Educating Simon (6 page)

“Mum, cut it out. Go downstairs. I'm not dressing with you standing there.”

She looked at me as though she wasn't quite sure about trusting me. “All right, but come down as soon as you're dressed. We're waiting for you in the dining room.”

“How did you even get up here?”

“Brian's key, of course.”

For a nanosecond, I considered demanding that they send my supper up in the dumbwaiter so I could be alone in the roof garden, but I decided to fight that battle another time. Besides it was hot and humid outside.

It took me some time to decide what to wear, and I was moving slowly, like a sleepwalker, or someone on barbiturates or drunk. It did register, though, that I was hungry after all.

By the time I got into the dining room, everyone was already eating. BM was at one end of the rectangular table, and Persie, from her chair on BM's right, glared in my general direction. “Dinner is on time. You're late. Late. Late. Late. Late. Late. Late . . .” With a fork in her right fist, she began pounding the handle down on the table with each repetition.

BM stood and pulled her chair out from the table, and she bent forwards so she could keep pounding. When she couldn't reach the table without standing, she screamed one final, “LATE!” and was suddenly very still. By now, the woman who must be Anna and who had been seated on the other side of Persie, was beside BM, helping him reposition her chair so Persie could reach her plate again. All seemed quiet, and then Persie uttered one more, nearly silent, “Late.” And she went back to her meal as though nothing had happened.

Mum was at the other end of the table from BM, and I walked around to the chair beside her, across from Anna, who smiled at me and nodded. No one made a move to do anything by way of introduction. I glanced at Mum, confused.

“It's all right, Simon. Go ahead and help yourself to dinner from the sideboard and sit down.”

Her voice was a little odd. I put this all together and interpreted it as letting me know Persie didn't approve of introductions, and that according to some rule of her making I'll be somehow incorporated into the group informally. Again, what occurred to me is that she is a cat who needs an authority adjustment. That's not something I'll be taking on. Not now, certainly, and probably not ever. As I took my place at table I watched Persie go through her mealtime routines, organising the food on her plate, eating a bit of one thing, then a bit of something else. Eventually it dawned on me that what she was doing was eating each item in order, all around her plate, and around again, calculating how much she needed to eat of each food so that she'd finish everything in the final sweep.

There was some conversation, though Persie was quiet for the moment. BM told Mum and me that he has someone named Ned Salazar who does food shopping and prepares meals. During the week, and sometimes on weekends, he stays to cook dinner, but tonight he'd left a prepared cold meal for us, which is what was laid out on the sideboard.

One thing I do like about meals with BM is that he always has wine, and I always get some. Mum likes wine well enough, but she's no oenophile. Dad was, and he taught me some things. I want to learn more. At one point before we'd left home, BM—no doubt trying to tempt me—had said he has a wine cellar. Now that I'm here, I plan to get to know it. In fact, I'll take advantage of everything I can whilst I'm here, and the wine cellar is on the list. Tonight, with the cold sliced chicken and the avocado potato salad with asparagus, we had a sauvignon blanc from New Zealand that reminded me of grapefruit.

Anna is somewhere under thirty years old, not unattractive but no showstopper—a little heavy, with dark-blond hair in a ponytail. I didn't get much of a sense of her, because most of her attention was on Persie. BM watched Persie a lot as well. I wondered how his time with her had gone, and how much trouble he'd had calming her down, assuring her that her life isn't turning completely upside down. You see,
he
loves
his
child.

BM said that tomorrow, Sunday, he'll take Mum and me on a walk around the neighbourhood. Somehow he thinks the Public Garden is going to be my new Hampstead Heath. He has no idea. Then we're going into Cambridge to see Harvard. Pointless.

When Anna and Persie left, I said “Good night” to them. Anna returned the greeting; Persie did not.

BM told me, “She doesn't understand the need for social niceties. Don't take offense that she didn't return your ‘good night.' ”

Living with her is going to be
so
much fun.

So I'm alone in my room now, feeling decidedly displaced but not like I'm in hell altogether. Or, if it's hell, at least it's well-appointed. And, of course, this is pre-St. Boniface; the school could turn out to be dreadful.

I've looked up Boston on Google Maps and researched some Internet sites. It's tiny. Provincial. No matter how much money BM has, or how much fine wine he pours for me, it can't make up for this poor excuse for a city. There's just nothing here.

This morning, Boston time, there was another text exchange with Gorgeous Graeme. You know, we used to find so much to talk about when we were in the same place. Texting doesn't hold a candle to a real conversation, and of course there's no physical touch, either. So this latest exchange didn't cover much ground—pretty much the same as the one the day before, with the only difference being that we agreed I'd ring him tonight as soon as I have an opportunity, even if it's in the middle of his night. I had thought texting would be a good way to connect real-time, but real-time doesn't make up for what texting lacks. I'm beginning to lean towards e-mails, which will at least allow me to pour my heart out. Maybe I'll send him bits from this journal.

It was cooler today, almost chilly out on the bricked patio where we breakfasted. Persie wasn't there, and Mum told me she has breakfast in her rooms. That's a relief, not having to take every meal under the tyrant thumb of that little girl.

BM prepared everything for us. Evidently breakfast is some big thing for him. It was a typical American meal with too much food, but I was really hungry again. I wanted to turn my nose up at the pancakes, which were like a thick, crude crêpe (I did decline something called maple syrup and opted instead for fruit preserves on mine), and the bacon, and the fresh fruit, but I decided not complimenting BM with every bite was enough of a statement; no need to starve myself. Mum was gushing over everything, veneration to veneration, so maybe he didn't even notice my silence. Too bad.

At least Mum had taught him how to make tea properly. I wonder whether he had drunk nasty tea before they met, or if he's a reformed coffee drinker, forcing himself to convert so he can impress Mum. England has gone largely over to coffee and teabags, but I refuse; and my tea must be loose-leaf and brewed correctly, according to its variety and when it's served. I want Assam for breakfast, Darjeeling or Earl Grey for afternoon tea, and a pale green Formosa oolong if I have tea at night.

 

As I had predicted, and in fact as I had seen on Google Maps, Boston Common and the Public Garden were unimpressive and tiny. Honestly, BM has been in Hampstead Heath, and in the Regent's Park; he ought to know better than to expect a good reaction out of me to the little postage stamps he calls parks here.

BM pointed to two live swans floating on a pond. “Romeo and Juliet,” he said. “They take them to the Franklin Park Zoo for the winter, because the water here freezes.”

“Really? Romeo and Juliet?” I said, scornful. “Didn't anyone explain that those two teenagers committed suicide because they weren't allowed to be together?”

No one responded. I wasn't sure whether I was being ignored or what.

Later, we were standing on the bridge over the water in the Public Garden, watching the silly swan boats paddle tourists about, and BM asked, “Would you like a ride?”

Before Mum could say anything, I replied, “No, thanks.”

Mum glared at me, and BM said, “I'm sorry you're not enjoying the Garden, Simon. I realise it must seem rather small to you. Perhaps we'll take a trip out to the Arnold Arboretum in the fall, when the leaves turn colour. It's almost three hundred acres.” He looked at me, but I just stared straight ahead and lifted one shoulder. That should have said it all.

BM's car service picked us up on Charles Street, and BM explained that he'd made a reservation for Mum and me to have lunch at an outdoor café on Newbury Street whilst he goes home to lunch with Persie. I glanced at Mum, and it seemed she already knew about this plan.

So we were sitting under an umbrella at some restaurant, I don't remember which one. All I remember is being hot and unhappy.

“How do you like your room, Simon?”

“My room? Really? You're starting there?”

“What do you mean?”

“It's the old elephant-in-the-room syndrome. Persie is the elephant, in case that needs pointing out.”

She toyed with her salad for a minute. Then, “She will take some getting used to. I think it will be less stressful once we've learned the rules to follow, because she's less likely to get upset when they're observed.”

“From what I've seen so far, there must be a book full of them.”

“Yes.” She took a sip of wine. “So, do you like your room?”

“It's fine. Large, nicely furnished.”

“The bathroom is lovely.” So she'd peeked around up there.

I decided to throw her a crumb. “I like the skylights.”

“And after the weather cools down, the roof garden looks like a wonderful place to read.”

So far we'd spent only a few sentences on Persie, who represented the most disruptive aspect of this living situation, barring the move itself, and Mum wanted small talk about the house's features ? I took the elephant by the tusks.

“Why wasn't I introduced to Persie last night? Or to Anna, for that matter?”

More wine for Mum. “You missed Brian's explanation. He's been preparing her for our arrival for some time, so Persie knew she'd see us, and she even knew where we'd sit at table. You chose the right chair, by the way.”

“Oh, good.”

She ignored my sarcastic tone. “Some people with Asperger syndrome—I'll just refer to it as AS, the way Brian does—handle social interaction better than others. Persie finds it more difficult than many AS sufferers, evidently. If Brian had introduced anyone at dinner—I wasn't introduced either, just so you know—not only would it have been a break in Persie's dinner routine, but also she would have been forced to interact with you socially. Brian says she remains much less agitated if the people she's expecting just show up, and she isn't required to interact with them until she feels ready.”

“She certainly interacted with me.”

Mum actually chuckled. “She told you that you were late, yes, but it was not exactly an interaction. You never spoke to her, and that was the right thing to do.”

“So we're to learn her rules and follow them?”

Mum's smile was almost wry. “It would seem so.” She sighed. “Actually, I expected this. One thing I remember about living with Clive is the routines, the insistence on no change. AS isn't the same form of autism that he had, but Persie's condition is severe enough that the two types evidently have this in common.”

“I wasn't introduced to Anna, either.”

“There's that routine again. Persie allows conversation, but it must follow certain parameters. An introduction is its own routine.”

“Persie
allows
—?”

“I know, I know, Simon. It seems extreme. But Persie's condition
is
extreme. And it helps explain why Brian's first wife—whose name was Miranda, by the way—had such a hard time dealing with it. Brian hasn't told me much about her, but I gather she had her own brand of inflexibility going on. Perhaps she had a touch of AS, herself. I don't know.”

I sat back and studied Mum's face. “How much of this did you understand before you agreed to live with it?”

Mum watched a few people stroll past, and I was thinking she hadn't heard me when she said, “I knew as much as Brian could explain.
Understanding,
though, is going to take a while. If you recall, I did visit him here once, but I stayed at the Taj. I didn't meet Persie. But Brian talked about her a lot. He gave me as clear a sense as he could of what it would be like to live with her.”

“And how do you think you'll do?”

She looked directly at me. “With time, better and better. And in case you're wondering, it's unlikely Persie will ever be able to be independent.”

“So you'll be saddled with her as long as you're with him?”

“Don't say ‘saddled,' Simon. But, yes, unless something changes, she'll be around, always.”

It occurred to me that I don't know my mother very well. This sacrifice, this penance, or this generosity—however you look at it—does not jibe with my picture of her.

 

BM was in the car that picked us up and whisked us off to Cambridge. On the way, he said, “I'm trying not to overwhelm the two of you by showing you too much in one day. Boston may not be London, but there's a lot of history here, and lots of things to do. At home, I've got some guidebooks for you.” Mum smiled at him. I stared out the window, carefully not saying that Boston barely knows what history is.

Harvard Yard was so much smaller than even I had thought it would be. I had expected this supposedly prestigious school's centrepiece to look like more than it does—just an odd assortment of buildings that people here seem to think are old and charming, around a bit of greensward that's more bare earth than grass, crisscrossed with walkways the students obviously ignore. I realise there are other buildings outside the “yard” that are part of the university, but—really, it's
nothing
like Oxford, where there are thirty-eight colleges all over the city with their own “yards” to brag about. To be sure, many of them are quite small, but still. If this were Harvard
College,
I might be more lenient. But it calls itself a university. And Cambridge—the one in Massachusetts, I mean—is . . . well, tiny. They make a big fuss over Harvard Square, but really most of the fuss should be about the horrible traffic.

 

Back in Boston, BM had the car drop us all off at St. Bony, which is farther down Marlborough Street from his house, in the opposite direction from the park. The front of the main building is unassuming and fits right in with the area, row houses along the tree-lined street. The street entrance opens to a hallway with a tiled floor, large black-and-white squares, and that hideous fluorescent lighting that makes everyone look sick. School won't start until later this week, and there was a guard at a desk who told us we couldn't go any farther without a school ID or an escort.

After the walk down Marlborough Street to the house, Mum said she was exhausted and needed to rest a little. I mumbled something along the same lines and went upstairs to be with Graeme.

He answered on the first ring.

“Hey, Sexy Simon.”

My throat started to close with emotion, but I managed, “Hey, Gorgeous Graeme.”

There was silence as we listened to each other breathe for a few seconds. Then he said, “How were the sights? Did you see St. Bony? Anything worth a few minutes of complaining?”

I chuckled. “I'm not that bad, am I?”

“Perennially. It's one of your charms.”

I love this guy. “Puny parks, puny Harvard Yard, puny Cambridge. I'd say puny school, but all we did was walk in the front entrance.”

“Which was—let me guess—puny.”

“How did you know?”

“So, what will the test tomorrow be like?”

This wasn't what I wanted to talk about, so I made short work of it. Basically, I'll spend most of the day in a room with a monitor and some number of other students, and take some kind of test in several different subjects, so they'll know what my course load will be.

Then I asked, “You all ready for your upper sixth?” Graeme, of course, is also extremely intelligent and aiming for Oxford as well.

He sighed. “No way I can be ready for that. You're supposed to be helping me.”

With an effort I kept my voice from breaking. “We'll still be at New College together.”

“We'll sing in the chapel.”

“We'll lounge in the back garden when it's sunny and quiz each other for exams.”

“We'll have the best table in the dining room. Everyone will want to sit with us, and we'll select only the people we like.”

My teeth ground together. “A year, Graeme. A whole, fucking year.”

“I know.”

More silence, maybe thirty seconds. Then there was a knock at my door. I covered the phone and nearly shouted,
“What?”

BM's voice said, “Dinner is always at six thirty, Simon. Please don't be late tonight.”

I glanced at my watch: a quarter past. “Be there shortly.” To Graeme I said, “I'm not to be late to dinner tonight, which Persie insists is served promptly at half six. I wasn't in my seat on time last night, and I thought she was going to have a cow, shouting, ‘Late!' at me. Honestly, the way they let that girl dictate terms around here . . .”

“I guess you'd better go down.”

We agreed I'd ring him again on Wednesday night. Then I needed a few minutes to collect myself. Blow my nose. Throw some water on my face.

Ned was here tonight—a bonus, as far as I'm concerned, as I'm sure he's gay. And he's attractive. Maybe twenty-five or so? He's black. I do hope I'm not expected to say African American all the time; it's too long. How do I know his family aren't from Jamaica, or whether he was born in Kenya? His voice is rich and incredibly deep. And he understands cuisine, which is huge in my book, especially since I don't want to be lumped in with that antiquated idea that there's no good food in England. Anyway, he's tall and slender and has the most gorgeous eyes.

He gave a brief description of each dish as he served it, and he knows what he's doing. Tonight's main course was the tenderest pork medallions in a red wine sauce, served with an Oregon pinot noir I would have loved to take to bed with me.

Of course I got no introduction to him, either. I'm sure I caught his eye a few times by the end of the soup course, though.

BM is so ignorant about most things English. For example, he keeps referring to what would have been my final UK school year before Oxford as my senior year. Over dinner he sang the praises of St. Bony.

“So you know, I've informed the administration at St. Boniface that you intend on going to Oxford. They said they'd make sure your classes reflect that. And, believe me, they know what Oxford requires. Their baccalaureate programme is excellent. Something tells me you haven't spent a lot of time looking into what the school has to offer, but many St. Boniface graduates have gone on to universities such as Oxford and Cambridge. You can be as prepared as you want to be.” Then he added, “And more challenged than you might expect.”