Still Falling Read online

  It’s pouring. The sky outside is so black that the stained glass in the library windows looks dull and grey. The war memorial is our usual school hang-out, but not today.

  Esther frowns as she looks through the economics notes she’s meant to be testing me on. ‘Quantitative easing?’ She giggles. ‘I always think that sounds like some kind of laxative.’ She grins her lovely wide slow smile, which makes her teeth rest on her lower lip. ‘I’m not surprised you find this hard to learn. It’s so boring.’

  I hesitate and chew the end of my pen. ‘I just need to work harder.’

  McGurk sashays past with an armful of sociology books, her tightly trousered bum pushing against Esther’s seat. ‘The library’s for working, not talking,’ she says. ‘You mustn’t disturb other users.’

  I look round pointedly: there are precisely no other users, apart from a rugby player who is dozing with his head resting on Where’s Wally?

  Esther takes advantage of McGurk being at the other end of the library to stretch across the desk and give me a quick kiss.

  McGurk’s voice drones from behind the sociology shelves. ‘That’s not what the library’s for, either.’

  ‘Pervert,’ I whisper. ‘She must have been peeking through the books.’

  Esther bites her lip and starts to giggle. ‘Right, fiscal policy,’ she whispers.

  When the bell goes we have to go in different directions, me to economics, Esther to art. I try not to imagine what it would be like to be going to art now. I haven’t drawn for weeks. Maybe I should just buy a sketchbook – the bus money is mounting up. My fingers itch to draw, to get involved in that synthesis of eyes and hand and brain, where everything else disappears. At the library door Esther reaches up and gives me another quick kiss, just as the office door beside the library opens and Wilson comes out. He’s frowning over a sheaf of papers, so I don’t know if he sees, but when he does look up, his eyes narrow. ‘You are late for class,’ he says. ‘Both of you.’

  And yes, part of me enjoys looking him in the eye and seeing the sudden fear written there when he said Both of you, and thinking, yes, you prejudiced bastard. I am with her. I’m going out with your daughter and there’s damn all you can do.

  And what wouldn’t he do, Lukey, if he knew what you really were?

  Maybe that’s one of the things that would disappear if I started to draw again.

  ‘Does he know?’ I ask. ‘About us?’

  Esther hesitates. ‘I haven’t told him.’

  ‘Are you ashamed of me?’

  ‘Don’t be daft! I just don’t see the point of giving him ammunition. If he knows, he’ll be far more strict – he might even try to stop me seeing you.’

  ‘You make it sound like Romeo and Juliet. And look what happened to them. Anyway, he can’t stop you. You’re nearly seventeen.’

  She sighs. ‘It’d just be easier. For now.’ She leans against the door of the girls’ lockers. ‘I have to go.’ She reaches up and kisses me. ‘I like things how they are,’ she says, with one hand on the door. She sounds suddenly very young. ‘I don’t want anything to change.’

  Esther

  ‘So. Esther.’ Jasmine and Cassie lean against the lockers beside mine. Cassie is playing with her phone but Jasmine’s eyes, wide and blue, framed with impossibly long lashes, are fixed on me. And I hate myself for warming up inside at her attention, but I do. I always have.

  ‘Oh. Hello.’

  ‘You and Luke?’

  ‘Um – yeah.’ I give a stupid little laugh, and try to pull my art folder out from where it’s got wedged behind my history textbook.

  ‘It’s so nice,’ she goes on. ‘Isn’t it, Cass? Cass? Weren’t we saying that it’s so nice? Luke and Esther?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Cassie doesn’t look up from her phone.

  ‘Anyway– we’re really happy for you.’ Jasmine’s eyes shine with sincerity. ‘And you must come out with us some time.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘You mustn’t keep him all to yourself!’ She giggles. ‘But seriously, Esther – it’s so lovely that you’ve found each other. I mean’ – she lowers her voice, though there’s nobody else round the lockers apart from two Chinese girls talking so animatedly in Chinese that they couldn’t possibly be tuning into anything else ‘– the way you can deal with – you know. It must be so reassuring for him.’

  I walk to art, seething with indignation. Patronising cow. I play the words over and over and by the time I’m at the art corridor the words she hasn’t said but clearly meant are rolling round my head too. He’s too attractive for you. Everybody knows that. He only likes you because he knows you won’t freak out if he has a seizure. Because you’re so sensible. Good old Esther.

  But Luke hasn’t had a seizure since the start of term. He told me yesterday that he was starting to relax and think they were under control. And I squeezed his arm and said that was brilliant.

  Which it is.

  Because any suggestion that a seizure-free Luke would have the confidence to look well beyond a girl like me – a sort of comfort-blanket girl – well, that’s just ridiculous. That’s just a spiteful, shallow, jealous girl trying to undermine my new-found confidence, and I am not going to listen.

  Dad puts his head round the kitchen door. ‘That’s me away,’ he says. It’s his men’s bible study night, and I wish he’d hurry up and go. He’s been in a weird mood all through dinner. In the intervals of telling us all about the controversial passage from one of Paul’s letters he is looking forward to discussing with the other men – Dad has very decided views on the passage, surprise surprise – he’s been giving Mum strange meaningful looks.

  He gives her one now. ‘Pamela, remember we agreed you’d …?’

  ‘Oh. Yes.’ Mum pauses in emptying the dishwasher.

  ‘What?’ I ask, but Dad’s gone. I hear the car start in the drive.

  ‘Your dad told me he saw you in school with a boy.’

  ‘It’s a co-ed school, Mum.’

  ‘So – is he your – well, boyfriend?’ She says the word like it burns her mouth.

  ‘I guess.’ Why am I sounding like someone in an American teen film? I take a deep breath. ‘I mean, yes.’

  ‘And – what’s he like?’

  I busy myself with the cutlery rack, pulling out knives and settling them in the drawer.

  ‘Essie?’

  ‘He’s lovely.’

  ‘And where does he …?’

  She means, Does he go to church?

  I sigh. ‘Mum. Not everybody goes to church. I don’t go to church.’

  ‘Well, you should. There are some lovely young people in the Youth Fellowship. There’s a new leader – Adam. He’s at bible college. You’d like him. And you never bother with Ruth these days.’

  I swallow down indignation, and sadness at the mention of Ruth, and wish Mum could understand that Luke being completely unlike any of her beloved Lovely Young People is one of the reasons I like him.

  ‘And Pastor Greg asks about you every Sunday. It’s getting hard to keep thinking up excuses.’

  ‘You don’t need to make excuses. And actually Luke and I talk about religion and everything. He’s very intelligent.’

  She puts the last of the plates into the cupboard and closes the dishwasher. When she straightens up again, I see how tightly her skirt strains across her bum. I wonder if Dad still fancies her – ew.

  I realise Mum is still speaking.

  ‘… the deceit. That’s what I don’t like, Essie. You’ve always been truthful.’

  ‘I didn’t lie!’

  ‘You’ve been seeing this boy behind our backs.’

  ‘Because I wasn’t sure how you’d –’

  ‘Your father said he’s not the sort of boy –’

  ‘Mum – ignore Dad! They just got off on the wrong foot.’

  I put the kettle on for tea. Anything for distraction. ‘I’m nearly seventeen. It’s normal to have a boyfriend.’

  She looks at me
and her face collapses into a frown. ‘You’ve got so – I don’t know. So grown-up and far away.’

  I put mugs on the counter. Grown-up and far away. I wish.

  ‘Does he respect you, Esther? You don’t know anything about boys. He could take advantage of you. You know what I mean.’

  ‘Mum, he treats me like a princess. Honestly. He’s not at all – well’ – this is mortifying, and true – ‘pushy. You know. In that way.’ I feel my face burning.

  ‘I should hope not! And I hope you respect yourself, Esther.’

  ‘Mum! Of course I do.’

  We’ve never been anywhere private. He’s never invited me to his house, even though Sandra and Bill are bound to be less Victorian about these things than my parents. Probably when we are somewhere – appropriate – Luke will relax – we both will – and things can get more physical. Aren’t boys supposed to be gagging for it all the time?

  Not if they’re with plain plump girls they’ve chosen because they’re reassuring.

  I lift the steaming kettle and pour boiling water into the teapot.

  Luke

  ‘So,’ Ms Andrews says on Monday morning. ‘Not the most impressive test you’ve ever done. Anyone who got less than forty per cent will come back and repeat it at lunchtime today.’

  There’s an indignant muttering, and people look round at each other. I look at my paper. Thirty-seven per cent. Shit.

  ‘How are we meant to get magically better by lunchtime?’ I ask.

  She raises one eyebrow at me. Andrews is not one of the teachers people argue with, and so far I have been invisible and silent in economics, but the look she’s giving me suggests that Wilson’s blabbed about my meltdown in RE.

  ‘That,’ she says, ‘is your problem.’

  The period before lunch I go to the library to look over the economics notes. They don’t make any more sense than on Friday. The bell clangs and I stuff my books and notes into my bag with a sense of impending doom.

  Coming out of the library, I meet Wilson going into his office next door. He must lie in wait.

  ‘Your top button’s undone,’ he says, nodding at my school shirt.

  This is my cue to give a wry smile, say Sorry sir and button it.

  But I don’t. I raise my eyebrows as if to say How fascinating! and push past him, walking fast. I half-listen for him following me but the corridor has erupted into a frenzy of pupils pushing their way to lunch.

  The economics room is at the other end of the school, and I’m less than halfway there before I know I’m not going. What’s the point? I’m going to fail again.

  I don’t go looking for Esther, but I suppose I hope she might be at the war memorial. She isn’t. I sit there looking at the names, semi-aware of the lunchtime school life going on all round, heard but not seen – the thuds and yells of a football match; younger kids shrieking; girls laughing. An old teacher I don’t know walks past and gives me a funny look, but the war memorial isn’t out of bounds so when she sees I’m not smoking or anything she just sniffs and says, ‘Make sure you don’t leave any litter,’ and goes on her way, her head bobbing up and down as if she’s having a conversation.

  Senile old bat. What does she think I’m going to leave litter with? I turn to the back of my economics file and take a pencil from my bag. I try to capture the hardness of the stone, the lines of the cross, the way the carved names look darker than the rest of the marble. I’d like to be able to write all the names accurately – it seems wrong, somehow, not to – but the scale is far too small.

  I forget all about economics. The voice that’s been bugging me is silenced by the sweep of the pencil. Everything fades except making my eyes and brain and hand and pencil work together to show the truth of the object. But it’s not as good as it should be. Partly not having the right materials; partly being out of practice.

  The school bell is an intruder from another world. I drag myself up off the cold stone seat, stuff the file and pencils into my bag and join the back-to-school flow of people.

  Esther isn’t in the handful of people chatting outside the history classroom. I lean against the wall and look at my phone: the classic way to pretend you don’t care that people aren’t talking to you.

  When I realise that someone is.

  Jasmine and Cassie stand in front of me, their illegally high heels making them almost my height. ‘Luke!’ they say like they haven’t seen me for months. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Still seeing Esther?’ Jasmine gives a strange half-smile as if she finds the idea faintly ridiculous.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Hmm.’ She touches her front tooth with a pink fingernail. ‘Oh, well.’ She shrugs and turns away.

  I bend lower over my phone. I can’t believe she’s so blatant and I can’t understand why she bothers me so much.

  Oh really? Like me to tell you?

  Shut up.

  When Esther arrives, out of breath and pink – ‘I was finishing something off in art. I didn’t hear the bell’ – I put my hand on her shoulder and kiss her. Her eyes widen in surprise, but she kisses me back warmly and then pulls away when Dr Walsh, moulting books and paper, bumbles round the corner, saying ‘Sorry, people. Recalcitrant photocopier – won’t bore you with the details.’

  ‘Oh, sir, do,’ Jasmine says, and even though Walsh is about a hundred and ninety she flashes him a smile that makes him cough and drop his keys.

  ‘How was the test?’ Esther whispers as we get our books out. I shake my head, writing my name neatly across the top of my homework. Now that lunchtime is over – and all I have is a futile picture nobody will ever see – it seems stupid that I’ve avoided the test.

  We have a film about Parnell. Walsh always has the volume up pretty high, so he doesn’t notice when someone knocks at the door.

  ‘Sir,’ Jasmine says. ‘The door.’

  Before Walsh can go and answer it, the door opens and Andrews stalks in.

  ‘Dr Walsh,’ she barks. ‘I do apologise, but may I see Luke Bressan outside please? It won’t take long.’ She makes this sound like a threat.

  Esther’s face is a question mark. Walsh looks put out but nods. Sighing, I follow Andrews out of the room.

  She starts before I’ve even closed the door behind me, so people are bound to hear.

  ‘So?’ she says. ‘You aren’t ill?’

  ‘I forgot.’

  ‘You forgot? Is this some sort of side-effect of your – condition? I mean’ – in a softer tone – ‘are there special circumstances?’

  I hesitate. But I’d rather have trouble than special circumstances.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘I just forgot.’

  ‘I gave up my lunchtime.’

  ‘It wasn’t only me,’ I mutter.

  ‘That is not the point! And the others had the courtesy to turn up. You will repeat the test in after-school detention on Wednesday. An ignominious punishment for an A level student, but …’

  It’s no more than I expect really. I go back into class.

  What’s up? Esther scribbles on the corner of her file block.

  Nothing. Just the test. Boring, I write underneath. Then, catching Walsh’s eye, I concentrate very hard on the film.

  _____________

  I push open the door of the detention room. The teacher bent over his marking doesn’t look up at first, and I see only bald head, navy suit – could be one of a dozen of them – and then he sits up and looks at me and it’s Wilson. Great. ‘Mr Bressan,’ he says in a pleased voice. He skims through a file on the desk and marks something off. ‘Humph.’ He hands me a copy of the economics test. ‘Sit on your own,’ he says.

  Since all the others in the room are kids, I’m hardly going to want to sit with them.

  The test isn’t any easier this time round, though I have tried to swot up for it. Every time I glance up Wilson’s eyes are on me. They’re exactly the same colour as Esther’s, which is all kinds of wrong. The room is uneasily silent, t
he quiet broken by sniffs and coughs and sighs, and like most classrooms too hot. The curtains are pulled tight. The class before us have probably been watching something on the screen and nobody has bothered to open them.

  At four o’clock Wilson says, ‘Right. Half hour’s up. Leave.’ As the juniors heave glad sighs and stuff books into bags he raises his voice and adds, ‘Not you, Bressan. Your test is an hour long, which means that I too am punished for an hour. Thus the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike.’

  ‘I’ve finished,’ I mutter. ‘You don’t have to stay.’

  Wilson doesn’t even look up and his voice is cool and bored. ‘You are not finished. You will stay here until four thirty. Whether you do or do not complete your test is a matter of the utmost indifference to me.’

  I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of putting my head on the desk or anything, so when he goes back to his marking I slide out my lovely new sketchbook. My tin of pencils. I can’t bear to draw the classroom and I never draw anything that I can’t actually see in front of me – my teacher at Belvedere told me I was a superb draughtsman but I had no imagination – so I start sketching him. I forget that I hate him, that he’s Esther’s dad, who hates me, and just focus on him as problems to be sorted out with my pencil – how to get the shine on his bald scalp, the way the light reflects off his glasses, the slump of his shoulders as he hunches over his marking. When I’ve done I look at it critically. He doesn’t look mean, which annoys me – just sort of hunched and fed up. I feel a ridiculous flicker of sympathy – for the picture, not the real man. I put the sketchbook away and read over the test. When – after what feels like three hours of the room getting hotter and hotter and honestly I can smell those junior kids even though they’ve gone – it’s finally half four and I hand the paper in. Wilson takes it as if it’s contaminated. He stands beside me. I can smell his aftershave and a faint sweatiness. Maybe he’s responsible for the whiff in the room. He glances down at the neatly written but admittedly brief answers.

  ‘Hardly worth your while or mine,’ he comments. ‘Still, I suppose …’

  The standards of Belvedere High are not the standards of Mansfield Grammar.