Naomi Alderman - The Lessons

‘We paid a lot of money for that membership, James,’ rumbled my father.

‘I know you did, Dad. I …’

‘Don’t forget, darling, he was very ill,’ said my mother, but Anne had found her stride and was not to be deflected from it.

‘He wasn’t ill, he hurt his leg, and I don’t see what that has to do with anything else. Fine, he’s out for a blue. But it shouldn’t have stopped him working. That’s just giving in.’

Paul coughed and interjected, ‘I had German measles once. German measles quite serious, you know, for an adult.’ He paused, apparently waiting for us all to commiserate with him on this grave misfortune. As we remained silent, he continued, ‘It was when I was up for an OUSU election. OUSU, important stepping stone. Career-wise, vital.’

Anne nodded vehemently, as if to a committee meeting. I wondered if she’d type up and circulate some minutes of the conversation.

‘And what did you do, Paul?’

Paul blinked, ‘Well, I went to hustings, you know. Important to make the effort. That’s what you do.’

Anne began, ‘And you see, that’s exactly what I’m —’

‘I don’t see what this has got to do with you, Paul,’ I snapped, ‘or Anne, for that matter. You’re not my mum and dad.’

Anne paused for a moment, mildly startled, I thought, by my answering her at all. ‘I’m sure Mum and Dad agree with me, don’t you?’

‘Your sister did very well at Oxford …’ began my mother.

‘She made use of the opportunity, is what she’s saying,’ said my father.

‘I’m not telling you any of this for the good of my health,’ said Anne.

Later, I called Jess from the phone box at the end of our road, feeding it with 20p pieces as I listened to her calming voice. She had achieved a first in each of her Prelim exams and had received a crisp white letter informing her that she was to be awarded a scholarship of £500 a year.

‘That’s brilliant,’ I said flatly. ‘You deserve it. I just wish … I wish I had your focus.’

‘It’s over now,’ she said. ‘Second year. You can make a fresh start. You passed, didn’t you? That’s all that matters.’

‘Do you know how the others did?’

She did. Franny had also averaged a first, Emmanuella and Simon upper seconds and Mark … Well, all he’d admit was that he’d got through ‘by the skin, my darling, the very epidermis of my molars’.

The whole thing was so ridiculously haphazard. At school, if a student like me or like Mark — recognized as bright and capable — had barely scraped their way through an important exam, there would have been concerned meetings, offers of extra help, a determination to find out what had gone wrong. Someone would have noticed.

‘Do you think I should take up … extracurricular activities?’

‘Are you asking me if I want you to start shagging someone else?’ Jess said, chuckling.

‘You know what I mean.’

‘I suppose so. If you want to. It might give you something to do while I’m rehearsing for the concert.’

I thought of the crowds I’d walked through at Freshers’ Fair, of the different lives that had been on offer there: the Marxist Society, the Experimental Theatre Club, the Wine Society, the Doctor Who Society, the Angling Club, the Archery League. I had signed up for a few of these organizations, still received twice-termly mailings from the Film Society and the Debating Club, but they reminded me too intensely of my depression of the previous winter.

‘I think I’ll just concentrate on my work,’ I said.

Guntersen, naturally, had received a scholarship and with it the long-sleeved gown that demonstrated his intellectual superiority. He wore it to every available formal hall and, without any requirement, to the first tutor-group meeting of term in Dr Boycott’s office.

Panapoulou too, a strangely remote and tic-ridden student, was sporting the long sleeves, although in his case I suspected he’d simply forgotten to take his gown off after the previous night’s dinner. His constant fidgeting made him seem to wrestle with the fabric, hoisting it back and then tugging it forward. He was kind though, if distant, and had helped me several times when I was in the library struggling with an impossible question sheet. He smiled at me before Boycott began to speak. We had all made sure to discover how the others had done. I was the very worst of all. Had I been at a more competitive college, I might have been thrown out, culled for the sake of the league tables. I was fortunate that Gloucester College did not, at that time, adopt such draconian measures, but my social standing had fallen with this calamity. Everard and Glick would not meet my eyes.

‘Gentlemen,’ said Dr Boycott, ‘another year begins, and with it greater challenges, greater expectation. We are still quorate, I am happy to note. Some of you,’ he nodded to Guntersen and Panapoulou, ‘have fulfilled your early promise admirably, while others —’ he inclined his head fractionally towards Daswani and me — ‘have, shall we say, yet to prove yourselves. However! We begin afresh with high hopes and expectations.’

Dr Strong nodded happily. His front pair of glasses swung and clattered against the back pair.

‘From the very best to the very worst of you —’ and here, or was it my imagination, he seemed to nod towards me again — ‘your talents are undisputed. But let us now put our shoulders to the wheel, let us stride forth, let us climb ever higher towards the peaks we are capable of ascending, let us spread forth our wings and, reaching our hands towards the prize and unfurling our sails, let us take flight!’

He paused, seeming exhausted after this encomium of educational ecstasy, scratched his chin thoughtfully and gave out the term’s tutorial lists.

When I think of that term now, it is the music that returns to me. The music and the image of Jess practising in the early mornings, in the ice-skimmed conservatory at the side of the house so as not to wake anyone, two pairs of socks on her feet, tracksuit pulled over her pyjamas, leaning into the melody again and again, warming her fingers on her mug of coffee to soften the ligaments and then trying once more, and once more.

Although she had explained to me, quite clearly, that the orchestra would need more of her time this term, I hadn’t imagined her absence would be so wide. She had won the prestigious position of soloist for a performance by one the university orchestras. The piece was Sibelius’s Violin Concerto in D Minor; it has a metallic, alien sound, an emotional slipknot at the throat. The emotion of it is so unlike Jess that, the first time she played the CD to me, I could not imagine that she could channel it. At times, the mood is almost cheerful, even romantic, and then within moments it becomes frantic again, broken-hearted, filled with despair. It is a manic-depressive episode in half-hour miniature. Sometimes I sat in the conservatory, trying to work as she played, but it often became unbearable as she repeated the same musical phrase twenty or thirty or forty times, searching for an intonation that pleased her. She claimed not to mind — or even notice — whether I was there or not, and so I frequently left her to play alone.

On occasion Randolph, another violinist, would come to practise with her. His face was red and bull-like, his demeanour unsettlingly aggressive. He listened to Jess with a frown, and corrected her, his hand on her shoulder blades as she played, his fingers dancing with hers on the neck of the instrument. He greeted me curtly and took, without invitation, to calling me ‘Jim’.

With Jess’s own academic work still pressing, she was often out of the house until 11 p.m. or midnight, waking up at 6 a.m. to begin practice again. She reserved Sunday afternoons and evenings to spend with me, but I could not help feeling that I had been scheduled like a visit to the dentist or some weekly chore. Still, I told myself, it would not last long.