Free Schooling by Heather McGowan Page B

about his father. The comic moment born of self-delusion or cross-purpose. Concluding with the idea that the hero often becomes the villain, the villain emerges as the hero.

24
    On Saturday afternoon he finds her by the lily pond.
    Catrine Evans . . . he sounds pleased . . . Well hello Evans.
    Looking up from her idle kick for flat stones she paints him in the dim light. Crooking back his suit jacket, a jacket once loaned to her, with the same elbowed stance as his lab coat, he stands in front of her. Not as she has seen him these past five weeks, at the fishmarket, Lawrence of Arabia, taking her face in his hands, Some Might Think You Older.
    Are you better?
    Much recovered . . . Gilbert comes next to her to help assess the pond . . . How were your holidays?
    We looked for a house.
    I swear I never left my own house it was so cold.
    Did you do any painting?
    I did not, but I understand you’ve been making some art of your own.
    She says These days I’m turning my mind to science she says I’m supposed to have talent in that area. She’s incoherent.
    I made an effort to attend the Committee meeting. Some teachers have alarming ideas as to what constitutes fair punishment.
    Maggone, right? Wanted to flog me?
    Flog? How cynical you are . . . for lack of lab counter, Gilbert bounces on his heels . . . Tell me those photos weren’t your idea. You would have chosen a more compelling background than the cricket pavilion.
    The light meter wasn’t reading . . . kneeling . . . I didn’t have the time . . . a dark clot in the water . . . Still, I’d like to see if the pictures came out.
    Not likely you’ll get the chance.
    She looks up to laugh with him, the afternoon sun nice on her face. Gilbert stops bouncing. Takes his hands from his pocket to scoop a rock, settling on his haunches next to her.
    Mr. Gilbert . . . she throws a pebble into the pond . . . Did you lie about me being good at Chemistry? Headmaster’s about to have me take A levels.
    Gilbert finds a cigarette end on the ground . . . You’re clever enough . . . he throws it into the pond . . . Don’t waste it.
    What does that mean.
    Whups . . . Gilbert fishes out the cigarette. He gestures with it to the sky and playing fields . . . Monstead’s an odd school . . . a fine mist from the sodden filter . . . Very good in some ways . . . noting her wrinkled nose, he sets it down next to him . . . But we’re hardly Winchester. Children get lost here. School’s falling apart a bit. You must sense that.
    The wet cigarette marking a putty sky. Ocher grass burned with winter. Her first day here under the arch Father described Da dropping him in the same spot.
Now it’s all falling to bits
Father said but left her anyway.
    My father went here.
    Your father? Here?
    During the war.
    Your father lives—
    In London.
    Yes, you said once I think—
    I never said. Where’s your father?
    Dead. The story of my father’s not an interesting one. He died in Clapham. You might know it as the city of fallen idols. Aegeus was a man I hardly knew. Rosie and I were raised by my mother in a shaky hut among grape arbors. I ran there as a boy, playing the lyre. My father was a banished man.
    My father was a banished man.
    These are the things we have in common.
    Picking up another pebble. In the murks of the lily pond, Gilbert’s father packs a bag, through the door without looking back.
    Daily, wordlessly, my mother boiled roots into nutritious paste. Aegeus mistook her silence for reprimand. He left home because he couldn’t put food on our table because there were four of us to face every morning with angry open beaks. If I’m to tell you these things, Catrine, you must promise not to get depressed because it doesn’t mean anything anymore. You’re not mourning anything real.
    Scraping dirt from a knee with the pebble . . . Your father left because of money?
    There were many reasons. I had a sister and she died, that’s one. Catrine.
    What?
    You promised.
    I didn’t. How did