Naomi Alderman - The Lessons

Darlings —

Can’t see a gondola without thinking of you both. Punting, strawberries, champagne etc. Young love. Writing this, I want to be with you now, snuggled between you in a punt, like three bugs in a bed. Missing you both. Especially Jess. And especially James.

Best love,

M.

Jess laughed when she read this, and stuck the card into the frame of the mirror in our hallway. A few days later, when she was out, I took it down. I turned it over in my hands, reading the words again, tracing the curves of the letter M with my fingertip. I ripped it up and threw it in the outside bin. When Jess wondered what had happened to it, I shrugged and said nothing and thought, if I stay very still, perhaps life will ignore me.

Jess and I found new friends in any case. I was by this time working as a maths teacher at a private school for boys in west London. Some of the other teachers were pleasant company. One, Ajit, reminded me of Simon with his constant talk of ‘going on the pull’. He used to say, ‘You and your missus, it’s like you’ve been married twenty years,’ and this pleased me. Jess’s friends from her orchestra often found their way back to our flat after rehearsals, and we settled into a habit of hosting boisterous Sunday night suppers. Because she was often out late, I learned to cook, and found that I enjoyed it. The role-reversal pleased me, the surprise of being the one to pull a whole ham, fragrant and juicy, or a massive glistening lasagne from the oven to feed a tribe of musicians. I came to enjoy the girls’ sighs of, ‘James, if you weren’t taken, I’d marry you myself,’ as they dug their spoons through the glittering sugar crust of an apple pie or ladled out piping-hot servings of creamy rice pudding, aromatic with cinnamon and raisins.

They spoke a secret language to which I did not have access, these musicians. They burst into impromptu song, discussed conductors and techniques I’d never heard of, demonstrated bowing techniques using a loaf of French bread and a butter knife. But it was fine. At night after they left and when Jess and I were lying in bed together, she would curl up under my arm and enquire, into my chest, whether I had minded their noise, how late they had stayed. And I would shake my head and tell her that, no, I had enjoyed myself, would be happy to cook for them again next week. And she would snuggle closer.

And this was my life; it was perfectly satisfactory within the limits of what was possible.

I don’t know whether I would ever have changed anything of my own volition. I suspect not. I was two years out of university but my pleasant life still felt so tenuous to me, and so fragile, that I could not imagine disturbing it by choice. Better to walk a narrow path, to enjoy what was offered, not to seek for more. I might have remained like that forever, I think, if allowed to do so. But even if we wish to remain stationary, the world around us turns and so we move too. And thus, one Sunday afternoon, as I was waiting for Jess and her friends to return from rehearsals I had a phone call. A leg of lamb was roasting in the oven, the smell of caramelized onions and tenderizing meat beginning to pervade the house with mellow savouriness. I picked up the receiver. I expected it was Jess, calling to say they’d be late.

‘James? Is that you?’

It was Mark. My stomach dipped and swirled. I thought, how ridiculous, how utterly absurd, that I should still be afraid now at the sound of his voice.

‘James,’ he said. ‘James?’

I made my voice cold and hard.

‘Yes, Mark, how are you?’

‘James,’ he said, ‘mate, congratulate me. I’m getting married.’

I said, ‘Married?’

He laughed, a little chuckle in the back of his throat, and all at once I could see him, as I had not seen him all these years.

‘I know,’ he said, ‘it’s wild. I’m getting married. Guess who to?’

‘Who?’

He paused, and I knew that he was smirking, as he always did before saying something shocking.

‘Nicola,’ he said.

‘Nicola?’ I said. ‘Nicola who?’

He made a mock-sigh.

‘ Nicola ,’ he said. ‘Simon’s sister Nicola.’

‘Simon’s hopping mad. Absolutely bloody hopping mad.’ Franny nodded, agreeing with herself, poured another glass of wine and went on, ‘He’s every right to be. Mark’s done a real number on his parents.’

‘Mark can be very impressive if he tries,’ Jess said evenly.

‘Too bloody right,’ said Franny. ‘Too bloody right. All those houses and money, very impressive. I mean, what the hell is he playing at?’

The anger in her was tight-coiled, as if Mark had done her some personal injustice.

‘You think he’s definitely serious?’ asked Jess.

Franny picked at her casserole and took a swig of wine.

‘Simon thinks he is. Simon’s parents think he is. Bloody hell, more importantly Nicola thinks he is.’

‘It’s not some kind of joke, is it?’

‘What, playing a joke on Nicola? God, even Mark couldn’t be that cruel, surely?’

She lit a cigarette without asking our permission. I surreptitiously pushed a window open as I carried the plates through into the kitchen.

When I came back out, Franny was sitting on the sofa, one foot curled under her, saying, ‘He can’t get back from Chile for two weeks. He’s trying to talk some sense into his parents in the meantime, but they’re not listening.’

Jess said, ‘Has Simon mentioned that Mark’s gay ? Surely that’s the clincher.’

Franny tutted and sighed.

‘Well, that’s the thing. He says he’s changed. And they’re old enough to go, “Oh, yes, that’s how it works. Everyone’s a bit gay when they’re young and then they grow out of it.” ’

She shrugged and stubbed her cigarette out in the earth of a pot plant.

I breathed in and out, controlling the slight flutter in the pit of my stomach.

I said, ‘Couldn’t he have? Changed?’

‘ Changed ? Can you really see Mark ever changing? You know what he’s like. It’ll be marriage this year and then next year, I don’t know, water polo. God, how can Simon’s family possibly buy it?’

We sat for a minute or two in silence. I contemplated how differently Franny felt about Mark now, compared to our time at university, when she had been his staunchest ally. I wondered what he could have done to her. Perhaps it was simply what he had done to everyone — ignored us, fallen out of contact, moved on with his life of wealth and privilege.

After a little while, Jess said, ‘Don’t forget about Leo. I’m sure they still remember.’

We fell silent again. It was so easy to forget that about Mark, now that he no longer went about reminding us. He had once, actually, saved someone’s life.

Franny poured another glass of wine.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘yes, they’d believe anything he said, wouldn’t they?’

I brought in dessert, a pavlova, and cut it into large wedges, the strawberries bleeding into the meringue and cream. We picked at it. None of us had much of an appetite.

Jess said, ‘What does Emmanuella think? Do you know?’

Franny nodded, swallowing.

‘Spoke to her yesterday. She doesn’t believe it, thinks it’s some kind of wheeze of Mark’s. She laughed when I told her. She thought it was that English humour she doesn’t understand.’

‘Is she coming back? For the wedding?’

Franny raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh, what wedding? There can’t really be a wedding. She’s seventeen, for fuck’s sake. She was supposed to go to college next year but now she’s saying that, no, she’ll go and keep house with him.’