Lessons from the Heart by John Clanchy Read Free Book Online Page B

– it’s mad – we’ve almost become shy with each other, if that makes any sense.
    â€˜I’ll tell her in a while,’ I say to Mum. ‘In a few weeks when I don’t feel so upset.’
    â€˜Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?’
    What defeats the purpose, I think then, is mothers who are issued on the day you’re born with answers to every statement you’re ever likely to make, when you don’t live in Iraq or China or somewhere but in a country that’s supposed to have free speech.
    â€˜After we come back from Alice Springs,’ I say. ‘I’ll tell her then.’
    And that’s one of the biggest mistakes I’ve made in my life so far.
    But, of course, I didn’t know that at the time. At the time – and even on the trip itself – I was still thinking the two biggest mistakes in my life were trusting Philip and sitting in the back seat of a bus with thirty kids all the way to Alice Springs, because next to the back seat is the toilet and as soon as the bus has left the school yard, the toilet door starts slamming and it doesn’t stop until every kid has gone at least once, and some have gone two and three times in the first hour. And they don’t only go one at a time, but get in there in twos and threes – the girls especially -and take ten minutes and seem to be doing more giggling than going and it’s obvious none of them really wanted to go at all, they’re just seeing what’s there and trying all the buttons and inspecting all the drawers and the little silver receptacles that hold tissues and tiny soap tablets – or did, an hour ago – and re-doing their hair and swapping hair clips, till Dave-and-it’s-my-bus-okay? goes totally spazzo and starts yelling over the microphone, ‘Can’t you kids wait?’, which doesn’t help at all because after that the kids that do need to go have to run the gauntlet of Billy Whitecross and his mates who are blocking the aisle with their legs and growling, ‘Can’t you kids wait?’ at them. I’ve already had to rescue one little girl who’s intimidated by them and is going back to her seat in tears, and I’m so angry by this stage that I’m ready just to break Billy Whitecross’s leg if he leaves it out blocking the aisle, but he sees me coming and the look on my face and at the last second withdraws it.
    And this is a problem, I realize, because I don’t really know what my role is here. I’m a monitor and I’m supposed to look after the kids and make sure they don’t hurt themselves or get lost or homesick or anything – and I don’t mind that because I’ve done it all with Katie often enough – but I’m not a prefect and I don’t have any real power and I can’t punish the kids if they misbehave – and if you can’t punish someone for doing the wrong thing, then you don’t have any authority over them and you either have to go complaining to a teacher all the time like some complete sook of a touch judge running to the referee, or just take the law into your own hands and break their leg yourself.
    And I’m grumpy about all that and unhappy without Toni and miserable about Philip and I don’t even feel like listening to music and if I read another Philip Larkin poem I’ll vomit.
    We’re sitting at the lights in the main street of Bathurst by this time and I notice there’s a strange double reflection of my face, not just from the bus window but from the shop window in the street behind it. There are two quite distinct me’s but they’ve both got the same black, scowling, scratchy, sorry-for-myself expression on, and so I instinctively do what I do at home when I’m in a bad mood and catch sight in a mirror of just how ugly I am. I poke my tongue out at both these reflections, and I know this will make me feel better.
    And it does –