Etched on Me Read online

  She was fierce, too. Whenever the class ringleaders, Gemma and Bettina, gave her shit, she’d give it right back. Like the time they mocked her American accent, never mind that it was nowhere near a twangy sitcom one, and subtle enough to show she’d lived here a long time and knew how to walk the map-edges of a lot of different worlds. Maybe that threatened those girls, or maybe they did just think it was funny.

  Either way, Miss wasn’t having any of it. She spun right round from the chalkboard, and did the most perfect imitation of the bastardized Cockney they liked to put on: “Better to be a born-and-bred Yank than pretend I grew up in Shoreditch to boost my street cred, innit?” Just enough to call them out, but not so much as to be truly mean. Flipping fabulous. I about fell over.

  Another time we were supposed to be working on our essays, and the girls in the back were whispering and giggling about their debauched weekends instead, thinking nobody could hear, but I knew that Miss’s finely honed bullshit radar was about to detect.

  Sure enough, she glanced up from her desk, casually graceful, her Tate Modern earrings going swingity-swing, and said, in her sharpest I’m so not messing around voice, “Ladies, last time I checked, tallies of who boffed whom weren’t part of the National Curriculum.” And then, just before the girls could get all squawky and miffed, she flashed them a sly little smile to let them know that, yes, she was vexed, but she also remembered what it was like to be sixteen and had no doubt had some debauched weekends of her own.

  She was clever like that, Miss, but also challenging as a teacher. Some of the other instructors at the Hill were known for going a bit easy, especially on the girls whose parents had donated to the school’s endowment, but Miss wasn’t having any of that, either. I mean, talk about rigorous, she had us reading Ulysses in Lower Sixth. Everyone else moaned about it, but for me it was a nightly ritual: get home round about ten after closing the chip shop, huddle under my ratty blanket, put my Screaming Women on, crack open that dusty, hulking monster of a book, and crawl right into Leopold Bloom’s head.

  I’ll be honest, most evenings I did a skim, but when I got to the part at the end, with his wife, Molly, going on about being a flower of the mountain and the hillside and the seedcake, my jaw went slack with amazement. The thought of an actual question, heavy as fruit with desire, hanging in the air (May I? Will you? Will we?), the very idea that you could be asked, be worthy and cherished enough for someone to ask, not just take—God, that was heady enough. But then, to think that you—that I—would want to say yes, and not just say it but murmur it, whisper it, moan it? I couldn’t even imagine.

  Well, all right, sometimes I imagined, but I only got about thirty seconds in before the blackness closed over my head and I became closet Lesley, of the shoved spine and musty hatboxes and uninvited knuckles and forcibly twined tongue, and that part of me didn’t want a damn thing to do with yes. The fingers of her hand went right up in a paparazzi block, curved straight into a preemptive punch; they never slid down anywhere warm, or opened any blouse ribbons for an eager suitor. The only leaning she—no, say it right, I—did was away, pushed up against the wall I’d built for myself, repeating: No. No. No.

  I wouldn’t reach yes until Clare. But there in my room, underneath a dog-eared book by a dead one-eyed Irishman, a little catwalk between no and yes started to take shape, to scaffold.

  And it freaked me the hell out. As did going to school and watching honey-haired girls move their lithe, buttery-limbed bodies through space like they deserved every good thing the world had to offer.

  On top of that, I had to give a deposition, which is an interview, carried out by the opposing side’s legal team, that’s designed to make you feel so intimidated that you either screw up your story or cave from the pressure of the interrogation. And when I say “interrogation,” I’m not at all exaggerating, because that torture dragged on for six hours. Six bloody hours of a microphone clipped to my blouse, of wires plugging me into their dirty machinery, of a court transcriptionist’s keyboard clack-clack, of a video camera’s voyeur lens recording my every lash-blink as my dad’s solicitor asked crap like, “How many sexual partners have you had?” (Just your client, and it wasn’t exactly a partnership.) Or, my favorite: “Any chance you wanted to get back at your father for something?” (Umm, other than the fact that he couldn’t keep his privates private?) Fishing around for every last crumb of stale bread that could point a trail back to Lesley’s a skank, Lesley’s a liar.

  I wanted to pound the table, give them a “Fuck that fuck that fucking fuck that,” shout back every cheeky answer that popped into my head. But I’d been told by my own solicitor to “refrain from engaging” with their attempts to wind me up.

  “Don’t worry,” I told him. “I’m a disengagement pro.”

  And indeed I was. Ceiling to the rescue. Not a single sniffle. Which of course Dad’s solicitors jumped on: “In all candor, Miss Holloway, you don’t look the least bit traumatized.”

  I bit my lip. Felt the ceiling cave.

  Can we stop, please? I scribbled to Francesca on her notepad.

  She read my query, then raised her hand. “Pardon me, gentlemen, but I believe your time is up.”

  And just like that, it stopped. She took me down the hall to her office, with its orchid plant on the desk and its corkboard with postcards from Venice and its little dishful of candies, which she let me unwrap, one by one by one, so my hands would have something to do other than uncontrollably shake.

  “Sorry,” I kept saying. “I’ll refill it.”

  “Don’t waste a second worrying.” Francesca reached for a toffee. Popped it into her mouth. Worked its chewy center down to nothing with impressive demureness, then leaned forward towards me, so close I could glimpse the red glints she’d recently got put in her hair, tingeing its brunette ordinariness with sparks of spitfire.

  “This will be over soon,” she said.

  And then it’ll get better, I thought. The girls at school will stop calling me “Scholarship Suck-up,” and I’ll buy new turquoise knickers and string some lights round the windows in my room at the hostel, and my dreams will stop being freak-show mash-ups where I feel his fingers yank my hair and watch my own fingers stroke shiny tresses until the wires cross and the blackness closes over my head and I wake up and thud my fist, slam slam slam, into my pitiful pillow.

  But the dreams weren’t through with me yet. That night, when I startled out of their familiar terror, I got up and went down the kitchen, grabbed a pair of shears, and hacked off every inch of my own shoulder-length mousy blond hair.

  All that earned me was an earful of snickers from Bettina and Co. the next morning, but I didn’t care, imagining myself as . . . well, not butch, so much (I hadn’t an awareness of what that meant yet), but definitely blunt-cut indie cool.

  At least until lunch, when I went into the girls’ toilets and stared in the mirror at myself and conceded that yeah, I really did look like shit. The rough yet flyaway fuzz atop my head, the harsh angles of my cheekbones, the recent resurgence of acne spots angrily dotting my face all made it clear: I was nothing but a scruffy waif. I reached out a finger, jabbed it at my reflection. In my head, backed by demented carnival music, Kate Bush was singing “That girl in the mirror, between you and me, she-don’t-stand-a-chance-at-getting-anywhere-at-all,” her words precise yet slurry. I was suspended between a sob and a snarl.

  Just then Mrs. Kremsky came out of a stall and noticed me standing by the sinks. “Hey, Lesley,” she said, all chillaxed, as she rinsed her hands under the tap.

  Indie cool, Les, indie cool, I told myself. “Hi, Miss.”

  She glanced over, still matter-of-fact, but I could sense a tautness to the way she looked at me. Like she’d figured it all out: me, feeling like utter crap, but also thoroughly invested in my game face.

  “Short hair really suits you,” she said.

  I swiped at a smudge on the mirror. “Oh. Thanks. Reckon my stylist went a bit overboard, though.”


  Miss turned towards me, her arms loosely crossed, her head lowered with that crooked been there myself smile. For a moment, I pictured her as a teenager in a shadowy kitchen, her black-fingernailed hand poised for glinty-bladed attack.

  “You know,” she said, “I could try to even that out for you, if you wanted.”

  Of course I wanted. The idea of Miss smartening up my botched fury sounded like the best serendipitous gift since finding the Children’s Services Team’s phone number.

  She nipped out to the supply closet and came back with a pair of scissors more delicate than the ones I’d used, but still substantial. “Wet the front for me?”

  I dipped my hand beneath the faucet. Ran my dampened fingers through what little front I had left. Stood still as I could as she stepped up behind me, near enough to reach the tufts at the back of my neck, but not so close that we jostled each other. She was way taller than me, and I felt more than a little awed. “I didn’t realize you did hair, Miss.”

  “Oh, I was a Manic Panic fan in a former life,” she said, snipping at the bits by my ears. “Don’t mind a modified Chelsea cut, do you?”

  Ha, so she had been punk.

  “Not at all,” I said, closing my eyes so she could trim nearby.

  When I opened them again, she tilted her head to appraise me. Made a contemplative hrm hrm hrm noise. “Little more, I’m thinking.” Two decisive snips, and then she gestured for me to turn back around. “There. Have a look.”

  I looked. Raised my hands to my mouth in amazement. My sharp face and its bothersome bumps were still there, but she’d transformed my ragged cowlicks into something cropped and smooth enough to befit an edgy pixie.

  “Holy shit,” I said.

  Bless her, Miss didn’t bat an eyelash. “You might have to spike it into submission in the mornings,” she said, “but other than that, totally low-maintenance.”

  I couldn’t help grinning. “Loads better. Thank you.”

  “No problem.” She turned to leave. “Exam on Eliot this afternoon. You ready?”

  “Studied like mad.”

  Quick glance over her shoulder at me, along with a grin back. “Good, because I outdid myself on the essay questions this time.”

  • • •

  A few hours later, I strode into lit class with both a newfound swagger (Say good-bye to “Scholarship Suck-up,” Mallorca twats!) and an insatiable need for a nap. Between the final reckoning of the till at the shop the night before and all that Waste Land reviewing, I’d not got to bed till two in the morning. As Mrs. Kremsky passed out our exams, I felt a yawn coming on and hurried to hide it with my palm.

  “Ahh, no falling asleep on the dawn of modernism, now.” Miss said it teasingly, but my face still burned.

  While I scrawled out answers, I propped my head up on my left hand. Paused to drum my pencil atop the page, in the hope that its rhythm might keep me awake.

  At the desk in front of mine, Gemma turned round in petulant whisper. “Some of us are trying to work here, if you’ve not noticed.”

  “All the more reason to save your grievances for the after-party,” Miss said from the lectern.

  My delight at that smackdown kept me going for another paragraph or so, but then my chin commenced slumping and my eyelids began to flutter.

  Next I knew, I was lolling my head back up like a shit-faced turtle, just in time to see the others file out of the empty classroom and find Miss crouched down on her heels beside me.

  “Ohmygod,” I mumbled, rubbing my fingers over the bridge of my nose and my eyes. “I’m so sor—”

  “Don’t be. It’s all right.”

  No, it wasn’t. Not with a big blob of drool on my unfinished exam, and wisps of my freshly cut hair scattered all over the desk.

  Miss reached over and put her hand on my arm. For a minute or so, we just stared at each other, silent. A welcome change from my weekly meetings with Francesca, whose cheery kindnesses filled up every spare space, whose staccato bursts of questions (not that I could fault them; she had to ask) came rapid-fire: “Do you feel safe at the hostel? Are you keeping up at school? Do you need me to liaise with your solicitor? With your mum?” (Please. No. Just sit here, and be with me.)

  Around Miss, I felt I didn’t have to talk. Which, strangely enough, made me want to.

  “I work,” I said. “Eats up all my evening. And the trip out here on the tube, it’s an hour and a half, easy.”

  “Where are you commuting in from?”

  “Islington.”

  Her mouth turned down in a grimace. “No rest for the weary on that Northern Line, is there?”

  I shook my head.

  “Listen,” she said. “I can give you a ride here and back.”

  I bit my lip. Stared down at my half-finished exam.

  “And I won’t be offended if you think that’s too weird.”

  “No, no,” I said, looking up. “I just hate to make you go out of your way for—”

  “It’s not out of my way. I live a few blocks from Angel station.” She gave my arm a squeeze, then let go. “Think about it, okay?”

  • • •

  I didn’t have to think long. Come the next Monday, I was standing outside the hostel with my schoolbag on my shoulder, watching Mrs. Kremsky’s dark-gray Volkswagen pull up to the front door.

  “Nice, very nice,” she said from the driver’s seat, with a nod towards my spiked hair. “Have you had breakfast yet?”

  I shook my head.

  “Well, then.” She reached over and plucked a paper bag from atop the dashboard. “Take your pick.”

  I peered inside to find a pair of scones. Cranberry-orange and chocolate chip.

  “Aww, bless,” I said. “You didn’t have to.”

  “Yes, I did,” she said, smiling. “No way I’m braving the congestion zone without a Costa Coffee run.”

  She gestured towards one of the plastic-lidded cups nestled near the gearshift. “I hope hazelnut with copious amounts of cream works.”

  A real flipping latte. I lifted it in both hands, inhaling.

  “Oh,” I said after the first sip, my voice unfurling in a satiated sigh. “It so does.”

  She glanced over at me. Smiled again. “Good.”

  We drove the rest of the way in silence, sipping at our drinks, brushing crumbs from our laps. I’m not one to go in for thoughts about the afterlife, but let me tell you, that trip was heaven, from the roomy leather seat with the internal heat that kept my spine toasty to the warm flaky sugar that dissolved on my tongue.

  Next day, it was the same thing: hello, coffee, pastries, conversation-less inch northbound. You had to hand it to Miss for being down with that level of awkward reticence. I mean, she very well may have had an inner Francesca popping up like an overeager student, waving her hand, going, “Ooh! Ask Lesley about her tragic situation! Educate her about literary theory! Make small talk about weather, or traffic, or school!,” but if so, she did an excellent job of keeping her quiet.

  Which isn’t to say that we didn’t communicate at all, because we did plenty. Mainly through Miss’s CD collection, which was a remarkably ecumenical glovebox stash ranging from punk to classical. She’d take a sloshy swallow of her coffee, glance over. “What’ll it be today, Les?”

  “Vivaldi,” I’d say, if I wanted to lean my head against the window and doze. “The Clash,” I’d suggest, if I had an exam that morning and needed to get pumped up.

  One day I brought “Best of the Screaming Women” along in my bag, just for the hell of it. When I handed it over to her to play on the drive home, Miss took one look at the marker-drawn label and gave me a thumbs-up.

  “Oh my God,” she said, chuckling, when the first Kate Bush track came on. “Last time I heard this, Maggie Thatcher was still in office and I was holed up in Bloomsbury, writing a thesis on my boy James.”

  “You moved here for university?” I asked.

  She paused for a moment, chewing her lip as if debating whether to say m
ore, then nodded. “Nineteen years, this country’s been stuck with me.”

  “Well, it ought to be grateful.”

  Her chuckle bloomed into a full-on laugh. “Campaigning for a shorter book assignment for next month, are we?”

  “No,” I said. “I mean it.”

  She reached over like she was about to give my arm a squeeze again, but then her mobile rang, and she scurried to turn down the music and answer.

  “Hey, you.” I could tell from her tone—breezy but alert—that it was her year-older-than-me son phoning. “Mmm. And whom are you going with? . . . No, it’s fine, I just wanted to know. . . . And you’ve got money for dinner? . . . All right. Have fun, darlin’.”

  She finished with him and turned the CD back up just as the song about the evil house-invading spirit came on, all bellows and wails. I drummed my stuttery fingers along the armrest on the passenger side, in time to the door-slammy percussion. Felt myself leave myself.

  By the time I came back down, Miss had already turned onto Liverpool Road. “Still with me, Les?” There was an endearing smudge of lipstick on her front tooth, from her pensive what-to-divulge gnawing.

  “Yes,” I said.

  • • •

  You’d think that those casual-but-warm hours spent in Miss’s car would have given me a glimmer of hope, a bright spot, same as my nascent Ulysses catwalk, but they didn’t. Every time her son rang, I felt a prickly skin-crawl of envy, a different flavor of desire: to be called “darlin’,” to be offered dinner money that wasn’t dispensed out a government envelope, to have someone “just want to know” for reasons other than a Children’s Services file update.

  And then I’d get out of the toasty car with my gone-cold coffee, wave good-bye to Miss like she was merely my colleague, and take that longing with me, wrapped round my shoulders like a moth-eaten cloak while I swept up the chip shop or sat at my desk-slash-dresser eating my dinner of instant noodles, fighting the urge to . . . what? Cry? Stomp about? March into the hall and fling myself at the first Pervy McPerv I saw, in a desperate, misguided attempt at procuring some affection?