the door and sat down at the table my mother had lugged up some weeks previously. My homework was already laid out; it was Intelligence tonight. Iglanced – just glanced – out of the window, bespattered with spring rain; it was April, still very cold in the house, and as I worked I would sometimes have to put down my pencil and rub my fingers to get some life back into them. My room was papered blue and white, though the white in places was yellow with age; blue Chinamen went to and fro, crossing small bridges over invisible streams. A Chinawoman held up a bird in a cage, her eyes mere slits: strange combs, like knitting needles, stuck out of her hair. Was the caged bird singing? If you got very close you could see that its tiny mouth was open to emit sound, like the mouth of Sue Day of the Happy Days. I imagined its warble, repeated again and again as the pattern repeated, as the Chinamen crossed their bridges, as the pavilion door creaked open, as the string of lanterns swayed.
I sat down, took up my pencil, began to work away at Intelligence: fill in the next letter in this sequence. To help me I had written out the alphabet on a piece of scrap paper. It made it easier to count backwards and forwards, though I would not, as Sister Monica pointed out, be able to have such an aid when I came to sit my exam. Sister Monica was not a very old nun, but rather young; she had spots, which were a sign of youth, and goggly glasses whose arms slotted away somewhere within the starchy mysteries of her caps and coifs and veils.
Twenty minutes passed. Underline the correct word: As calf to cow, so
leveret
to hare. As flock to deer, so
school
to whales. I had circled a number of triangles and squared some circles, done underlining and filled in the answer on the dotted line. Now I put down my penciland glanced over my shoulder. I wished there had been a lock on my door, but such a thing would have been unthinkable. Stooping down, I reached into my schoolbag, and drew out a copy of
Princess
.
Karina had bought it for me; although she had sneered at me and said it was soft, she had read it herself first, so that the pages were scuffed and grimy and blurred with lard-soaked fingerprints. ‘You can owe me the money,’ Karina had said; but I was afraid I would never be able to pay her back. I did not get pocket-money; my mother had bought my comics for me, until the day when she turned against them. I did not need money of my own, because I was provided for; everything I needed was provided for my comfort, my mother said. And what did I do in return? She’d like to know that, she said. Very much she’d like to know. She would.
I folded the comic, and held it on my knee, thinking that if she came in I might be able to drag my chair right up to the table and conceal my sin underneath. I wondered what sort of a sin it was: venial, not mortal, I knew that much, but what category of venial? Disobedience to my mother? Stealing from Karina? Or what?
Belle of the Ballet was going through a very exciting stage. The snobby prima ballerina had twisted her ankle, tottering to the floor in a gauzy heap, with a scream of ‘Oh – OUCH – help me!’ Belle had to step into her role at short notice. What a good thing the special spangled tutu fitted her! Belle was so young, yet for her it was maybe a once-in-a-lifetime chance. In the final frame she would get a bouquet, I expected; but since I had to keep the comic folded I could only have a bit at a time. ‘Eetizz a triumph!’ some foreign person would enthuse: perhaps a man in a coat with a fur collar, and a cigarette in a holder. But he would probably turn out not to be good for Belle’s career in the long run.
I looked up, my vision clouded with glory, the creak of red plush seats and the rustle of silk, the abbreviated moan of the violins as the orchestra tuned up . . . My eyes, resting on the wall, encountered the Chinawoman, her deep sleeve and her wicker cage. My mother’s foot was
I sat down, took up my pencil, began to work away at Intelligence: fill in the next letter in this sequence. To help me I had written out the alphabet on a piece of scrap paper. It made it easier to count backwards and forwards, though I would not, as Sister Monica pointed out, be able to have such an aid when I came to sit my exam. Sister Monica was not a very old nun, but rather young; she had spots, which were a sign of youth, and goggly glasses whose arms slotted away somewhere within the starchy mysteries of her caps and coifs and veils.
Twenty minutes passed. Underline the correct word: As calf to cow, so
leveret
to hare. As flock to deer, so
school
to whales. I had circled a number of triangles and squared some circles, done underlining and filled in the answer on the dotted line. Now I put down my penciland glanced over my shoulder. I wished there had been a lock on my door, but such a thing would have been unthinkable. Stooping down, I reached into my schoolbag, and drew out a copy of
Princess
.
Karina had bought it for me; although she had sneered at me and said it was soft, she had read it herself first, so that the pages were scuffed and grimy and blurred with lard-soaked fingerprints. ‘You can owe me the money,’ Karina had said; but I was afraid I would never be able to pay her back. I did not get pocket-money; my mother had bought my comics for me, until the day when she turned against them. I did not need money of my own, because I was provided for; everything I needed was provided for my comfort, my mother said. And what did I do in return? She’d like to know that, she said. Very much she’d like to know. She would.
I folded the comic, and held it on my knee, thinking that if she came in I might be able to drag my chair right up to the table and conceal my sin underneath. I wondered what sort of a sin it was: venial, not mortal, I knew that much, but what category of venial? Disobedience to my mother? Stealing from Karina? Or what?
Belle of the Ballet was going through a very exciting stage. The snobby prima ballerina had twisted her ankle, tottering to the floor in a gauzy heap, with a scream of ‘Oh – OUCH – help me!’ Belle had to step into her role at short notice. What a good thing the special spangled tutu fitted her! Belle was so young, yet for her it was maybe a once-in-a-lifetime chance. In the final frame she would get a bouquet, I expected; but since I had to keep the comic folded I could only have a bit at a time. ‘Eetizz a triumph!’ some foreign person would enthuse: perhaps a man in a coat with a fur collar, and a cigarette in a holder. But he would probably turn out not to be good for Belle’s career in the long run.
I looked up, my vision clouded with glory, the creak of red plush seats and the rustle of silk, the abbreviated moan of the violins as the orchestra tuned up . . . My eyes, resting on the wall, encountered the Chinawoman, her deep sleeve and her wicker cage. My mother’s foot was
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