First Fruits Read online

  First Fruits

  Penelope Evans

  Copyright © 2000 Penelope Evans

  All electronic rights reserved

  www.penelopeevans.co.uk

  For Anne Bryant Evans,

  my mother

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter One

  I MADE A NEW FRIEND today. Her name is Lydia. Now I'm wondering how I'm going to get rid of her.

  That's the trouble with the new girls. They promise more than they deliver. Although it's not all bad. It just depends on what you need them for. Look at Hilary. Hardly what you would call ideal material, but she's come in useful in all sorts of ways. It's only that, well, I hoped for more.

  But Lydia, she had potential. Or so I thought. The signs were all there. Mrs. Chatto brought her into the classroom, leading her by the hand like some small animal she had lassoed and then stunned. Lessons hadn't started and the din was tremendous. Hilary was there of course, glued to my side as usual, whispering into my ear the hundred and one things she had done since she had got up this morning. That includes cleaning her teeth and folding up her pyjamas. You see the problem.

  But what can I do? If I let her go, she'll be off to attach herself to Fiona McPherson and all that lot. And we don't want that. Because who would that leave me with? I'll tell you who. Moira MacMurray. In which case, need I say more?

  Two reasons to sit up and take notice then; one, just to have a distraction from Hilary and two, because you only had to look at Lydia to see she would be easy. You felt that the moment Chatto took her hand her away, she would fall over. I mean, the girl was shaking.

  'Class,' Mrs. Chatto removed the hand so as to clap for our attention - and see what I mean? For one astonishing moment Lydia actually seemed to hang in mid air, like a baby that's been dropped. 'Class, this term we have a new girl, Lydia Morris. Lydia has moved up all the way up from...' She paused, frowned and turned to Lydia who had recovered her balance. 'Where was it again, dear?'

  The girl beside her gasped. She was wearing thick glasses, and you could see her eyes start swimming frantically behind them like two small fish panicking. She muttered something none of us could hear.

  Mrs. Chatto turned to us again. 'Hole. Lydia has just moved all the way up from Hole in Devon.' There was a hush, and then the entire room exploded. This is Scotland for Heaven's sake. And it wasn't going to occur to anyone here that the name of Auchtermuchty might cause just as much mirth down where she came from.

  Mrs. Chatto of course had recognised her mistake. She clapped her hands again. 'Girls!' She had that look in her eye, so we stopped laughing - all except for Moira MacMurray, for the simple reason that she hadn't been laughing in the first place - and stared at Lydia instead. And that was even better in a way, because you never would have thought it possible for a human to turn so red, and all the while staring at the floorboards as if searching for a crack wide enough to take her.

  See what I mean? Easy.

  Meanwhile Mrs. Chatto was casting her eye over the class. 'Lydia, I think you should go and sit with...' Her eye landed on Fiona McPherson. Just in time I realised what she was had in mind and shot my hand into the air.

  'Mrs. Chatto,' I cried. 'Lydia can sit here, next to me.'

  Note the sharp intake of breath from Hilary. She had been under the impression that she would be sitting next to me, just like she always did. So it served her right - she could go and sit beside Moira MacMurray for thinking she could take me for granted all the time. Note also the approving glance from Mrs. Chatto; it never did any harm to get on the good side of her. But, most important of all, do you see what I'd done? I'd snatched the new girl right out from under the nose of Fiona McPherson!

  Only trouble is, Fiona McPherson didn't seem to care. Now she was making a great show of wiping her brow for all to see, and pretending to be relieved. So there you are; less than five minutes into the friendship, and you had to wonder if being kind to Lydia might not be a mistake after all. I mean if Fiona didn't want her...

  Too late though. Mrs. Chatto had already turned to Lydia. 'Alright, dear, you can go and sit next to Kate Carr.'

  But, would you believe it, Lydia didn't move. She took one look at me and bit her lip. And that's all the thanks I get for putting up my hand when not a soul in the class wanted her. But it gets worse. Now the whole room had grown quiet, watching as Mrs. Chatto actually had to push her in my direction before she's willing to move. That's when I noticed her sneaking a glance over at Fiona McPherson, as if she had known that was where she might have ended up and was sorry she hadn't.

  Finally she began to make her own way between the desks, bumping against chairs and tripping over school bags, moving like someone twice the size she was, which actually was no size at all. Imagine a head with straggly thread for hair and a body made of pipe cleaners. Got it? The full horror of it? Now you've imagined Lydia.

  Hilary whispered in my ear. 'Did you ever see anything so skinny?' She stood up straight and stuck out her chest to show what a proper fourteen year old was like. As if Hilary would ever know.

  But Lydia didn't even look at her. She was standing by the desk now, staring at the floor. Was it my imagination, or was there suddenly the faintest whiff of TCP in the air? Yet I didn't say a word about that. I just smiled, giving her one of what Hilary likes to call my goofy grins. (Hilary adores words like goofy and loony.) It means smiling at someone with every inch of your face and letting your eyes crinkle up in the corners. It never fails, at least not on Hilary.

  'Hi,' I said, and patted the seat beside me. But still she didn't move. Maybe it was Hilary glaring at her, putting her off. I sneaked a hand up to Hilary's waist and took a large pinch of all the spare flesh that was there and squeezed. Hilary smiled. Sort of.

  And at long last, Lydia sits down.

  'Well,' I say, 'This is nice.' No answer. She had her hands bunched in front of her, so tightly clenched you could see the whites of her knuckles. At the same time, I looked up, and what should I see but Fiona McPherson across the room grinning from ear to ear. Well, that did it. I just lost all patience with her, with Lydia.

  'Where did you say you were from again? I don't think I've heard of it before.'

  Above me, Hilary snorted, like one of the horses she always claims she wished she had. At the sound of it Lydia's arms seemed to twitch and something tinkled. That's when I noticed it, the bracelet of metal links, hanging off her wrist like half a manacle. I picked up her arm, and had a better look. The bracelet had one of those tabs you can get inscribed, like this one.

  'Good Luck Lydia,' it said. 'From all your friends in 2A.'

  Fancy that, she had had friends then, before she moved up here, to the very top of the country. I bet it felt like a hundred years ago, and a thousand miles away.

  'Oh that is nice,' I said. Dad says if there's nothing you can think to praise in a person, praise something they're wearing instead. That way there's no end to the gratitude. 'You'd better take it off though. Mrs. Chatto can't stand folk to wear jewellery.'

  Well I couldn't let praise go to her head.

  Finally, however, a reaction. Lydia's head shot up to look at me, eyebrows arching above her specs. 'Oh,' she said. 'Oh?' Her hand moved across to touch the engraved tab as if it was all she had to ward off evil. 'Oh,' she said again, faintly.

  As I said, a reaction - of sorts. But really it wasn't good enough. Not after all the effort I had put in. After break, she'd find herself sitting next to Moira MacMurray. We'd see if that didn't teach her to be more appreciative. And better still, I wouldn't have to look at her. You could hide the Rock of Gibralta behind Moira MacMurray.

  After assembly, and the usual Welcome to the New Girls, it was history. For once, Mrs Chatto ignored us, continued to read what was in front of her long after we had sat down. People started to exchange glances.

  Finally she looked up, glared at us all. That's when it occurred to me that whatever she had been reading had put her in a thoroughly foul mood.

  'Girls,' she says. 'I've just been looking over Lydia Morris's report from her last school. You may be interested in hearing a little of what is here for yourselves.' Then she made us listen to all this stuff about Lydia's genius for history - not to mention maths, French and every other subject under the sun. And to make matters worse, Lydia's last school hadn't even been a private one, not like ours. Not so much as a penny had changed hands.

  Of course, it all rebounds on us, with Chatto telling us we're going to have to pull our finger out, that we're costing our parents the earth, and for what? We've to look at Lydia, see what hard work can do for us.

  Tell that to Moira MacMurray who could work till there's no ink left in the world and still not be able to spell her own name. In fact I noticed that Chatto let her eyes slide right across her as usual, as if none of this had anything to do with her. They all do it, all the teachers. I think they gave up on Moira years ago. If it weren't for needing t
he fees, I reckon they would have bumped her out into one of those places where they don't even try to teach folk like her. They just make them do basket weaving instead. That's how Moira can get away with it, sitting there, eyes bulging, taking nothing in, letting nothing out.

  Meanwhile everyone else is looking at Lydia with a kind of horrified interest - with the sole exception of me. Dad says it doesn't do to let yourself be impressed. There's always going to be something to detract.

  And when has he ever been wrong?

  But what about Lydia? What did she do with all this praise flying about? I'll tell you what she did; she just sat there gazing at the desk as if trying to ignore it all - Mrs. Chatto, people's stares, everything. Yet she had to be secretly pleased, having all that attention. I mean, she must have been. Surely.

  Later, at breaktime, the inevitable happens. Fiona McPherson moved in. Lydia was sitting beside me as before, but we were just doing our best to ignore her now, bring her down to earth where she belonged. Hilary was leaning over from behind, breathing loudly in my ear, whittering on about something and nothing. And Moira... Moira of course was just....there.

  Moira.

  I don't think even Dad would have anything to say about Moira. Not that I've asked him. Somehow, I've just not got round to it. Some things you just don't want to discuss. Right at this moment she was opening her mouth to insert a sherbet lemon, the kind of sweet all the old ladies eat in church, sweetening their breath before closing in on Dad at the end of Service. Dad, who is a proper scream about these things, says they have cups of tea which they keep ready for him in their handbags, but that's not true of course. You can't keep pots of tea in a handbag. All he's saying is, you can't escape old ladies when they're determined to give you tea.

  But why should anyone want to be old before their time? Moira does. Or rather, Moira doesn't. Care that is. Moira doesn't seem to care about anything.

  Where was I? Not thinking about Moira, that's for sure.

  So where was I? Oh yes, Fiona McPherson moving in where she isn't wanted.

  And the first thing that happens is that Hilary shuffles out of her way because folk like Hilary will always be impressed by Fiona. But Moira, Moira stays exactly where she was. Fiona has to move round her, which she does, without seeming to mind, as if Moira were just part of the furniture. That's how they all treat Moira. But they haven't noticed, have they? They don't see what I see, how there's something very wrong with Moira.

  'Oh Lydia,' says Fiona, face smooth, hair shining. Lydia looks up and the faintest of blushes begins to spread across her cheeks. Did she know then, even after this short time, about Fiona? How she's a boarder, and how generally boarders stay over by the radiator under the window, and never cross a room for anyone? Yet here she was, standing right in front of our pair of desks, come all this way just to speak to her.

  'Lydia,' Fiona says again. 'We hardly heard you in class just now. You've got such a little voice. I wasn't even sure if you got the answer right, you know, to the question Mrs. Chatto asked you.'

  Lydia pushed her glasses up her nose. Suddenly she was thoughtful, as we'd never seen her before. Which means she did know, about Fiona. How is it people always seem to know?

  Meanwhile, Fiona carries on, voice suspiciously calm, that posh Edinburgh accent of hers adding a little extra polish to every word. 'What was his name again, the man who jumped off the bridge to escape the Duke of Argyll's men?'

  Lydia swallowed hard. Opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Opened her mouth again, and this time there comes the answer...

  'Rob Roy.'

  Or rather, Wob Woy.

  The room which had grown quiet at the sight of Fiona leaving the radiator, suddenly erupted. Too late, Lydia has realised what she has said, understood for the first time how she sounded. She should have listened harder to Kenneth McKeller on the radio, learned from Moira Anderson and the TV specials at Hogmanay before she ever thought of moving North. A huge swathe of red sweeps over her face, as she stares around at an entire room laughing.

  And that's all she can do - stare, her head turning every which way, cheeks flaming, lips pale and twitching. Until. Until she comes to Moira. Because as usual, Moira isn't laughing. As usual, Moira has failed to see the joke. Yet something about her has its effect. A moment later Lydia stops staring and shaking. She even stops blushing. It's as if suddenly, she isn't so much upset as confused, asking herself why Moira is the only one here not laughing.

  And it didn't stop there. The confusion seemed to lead to something else, a kind of unexpected confidence. Suddenly she lifted up her head, stretching that long skinny neck of hers and mumbled something.

  'What did she say?' This was Jackie Milne, who's deaf as a post because even at her age she doesn't clean inside her ears. I'd heard though, and so had Fiona McPherson. Who had stopped laughing, and now was simply smiling. She turned to Jackie. 'Lydia says if we ask her nicely, she'll say "Round and Round the Ragged Rock the Ragged Rascal Ran." Just for us.'

  At which, at long last, Lydia actually smiled. And that's when we saw it, the logjam of metal in her mouth. She was wearing dental braces, gigantic ones with bands and knobs and claws, the sort that made you wonder what sort of man could have done such a thing to anyone. No wonder she had barely opened her mouth before.

  Only now here was another point of interest. Everyone bent forward to have a really good look. And once again, she didn't seem to mind. The smile just grew broader, more metallic.

  Watching her now, you'd have sworn she was the only interesting person in the room.

  That's when I jumped to my feet. 'Stop it, stop it all you. Stop staring at the poor girl. How can you be so unkind? She can't help being ugly. Just leave her alone.'

  The effect was instantaneous. All the smiles stopped together. A couple of people - like Helen May and Pamela Wilson - even appeared to be quite upset. But it was all you could wish for. In the bare twinkling of an eye, Lydia had become quite invisible. There was a new centre of attention.

  Me. You see, it was me they were staring at now - even Moira MacMurray and let me tell you, not even Lydia had managed that. It's a moment to savour really. Because it's at times like this that you know, that you remember what it means to have It. Something no-one else has. I haven't mentioned It before, how It changes things. But then I haven't had to, have I? It has a habit of making itself known, all by itself.

  One by one, then, they drifted away, even Fiona McPherson, till there were only the three of us left. Four if you count Moira MacMurray.

  Hilary however was still gazing at me. Her eyes were shining, and her nose had gone quite pink. 'Kate,' she said. 'Kate, I never saw anything so brave. You were just like something from a book. Lydia, wasn't Kate brave...?'

  She was casting round her, looking for Lydia. But she couldn't find her, not at first. Yet Lydia was right there, exactly where she'd been all along, beside me, in my shadow. It's just that for some reason or other, she had made herself so small again, so insignificant you could hardly see her.

  Sad really. Some people just aren't made for the spotlight. Better for everyone that they stay invisible.

  ****

  DOWN in the cloakrooms after lunch, Hilary was still going on about it. So brave, she kept saying. So headstrong, so in control. She was beginning to sound like a broken record. Still, it's nice to be appreciated. Without Hilary it wouldn't happen, not with the sort of people we have in our class. It's one of the things she's good for.

  It helps, you see, having someone to remind you that you're special. That you're not just anyone - or worse.

  Remember Lydia, back there in the class room the first time, looking at me as if I was something she had discovered under a rock? Biting her lip. Believe me, a lesser person might want to make her pay for a look like that.

  And that's what I'm up against.

  Something about me. People can see I'm special. Something about my eyes perhaps, out of the ordinary. Something he's put there. That's why you have to remember to smile. Smiling makes the world a better place. It puts people off their guard, makes them easier to....deal with.

  And anyway, why not smile? I have reason to smile. I'm his daughter. The luckiest girl alive. Except for the one thing.