Naomi Alderman - The Lessons

‘But what?’ I persisted, surprised at myself. I found I wanted to know very much. ‘What history? That is —’ I could not help the hedge — ‘if you don’t mind saying.’

‘Oh …’ He thrust his hands deep into his pockets. ‘We were alone together for a long time, Ma and me. She has notions. About my soul, you know. I think she secretly hopes I’ll become a monk. Keep me safe.’

‘Because you’re gay?’

His eye was mocking and sharp.

‘Lord, no. She doesn’t care about that. No, no.’

He smiled faintly, a strange-angled smile.

‘So what, then? What’s she afraid of?’

He thinned his lips and said, very quickly, ‘Look, I had a breakdown once, OK? It’s not serious. It never was. She panicked a bit.’ Then, blinking, looking for a moment quite different from the man I’d known up to now, younger and more serious, he said, ‘Don’t tell the others. I’d rather they didn’t know.’

He turned and walked swiftly downstairs.

Mark went out that afternoon unexpectedly. He had said goodbye to his mother, but she would not leave without bidding him farewell again on the doorstep. So we waited and waited for his return. When he finally reappeared at 6.30 in the evening, Isabella was irritable and Colonel Felipe was unapproachable, growling and chewing an antimacassar to pieces.

‘We have been waiting, Marco. Where have you been? I have been ready to leave for hours and we have been waiting for you.’

‘I don’t see why you had to wait for me,’ said Mark. ‘You could have left when you were ready. I wouldn’t have minded.’

Isabella frowned deeply.

‘It’s nicer this way, though,’ Jess said quickly. ‘We can all say goodbye together, can’t we?’

This appeal brought a general nodding agreement. Isabella, though, glanced sidelong at Jess. I wondered how we all appeared to her. A gathering of heathens, trying to draw her son from the true path? Could she really think that Jess, of all people, would do harm?

‘No, Marco,’ said Isabella, ‘I could not have left. I need something from you. I have decided to take the music box home with me. My mamma’s box. It is too valuable to leave in this house without proper locks. We will keep it in California, where we are insured.’

Mark blanched.

‘You can’t,’ he said dully.

‘I think I must, Marco,’ said Isabella. ‘Bring it to me, please.’

‘I can’t,’ said Mark. ‘I … I don’t know where it is.’

Isabella frowned.

‘But, what do you mean, Marco? Where did you put it? Have you lost it?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Mark. He was looking at the floor. A flush was slowly travelling up his neck.

Despite myself, I felt heat rising in my own cheeks in sympathy.

‘Marco,’ said Isabella, ‘bring the box now, please.’

‘I told you,’ he said through gritted teeth, ‘I. Don’t. Know. Where. It. Is.’ He breathed in and out once, a choked and grating breath, then gabbled, ‘I went to look for it in my room last night but it was gone and I don’t know where it is someone must have come into the house and taken it.’

‘Taken …’ Isabella brought a freckled hand to her face.

The rest of us looked furtively at one another. That one of us could have stolen the music box was unthinkable.

‘It must have been a thief,’ supplied Mark, ‘who sneaked in some time.’

‘And this thief knew where to find your music box, Marco? In all this great house?’ Her arms were folded across her chest now.

‘I …’ Mark hesitated then, with casual bravado, ‘Well, you did wrap it rather gaudily, Mother.’

Isabella drew breath. We waited. If the box had been stolen, if one of us were suspected as dishonest, this house was over.

‘Wait,’ said Simon, standing up. ‘I think I might have seen it … Wait here.’

He sprinted up the staircase. We heard him thump along the corridor on the first floor and throw open a door at the far end of the hall.

‘I’ve found it!’ Simon shouted.

He dashed down the stairs, taking them two at a time, holding the white suede box.

‘I’ve found it!’ he said again. ‘It was in the storeroom. Spotted it this morning when I went to look for towels. You put it there by mistake, didn’t you? Last night?’

Mark nodded slowly. ‘Yes, by mistake. That sounds … yes. Stupid of me.’

His speech was thick and drawn out.

‘Come on, Mamma,’ he said. ‘Now you have the box, let me drive you to the station.’

Isabella took the box from Simon’s hands and opened the lid. Half a syllable escaped from Mark’s lips, an unintelligible noise, and Isabella said, ‘Oh.’ She put it on the table and I saw what was inside.

The music box was broken. The glass panes were cracked, the lid unhinged, one of the legs twisted. The mechanism had become unhoused and was rattling around inside the box. The ornate surface of the box was shattered, as if it had been thrown, hard, against a wall.

‘How did this happen?’ said Isabella.

‘I …’ said Mark, ‘I don’t know, I don’t know.’ He was twisting, his entire body writhing awkwardly in a gesture of such self-disgust that we all knew at once what had happened.

‘I don’t know,’ he said again, more softly.

Later, when we were alone, Jess asked why I’d done what I did, and I could not explain except by shrugging and saying, ‘It wasn’t so hard.’ I could not explain that I’d thought about the word ‘breakdown’, looked at the shattered box and understood what Mark was afraid of. It wasn’t just that Mark’s family could take the house away from him — away from us — though that was bad enough. It was that whatever independence he had won, in his dependent life, could be revealed as a sham. He needed us, I realized. The mythical group of friends who are closer than family, who replace family. It is a lie, of course. Friends are friends and family is family. But it is a necessary lie.

I thought he needed to be saved and that it was for me to do. In that moment I was lost.

‘It was me,’ I said.

Isabella turned astonished eyes to me.

‘ You , James? But why? Why would you do this?’

‘I, er, it was an accident,’ I said. ‘I, um, I dropped it.’

There was no going back now, only plunging onward.

‘I, er, well, I dropped it from the attic. Yes,’ I said, warming to my theme, ‘I often go there to, you know, get away from everything. I took it there yesterday afternoon. I just wanted to play with it but I was really stupid and I was hanging out of the window and fiddling with the box and, bang, dropped it. Four storeys. And then I, um … well, it bounced off the flagstones and fell into the undergrowth, and I had to go trampling around to find it, and I think I must have trodden on it a few times. When I found it …’ I trailed off, gazing at the broken thing.

Isabella stared at me, then back at the box, then back to my face.

‘But,’ she said, ‘but why did you not tell me? Why did you put it back into the box?’

‘I was embarrassed,’ I said. ‘I didn’t want to tell you I’d done something so stupid. I thought I could confess to Mark after you left. I’m … I’m really sorry. Mark, I’m so, so sorry. I know it meant a lot to you, your grandmother …’ I looked into his eyes.

‘Mark?’ I said. ‘Mark, can you forgive me?’

He blinked. He became, again, Mark. Cool in repose, elegant in outline.

‘Oh, James,’ he said, and his voice was warm, ‘of course I forgive you. Of course, of course, it was only a silly, silly mistake, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it, Mamma?’

Isabella could scarcely fail to concur.

‘Oh yes, James, you are forgiven.’

Mark stretched out his arms and welcomed me into his embrace.