O Caledonia

The days passed, merging without colour, as the melancholy sea merged into the melancholy sky. She was finding ways of coping with life in the boarding house; not only was she in demand over matters of prep but she had discovered that she could make people laugh by telling them exaggerated stories of her incompetence in every aspect of the day’s routine, and the dire consequences it provoked. Work remained an exception to all this. It was her pride and joy, of necessity secret, for no one cared to hear about it. Lessons were regarded as the tedious, time-wasting price you had to pay for the thrills of sport, the pleasures of gossip and girlish society. Janet learnt never to mention the intense excitement which she found in Dido’s doomed love or Medea’s implacable heart. She took a perverse delight in caring for anything the others found especially wearisome. Sometimes she still went too far, as when she had listened vaguely to endless moaning about the subjunctive, its futility, its stupidity, the drab impossibility of learning it; unable to contain herself she announced in patronising tones, “I love

the subjunctive. You just don’t understand what it’s for. It’s subtle, it makes the meaning different, or it gives you a clue to the rest of the sentence. And it’s perfectly easy to learn.” They were silent, staring at her with loathing. “I call my cats subjunctives,” she finished. This was true; she felt the word had a wonderfully feline shape and sound. But even as she spoke she knew that she should never have said this. “And I suppose you call your parents past participles?” “Or ablative absolutes?” “Bet her brother’s called Gerry, short for Gerund.” “God, how pukey can you get?” “Show-off, show-off, pukey little show-off.” Soon it was around the whole school. “Janet’s family all talk Latin to each other and wear togas.” Girls lay in wait for her. “Miaow, miaow subjunctive,” they squealed, leaping out of the shrubbery. The queenly head of house drew her aside: “You will get nowhere at St. Uncumba’s by that sort of behaviour. We are simply not impressed. Life here is about give and take, caring and contributing. That’s why games are so important; you learn the rules, you obey them, and you move in harmony with your team. If you make your own rules you let the whole side down. Contrary to what you clearly believe, you are not superior to the rest of us. In fact you are a rather silly, very conceited little girl and if you don’t make a huge effort now you will never fit in, here or anywhere else. I shall be watching you.”

For a week or two Janet crept about looking humble. She complimented Cynthia on her tackling, she stood in the front line of the yelling crowd at hockey matches; she listened admiringly when girls boasted of their boyfriends or described the excitement of the Boxing Day meet. The phrase from Oscar Wilde “The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable,” which she had gleefully copied down for use at such a time, remained silent in her notebook. She even pretended that she wished she was a member of the Pony Club. Gradually her crime was forgotten, if not forgiven. It was Janet’s view that forgetting was the only possible way of forgiving. She did not believe in forgiveness; the word had no meaning. At last she was reinstated in her roles of idiot jester and brainbox (pronounced as though it meant leper). Only at night under the bedclothes did she allow herself the tiny luxury of muttering two expressions favoured by characters in Greek tragedy: “Woe for me in my misery” and “My woe is their laughter.”

To placate Cynthia further she took up riding at school. Red-faced, shrill-voiced Mrs. Jarvis led them out at great speed, trotting, trotting, trotting along the slippery roads, regardless of weather. Sometimes they performed exercises in her field instead. Cynthia excelled at these and was much admired by Mrs. Jarvis. Janet hated them; it was just like Pony Club, which she had attended once, as a spectator only. The riding out was not much better; Mrs. Jarvis harangued her pupils, sometimes reducing them to tears, and effectively destroying the little pleasure such outings on a February afternoon might provide. One day as they clattered and slithered down the steep road to the stables, they met an old woman and her obese spaniel. The aged, puffing dog shrank back against its mistress’s legs; it cringed and shuddered. Its mournful eyes rolled in mute terror and yet there was about it a passivity, as if it accepted that it might be crushed and trampled by those flailing hooves; this would be its lot, and it would not resist. Janet was overwhelmed by pity; something was stirring in her memory. Then it came to her; it was Lila’s face. This was how she looked after Vera had been talking to her. She remembered Vera’s special satisfied look.