Хилари Боннер - A Deep Deceit

I did my best to comply. Because I was with Gran, none of the other children dared approach me, but I was aware of dozens of pairs of eyes staring at me. And I knew that I had blushed bright crimson as I always did when nervous or embarrassed.

At home, Gran tried to get me to tell her exactly what had happened and why. I still could not find the words. She was not pleased with me, of course, but she was more disbelieving than anything else. Gran knew well enough that the last thing I had was an aggressive nature. Maybe her years as a schoolteacher had given her some insight into the behaviour of children, which the staff of St Justin’s did not seem to share.

Gran had never stopped battling with the local authorities in order to do what she thought was best for me, but after that incident she doubled her efforts.

‘This child must be taught at home,’ she wrote to the local director of education. ‘She is a disturbed and physically weak child, quite unable to cope with the rigours of day-to-day life in a school and all the rough and tumble that entails.’

She was, of course, quite right. But what never occurred to Gran, I am sure, and what I did not consider until many years later, was just how much I had become the child that she had made me.

The same schools inspector eventually returned to re-evaluate the situation.

‘Look at her,’ commanded Gran, ‘and tell me that child should be sent back to school.’

I stood trembling before them both, desperately trying not to cry. I had never been confident but when I had been confronted by the inspector previously I had certainly not been afraid. This time I was terrified of him, of all strangers, and of being forced to go back to the school that had caused me so much misery.

I don’t know how much he noticed the difference in me, or whether it was just that Gran was such a formidable woman, but she won the day. A few weeks later she was given official permission to teach me at home and I never did return to school following the incident of the platform.

Over the years we were inspected regularly by education officers from the local authority, but academically Gran’s education of me could not be faulted. I might have more or less missed almost a year of learning because of my inability to function at St Justin’s, but under Gran’s tuition I quickly caught up. Throughout my schooling with her I was at a much higher standard in almost all subjects, particularly English Literature and History, than the average for my age. And I will always be grateful to Gran for nurturing my love of books. Nor did she totally neglect the more practical side of my education, teaching me to cook, to sew and to type.

Gran studied public examination syllabuses and I studied with Gran. I re-entered the public domain only to take my GCSE examinations at the nearest state secondary school. I effortlessly passed all the arts subjects with high grades and managed to scrape through maths. Only in the sciences did Gran’s teaching perhaps not quite pass muster and of course there had been little or no opportunity for practical experiments.

My upbringing was about as sheltered as you could possibly get, I suppose. Yet I was happy enough – except during my time at St Justin’s – if only, maybe, because I knew no better. Gran saw it as her mission in life to look after me and I always liked being looked after.

I accepted that I needed looking after much more than most children. Indeed, I accepted, as I grew older, that I would always need looking after. I never seemed to have the ability to make decisions for myself. I read newspapers and watched TV – our small portable set, which was a reluctant concession from Gran who did not really approve but eventually gave in to my pleas for one on the grounds that there was so much to be learned from it – and as I grew into adolescence realised that I was reaching an age when many young people chose to rebel. I had no such desire. I was contented with my lot. I would not have known how to rebel, or whom to rebel against. Gran was the kindest, cleverest woman in the world, I thought, and I felt so safe with her.

Gran and I had few friends and rarely went out, except to church on Sundays and a fellowship meeting once a week. Gran was very religious and I naturally grew up accepting her standards and beliefs. I certainly never questioned her simplistic conviction that God was as real as she and I were. I think she actually did believe in an old bearded guru sitting on a cloud somewhere up in the sky.

About the only outside influence we had came from the little chapel we were members of, not far from our Hounslow home. Gran was strictly chapel, predictably unimpressed by the pomp and ceremony of the Catholic church and even the Church of England. The pastor was a tall, handsome, rather aloof man called Robert Foster. Gran adored him. He was the only person she had ever met, she told me, who knew the Bible better than she did – and that included an awful lot of clergymen, Gran said.

I was eighteen and had just taken my A levels – English, History, and Art – when I began to realise that Gran was not well. She looked tired all the time and seemed to be in some pain. Eventually she went to the doctor, something that didn’t happen often in our house. Gran usually reckoned that an aspirin and an early night were a cure for almost anything. When she came home after her visit to the surgery – I had not been allowed to accompany her, which was rare because Gran and I usually went everywhere together – she seemed anxious and distracted.

I tried to find out what was wrong but she wouldn’t tell me. The Reverend Foster came to the house, and he and Gran spent more than an hour closeted together. Eventually she came out of the dining room where they had been talking behind closed doors and told me she had something to say.

It seemed she was dying of cancer.

I could barely take it in. Gran was my world. I knew nothing else. Selfishly, perhaps, I didn’t think at first in terms of her pain or even of my own loss. I thought at once only about how I would survive. I simply did not know how to cope without her. But I might have known she would have thought of that.

‘You’re my biggest worry, child,’ she told me. ‘My only worry. I am happy to go to my Maker, I’ve always tried to serve Him and I don’t doubt His promise of eternal life,’ she announced predictably. ‘But you, girl. You need looking after...’

Gran paused and the Reverend Foster stepped forward.

‘Robert has agreed to take you on,’ said Gran, clutching the clergyman by the arm and sounding as if she were talking about an old horse or a broken-down motor car rather than a teenage girl. ‘Robert needs a wife and I’m sure you’ll make him a good one. I know he’s twenty-odd years older than you, but I think you will be helped by the stability of an older man.’

I remember gazing at the pair of them in amazement. The whole thing was such a shock. ‘B-b-but, we barely know each other,’ I stuttered.

The Reverend Foster stepped forward and positioned himself directly in front of me. He placed one big hand firmly on each of my shoulders and peered down at me. His eyes, staring directly into mine, were a piercing blue and I was aware of them having an almost hypnotic effect. ‘We will have a lifetime to get to know each other, my dear,’ he said. His voice was pleasingly soft, but I knew from his sermons from the pulpit that it was not always so.

I glanced uncertainly at Gran. ‘I don’t know, I... it’s j-just so much to take in,’ I stammered.

Gran tried to smile reassuringly. She looked so ill and weary. ‘I don’t know what else to do,’ she said, and she spoke very quietly and slowly. ‘I just feel sure it’s for the best.’

I trusted Gran with my life. She seemed to have no doubts. I don’t remember either her or Robert Foster being all that interested in what I thought of the plans they had made for me and I went along with them. I seemed to have no choice. I don’t think I really thought about the magnitude of what I was doing. I had no sense of committing myself to another person for the rest of my life.