A Ladder to the Sky(79)

‘We’ve been experiencing problems between Daniel and Jupiter for some time,’ said Mrs Lane, the forty-something school principal, who, with her bouffant dyed-blonde hair and sensible sweater, gave off an air of mild desperation. A photograph in a silver frame was turned towards her on her desk and Maurice longed to see the picture it held, a human or a pet. He bet the latter.

‘Jupiter?’ he said, trying not to laugh. ‘I’m sorry, did you say Jupiter?’

‘Yes, Jupiter Dell,’ said Mrs Lane.

‘And she’s a little girl? Or a boy, perhaps?’

‘She’s a little girl, Mr Swift.’ The principal’s face relaxed a little, and she shrugged. ‘Between you and me, her parents are rather hippy-dippy types, if you know what I mean.’ She looked around and, despite the fact that they were alone, leaned forward and lowered her voice. ‘She has a younger brother named Mercury.’

‘He’ll have an easy time of it in school. Maybe you should bring the parents in to chastise them for forcing their children to grow up with such ridiculous names.’

‘Actually, the Dells were in here just before you,’ replied Mrs Lane. ‘Naturally, we had to call them first. Jupiter is very upset.’

‘Perhaps you could tell me exactly what happened,’ said Maurice, feeling the same level of anxiety in this room as he had thirty years before when he’d been dragged to the principal’s office, along with his best friend at the time, Henry Rowe, two fifteen-year-old boys trembling in anticipation of what was to come. This memory, one that he had tried to block from his mind for decades, made him feel nauseous.

‘Miss Willow, Daniel’s teacher—’

‘I know who Miss Willow is,’ said Maurice.

‘Yes. Well, she’d already noticed an unusual dynamic between Daniel and Jupiter and had brought it to my attention.’

‘An unusual dynamic?’ he repeated, wondering whether these were terms drilled into teachers and school principals to avoid any potentially slanderous, and thereby litigious, remarks.

‘Jupiter has … I suppose we can just call it a crush on your son.’

‘But he’s only seven,’ said Maurice with a bewildered smile.

‘The children don’t recognize it as a crush, of course, but it happens all the time. One child forms a strong attachment to another and the object of their affections doesn’t reciprocate the emotion. In this particular case, Jupiter had started bringing little treats into school for your son. A ladybird that she was keeping alive in a matchbox, for example. A book that she particularly enjoyed. She even made him a sandwich one day and brought in a strawberry cupcake to follow.’

‘I wish someone would do that for me,’ said Maurice. ‘And what does Daniel do? When she gives him these things?’

‘What all boys that age will do, I suppose,’ she replied with a shrug. ‘He takes the gifts and eats the food but once he gets what he wants from her he goes right back to playing with his friends and then she’s left upset by his rejection. In that respect, perhaps there’s not a lot of difference between boys and men.’

Maurice raised an eyebrow, surprised by the comment, which seemed based on some unfortunate personal experience instead of a professional evaluation of the situation. He thought about challenging her on it but became distracted by an abacus placed on the windowsill behind her desk. It was fairly basic, ten rows of multicoloured beads supported by a wooden frame and stand. He hadn’t seen one in a long time but, like Proust’s madeleine, it brought back a wave of memories that he knew had the power to overwhelm him if he did not remain steady. Dr Webster’s abacus, of course, had been much more elaborate, monochrome but constructed from maple wood, the beads polished ivory. It had been passed down in the Webster family since before the Great War, he had been told, and the inscription on the base – A. F. P. Webster, 1897 – had always made him wonder whether the original recipient had gone on to make a success of his life or had forfeited it in the trenches.

Looking at this cheaper version now, Maurice felt an urge to pick it up and hear the click of the beads as he slid them along the wires, but he resisted, uncertain whether he would find himself throwing it to the ground and smashing it underfoot, actions that would surely provoke an even stronger reaction than that to one child slapping another in the playground. Mrs Lane noticed him staring and turned to see what he was looking at, misinterpreting his interest in the abacus as an observance of the children playing outside.

‘They are being supervised, you know,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘The children. They’re being supervised. There’s always at least two teachers in attendance during playtime.’

‘No, I wasn’t …’ he began, but shook his head, not bothering to continue the sentence.

‘Anyway,’ she said, her voice loud, sharp and hectoring now. ‘This morning, between classes, Jupiter went over to Daniel while he was talking with some of the other boys, threw her arms around him and kissed him. On the lips. I suppose she’d seen someone do that on television or in a movie and—’

‘She kissed him?’

‘Yes. Only for a moment. The poor boy was mortified, particularly as the other boys immediately started to laugh at him, and that’s when he did it. When he slapped her, I mean.’