Free Hard Word by John Clanchy

were in class, he’d still say it. ‘Now, class,’ she says – and I remember this so well, like it was yesterday – ‘now, class, we’ll see who’s learnt their homework.’ She looks around the room then but I already know she’s going to, know she’s –
    â€˜Vera,’ she says, ‘Vera Harcourt. Have you learnt your questions?’
    â€˜Yes,’ I say. ‘Oh, yes.’
    â€˜Good, now the rest of you can put down your pencils and listen properly. And the first question is, Who won the War?’ And I don’t know. And I can feel my heart, and it’s beating beating just because I’m asked a question, and then there’s the fog, and it’s all in lines and sparking like the wires in a toaster, and I can’t remember anything.
    â€˜Well, Vera Harcourt,’ she says. ‘You can’t get out of it just by pretending to cry like that. You said you’d done your homework, and you haven’t, so now you’ll have to be punished. You’ll have to go and sit in the corner with your back to the class till the bell goes. You’re a very naughty girl, and you’ll have to leave the cat behind.’
    â€˜No –’
    â€˜You can’t have the cat over there. It’s not allowed.’
    â€˜Please,’ I say.
    â€˜Cats aren’t allowed in the corner.’
    â€˜Please –?’

Miriam
    Some days I catch Katie sitting by a window or in a beam of sunlight. She’s got the same downy, little-boy fuzz on her cheeks and the back of her neck as Philip still gets, and I think to myself, I could eat you. And sometimes I do. I stretch my jaws on her neck or cheek.
    â€˜Who are you?’ she giggles. ‘Who are you?’
    â€˜I’m Tigger,’ I say. ‘I’m going to swallow you whole.’
    She goes into hysterics then, and we end up rolling, locked together, over and over across the floor.
    Quality time. Isn’t that what we’re continually told we should all be after? Like Quality chocolates, or prime cuts from the butcher.
    For an hour each day, whether I’m teaching or not, I make time to sit with Mother in her rooms – just the two of us, sometimes talking, sometimes not. She’s usually watching TV, which means I can read or do some marking while she watches, but I’m still there beside her, attending, ready to break off. Mostly nothing happens, but once or twice recently she’s made a desperate effort to communicate. To say something important.
    â€˜Miriam,’ she’s said, ‘I know I’m –’
    I watch her physically wrestling for the word, the corners of her mouth working, the fingers of one hand twisting and turning in the other.
    â€˜What, Mother?’ I try to stay with her, to push her on that next step without harassing her. ‘You know you’re what?’
    Difficult? Devious? A burden? Is that what you’re trying to say?
    â€˜It’s just that I can’t –’
    â€˜Can’t what, Mother?’ And suddenly I feel my own panic rising. At what she could say, could still demand – even now. Can’t say what you feel? Is that it? Or love? Can’t love —?
    In the end it’s always me, not her, who cracks and supplies something, if only to still the terror inside myself.
    â€˜Can’t help it, Mother?’ I say. ‘Is that what you’re trying to say, that you can’t help it?’
    â€˜That’s a good idea,’ she says.
    And then I’m the one who’s left frustrated and close to tears while she’s beginning to laugh or clap at something – it’s usually an ad – on ‘Wheel of Fortune’ or ‘Sale of the Century’.
    â€˜Do you love Grandma Vera?’ Laura asks, out of nowhere. And that’s what takes my breath.
    â€˜What a silly question.’
    â€˜I’m sorry,’ she says, which is unusual enough for