Rax seemed to be avoiding me at school. He barely nodded when we passed in the corridor. When I started a new project in art he didn’t even comment. We’d started working on aspects of Christmas. I found his postcard of a Botticelli Nativity and I made a fair stab at copying it, using gouache for the first time. I did a little replica Mary, Jesus and Joseph, I painted all their visitors, rural and exotic, and the holy livestock, and used up a lot of pink and gold on the host of heavenly angels circling the cattle shed.
There was a strange graveyard in the foreground with dead people springing forth from the earth, resurrected, embracing each other joyfully. I copied each one, but I deliberately embellished the couple in the corner enjoying the warmest embrace. I gave the girl long dark curly hair. I gave the man a little beard with a hint of sparkly highlight on his earlobe.
I wanted Rax to look at it closely but he only gave it a quick glance every time he went to have a chat with Sarah. I hoped he’d look at it more carefully after the lesson. I was sure I understood. He was being particularly cautious. It would look strange, even suspicious, if he singled me out.
I didn’t like it all the same. School was so lonely now. Rita and the other girls hissed slag at me whenever I passed. The boys made crude remarks. Toby did his best to shut them up. Then he hung back, trying to talk to me.
‘I’m so sorry, Prue. I didn’t mean for it to end up like this. I never thought Rita would be so mean to you. I’ve tried talking to her, telling her to cut it out, but she just told me to get lost.’
‘Well, she would do, wouldn’t she?’ I said. ‘And if she sees you talking to me now she’ll get even meaner. You shouldn’t have broken up with her, Toby.’
‘But I don’t reckon her any more. You’re the only girl I want.’
‘Oh Toby. I told you. I like you ever so much, but I don’t want to be your girlfriend,’ I said.
‘Maybe you’ll change your mind,’ Toby said cheerfully.
‘I don’t think so,’ I said, but obviously I couldn’t explain why.
Rax didn’t mention babysitting at all in the last art lesson of the week, but then, right at the end, when everyone else was clattering out, he asked if he could have a word with me.
‘Look at her!’ Rita said to her friend Aimee. ‘Look at the smug little smile on the slag’s face, just because old Rax wants her.’
My heart started beating fast. Rax had heard too. He paused and stood still.
‘Yeah, talk about teacher’s pet. I don’t think she’s that good at art, she just copies stuff,’ said Aimee.
I breathed out, happy for them to carry on rubbishing my art. Toby irritatingly took it into his head to interfere.
‘You shut up, you lot. You’re just jealous of Prue’s talent,’ he said.
This naturally encouraged them to be far more vitriolic.
‘Hey, you guys, how about conducting your slanging match outside in the playground?’ said Rax.
‘Prue is talented, isn’t she, Rax?’ Toby persisted. ‘That Christmas Jesus scene is brilliant, don’t you think so?’
‘Yes I do,’ said Rax. ‘But perhaps we shouldn’t keep telling Prue that or she’ll get big-headed.’
‘Her head’s as big as an elephant’s bum already,’ Rita said, and flounced off, circled by Aimee, Megan and Jess.
Toby hung back, waiting for me.
‘You go on, Toby,’ I said.
He sloped off, looking miserable. I sighed. Then I looked at Rax.
‘Do you really think I’m talented?’ I asked.
‘Yes, you’re brilliant,’ said Rax, but he said it flatly, as if he wasn’t really engaging with the subject.
‘Shall I come round usual time tonight?’ I asked.
‘Well. That’s why I wanted a word. We won’t need you to do any babysitting tonight,’ he said.
He was standing at the sink, the taps full on, washing out paint pots and palettes. I wondered if I’d actually heard him properly.
‘You won’t need me?’ I whispered. ‘You’ve not got someone else to babysit, have you?’
‘No, no. We’re just not going out, that’s all.’ He stayed at the sink, splashing the palettes around, although they were all pristine.
‘Why?’
‘We fancied a quiet night in, watching The West Wing with a takeaway pizza,’ said Rax.
‘Oh.’ I waited. He wouldn’t look round. ‘So. Next Friday then?’
Rax stood still a moment. Then he squared his shoulders. ‘Maybe not, Prue,’ he said. He turned round properly. His face was so tense there were lines all round his mouth. He licked his lips, wiping his hands on his jeans. ‘I don’t think the babysitting is really a good idea.’
‘But the children like me. Harry loves me reading him stories, and I can always make Lily laugh. Marianne likes me too – we have all these chats together while you’re getting ready.’
‘I know, I know, you’re great at babysitting and my whole family adores you. But I just don’t think it’s a very good idea any more.’
‘Why?’
‘You know why, Prue,’ he said impatiently.
‘Because I love you?’ I said.
‘Don’t!’ he said, looking round anxiously, as if there were children eavesdropping in the cupboard and Miss Wilmott tape-recording at the door. He took a deep breath. ‘That’s why we have to stop this. It’s dangerous for both of us.’
‘Dangerous for you,’ I said. ‘You’re scared you’ll lose your job if anyone finds out.’
‘Well, of course I am. I’ve got a family to support. But it’s not just the job. I don’t want to upset you – you’re only fourteen, and you’re taking our friendship so seriously.’
‘Are you still trying to pretend that’s all it is?’
‘Yes. It’s a close friendship, nothing more,’ said Rax.
I started to cry.
‘For heaven’s sake, Prue, stop that. It’s true. We haven’t done anything.’
‘Is it because I look so weird?’
‘Stop it!’
‘Well, you stop it,’ I sobbed. ‘I have to babysit, I have to see you. It’s not the same at school, you’re not the same. You keep on and on about my age.’
‘Well, you’re still a child.’
‘If you start saying all that only-fourteen stuff again I’ll start screaming.’
‘Don’t!’ He looked alarmed, as if he thought I was really going to start shrieking my head off.
‘The only real time we have together is our time in the car,’ I said. ‘Ten minutes, once a week. That’s not too much to ask, is it?’
‘Twenty minutes. Sometimes half an hour.’
‘What have you been doing, timing us to the exact second? “Uh-oh, I’ve given this girl ten and a half minutes, warning bells, she’ll misinterpret my innocent caring teacherly concern as something much more serious and scary so shove her out the car quick.”’
‘You’re being silly now,’ he said, but his mouth twitched. He started laughing, shaking his head at me. ‘You’re a terrible girl, Prue,’ he went on. ‘You won’t ever act the way you’re supposed to. You just say whatever you think, act in the rashest way possible. Dear God, your dad must have been having a joke calling you Prudence. You’re the exact opposite!’
‘Well, I’m glad he didn’t call me Rash. Imagine, especially if I went through a spotty stage,’ I said, wiping my face with the sleeve of my sweater.
‘Don’t do that. You’re worse than Harry sometimes,’ he said, finding me a paper towel.
I hoped he’d wipe my eyes for me but he kept me carefully at arm’s length.
‘Please let me babysit tonight,’ I said. ‘Marianne said she was going to look out some of her clothes that are too small for her. It will look so rude of me if I don’t turn up. And I told Harry I’d read him my own Wild Things book. I was going to act it all out for him – I promised.’
‘And I suppose you promised Lily you’d read her the whole of Alice in Wonderland and then you’d act out the Mad Hatter and the March Hare and Tweedledum and Tweedledee?’ said Rax.
‘Tweedledum and Tweedledee are in Alice Through the Looking Glass,’ I said. ‘There! We can have ten minutes tonight demurely discussing our favourite nursery classics. I swear I won’t cry or make a scene or try to make you stay later.’
He didn’t say anything.
‘Don’t you trust me?’
‘I don’t trust either of us,’ he said. ‘OK, OK, come round tonight. But it must be the last time. This is getting too worrying. God knows what could happen if we carry on like this. I want you to tell Marianne that you can’t babysit for a while. Say you’ve got too much homework – any old excuse. Will you do that?’
‘If you make me,’ I said.
I left it at that, scared he might change his mind again. Grace was standing forlornly at the school gate. I’d forgotten all about her.
‘Where have you been? Iggy and Figgy went home ages ago.’
‘You should have gone home too, silly. I don’t see why you always have to tag on to me all the time.’
‘I don’t see why you have to keep being so mean to me. I’m your sister. I’m not nasty to you. I keep sticking up for you when Iggy and Figgy say stuff about you. If you must know, we’ve even had a little row, because they said you took Toby away from Rita on purpose, even though you didn’t want him yourself – although how mad is that? – and I said—’
‘I don’t care what they said, what you said, whatever. Why can’t you all just mind your own business?’ I snapped, marching off.
‘There you are, you’re being mean again,’ Grace said, hobbling after me. ‘Why won’t you tell me stuff, Prue? We never used to have any secrets.’
‘I haven’t got any secrets,’ I said.
‘Yes, you have. You act all weird and moody most of the time. You’re not just playing your pretend games now, something’s going on. I can tell. I think you’re in love.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ I snapped, starting to run.
‘I know you, Prue.’
‘You don’t know anything,’ I said, running hard.
‘It’s Rax!’ Grace yelled after me.
Some of the kids in the street turned round and tittered.
I stood still, waiting for her to catch me up. Then I grabbed her by the shoulders, digging my fingers into her marshmallow flesh. ‘Shut up!’ I said.
‘It is Rax,’ Grace said triumphantly. ‘You love him.’
‘I’m warning you, Grace.’
‘It’s OK. Lots of girls get crushes on teachers, even funny ones like Rax,’ said Grace.
‘It’s not a crush,’ I said. I hated the word, with all its silly girly giggly connotations. ‘It’s reciprocal.’
‘It’s what?’ said Grace.
‘He loves me too.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ said Grace, giggling.
‘Don’t you dare laugh at me! He does love me. He does, he does. He feels bad about it, he’s worried about his family and his job and all that, but he can’t help himself. It’s as if we’re made for each other, soul mates.’
Grace stared, her eyes round as marbles. Then she laughed again. ‘I’m sorry! Don’t – you’re hurting!’ she said. ‘I’m not really laughing, Prue, it’s just it’s so weird. He’s a teacher, he’s years and years too old for you.’
‘Age doesn’t matter, not when you fall in love.’
‘But what’s going to happen?’
‘Well.’ I thought hard. ‘Well, we’ll go on seeing each other when I babysit, and then . . . and then . . .’
Grace looked at me. ‘And then?’ she repeated.
‘We’ll just have to wait and see,’ I said lamely. ‘I’m not going to talk about it any more. And if you breathe a word to anyone – especially Iggy and Figgy – I’ll kill you, do you understand?’
I said it with such vehemence that she backed away and trailed along several paces behind me all the way home.
I knew I was treating her very badly. Part of me wanted to stop and put my arms round her and beg her to forgive me, but I still felt too angry. I couldn’t bear her laughing at me, behaving as if I was making half of it up. Rax and I were made for each other. Fate had brought us together. We were an unlikely couple, like Jane Eyre and Mr Rochester. They belonged together. They had to wait years but their story had a happy ending.
I tried hard to look older when I got ready to go out. I wore my black sweater, and hitched my school skirt up like a miniskirt. I stuffed my feet into a pair of ancient strappy high-heeled sandals from our dressing-up box. They’d been a ten-pence jumble-sale find long ago. Grace and I used to shuffle about happily, pretending to be big ladies. They were still several sizes too big for me, but I strapped them up as tightly as they would go, determined to make myself look as sophisticated as possible. I still had to walk with a hop-skip-shuffle to keep them on my feet, but I hoped Rax wouldn’t notice when he drove me home. I didn’t care how many times I twisted my ankle on my way there.
Mum created a scene about the shoes. She was shocked by my painted face too. I took no notice of her.
‘I don’t know what to do with you, Prudence,’ she wailed. ‘You’re getting so wilful. Just you wait till your father gets home! He’ll give you such a talking to.’
I held my tongue. It was starting to look as if Dad might never recover his speech. He had abruptly lost all interest in repeating words after me. He refused to make any attempt to say anything to us, though he still swore when especially irritated. This was a great deal of the time. However, the nurses said he was improving dramatically. He had supposedly started to walk during his physiotherapy sessions but he barely turned over in bed while we were there.
Someone had put a television in his room, thinking it an act of kindness. Dad behaved as if a miniature Kingdom of Hell was flaming at the end of his bed. Whenever the nurses switched it on he pulled the sheets up over his head, as if in fear of being scorched. But as the days passed he gradually peeped at several programmes, watching with one eye. Now he gazed avidly at the screen and shushed us if we spoke during his favourite shows.
‘Do you think Dad will let us have a telly when he comes home?’ Grace asked eagerly.
‘What are you going to buy it with, Monopoly money?’ said Mum.
She was still sifting through the bills and final demands every day. She got in such a state that she plucked up the courage to ask Dad what we should do.
Dad ignored her. Mum asked again, louder, though she went pink, terrified a passing nurse might hear about our money problems.
Dad still took no notice whatsoever, though we knew there wasn’t anything wrong with his hearing.
Mum didn’t pursue it. She managed to make small talk and gave Dad her usual kiss on his forehead, but on the bus going home her lip started quivering.
‘It’s all very well for your father, tucked up safe in the hospital,’ she said. ‘But what are we going to do when these bailiffs come and bash down the door?’
‘Can’t we sell the shop, Mum?’ I asked.
‘It would kill your father, Prue. He loves the shop so, you know he does. And anyway, I can’t put it on the market, it’s your dad’s property. I doubt if anyone would buy it now anyway. It needs so much work doing to it – and the whole parade’s gone to seed.’
‘So what will happen to us?’ Grace asked.
‘We’ll manage somehow,’ I said. ‘If we get slung out of the shop then they’ll have to rehouse us somewhere.’
‘On the Wentworth estate!’ Mum said. ‘And what would we have to live on, anyway?’
‘You’d get . . . I don’t know, unemployment benefit?’
‘Your dad’s never forked out for his proper national insurance payments, or mine either,’ said Mum.
‘Then you’ll just have to put Grace and me on the streets,’ I said, joking.
‘You’re starting to look like a street girl!’ Mum shouted after me now, as I went out the door. ‘Whatever will your teacher think, going babysitting looking like that!’
‘I look fine. You’re just hopelessly old-fashioned,’ I said, but I kept glancing at my reflection anxiously all the way to Laurel Grove.
Marianne answered the door to me. I saw her initial bemused expression. Then she smiled, rubbing her forehead above her nose.
‘I look funny, don’t I?’ I said.
‘What? No, no, of course not. Come on, Prue. You look very original, as always – and enviably skinny. No, I’ve just got a bit of a headache, that’s all. You know, time of the month and everything.’ She peered at me in the light of the hall. ‘You’ve gone a bit mad on your make-up tonight, haven’t you?’
‘I knew I looked awful.’
‘Just a bit . . . bright. Why don’t you try slightly subtler shades? Which lipstick do you use?’
‘I haven’t got any lipstick, or any other make-up. I just have to use my paints.’
‘I see. Yeah, that’s a bit of a problem. Here, come up to my room, let’s see if I can find you anything.’
I had to follow her upstairs and into her bedroom. She rummaged through her messy cosmetic bag.
‘Hang on, I know I’ve got a dusky pink lipstick somewhere.’
I couldn’t tell her that I’d experimented with it several times, that every time I came to babysit I couldn’t stop myself creeping into their bedroom and examining everything in it. I’d even taken to lying on her pillow and pretending that Rax was lying right next to me.
I averted my eyes from their bed now and let Marianne wipe off all the paint with her make-up remover cream. She started applying her own make-up on my face.
I could hear chuckles and shouts from the children in the bathroom. I thought Rax was giving both of them a bath. I was alarmed to open my eyes after Marianne had finished shadowing them to see Rax reflected in the mirror, watching us.
‘Oh, sorry!’ I said foolishly. ‘Shall I go and see to the children now?’
‘We’re not finished yet!’ said Marianne. ‘What about eyeliner? Just a very subtle grey shade? Keith, you haven’t left the kids in the bath, have you?’
‘No, no, they’re in their jim-jams. I’m just looking for Harry’s Honeybear, but I got distracted by the make-up session. It looks great.’
‘Just call me the makeover queen,’ said Marianne. She gathered my long wild hair in her hands. ‘Hey, let’s see what your hair looks like pinned up.’
I could feel myself blushing. I felt horribly self-conscious in front of Rax. I didn’t want Marianne dabbing at me any longer, even if she was good at it.
‘No, it looks silly up. I don’t like it,’ I said.
I liked my hair springing over my face and bouncing round my shoulders. I felt too exposed with it pinned up. But Marianne twirled it round her finger, and fixed it in a little chignon on top.
‘There!’ she said. ‘Oh, that looks so good! You’ve got such a lovely neck, Prue, just like a little ballet dancer.’
I pulled a face, fidgeting.
‘Doesn’t she look lovely, Keith?’ said Marianne.
‘Yes, she does,’ said Rax. ‘But maybe you should be getting on with your hair and make-up, Marianne, or we’ll never get out. The film starts at half past eight.’
Marianne sighed. ‘We can always get it out later on DVD. I’m not sure I can be bothered, not with this headache. I don’t really feel like going out at all.’
‘I think we should try to make the most of tonight. It might be our last chance for a while,’ said Rax.
He looked at me. I stared into the mirror at my own reflection, pretending to admire my new hairstyle.
Rax waited a moment. ‘Prue isn’t sure she can keep on babysitting on a regular basis,’ he said.
I swallowed. ‘Yes I can.’
I didn’t dare look at him.
‘Didn’t you tell me at school that your mum isn’t too happy about it?’ Rax said sternly.
‘Oh, she’s had second thoughts.’
‘Are you sure?’ said Marianne. ‘We’ve been a bit cheeky, simply commandeering you and taking you totally for granted.’
‘I’m quite sure,’ I said.
‘Well, that’s good,’ said Marianne. ‘Isn’t it, Keith?’
Rax said nothing. I knew he was probably furious with me but I couldn’t help it. He walked out of the room, ignoring both of us.
Marianne raised her eyebrows at me. ‘Take no notice. He’s been a bit edgy all week. Oh well, I suppose I’d better show willing and get ready. I’d much sooner stay home and play hairdressers!’
She smiled at me. I watched myself in the mirror, smiling straight back at her. I felt so wicked. I waited for the mirror to crack, for the walls to close in on me, for the carpet to slide down into a dark pit, taking me with it.
I stayed sitting on Marianne’s padded stool, the two of us smiling into the mirror, as if we were posing for our portrait.
