Homesick Page 10

  “Rohan was a prefect when I was in the lower sixth,” he said, and she saw he was adding things up, remembering her brother differently.

  “No, look, no. He’s not like that,” she said, but he gave her a knowing smile. “Look, can you just forget about it? Can we talk about something else?” she asked desperately.

  “Of course. Where are you going now?”

  “I don’t know. Where are you going?” She felt that she was wrong, for telling and for telling Ollie, someone she hardly knew; but now that she had, she felt a relief, she felt a change in herself. And here was Ollie, standing with her, kissing her, talking to her. “Shall we go up to the woods?”

  They walked up past the college, past the playing fields and the boardinghouses. She left her bike chained to the gate to the woods, and they walked in, and when she slipped, he reached out and rather matter-of-factly held her hand. It was dreamlike and steady, this walking upward, this heartbeat pace. And once into the wood, they stopped talking and he kissed her again. They sat against a fallen tree and kissed and kissed, and when he broke off and pulled a cigarette packet out, he did not ask but lit two. She lay down in front of him, her hair splayed about her head, and he leant down and kissed her again, and even later when she was married with children, she remembered this moment, when she was seventeen, smoking the second cigarette of her life. She remembered his hand, a square-fingered, heavy hand, reaching across her body, stroking down from her neck to her shoulders, across her breasts, resting gently on her stomach, and to her pubic bone, where it seemed it dare not go farther. His eyes did not leave her face, and when she raised her eyes to his, he looked at her, not through her, simply at her.

  When they finished their cigarettes, she sat up, sat next to him again.

  “So, what are we going to do?” she asked. Her bustle and efficiency broke the mood. He lit another cigarette for himself only.

  “Nothing. We’ll do nothing.”

  “Why?” She was horrified: she was sure it was the story about Rohan. She would say she made it up, as a silly joke. She would say—look, how ridiculous it is, the idea of a miner coming to stay.

  “Freddie. I can’t take the girl he idolises from under his nose.”

  “Freddie?” She laughed, incredulous. Freddie, the ugly idiot savant, who told the best jokes and looked at her across rooms as if she were a saint. Freddie, who in his last letter compared her bitterness about the unfairnesses of the world to Anthony—to him she was not Cleopatra but Anthony! She had forgotten Freddie, she had forgotten his straight-backed, righteous love for her, which she had never implied she would return.

  They parted at the gate to the wood. This time, she leaned to Ollie and kissed him, not tenderly but with a hard, grazing intensity, so that for the rest of his days he would miss her. But as he walked away she saw his step was not sad or low. His head was jaunty in the midday sunshine, and around him the day haloed.

  •

  It turned out there was another reason for Ollie to turn away. He had asked Cassie out on Saturday, and the sixth-form common room was awash with hormonal screams and mutterings. Preethi kept her meeting with Ollie to herself. It belonged to her, she decided, and one day they were destined to be together. Besides which, he was going travelling with Freddie soon.

  She had life to get on with, friends whose groups she needed to become part of again, essays to labour over, an A4 diary to catch up with, in detail, to describe the kiss, the hand stretched over her body. Soon, on Monday, she was absorbed in Howards End and Forster’s abyss, and as she read of Leonard Bast’s walk, which the Schlegel girls found so enlightening, it suddenly came to her: the overwhelming guilt and loss, a feeling that hollowed her out like a pain of three-day hunger, and it was Freddie she thought of, Freddie whose ugly face ricocheted around her head until she lay her face on her arms in the library and cried.

  She wrote him a letter, about selfishness and the guilt she felt, and at lunch went to post it. On the way back, she saw him in the distance, and Ollie was next to him, walking through the village. She thought to cross the road or hide behind a tree. He had seen her, though. She smiled, he waved, but when they came close, she saw Ollie’s face, his eyes, and how beautiful he was, and how his lips were still hers.

  Freddie said, “I was just thinking of you,” and she smiled up at him. Ollie walked away, and they went into the park.

  “I just sent you a letter.”

  “I’ll look forward to it.” Freddie’s face was bitter.

  “I wanted to say I’m … sorry,” she started, knowing how useless it sounded.

  “Yes. What have you been doing?”

  “Exam practice: an essay on Howards End.”

  He groaned. “I hate Leonard Bast. I hate the Schlegel women. So affected … stupid.”

  “Oh, stop,” she said, relieved that they were reverting to who they had been before. “I see them all around me: the Schlegels and the Wilcoxes. Dulwich is full of them: my year is full of them! Girls who think they are original and exciting, and understand life: as if you can understand life.”

  “And Bast? Bast—who is he in your picture of the world?” She smiled and shrugged, but he knew already, she had cast him as that outsider, and cast herself as Margaret, who understood love, at least, where he only stumbled about trying to save himself from the abyss. He stood suddenly and started to walk away.

  “What are you doing?” she shouted after him lamely.

  “Going home,” he said over his shoulder.

  “I’m sorry!” she shouted. And she went back to school and wrote an essay that garnered an A.

  •

  “Preethi!” she heard her father call. “Phone for you!” She shot from her room. Perhaps it was Freddie, perhaps he was phoning from far away and the seconds ticking between her getting from her room to the telephone in the cold hallway would cost too much and he would be cut off.

  “Who is it?” she shouted as she slid and ran down the three flights of stairs. Her father had already disappeared to the kitchen.

  “Hello?” she said, panting, almost scared. What would she say to him? But he must be missing her as much as she missed him.

  “Well, there’s no need to get excited, it’s only me.” Her heart fell. Clare, boring, stupid Classical Civilization Clare.

  “Oh, hi,” she said breezily. Her father came out of the kitchen and pointed at a mug. He was making tea. She shook her head.

  “Look, it’s your turn to go through Antigone, and I wondered if you’d done the notes yet?” Preethi closed her eyes in frustration. She had been so busy writing notes on Forster.

  “No, I haven’t. But I’ll do them tonight.”

  “Well. OK. I was going to offer,” Clare said.

  “No, Clare. I said I’d do them.” She had been tricked like this before: Kate called it passive-aggressive, whatever that meant. Something to do with Clare always doing the work, then telling everyone—including the teachers—about it. “Was that it? Thanks for reminding me.” Clare was quiet at the end of the line. “OK. See you tomorrow,” Preethi added.

  “Look, someone has to tell you, Preethi. I heard some major bitching in the common room.”

  “Oh.”

  “Cassie knows about you and Ollie at the party.”

  “Oh.” Her mouth was dry. “But … technically, that was before they were going out, wasn’t it?”

  “Well, the thing is, she and Ollie have been on and off for months, and she’s just been waiting for the exams to be over. I don’t really care, myself, but you’re both my friends, and well, I hate to hear people calling each other names.”

  “What did she call me?”

  “Well, a whore, for starters.” Preethi sat down on the leather pouffe by the telephone table.

  “Right. I see. Well, thanks for telling me, Clare. See you tomorrow.” She couldn’t talk about it anymore. Freddie and Ollie were gone, and she was left to face the pack of wolves in the common room. And still a week until the end of te
rm.

  “Wait! Preethi? Are you still there?”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s something else she said, and that’s why I phoned.”

  “What?” She was annoyed now. She rifled through the letters on the table and saw a small white, handwritten envelope, postmarked North Yorks. Bill.

  “Cassie said something about your brother. It wasn’t nice.”

  She did not go to school the next day, a Thursday, or on Friday. She pretended to, getting on her bike with her schoolbag in her wicker basket and blowing everyone a kiss as they got into the car. Then she rode down to the shops, bought cigarettes, a newspaper, and chocolate, and went to Hornimans Gardens. She sat by the petting zoo, feeding chocolate to the goats, reading about Princess Diana and Prince Charles and the baby due in September, and smoking a cigarette to the middle, until she needed to throw up. She walked unsteadily to the toilets, vomited her breakfast and the chocolate, and went home to bed.

  Later she went out again, as far as Lordship Lane, and when she saw the first school coaches making their way up the hill, she turned her bike around and cycled home. In her room she read Antigone and tried to make notes but fell asleep twice. She need not have bothered to go through the charade of returning: no one was in when she arrived. It made her feel better. When her mother returned, Preethi made her tea, started chopping onions for supper, then went back to her room.

  Rohan came into her room on Friday evening.

  “Ammi’s worried. What’s the matter with you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “She says you’re always out at friends till six. You always have people calling. Nothing over the last few days. What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.” She looked at his face, beautiful and shining, his vigorous confidence, his joking manner.

  “Come on,” he said more tenderly. “You can tell me.”

  “I haven’t been to school. I can’t go back.”

  Rohan looked shocked. “What is it? What happened? They want you to do fourth term! Have your grades gone down? I can help you—there’s no need to skip school.”

  “No, no,” she said miserably. “Someone told a secret, something I told them, and now the whole school knows. I can’t go in,” she said suddenly. “I can’t face it.”

  “It’s only a week, putha,” he said, stroking her hair.

  “You sound like Ammi when you talk Sinhala.”

  “Do I?”

  She lay down on her bed, and he sat at the end, and neither said anything more. She could hear the silence, could hear dinner being made, and Papa and Gehan coming in, and birds, and children shouting in gardens on the opposite side of the road. He stayed with her for a little longer, and then he went into his room and she heard him put Bowie on and sing along to “Let’s Dance.”

  On Saturday, there was a postcard from Freddie. It chatted about nothing, and about Ollie, and she tore it up, because even seeing his name revolted her, made her feel such anger that if he stood in front of her, she would kill him. On Sunday, Clare phoned again, told her it was time to stop hiding. Told her to bring the Antigone notes in, the Oxbridge meeting had been postponed because of Preethi’s sickness, that she would stick by her, it would be OK.

  •

  That Monday morning was beautiful. Her remorse, her anger, her misery floated above her for the moment when she rode past the chapel, across the roundabout. She wore sunglasses and a white dress, white plimsolls, and slung around her shoulders a purple cardigan. She threw her head back to look at the trees above her, and a window cleaner across the road shouted, “All right, darlin’?”

  When she got to the traffic lights at the foot of the hill and saw everyone walking, running, shouting into school, she thought she would die. For them to know this of her. For them to understand her brother so completely, in one filthy idea. For them to think she was somehow part of his profligacy, too, simply because she wanted Ollie. Clare stood on the other side of the road and waved and beckoned, and somehow it was too late to turn back, and she went in.

  Everything had changed. Her life and the way she was perceived had changed in two days. As she approached school, girls in the lower forms made way and, as she passed, giggled and whispered. Clare turned sharply to them and hushed them, but Preethi could hear it all about her. She put her head down, and they walked silently to the bike sheds. She saw Cassie and her friends across the field and looked in panic about her. A few of her other friends came smiling toward her. It would be all right, it would be all right. But then, as she walked toward the sixth-form building, Debbie, a small, fat fifth-former, said to her back, “Your brother been fucked in the arse by a miner: pretty much like the rest of the country, eh?” And all around her laughed out loud. She used her advantage: “All you people are degenerate, aren’t you?”

  Preethi continued to walk, stride now, toward the block, and then she turned to Clare and shrugged. It would be the easiest way out. She turned back, almost ran at Debbie and struck her hard, across the face with the back of her hand. As the girl reeled Preethi looked around at the other girls, who were gasping and shocked. Then she took another step toward Debbie, who put her hand up to deflect the next blow. Preethi saw her fear, saw her own face in the fear, and still she hit her again, and then again, on top of the head once, until the girl fell to the ground, crying. There were shouts from a teacher, and thundering steps of someone running to her, tangling her arms up in their tight grip, and she was led to the headmistress’ office, where the teacher, a flaky PE sort, sat with her, jigging her knee impatiently and smiling at anyone but Preethi.

  •

  Mrs. Divorcée, they called her, their headmistress, so full of bouncing, tall energy, certain that the young women at her school would all achieve. They would all be something. But perhaps not me, Preethi thought.

  “Well? Can you explain this behaviour? You realise I have already asked my secretary to inform your parents. You will be immediately suspended for a week, which takes us to the end of term.” She saw Preethi’s face lift with relief. “It will be questionable whether you can come back,” she continued, and to her satisfaction she now saw shock. Preethi did not speak. “Oxbridge! You would give up a chance at Oxbridge for a petty fight! Surely you would have known this before you let a silly little girl like Debbie get to you?”

  “No.”

  “Ah. You can speak.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well? What is it about? You hit a child—what is your explanation?”

  “I …” She shrugged.

  “Oxbridge!” the headmistress said again. “Look, sit down, sit down.” She bustled to a salmon pink chair. She offered a blue sofa to Preethi. Preethi looked about at the duck-egg-blue walls, the glass-fronted walnut bookcases, the antique desk, and the wide, long windows. Edwardian, she supposed, a place the Schlegels might live in, or Forster himself. She did not think of the violence of her act, or her swollen little finger. She thought of Ollie, and Freddie. Where were they now? Where was she, that girl they had argued over?

  “Now, we cannot have this. You must tell me why.”

  “My brother,” she started. But she stopped. She had already told one too many people.

  “What does it have to do with your brother? Look, can’t you see what you have done? Preethi, look at me. We work so hard here. You do”—she bent a dramatic, pale hand to Preethi, as if a ballet dancer, or a good witch, and then brought the hand up and placed it gracefully on her chest—“and I do. We work so that women can break through the glass ceilings in all walks of life. Don’t you see? You could be a remarkable scholar! Your English essays, I am told, are extraordinary, exemplary. Your behaviour, until now, has been such that, within the one year you have been here, you have made many friends and gained much admiration from staff. Your dyslexia has never got in your way. All of this adds up to a model student, someone I could not recommend more highly to any university in the land. Come, now, please explain.” She waited in silence, her head turned toward th
e window, watching the late girls sneaking through the gate and raising her eyebrows. Preethi sat in silence. A clock ticked loudly in the lobby outside the office. She scratched at the texture of the sofa. The headmistress sighed.

  “Preethi, our school is like a city, a golden, glorious city. We work for each other, and we work for ourselves. What we give to you is self-worth, your importance in the world. What we want for you is everything.”

  “Yes.” Preethi had nothing more to say. There was a knock on the door, and Nandini was ushered in. Preethi saw her eyes, fearful and furious. And to her shame, she began to cry.

  •

  Clare brought her bike back later. She met Rohan at the door and refused to come in. Preethi would not have wanted to see her. Her mother had hit her, and she had spent the day crying in her room. Papa and Ammi went out to see some friends, and now that the exams were over, Gehan went with them. Rohan went up to London to see a play.

  Preethi ran a bath, and while it ran, she made a large gin and Rose’s lime and drank it down, without ice as there was none. She smoked a cigarette in the garden, wondering where Freddie was, wondering how he was, how Ollie was. She thought of the kiss, thought of it a million times, the kiss that somehow made her dirtier than her brother. She smoked another cigarette and then went up to the still-too-hot bath. She stepped in, one foot and then the other, and allowing the heat of the water to encapsulate her skin gradually, she sank into it. She remembered Ollie’s hand as she lay back into the water, looked at her body, which he had stroked through her clothes as if he had owned her, as if he could love her. She left the bathroom door unlocked, and using one of Papa’s new razor blades, she opened her wrists.

  •

  She was dreaming, and characters, famous people, were all there and talking about her, about fate, about the abyss. There was Mrs. Godfrey, dear Mrs. Godfrey, her English teacher, talking to them all, walking from person to person, facilitating the party. Edwardian dress, with coal-scuttle woven hats, men in tails. There were Ollie and Cassie, holding hands, walking across the grass under a tall oak, and Freddie stood in a corner, waving, beckoning her to join him. And Margaret Schlegel, on the arm of Mr. Wilcox, stopped to talk to Freddie, and Freddie was rude. And then, suddenly, Freddie was no longer Freddie but Prince Myshkin, the Idiot, and it made sense, and she thought, but of course, of course, I should have known. Mrs. Godfrey was saying something, saying something to all the guests, and they were throwing their heads back and laughing, and each time she said it, it was funnier than the last. Preethi tried to get closer, to share the joke, and when she finally stood by Mrs. Godfrey’s elbow, she heard Mrs. Godfrey say, “But you see, the joke is, he was not ‘taking it up the arse’! He was ‘giving him one,’ as they say!” And people laughed around her. “He’s one of us! He’s one of us!” And everyone laughed.