First Fruits (4 page)

NEXT
morning, just as Lydia is about to slip into the seat next to mine, Hilary
slams her own bottom down before her and glares up, daring her to say a word
about it. Lydia looks confused, then bites her lip. Satisfied, Hilary spreads
her bottom over the seat. She's making sure you couldn't slip so much as a
pencil between us.

What else can Lydia do but turn and
drift away to sit next to Moira?

Who didn't say a word. I suppose that's
the best you could say for her; Moira will scarcely ever speak unless spoken
to. It must be the one thing her Granny remembered to teach her. Shame about
the rest of it, like washing her hair and changing her tights. Everyone knows
about Moira's granny. They say if you go to their house she'll give you sour
milk in your tea. That's what they say. They say even Moira's own mother
doesn't go near them, Moira and her Gran.

The funny thing is, I've seen them walk
away together, away from school towards the wrong end of town, Moira and her
Gran, and they look quite happy. More than happy. Watch them from a distance
and it looks as if there are two old women, instead of just the one. Both with
carrier bags, both rumbling along the pavement towards home and a cup of tea. A
perfect pair.       

LUNCHTIME
and Hilary is sniffing the air. Something fishy and fried. And chips naturally.

'Come on,' she says, trying not to sound
too urgent, and careful not to include Lydia.

To which I reply, 'You'll have to go
without us. We've got Greek, haven't we, Lyd?'

And behind us, Lydia sits up, blushing a
little. It was that
Lyd
, so familiar sounding, so friendly. Hilary hears
it too, and visibly flinches.

'Are you ready?' This is me addressing
Lydia again. And not so much as a glance at Hilary. We have a lesson to attend,
and everyone knows Miss Jamieson hates to be kept waiting.

You can feel Hilary watching us as we
walk away, sense the disbelief following on behind. Just for fun, I slip my
hand under Lydia's arm, schoolgirl fashion, so there could be no doubting it;
Lydia and I are the very best of friends. Lydia naturally looks a mite
surprised, and scans the floor, blushing more than ever.

A moment later, though, we've turned a
corner and are out of sight. I can have my hand back. Hilary can't see us any
more.

IN
the time it takes for Miss Jamieson to arrive, Lydia insists on keeping herself
busy, emptying out her pencil case, changing the cartridges in her pen, arranging
two small furry animals on the front of her desk. She's as bad as Hilary who
needs a herd of soft toys just to get through a lesson.

'You're looking forward to his,' I say
to her - and yes, I'll admit it. There
was
a touch of surprise leaking
into my voice. Then again, it's not every day you meet someone all fired up at
the thought of doing Greek.

Lydia swallows, tries to be a little
more discreet. Already she's learning from Hilary's mistakes. It doesn't do to
give too much away. You're anybody's then. People can do what they like with
you. But it's no good, the seconds tick by, and the smile just creeps back to
where it was.

All I can say is, I wish I was looking
forward to it.

What's more, there's that same question
growing in my mind. About Lydia. Why feel the need to do to Greek at all?
Hilary I could understand. She put up her hand because I had put up my hand,
because of all those books she reads. But Lydia, what reason has she got?

Sometimes, even a person who has
It
occasionally has to ask a question, just like anybody else.

'What's he like then?'

'Who?' Lydia looks at me, blinking.

'Your dad, of course.' Good grief who
did she think I meant?

'My father?' And just listen to the
surprise in her voice. You'd swear her father was the last person she was
thinking of. Which makes you wonder;
what sort of home life does she have?

'Your father,' I repeat. 'Is he the
reason you put your hand up to do Greek? Does he...does he expect things. Of
you, I mean?'

The way mine does.

But now something has happened. Lydia's
frowning. At the same time she begins fiddling furiously with the nib of her
pen, stabbing ink into her finger. 'My father...' she says again. Then she
makes the biggest effort she's made since she came to school. 'My father
doesn't expect anything. He doesn't care what I do. He's much too busy'

No more to be said.

So that's the answer. Lydia's father has
more important things to think about. In fact, Lydia and Greek are the very
last things on his mind.

Lydia is doing Greek for herself. She
really is odd after all. Question answered. Still, it seems a shame to leave it
there.

'You have a sister don't you? I saw her.
Pretty little thing.'

'Yes,' she says. And that's it; the last
bit of jigsaw slips into place. In one little word, everything you would need
to know about Lydia, her father and her sister. Lydia is clear as daylight
after all.

And is it any surprise? If you were a
father, who would you prefer to think about? Poor, stringy, brainy Lydia - or
that curly dancing kid I saw on the pavement?

Makes me glad I'm an only child. That
way, you get all the attention. No end of it. You never have to feel invisible.
Unlike Lydia.

Except. Except... oh and here's a
thought to conjure with suddenly; what if I hadn't been the one and only? What
if there would have been someone else for him to watch? Someone else to take
his mind off me?

Someone else to make mistakes?   

So odd, what a single thought can do,
one tiny germ of an idea, suddenly making your brain tingle, one moment
sensible, and the next imagining all sorts of impossible things - such as what
it would be like not to be the one and only. To be invisible. Because attention
shared would be attention halved....

But then, hardly before the idea is
planted, it gets nipped in the bud. Lydia has grown perfectly still. This time
she has heard it before I have, the sound of footsteps beating down the corridor.

MISS
JAMIESON stops in front of our two desks, looks down at us. Together we make a
triangle, the Isosceles kind. Come to think of it, that's Greek, isn't it?

She's going to give us a talk first, is
prepared, drawing breath even as I speak. She did the same thing when we were
beginning Latin, delivered a great long speech about the Romans. About the buildings
they left behind, the amphitheatres and the viaducts. Stuff you'd know already
- unless you were Moira MacMurray, in which case it would have floated right
over your head. I had to repeat it all to Dad, just so he could be happy for
once. Sometimes they teach us the right things. Things he can approve of.

Only let's hope this speech isn't going
to be about all those gods and goddesses. He doesn't like any of that Pagan
stuff, not at all. That's not what he learned Greek for.

But it turns out that I didn't have to
worry - at least not about heathens and all. It turns out that Miss Jamieson
doesn't seem to want to say a thing about the gods or even the goddesses.

'The Greeks,' she says instead, and
draws another breath, 'are dying.'

Well that was an odd thing to say for a
start. Makes you wonder if you've heard her right. The Greeks aren't dying,
even Hilary could tell her that. They are already dead. Dead as the dinosaurs
you could say.

But just as I'm trying to catch Lydia's
eye, Miss Jamieson goes and says it all over again.

'The Greeks are dying.

'Their thoughts, their words, their
history - in short everything that reminds us that, despite the passage of the
years, they were never so very different from ourselves - are all passing away.
And why? Because Greek itself is dying, that remarkable language which came to
contain every original thought known to Man. People don't learn it any more.
They say it is difficult, or worse, irrelevant. They say we don't need it now,
not in this day and age.'

She turned and reached for a chair,
brought it right to the edge of Lydia's desk and sat, changing the shape of
what had been an equal triangle.

'But, believe me, they are wrong.
Because people who have no knowledge of the Greeks are like people with
amnesia, who have forgotten everything that happened before today. People who
don't know the Greeks are like children who have never known their parents.'
She leaned on the desk, bending towards us, towards Lydia. As a matter of fact,
almost every word she has spoken so far has been addressed to Lydia.

'Think about it. Imagine yourself as you
are, but without any memory of your parents, of the people who taught you your
first words, who loved you, who showed you how to see the world. Imagine that
you know nothing about them. Every word, every thought you have reflects them,
but you can't remember them. You don't even know what they looked like. And so
here you are. You see, but how do you know if you are seeing with your parents'
eyes - or your own? You think, but how would you know if the thoughts are their
thoughts, or your thoughts? In short, how could you ever explain yourself to
yourself? You would be an enigma, a perfect mystery. And yet that is what I
mean. The Greeks help explain us to ourselves.'

At this Lydia laughed aloud. It was a
soft, bobbing kind of laugh. It's the thought of being an enigma. Poor
Pipe-cleaner Girl would like nothing more.

But I don't laugh. Miss Jamieson is
talking as if it was in everybody's power to know themselves, and anyone could
tell her it's not possible. There's only one Person who's made you who you are.
One Person who knows you. Miss Jamieson should remember to read her Bible more.
Or come to the Service and have it all explained.

And now there's something else to worry
about. How am I going to repeat all this to
him?
To Dad, I mean.

Sometimes you have to know when to call
a halt. Lydia for instance is sitting there, positively half-baked, ready to
believe everything she's being told. And it's going to get worse, you can tell.
Miss Jamieson is just getting into her stride.

Something had to be done, and I know
he
would agree with me. Only what? Actually it's not a problem, because no-one
is looking at me. Miss Jamieson is all caught up with Lydia, pleased to have
someone lap up every word. I can reach across, draw the compass out of my
pencil case, pass it from one hand to the other under the desk....

....And ever so gently, nudge it into
Lydia's side.

A moment later she squeals, piglet-like,
almost leaps out of her seat. Miss Jamieson stops mid-sentence, taken by
surprise. Lydia sits very still then, hardly knowing where to look.

'Lydia?' It is as if Miss Jamieson has
been woken out of some happy dream - of uncalled for mysteries and enigmas,
probably. She's not going to like this, being interrupted in the middle of her
stride.

The only question is now, will Lydia
betray what just took place, point her finger at me? But no. She must have read
the same books as Hilary in the dim and distant past, before she got onto
French verbs and rocket science. Instead, she mumbles something about an
inexplicable pain in her stomach. Miss Jamieson looks disbelieving, but there's
nothing she can do.

And so she turns to me, infinitely
suspicious.

But  I haven't done a thing, have I? No
more than put the lesson on the right track.

Because now Lydia's attention has
wandered and Miss Jamieson has lost much of her concentration. She starts
again, trying to talk about the ideas some of these Greeks seem to have tossed
around but presently she gives up. Goes on to talk about the Olympic Games
instead. And that's much better, just the sort of thing I'll be able to repeat
to Dad.                                               

THE
moment Miss Jamieson left the room, Lydia turned on me. 'Why ever did you stick
that
thing
into me?'

Gosh, little Miss Fierce she was all of
a sudden.

'Oh well,' I say. 'Oh
well
. I
didn't realise you couldn't take a joke. Golly, I mean
golly
, Hilary
would have laughed and laughed. She's
fun
that way. I should have stuck
with Hilary.'

Lydia looks at me then. Watch her eyes
behind their specs. She's fast, faster than Hilary. You don't have to spell
things out word by word, which is something in her favour. Already she's
thinking about the consequences of not being able to take a joke. Of Hilary and
me having fun, just the two of us. Leaving Lydia with what?

With Moira MacMurray, who else.

I wait, patiently, because Patience is
my middle name, and don't say another word.

And then it comes. She shuts her eyes
and then opens them. The spark has disappeared. Finally, she manages a smile -
of sorts. Part of her lip has become snagged on a claw of her brace. 'Ha,' she
says, and the word seems halfway to choking her. 'Ha ha ha. You're right. What
a joke, hahaha.'