It was alarming. He was going to have to do something. The problem was he wasn’t exactly sure what to do. Not true, he knew what to do. He just wasn’t sure whether to do it was the right thing - correction - the wise thing.

  The teenager was leaving him no choice. In the few weeks since Jenny’s return, Fay’s general appearance had seriously deteriorated. Already she’d gained at least a couple of kilos. Her fine hair was again dull and pinched into the uncompromising ponytail that fell like a hank of dry rope down her hunched back. Worst of all, the acne had flared into a disfiguring mask that invited the ridicule of her decreasingly tolerant classmates. He couldn’t blame them. Fay was causing undercurrents they not only resented, but knew were unnecessary. They’d seen what was possible, and wished this latest drama would be over.

  Even more alarmingly, although all this was cause for grave concern, her previous rapid progress had stalled. Wavering erratically between downright disinterest and stubborn rebellion, while at all times refusing willing co-operation, she was almost back to where they’d begun. He was really worried. Both academically and socially, she was poised on a downhill slide from which there might be not be a second ‘rescue’.

  There was no choice. Whatever the consequences, he had to act. Two months had passed when, preparing for Jenny’s Friday class, he ordered: ‘Fay - today when Jenny comes, you will stay in the room.’

  ‘No.’

  His heart sank. Back to beginnings indeed. She hadn’t even bothered to utter more than the firm negative.

  ‘She’s jealous of Jenny.’

  ‘Trixie! We will not start that again. Fay will do as she’s told. She will not just stay in the room. She will listen to Jenny and she will take part in the lessons. Understood, Fay?’

  When Jenny arrived, Fay sat in the room. She did not participate in any activity Jenny introduced but sat, wooden-faced and immobile, for the entire hour.

  Whether she listened was something no one would ever know. Except, having come to know something of her, he suspected that she did indeed listen - intently. He also suspected that she was storing up the information to feed whatever it was her troubled brain was digesting. Hatred? Of herself? Of Jenny? Of him?

  If not hatred or self loathing - then what?

  ***

  ‘Mark! Mr Withers! Hurry!’ Mrs Ryan’s anxious voice carried down the carpeted passageway.

  Dropping the pre-school cup of coffee he was enjoying with the staff, he ran to answer. At the front door Mrs Ryan, surrounded by milling students, was urgently beckoning. Beyond, in the front driveway, the bus was at a standstill.

  ‘It’s Fay! She’s unconscious!’

  ‘Get them out of the way.’ Forcing a pathway through the panicked students to the bus, he leapt up the steep steps.

  The driver and Peter were leaning over Fay, who was lying on the long full-length back seat. The narrow bus passage presented a major problem. Making a path between Peter and the driver was frustratingly awkward and dangerously time-consuming.

  ‘We lifted her off the floor.’

  ‘She just toppled over.’

  ‘Is it a fit?’ Mrs Ryan caught up with him. ‘Peter! Move aside! Let us look at

  her.’

  Mark lifted Fay’s hand which fell, deadweight, when he released it. ‘It could have been a fit. She’s clammy and cold.’

  ‘There’s no history…. ’

  ‘Trixie sleeps after fits.’

  ‘Peter, you may leave.’

  ‘If you don’t mind, Mrs Ryan,’ Mark suggested. ‘We’ll need Peter to help us get her out.’

  ‘What about if we take her direct to the doctor?’ The bus driver was unnerved.

  ‘It’s a fair drive.’ Mark turned to the principal. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘She’s coming out of it. Fay!’

  Her pale lids quivered, her shallow breath deepened and the colour began to return to her pasty cheeks.

  Mrs Ryan felt for a pulse. ‘It’s thready….’

  Fay struggled to sit up.

  ‘Stay quiet, Fay.’ Mrs Ryan made up her mind. ‘Take her to the sick room. I’ll phone the doctor.’

  Fay was heavy. Awkwardly negotiating the narrow aisle of the bus, the steep steps, and the gawking faces of students and staff, they stumbled into the small sick bay.

  Mark was removing Fay’s shoes and Peter was unfolding the blankets to cover her, when Mrs Ryan re-joined them. ‘The doctor’s out on call. He’ll come as soon as he can. How do you feel, Fay?’

  ‘I want to go home.’

  ‘We’re trying to contact your mother.’

  ‘The neighbour…?’ Mark suggested.

  ‘Is not answering the phone.’

  ‘You’re looking a lot better, Fay,’ Mrs Ryan decided. ‘You two get about your business. I’ll keep an eye on her.’

  ‘You’ll keep us posted when the doctor comes?’

  ‘Of course.’

  At the morning tea break, Mark started back to the administration block. Passing through the quadrangle filled with young children at play, he inevitably found himself contemplating their future. What did the future hold for these youngsters? Would things ever be any better for them? In ten years? Twenty? Would they, too, be basket weaving and cutting out greeting cards for scrapbooks nobody ever looked at? Or doing menial labour for a token pay packet? His meditations were interrupted when a small child with the unmistakable features of Down Syndrome clutched at his hand.

  “Leave Mr Withers alone, Cassie,’ Judith Clancy sought to rescue him. ‘He’s busy.’

  In the time he’d known her, he’d found the ex-nurse to be open-minded and interested in the fact that he was fighting the battle to teach basic academic skills to his much older students. It seemed perfectly logical to her, as it did to him, that early educational intervention for her young students would be worthwhile. Some of these young kids, she declared, were eager to learn. Not yet stunted by the professional myopia that robbed them of opportunities for intellectual growth, they were a joy to teach. Except, she wasn’t allowed to teach the three Rs, even had she been qualified to.

  Even for the very young children, the bureaucratic directive ‘thou shalt not be educated’ was ruthlessly enforced by the rules of financial subsidy. Encouraged by Mark’s work, Judith was already banging her idealistic head against a brick wall. If it were only a matter of finance. It wasn’t. It went deeper. Mrs Ryan not only stuck to the rules, she believed in them. She believed, not just that these kids shouldn’t be educated, she believed they couldn’t be educated. How could Judith Clancy stand watching the frustration of all this exciting potential? How long before her frustration erupted in rebellion? Or resignation?

  ‘He can say hello.’ Four-year-old Cassie stood her ground.

  Of course he had time to talk. Cassie was not so different from Robin. Her speech was as clear, her eyes as alert, her co-ordination as advanced and her brain as agile. The only perceptible difference between Cassie and Robin was in the facial features that labelled her. So how long before the ‘bigoted repression of opportunity’, in all its manifestations, would see those quick eyes dim and that mischievous smile turn sour and that fertile mind stagnate?

  For a few precious moments, before she flew off t
o join her classmates, he talked with Cassie about the game they were playing.

  ‘She likes you,’ Judith laughed.

  ‘Sometimes I envy you.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Getting them so young. The opportunity you have.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’ The ex-nurse followed Cassie.

  ‘See ya!’ Cassie called from the sand pit.

  Though the exchange was not unusual it left behind, as it always did, the acid of disillusion. If only…

  When he arrived at the office block, Mrs Ryan was leaving the sick room. ‘She’s much better.’

  ‘Has the doctor been?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  He went in. Fay was sitting up, drinking tea and eating biscuits.

  ‘Hullo!’ He was surprised by the intensity of his relief. ‘Thank goodness you’re okay. You really scared us.’

  She leaned against the pillows piled at her back.

  ‘How do you feel now?’ He took the empty cup from her.

  ‘Better.’ Her voice was strong.

  ‘Don’t you go doing that too often!’

  ‘Mrs Ryan said the doctor’s still coming. He doesn’t have to. I’m better.’

  ‘Just as well to see him, Fay.’ He felt her forehead. It was cool and dry and the natural colour had returned to her face. ‘Whatever it was, it seems to have passed. In any case - you just lay back and rest until he gets here.’

  He went into the office. ‘The way she’s wolfing down those biscuits, I wonder if she had any breakfast?’

  ‘She didn’t. I finally got the mother. I suggested she look into it. Just in case there’s something else going on.’

  ‘What about the doctor?’

  ‘Cancelled. There’s no point. It’s up to the family.’

  ‘It was quite frightening. She was well and truly out to it.’

  ‘The Lord only knows with that girl.’ Mrs Ryan shook her head. ‘Missing breakfast? There’s probably something else going on here. It’s possible she did it to get our attention.’

  ‘She wouldn’t pass out. Not from just missing a meal.’

  ‘Or it could be something else altogether. It’s not a responsibility I’m taking on. It’s up to the family.’

  ‘If it was to get attention, she picked a hell of a way to do it.’ Fay being Fay, this next episode in her renewed battle with him had probably been overdue. Was that what this was?

  ‘Teenage behaviour can be bewildering,’ Mrs Ryan agreed. ‘I’m sending a note home to her mother.’

  ‘You did talk to her?’

  ‘Of course. I also want it all on the record.’ Precautionary measures had become necessary. Maybe even urgent. If Fay was doing this for attention, the Centre would surely need insurance against any future dramas she was planning.

  ‘Better post it or give it to the driver,’ he advised. ‘Even if you keep a duplicate for the file, Fay never delivers messages.’

  By lunch Fay had fully recovered. After eating the sandwiches packed in her lunch-box, she joined the group for their afternoon activities.

  For the next two weeks, Centre life continued without further dramatic incidents. Fay took part in all lessons, except Jenny’s. As before, she spent these in sullen and distant silence, resentment steaming from every inch of her tense body. There were no more fainting spells. There was also no response from the mother to Mrs Ryan’s letter.

  At the start of the third week Fay had her next ‘turn’, which followed exactly the same pattern as the first. More drama, more panic, more questions, more planning to call the doctor - later reversed in favour of a good feed administered under the dictatorial eye of Mrs Ryan. This time the anxious bus driver, who had delivered the first unanswered note to the Clark letterbox, volunteered to report in person to Fay’s mother. He later telephoned with the welcome news that Mrs Clark was coming in.

  At lunchtime, Mrs Ryan’s usually solitary lunch interval was interrupted by a tentative knock on her office door.

  ‘Come in.’ She set aside her meal.

  Mrs Clark stormed into the office. ‘What’s it all about this time?’

  ‘The same as last time.’

  ‘I can’t watch her every minute. If she doesn’t eat her breakfast, like you said last time.’

  ‘When I phoned, yes. I sent home a letter too. Now Mr Withers and I are both worried there might be something more wrong with her.’

  ‘The driver told me. I didn’t get no letter.’

  ‘Be that as it may, Mrs Clark - we do have a problem here.’

  ‘It’s awful hard. She hears that bus coming, she’s out the door and off.’

  ‘Mrs Clark, this is very serious.’

  ‘You think I don’t know! You tell me what to do. I tell you, she’s not easy no more. Not since…’ Surprisingly, she did not continue.

  Satisfied Mrs Clark was not going to complete her protest, whatever it was, Mrs Ryan went on. ‘I know it’s difficult. Surely you can supervise the child’s eating habits?’

  ‘She ain’t a child no more. That’s the problem.’

  ‘She’s…..’

  ‘She’s going on sixteen. When I was that age I was working. Out on me own. She ought to know better.’

  ‘It seems she doesn’t know better at all.’ Mrs Ryan was blunt. ‘But it may be more than just that. The problem really is, we can’t be sure if the fainting is just due to coming to school on an empty stomach. You really should consider consulting your doctor.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘As I say - it could be something else.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Come, Mrs Clark. You know better. There are a number of possible causes.’

  Flushing, Fay’s mother leaned forward to place work-hardened hands on the principal’s desk. ‘Sure! I do know better!’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Clark. I don’t mean to offend you.’

  ‘Apology accepted.’ Mrs Clark nodded, pulled back from the desk, and folded tightly clasped hands on her lap.

  ‘As I was saying,’ Mrs Ryan firmly reiterated. ‘We are all very concerned about Fay.’

  ‘Guess I’m sorry too.’ Surrendering, Mrs Clark admitted: ‘You’re right, you know. It’s the worry. Makes me hard to get on with. You know? It’s Fay’s not eating. She’s gone mad on trying to get thin again.’

  ‘I see.’ Having successfully exerted authority, the principal softened. ‘We really do want to do the best for Fay. And for you. You’re under considerable stress yourself. So perhaps it’s even more important that you consult a doctor.’

  ‘That’s just it.’ Again Fay’s mother confided a difficult confidence. ‘The truth is I couldn’t agree more. Not that I think it’s some big deal. It’s just the not eating. That’s getting out of hand. The trouble is - she won’t go. Not to no doctor. No more than to that lady you had here.’

  Mrs Ryan sympathised. ‘She can be very stubborn.’

  ‘Don’t you know it!’

  ‘What about her father? What does he think?’

  ‘He leaves the kids to me.’

  ‘Perhaps he has some influence with Fay?’

  ‘Look, Mrs Ryan, you have to understand. We’re doing our best.’

  ‘I understand that. I’m most reluctant to further upset you. Please believe me. We really do want to help.’

  ‘Sure. You said that. I believe you. Except … the real truth is I should never have let her come here. She’s got these fancy ideas.’

  Fancy ideas? Just what did Mrs Clark perceive as fancy ideas? Quickly rejecting the risk of again being derailed from the most important issue, Mrs Ryan stressed: ‘You really must make an appointment with your doctor. Or - we do have the school doctor, if you’d rather.’

  ‘She won’t go. I told you.’

  Peeking wistfully at her discarded lunch, the principal ended the temporary armistice. ‘You did tell me, Mrs Clark. Now I’m telling you. I must insist. One way or another, Fay gets medical attention. We cannot possibly have her here
until we know what’s going on.’

  Mrs Clark was impassive.

  ‘Unless, of course, you really want her to leave here?’

  Fay’s mother had to recognise the tactic. She had to know the principal was calling her bluff. Because both women knew that right now, as things were, Fay needed to be here - and her mother needed her to be here.

  ‘I’ll talk to our doctor.’ Again Fay’s mother surrendered to the implacable principal. ‘Maybe he’ll come to the house. Is she okay to stay here today?’

  ‘She’s eating her lunch. Would you like to see her?’

  Mrs Clark was unsure. ‘Honestly. I don’t know what’s best. What do you think?’

  ‘It’s up to you.’

  Uncharacteristically, it took a minute before the decision was made. ‘Seeing me might rock the boat. If she’s okay, I’ll get on back home.’

  Belatedly aware that the sudden invasion of the initially belligerent visitor had robbed her of her customary good manners, Mrs Ryan offered. ‘Perhaps you’d like to join her for lunch? Or a cup of tea?’

  ‘Thanks. No - I really do have to get back.’

  ‘How did you get here?’

  ‘Caught the bus to town. Walked out here.’ Mrs Clark’s eyes were on the clock. ‘The next one’s due at two. If I’m quick I can get into town to buy a few things before it goes.’

  ‘Can I drive you?’

  ‘No. Thanks. The walk’ll do me good.’

  ‘Please let me know what the doctor has to say.’

  ‘Sure.’ Easing to the door, Mrs Clark unsmilingly conceded. ‘I have to thank you for your trouble.’

  After she had watched the plump figure dressed in serviceable cotton trudge on her flat feet out the front door and past her window, Mrs Ryan went in search of Mark Withers. ‘I’m not too happy about continuing to accept this responsibility. Fay still refuses to see the doctor. It appears the parents have absolutely no control at all.’

  ‘You’re not going to expel her!’

  ‘Actually, I can arrange it. I rather think I should. It’s not fair on the children on the waiting list. Really, Mark, she must conform or go.’

  ‘Surely not!’

  ‘I know how strongly you feel about this. You also know there has to be a limit. So let’s just hope it won’t come to that.’

  ‘What can we do? What can I do?’