Naomi Alderman - The Lessons

‘I shouldn’t think so,’ said Mark contentedly, ‘but who knows what miracles the power of God might bring about in my life.’

‘Do you really believe that, Mark?’ I ventured.

‘Really?’ He popped an olive into his mouth. ‘Yes. Yes, I think I really do. He died for my sins, and for yours, Nicola, and perhaps for yours, Jess and James and Simon. But not for yours, Franny, you wicked heretic.’

He picked up her hand from the table and kissed the back of it, and I could not tell how much of what he said was a joke.

‘But as for me, Nicola, the spirit may be willing but the flesh is weak and I do rather like men, I’m afraid to tell you.’

Nicola nodded, dipped her head down and then, thinking again, said, ‘But have you ever kissed a girl?’

Mark tipped his head to one side and raised his eyebrows. I was intrigued to know the answer to this question.

Evidently Franny was too. After a few moments, she said, ‘Go on, Mark, have you?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Quite a few actually, specially when I was younger. I don’t mind it at all, but then girls’ mouths are the same as boys’, aren’t they?’

‘So,’ Nicola pursued, ‘maybe you’d like it if you … Well, you don’t really know, do you, what you’d like to do with girls?’

‘Nicola,’ said Jess gently, ‘perhaps none of us know what might happen in the future, but he knows how he feels now.’

Nicola looked uncertainly around the table.

‘I suppose people can change though,’ she said at last.

It had become late again, and then early once more. We said goodnight at 5 a.m., shaking our heads and watching the stars wink out in the sky. Nicola hugged us, one after the other, even as her eyelids drooped and I wondered if we had done right by her, but I was too tired to make sense of it.

The next day, we took a picnic to the river. Simon and I carried the basket on the walk down, while Jess and Franny carried large tartan blankets rolled up and tied with string. Leo rode on Mark’s shoulders, singing out like a little bird and pointing at trees and flowers whose names he knew, shouting them joyfully. When three or four white butterflies circled his head he swung and tried to grab at them, and almost fell. After that Nicola walked alongside Mark, holding Leo’s hand and reminding him of the stories of the place: where the swing used to be, where Eloise got frightened by the cow, where they’d come in the autumn to cut logs for the fire.

We chose a spot by the river, under the shade of an alder tree. Nicola brought out hunks of cheese and bread, hard-boiled eggs, ham, apples and bars of chocolate. We feasted, splashed at the river a little — dangling our legs in but too tired to swim — then spread out one of the blankets, tramping down the grass to make it flat and comfortable.

‘You can’t sleep!’ said Leo, as first Franny and then Jess lay down on the blanket.

‘Yes, we can,’ said Franny. ‘We’re tired.’

‘But I’m boooored.’ Leo directed this at Mark, who was already settling himself against the tree trunk, eyes closed.

‘We’ll play with you later,’ said Mark.

Leo came uncertainly and tugged on my shirt.

‘Can we play a game now?’

‘Sorry, kiddo.’ I found I felt comfortably grown up in this position, replying to the request in the same way my parents had to me on long summer days. ‘You’ll have to play by yourself for a bit, OK?’

Leo wasn’t happy with this.

‘I’m booooooored,’ he roared again. He kicked at the tree trunk.

I tried, afterwards, to remember who first suggested that Leo should be a monkey, hiding in the branches of the tree. We were tired of him, exhausted by the constant demands of a small child, hungover from the night before, and it could have been any of us. I think perhaps it was Franny but I cannot be sure. In any case, the idea was eagerly adopted. We could watch him play and lie very still in one place at the same time.

Leo said, ‘Yes, yes. I can go “ook ook” like a monkey and throw nuts on you.’

Simon lifted him up into the branches of the tree that hung over the bank out into the river.

He clung happily to a branch, advancing hand over foot. I lay on my back and watched him wander through the branches. There are few things as beautiful as the sky observed through the leaves of a tree. The constant small movements, as if the leaves were alive and wriggling, the dapples of light and shade, patches of light opening up and closing again, the places where leaf over leaf produces a rich saturation of colour, or where the sunshine creates translucency. Like the layered frills of a petticoat or the delicate fanned ceiling of Christ Church Cathedral, so much of what we make in art is an attempt to recreate the simple beauty of a tree.

Leo grabbed a chunk of leaves, ripped them off and scattered them down on us.

‘I’m a monkey!’ he said. ‘Ook ook!’

‘Hey!’ said Franny, sitting up. ‘Don’t do that. You nearly got me in the eye.’

Leo stretched out his arms, T-shirt riding up, and hauled himself a little higher in the tree.

‘I’m a monkey,’ he said again. ‘You can’t catch me!’

He threw another handful of leaves and twigs. A few of the pieces were quite large and heavy. They scattered drily on the baked earth.

‘Don’t do that, Leo,’ said Jess. ‘You really might hurt someone.’

‘Time to come down now, Leo,’ said Nicola.

He had climbed up higher than we realized, higher than any of us could reach without climbing ourselves.

Leo threw down another heavy handful of leaves and twigs and bark.

‘Ook ook!’ he said. ‘Ook ook! I’m the monkey and you’re all the other animals in the jungle and the monkey is the naughty one!’

He was bouncing up and down, obviously excited to be out of our reach.

He threw more leaves. Two handfuls this time, and as he hurled them, palms splayed open like starfish, he lost his balance, rocked backward on the branch, seemed about to fall, then clutched at the branch above and steadied himself.

He was unafraid, but we became quiet.

‘Come on,’ said Nicola, making her voice serious. ‘Enough of this game. Come down, Leo. Come down now, please.’

‘Yes,’ said Simon, shading his eyes from the sun with his forearm, ‘come down or I’ll come up there and get you myself.’

Leo squirmed and wriggled further out along the branch.

‘Oh, come on , Leo,’ said Simon. ‘Or we’ll just have to shake you out of the tree.’

Leo squeaked indignantly and climbed another few inches along the branch, out over the river.

‘For goodness’ sake, Leo,’ said Nicola. ‘You’re going to have to —’

And there was a sudden crack. The bough did not break, but bent like a spring and Leo jolted forward and reached his arms out to steady himself and as he reached the branch sprang again, past the stronger supporting branches it had rested on and, head over foot, arms outstretched, spinning like an acrobat, Leo fell.

While he tumbled it was comical. His little mouth was as round as an o, his eyebrows raised, his hands still reaching out. For that brief flash of time it was the funniest thing I’d ever seen. And then he hit the water and screamed, and sound and colour returned to the world. His head went down under the surface. I couldn’t see him. I looked at the place he had vanished for the space of a heartbeat, two, three, and then he reappeared, struggling, gasping, several feet away from the bank. Much further out than he’d fallen in.

He was facing towards us, but moving with the current of the river downstream. And suddenly his head vanished. Just under, then back. And I was still smiling, but only because my body was unable to stop. He went under again and then came back, his arms thrashing helplessly in the water, coughing and coughing. He was near enough that we could see the fear in his face, but too far away for us to be able to reach him.