Chapters 7-8

Today we return to Issy. As the end of term approaches, she gets to know #me more and is given a thought provoking task by Mr Harrison.

If you prefer to listen, the audio is here too.

Chapter Seven Early-Winter 2014 Isabella

I keep typing like girls used to flirt over drinks in a bar.

It’s ok, I thoroughly checked #me out online. He’s not a fifty-year-old pervert or anything, and I’m not totally naive to the dangers out there. He’s got a Facebook profile and loads of legitimate friends his own age, parents, siblings, pictures he’s in from school, other profiles where he’s in pictures with the same people with comments by people who comment on his wall. Someone would have had to create hundreds of fake profiles and run them all for him to not be who he says he is. I even checked out his school website - there’s a picture of him in the prospectus.

- I can’t believe it’s been two weeks since we met

- I know

- I imagined something yesterday that will probably sound silly out loud

- Or typed out!

- Yeah.

- What did you imagine?

- You know the painting by Van Gough? Café terrace at night?

There is a pause before he replies.

- I do now. Just looked it up!

- What do you think?

- I like it. It sort of reminds me of something. There’s something nostalgic about the café and the warm colours.

- It sort of makes me think of something beautiful. It makes me think of what it’s like talking to you. Like how relaxed and warm it feels. And really open. Do you know what I mean?

- Yeah. I know what you mean.

- Well, I imagined that when we first met that it was just like in the picture. You walked into my blog and told me you know what I mean, and I invited you to sit down and then it was warm and hazy.

- Yeah. Hey, check this out.

He sends me a word picture, like the ones I said that I started making once I stopped taking mirror pictures of me taking pictures of me. It includes the words hazy, café, terrace, night, first date, excited, future and warm.

- I love it. How did you make that so quickly?

- I wrote a programme to do it. It’s pretty simple stuff. It’s not as good as the ones you do yourself though, because the sizes and positions just come out at random, so you can’t get the meaning through properly.

- Yeah, I know what you mean, but I like this one anyway.

- Are you blogging tonight?

- I don’t really want to stop talking to you.

- Excellent. Then I want to ask something serious.

- OK #nervous

- Well, it’s a pretty big deal and it’s something that’s very important to me, especially with people who I call my friends.

- Right?

- Here goes.

- Ok.

- Pizza or burgers?

- What?

- Which do you prefer? Italian or American? Pizza or burger?

- Pizza.

- …

- What?

- Right answer. See, I told you it was important. Now I know what we were eating at the Café on the terrace. Now I know just how it smelt when we first met.

- Haha. Like cheese and dough, you mean!

- That’s right. Beauuuuuuutiful.

Phew. He was just messing around. I thought he was going to ask if I believed in the Goddess Barimba and the sun god Rah or something insane like that.

- God, I was genuinely nervous.

- Haha. I guess we’re even then.

- Even? Why?

- I was nervous when I first messaged you about your blog.

- Really? Why? I was just a stranger. You could have never talked to me again. Why was that scary?

- Because I’d already decided I liked you – from your blog. I was walking past you at the café, remember? I wanted you to ask me to sit down and I wanted to find the person I thought I was reading in those blogs.

- Yeah, and who was that?

- Someone amazing.

I can’t believe how well this is going. I mean, I feel the same way. I was waiting for someone to respond to my blogs. I was waiting for someone who really understood what I was trying to say. Sometimes, when I’m talking to #me, I think that things don’t always get lost in translation. When I type them, he understands too.

Mr Harrison’s lessons have been even better than usual recently, and we’ve moved on to a novel in Literature. We’re studying Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. The love triangle in it is utterly tragic. Tess is the most heroic female I think I’ve ever read, but no one else seems to realise. She is pursued and raped by a truly horrible man called Alec D’Urberville, who continues to reappear every time her life seems to be getting better, only to be the master of her utter misery again. When they first meet, he basically force-feeds her strawberries in a very disturbingly sexual way. It makes me think of how strange relationships can be. Because Tess is clearly not interested, whenever Alec flirts with her, he seems like a creepy pervert, but if she’d been interested it would have been a completely different story. If she had been interested, the strawberries would have been sensual and erotic, instead of disturbing and perverted. But I suppose that’s the point: the way we act can never be interpreted in isolation; it can only make sense in relation to the people our actions affect.

Today’s lesson with Mr Harrison is on something called the social contract. It’s the shortest day of the year today, the mid-winter solstice, and when I walked past Mr Harrison’s desk on my way in, the lovely smell of steaming coffee filled my nose. I pulled down my sleeves and hugged them with my hands. I’d managed to get in between lesson one and two. We have a five-minute transition period and I was only next door, so I sent #me a quick message. I put my phone away though for Mr Harrison. He starts the lesson by defining the topic.

‘Thomas Hobbes explained the social system as a contract in which individuals relinquish some of their freedom and liberty to the state, which for Hobbes was a single monarch. We give up these rights in order to receive the consequent stability and order that a ruling power creates. So, I accept that I do not have the freedom to choose whether I pay taxes or not, if I want to ensure that someone who steals from me will be dealt with by the police. Relinquishing these small freedoms prevents anarchy, maintains stability and protects us from extremism. Even when society does not have a clear leader (imagine that you are stranded on a remote island) people relinquish their total freedom to a set of rules or laws: do not kill; all play your part; share resources; do not murder one another; do not kill more animals than the agreed quota permits. Without these rules, and relinquishing the freedom to abscond from them, greed, jealousy and selfishness will fester and there will be no brotherhood between the islanders. Chaos ensues. Without a social contract, our lives are forfeit. Survival instinct kicks in, a contract is written, and society is born.’

I find this very interesting: considering we always talk about living in an age of freedom, it surprises me to look at things from this perspective. I decide to put my hand up to ask a question.

‘Sir, if this is the case, then how do we avoid being ruled by an evil dictator. In the Californian experiment, the group turned nasty and in Nazi Germany once Hitler had control he made terrible laws for people to follow.’

‘That’s a good question, Issy. How do we avoid self-interested dictatorship? Well, some people would say that we don’t. Capitalism has its critics after all. If this is the case, then perhaps we accept the illusion of freedom, because it is too depressing to accept the inevitability that we cannot live harmoniously without a ruler. Can anyone think of a way that democracy helps here?’ Someone puts their hand up at the front.

‘Is this a way of making sure whoever runs the social contract, the king or government or whoever, can’t ever change laws without other people checking them? And they have to re-run for leadership after a fixed period, don’t they? So, even if they were being corrupt and taking too much freedom from the people, they wouldn’t get voted in again.’ Mr Harrison takes this point up,

‘That’s right. So the leader always has to keep society just happy enough so that the contract is better than the alternative and so they won’t lose their chance to tweak it the way they want to. But this doesn’t always happen…’ The open discussion ends there, and Mr Harrison sets us some focused research questions and asks us to prepare a presentation on a particular country and what version of the social contract it adopts. We also have to look at its strengths and weaknesses and apply them to modern Britain. I mostly use the text book to research the country Mr Harrison has given me. It’s all very interesting but one thing stands out to me more than anything. Hobbes went on to say (somewhere in his writing – I’m getting this from a text book) that the most self-beneficial role to play in any society with a social contract is to be a secret social dissident: to break the laws so long as you can get away with it without being detected. And I suppose he’s right. But this is a very depressing idea. How can we feel truly safe, knowing that there will be people out there who are willing to break the rules because they know they can get away with it? This means that we’re still not totally safe under the contract; we’re just safer than we are without it. So what social system can be devised to ensure total social conformity to the rules and, therefore, total protection and peace of mind? Because that’s what we want, isn’t it? To survive without fear or anxiety for our lives and our livelihoods.

After the lesson I don’t quite feel ready to go back in, even though it’s first break. I walk the corridors for a while. Our school building is a mixture of new and old buildings. Sociology is taught in one of the old buildings, so I like to walk the corridors sometimes. I look at the other students. They’re all walking past me as I’m walking away from the common room whilst they’re walking to it. I look at all of their faces as they stream by, wondering which ones will follow the rules and which ones will be social dissidents. I’m busy staring at their faces and lose focus. I bump into Jessie Nelson.

‘Argh. Watch where you’re going.’

‘Sorry.’ I mumble and carry on. She flicks her hair as she carries on. Jessie Nelson isn’t a cliché popular princess, like you get in American high school movies – we don’t really have those here – but she also isn’t really very nice. I still don’t feel quite ready to go in as I see Emma Morrison walking towards me. I don’t think she’ll turn into a dissident. I’m not very close to many people at school but Emma and I get on well.

‘Hi Emma,’ I say, waving as the gap between us diminishes.

‘Hi Issy.’ She doesn’t really know IBHighLife. In fact, I don’t think that anyone here knows who IBHighLife is, although I suppose I can’t be sure. After Sarah died, I remember that Emma was kind. I was never rude to her, but I didn’t make her feel especially welcome either. We stop in the corridor. Most of the crowds have shifted now. ‘I’ve been trying to catch you. We read a paper by your mum in English last week. I knew the name was familiar, but I couldn’t place it at first. Then I remembered that time she dropped us off for school, and she was giving us tips for our test on the Romantics. I told sir, Mr Small, that it was you mother as I was walking out, and he seemed quite excited. I think he might ask her to come in and guest lecture or something. She is an expert after all.’

Some people would hate for their parents to come in and for the whole school to meet them – they’d find it really embarrassing. But I’m sure it’s just one of those media induced clichés, absorbed through passively and unconsciously accepting the hypodermic needle through the eyes, in the ears and into the brain. We all have parents. They’re all adults. They’re all probably embarrassing at times. So why does it matter? If the entire human race suddenly woke up with a purple spot on the end of their noses one day, would we all cover them up? But then again, most women’s breasts are naturally smaller than a D cup and their dress size way above 0, and yet women all live under the shared illusion that they’re complete freaks if they’re not at least a D cup and their dress size isn’t at least an 8 in shops where 8 comes up petite. And I suppose it’s the same with make up too. If no one wore make up then we’d still have a beauty hierarchy, and the order wouldn’t necessarily even change, but we’d save a hell of a lot of time and money.

I suddenly realise the reason people wear makeup, even though it would be better for them to club together in protest against it, is the same as what Mr Harrison was teaching us today. At the beginning, everyone might settle for not wearing makeup: a mutually beneficial social contract. But then one dissident would decide to wear it to get one up on everyone else. Then this raises the standard and then everyone else is forced to follow suit. And so the playing field is no longer filled with co-operation, but desperate attempts to not get left behind.

‘It would be pretty cool if she came in. You know, as an expert and all,’ Emma continues.

‘I suppose. I wouldn’t mind.’ I’m already struggling to know what to say. I hate the moment when you know it’s time to end a conversation, and you think you know that the other person knows too, but no one quite knows exactly how to do it.

‘Yeah, it’d be great. I loved her paper and it’d be nice to see her again.’ Oh, maybe she isn’t trying to leave this conversation too. I suppose I know what I should say after she’s just mentioned that she thinks it would be nice to see my mum again, and that she’s not seen her in a while. But all I say is,

‘Yeah.’ Now she does get awkward. There’s a bit of a pause. I suppose ‘Yeah’ wasn’t really an adequate answer.

‘Anyway, I better get off. I said I’d meet Brandon in the common room before next period.’

‘Ok. Bye.’ I don’t quite move for a moment. I decide to go in for a minute – to see if #me has replied, and maybe make some notes for tonight’s blog. I feel my limbs loosen up a bit as I see his message:

- Write a blog tonight. I want to talk to you about one, like when we first met.

Mum and Dad aren’t in when I get home and Art’s at a friend’s for tea. We don’t have the best TV, so he goes around to watch the big football matches at the D’lacey’s round the corner. I make a cup of tea and grab some leftover Chinese food from the fridge. I take it upstairs and sit at my desk. The moon is out tonight. I shut my right curtain, so I can just see the dark sky to the left and a few clouds. I notice that the clouds are moving quickly. I lean forward and see that the trees in the distance are swaying too. It seems like a storm is brewing. I stretch forward and open the window for a moment: I want to hear how powerful the wind is; it looks bad, but it had been fine ten minutes ago. The curtains blow towards me and begin to flap, and a cold buffet of wind hits me hard in the face. Simultaneously the light suddenly goes out in my room. I’m shot back in my seat and, in the new darkness and the flapping of the curtains, I see the white moon shining against the black backdrop of space. It seems to lightly pulse and grow, defiant against the darkness; it is more in front of the sky, not in the sky. I pan my eyes left. The clouds are moving fast, like in a documentary, running at x1000 speed to show the passing of night into day or day into night: sunrise and sunset. The clouds are thin as they race across the night and a single star shines through: The North Star? I don’t know, but it pulls my gaze out of the room – out of the room and into the sky – into the sky and deep inside the night – deep in the night and up to the moon. The great night pearl widens my eyes. I do not blink. I imagine that the whiteness of the moon is reflected in the centre of my pupils, which are wide to the whites in this panoramic dark. What I see and what the moons sees are the same. I wonder if perhaps my eyes are the source, and the moon and the stars and the sky the reflection of me. As I move closer, the reflection grows greater. My white pricked eyes mirror onto some great, eternal black cloak. I draw closer and closer and soon the black is being edged out by the expanding white. The night rushes out of my periphery and all is white, all is white, all is white and then BLACK.

I wake up on the floor in the bathroom, white porcelain blinking in and out of focus. I press my palms into the floor, testing their strength. I exert what feels like the last joule of energy I have and groan to my feet. My legs are shaky. I become aware of my reflection in the mirror, but it blurs a bit from focus. As my vision comes around, I notice that my eyes are sunken; they are dark and tired. My face is creased and my clothes askew. I splash my face with icy water from the tap. I let it go through me and it trickles down my front. I turn my head and walk away from my reflection.

My English teacher recommended that we read some additional novels and plays. We haven’t studied the Gothic, but it keeps coming up as we read through Tess, so I thought I’d try one out: The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. It’s about this man who is rich and beautiful and who everyone admires. Dorian Gray commissions for a portrait to be painted of him and that’s when the book starts to get dark. What happens is that whenever he does something indecent or sinful, the marks of his disgrace do not affect him, but his portrait. The painting becomes corrupted and distorted. And for Dorian nothing changes: he even maintains his youth, the painting absorbing even his natural physical decay. Of course, like Hobbes’ social dissident, this power means that Gray spirals out of control: knowing that he can get away with his life of depravity, he continues to be more and more corrupt.

The same thing happens online sometimes. When people send hate messages or start trolling, they don’t really feel any guilt or realise that it’s wrong because they dissociate themselves from their online persona. They don’t really believe that what they’re doing is real. But that’s where they’re wrong. IBHighLife is as real as Isabella and what I say online happens in a real place. I suppose we’re complying to another social contract in the online world, it’s just that inside it’s easier to be a social dissident, under the cover of anonymity. I mean, it’s easier to delete a profile and set up a new email account than it is to get plastic surgery and remodel your face. And even if you did go for a new face, you couldn’t do it more than once. So, I suppose people are more careful outside than they are inside and that’s what makes it as least as dangerous to roam the routes of the world wide web as it is to walk down unlit streets at night. But that’s the thing, I don’t walk down unlit streets at night, and I don’t roam round the darker sides of the web either. I don’t hang out on street corners on the rough side of town, and I don’t casually waltz into just any old chat room. There’s a contract, and maybe it needs tightening up a bit, but it’s still there, and the balance will always tip back to the preference of the peaceable majority. It’s the evolutionary stable position.

I tried out Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde next. It’s another doppelgänger, where a scientist changes from the benevolent Dr Jekyll to the sinister and sadistic Mr Hyde. Initially Dr Jekyll transforms into the evil Hyde only when he chooses to take the potion he has concocted to facilitate the transformation. Just like Dorian Gray, he is able to live a life of vice without corrupting the reputation of the esteemed Dr Jekyll. Like Gray, there is a part of Jekyll that is being corrupted the whole time, but the physical transformation slows down the impact because the crimes of Hyde are masked by the illusion that Jekyll is not committing them too. It is amazing that humanity is so easily willing to be duped by what they see. Because Dorian is beautiful, people are willing to believe that he is beautiful. Because Jekyll awakes as the handsome gentleman, he is able to deceive himself that actions of the ugly fiend are not his own. It amazes me that religion can still exist in a world where people base every judgement and prejudice on the maxim ‘seeing is believing’. Do you know what I mean? For Dr Jekyll and Dorian Gray, seeing is also deceiving, and it seems we are all happy to consciously deceive ourselves of the dark truth, if we are able to do so under a good enough material façade.

I tried Macbeth next and found the same thing. I know we’d read it before in Year 10, but I thought I’d give it another go in light of the genre. Macbeth turns into Lady Macbeth pretty quickly, and it’s all doppelganger again. I mean, Lady Macbeth says, ‘Look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under it’ and only a few scenes later Macbeth is telling her that ‘False face must hide what the false heart doth know’. I know Macbeth is supposed to be a tragic hero, who isn’t a hero at all really, but what I don’t like about his story, unlike say Othello’s, is that he never really recognises his own faults or flaws. He just fights on to the end, trying to survive for as long as he can and not really caring who he takes out along the way. I suppose that’s what all these stories are about really: immortality. The innocent boy: the evil man.

Is it just the Gothic and the Victorian or is the doppelgänger still around today? I suppose Hobbes’ social dissident deceives in the same way. Do you know what I mean? Are we all just faces hiding vices? Is that okay?

I think I’ve tried enough of the gothic for now. I may turn to something lighter next!

I hit post and wait for the comments. #me asked me to post something so I’m expecting him to read it pretty quickly. I meant what I said about reading something lighter next time. Analysing all of that reading has me feeling pretty cynical about the world.

- I like it

- It’s dark but that’s the authors, not you.

- Yeah, I suppose so

We talk for hours. When I go to sleep I imagine that I’m stranded on a remote island.

Chapter Eight Early-Winter 2014 Isabella

I blog like kids used to hang out at shops and on street corners.

Today is the last day of term before the Christmas break. Part of me will miss being at school. Sixth Form this term has been far better than lower school was. We have fewer teachers, which means less time spent with the wrong teachers, and I’ve been lucky to only get a couple of duds. I mean, Mr Harrison is a clear mile above the rest, but one of my English teachers, Mrs Marlow, is very good and the other one, Mrs Barnett, isn’t bad too. It’s only Mr Bennington for Maths who’s hopeless. I swear, last week I was the only one in class to complete any Maths work at all. I mean, to do well at school you either need to be a good student or have a good teacher. Preferably you’d have both, but if you haven’t got either, you’re doomed.

One thing I really don’t like is wasting time. That doesn’t mean I don’t like to do nothing. I remember my dad once said ‘sometimes I like to sit and do nothing but let my mind wander. I like to just see where it goes.’ I know it wasn’t the most profound thing ever said, but it stuck with me. I like to do it sometimes. I used to do it when I lay in bed at night, waiting to fall asleep. The thing is, I do so much late at night now before bed that there isn’t any time between my head hitting the pillow (or desk) and falling asleep to do it anymore. When I was younger, mum and dad taught me to fall to sleep telling myself stories in my head (they used to do it out loud first: mum and dad made up the best stories). This meant that I could make sure that I had good dreams. I used to imagine all sorts of fantastical things, just so I could dream about them and create the closest possible thing to living them as I could. Everyone who’s ever read about Narnia or Middle Earth or Lyra’s Oxford or Neverland or The Faraway Tree or Hogwarts or – the list goes on – has experienced the excruciatingly frustrating moment of desperately wishing that these worlds really existed and that they could live the adventures of Lucy, or Frodo, or Lyra, or Peter Pan, or Bessie, or Harry Potter, or – the list goes on. Imagining myself in these worlds as I drifted through the time between times, had the magical effect of letting me live these adventures in some small way and I loved it beyond anything. Sarah and I sometimes used to agree where we would meet in our dreams and would swear the next day that we had had the same adventure together.

When I do have time to lay and think before sleep, I sometimes stay awake for hours. I have some of my best thoughts in this way and have to keep jumping out of bed to write ideas down: I genuinely panic that I will forget them. If I’m really tired and can’t afford to keep jumping out of bed, I sometimes stop myself from thinking just so I don’t think of anything I don’t want to forget. I used to keep a Moleskine notepad and pen on my bedside table to make notes in, but now I tend to use my phone. I either make notes for a blog, or, if the idea seems right, post it straight away.

I see people at school who don’t know how to let their minds wander. They get jittery and say all sorts of stupid things just to fill the void. They can’t quite focus for long enough to work out a good answer, so they just let a stupid one fly instead. That’s what I like so much about lectures and independent work: all the stupid answers stay in other people’s heads, or, at least when whispered, still don’t quite make it into mine.

In primary school, the month before Christmas would be taken over with making cards and decorations, rehearsing for the nativity play and watching Christmas films. From year seven up, we still got at least a week of Christmas lessons. Even teachers in Sixth Form make no pretence that you are supposed to do any learning in the last lesson of term. So I arrive to period five with Mr Harrison expecting, perhaps for the first time, to actually venture in during one of his lessons. But I am surprised to find that, though the room is filled with a touch more visible Christmas cheer than it had been the day before – no doubt the work of his lower school classes – he is ready to go with business as usual.

Once he’s motioned for us to sit, he puts his finger to his lips to indicate that we are to be silent, then moves his right hand to indicate that we are to write, and finally points to a statement on the board. The statement reads:

‘What variables make a person who they are? and ‘If we had evolved from dolphins, would our Gods have been different?’ Explore the relationship between these two statements?’

For a moment, I think Mr Harrison has gone insane, but I decide to think it through, owing to the fact that whatever Mr Harrison has begun with in the past, has always led to something unique and interesting in the end.

I think about the first question about what makes someone who they are. Surely the list is endless. I think about the question about gods and dolphins: God is a man because we made him in our image. So, if we evolved from dolphins and lived in the ocean, then maybe God would be a giant fish and heaven would be a giant reef in the Ocean, instead of a huge castle in the clouds.

So, what’s the point?

Suddenly I think I get it. I write:

They mean the same thing: the first statement is a microcosm of the second. The greatest weakness in society is its inability to empathise. All species are restricted to interpreting and understanding the world from their own limited point of view: our god is a patriarchal man in the sky and the god of intelligent fish would be a Great Blue Whale in the ocean. In the same way, each individual can only truly understand the world from his or her own unique perspective. Every individual is different, because we are all shaped by a complex combination of genetic nature and environmental nurture. Therefore, society’s greatest obstacle to overcome, if its goal is to achieve a state of social harmony, is to recognise that everything is relative. Once we accept this, we can lay aside some of our dispositions and resolute oppositions and will be able to properly compromise. If we want to live harmoniously and equally, then compromise is fundamental to the avoidance of eternal conflict.

I don’t know if this is what Mr Harrison was thinking, but I feel very pleased with myself that I found some meaning in what looked like something pretty nonsensical.

After ten minutes or so, Mr Harrison asks us to sum up what we have written in as few words as possible. I write:

If we want to avoid conflict, we need to see the world through other people’s eyes. Absolutism guarantees hostility.

Mr Harrison now asks everyone in turn to read out their summative statements. I feel pretty anxious as he says this. He often asks us to present in front of the group, but we usually know in advance and have time to prepare. I’m worried that what I’ve written will sound stupid, especially if everyone else has come to a different answer.

And they have, but as each person starts to read, it turns out that even though everyone has come up with a different answer, they all sound pretty interesting – even Bobby Peters says something about the evolution of religious dogma and the absurdity of prescriptive ideology!

The class isn’t large, so it’s not long before I have to read out my answer. I prepare myself to feel embarrassed that, once said out loud, my idea will lose all of the excitement I had in coming up with it, and, in light of everyone else’s originality, will sound profoundly unimportant.

‘If we want to avoid conflict, we need to see the world through other people’s eyes. Absolutism guarantees hostility,’ I say as clearly as my rising anxiety will allow.

I’m shocked. It sounds ok. All of our ideas sound fine. Everyone’s answers make them sound like a genius because they cracked an impossible code, whilst at the same time everyone’s answers sound like completed nonsense, but we’re all in it together so it doesn’t matter.

After everyone’s response, Mr Harrison says thank you and well done, and it really sounds like he means it too. Once everyone has spoken, it isn’t nearly time for the lesson to finish. He says:

‘We’re going to watch the start of a film now, and I’d really like you to watch the rest of it over the holiday. It’s called It’s a Wonderful Life. I want us all to think carefully about what we can learn from this film and from today’s lesson.’

Mr Harrison lets the film run to the bell. He wishes us all a good holiday and then everyone packs up quickly and walks out. They all say thanks, goodbye and wish him a good holiday too. It really is a very polite school. I hold back, feigning to pack my things slowly. I’m not sure why but I want to say something to Mr Harrison. I’m not sure what I want to say either. I think I want to thank him, but somehow make it seem like I really mean it, so he knows that it’s true and not just like everyone else saying thanks and have a good holiday on their way out. I mean, I’m sure they all meant what they said, but I want Mr Harrison to know how much his teaching means to me. I don’t think I quite knew how important his classes were until now and not just because it gives me something to blog about.

‘Sir,’ I say, half declaring the word and half turning it into a question.

‘Yes, Issy.’

‘I wanted to say thank you. You know, for teaching us this term and for the composition book. Your class really is interesting, and I really enjoy writing essays on all the topics we’ve covered.’ I pause for a moment and he smiles. ‘And thanks for the film.’ I continue. ‘I think I’ll watch the rest of it tonight.’

‘I’m glad you’ve enjoyed this term. Your essays are very good, and you have a knack for seeing and saying things with clarity, so well done. You’ve worked hard and deserve a good break. Have a very nice Christmas.’ He smiles again as he opens the door.

‘Thanks, Sir. You too. Merry Christmas.’ I’m glad I said something. It’s not like I wanted a long conversation or anything, but I think it’s important for people who are really good at something to know that other people think they’re good at it. Otherwise, how will they know? However good someone is at something, they never really know all by themselves. And even when they do, it adds something when someone else says it too.

I don’t go in right away after I leave Mr Harrison’s classroom. That film reminded me of something. I don’t know what, but it makes me want to walk for a minute. I decide not to get the bus home. It’s not very far to walk but I usually get the bus, so I can go in properly. For some reason I am reminded of that radio programme I heard at the start of term, on the first day of Sixth Form – on my birthday. It was about making opportunities for original thought. I don’t know if anyone has thought what I wrote about in class today before. I guess they must have. But I suppose they haven’t thought about it in exactly the same way as I did: in response to a statement on identity and Dolphins.

I walk the empty school halls thinking and, without realising it, find that I’ve walked myself to the music block. As I approach, I hear someone playing the piano. I assume that it is Susan Merriweather. I can’t think who else would be playing on the last day of term when the bell has gone, and the holiday has officially begun. She’s playing a beautiful song. I’ve listened to her a lot this term, since September. She plays all sorts of styles. I’ve listened so much that I think I’ve even worked out her practice schedule. She plays the harp at lunchtimes and the piano after school. Whenever she plays something slow and melodic on one instrument, she plays something fast and dynamic on the other, so that every day she practises fast and slow music, loud and soft, passionate and romantic. Sometimes she practises her scales and arpeggios, but I think she must do most of that at home, because it’s usually whole pieces that I hear her playing.

Suddenly I notice something wrong with the music. There is another sound interrupting it and it sounds confused and horrible. The sound of the piano stops and I recognise the intrusion as the ringtone on her phone. I am disappointed that the music has stopped, but don’t move from my customary seat outside the music room. I expect her to start playing again soon, so I wait. I notice that there are paintings covering the walls opposite me, like there are lining the corridor outside Mrs Bridges’ office. I suppose if I took the time to look, I’d notice that the whole school is covered with them, as I suppose most schools are. I’ve seen the one in front of me before. It’s the one with the woman in a red dress and a goat playing the cello. I read the caption below it, which says it’s called ‘La Mariée’ by Mark Chagallin and I remember why I recognise it, and it’s not because I’ve been to any art galleries or read any books on art history. It’s the painting that Julia Roberts gives to Hugh Grant in Notting Hill. I suppose it doesn’t matter how you know something. And what’s wrong with Notting Hill anyway?

But this painting isn’t so clear. The figure holding the woman (is it La Mariée?) is smiling warmly and seems to be protecting her; he is guiding her as she floats through the rich blue setting. The rich blue background is at once harmonious and peaceful, whilst at the same time, when you notice the floating fish in the background, jarring and uncomfortable. When you see the blue as the sky, it is nostalgic, like watching The Snowman at Christmas: the boy’s dreams come true as he soars across the snowy winter night’s sky with his magical new friend. But when you see the fish and the setting becomes the ocean, the painting becomes more sinister and a little oppressive. You notice the expression on the woman’s face and wonder why she isn’t smiling. I suppose it is a clever painting because it changes meaning so quickly and so uncomfortably. Maybe it’s about the whole range of human emotion and the complexity of being human. Either way, I prefer the painting next to it: ‘Sunset in Venice’ by Claude Monet. This one is far more straight forward. It is a beautiful wash of golden and fiery yellows and oranges. There is still some blue showing at the top, as if it is not quite night yet: either the day lingers or the night sky approaches. This painting makes me feel comfortable and warm and infinite. Time stands still in this painting and the viewer is able to stand still with it, both burrowing into the warmth of nostalgia and gazing in confident hope at some perfect distant future.

The music starts up again and I relax back into the comfort of my chair. I hadn’t realised I was sitting on edge, until the music starts, and I relax back into the depths of my cushioned seat. I stare at ‘Sunset in Venice’ without blinking for a minute and when my eyes close I can still see it imprinted on the otherwise blank, black canvas of my closed eyelids. I let the image flow into my mind’s eye and it fills my thoughts. The fiery colours of the setting sun move to the cadences of Susan’s playing and I feel at ease. I think I would happily stay this way forever. The music ebbs and flows and the fires of the sunset dance across the sky as the dark blue descends, and the golden blaze is slowly replaced by the dark night’s sky. Once the night has fully descended, stars begin to appear on the dark canvas. At first the stars flash into the sky to the beat of each semibreve, then to each minim, then each crotchet, then quaver, semi quaver, demisemiquaver, hemidemisemiquaver until they are beacons lighting up the sky as brightly as the sunset they have replaced.

I drift through eternity, like the boy in The Snowman. The music sounds like the theme from the film. I do not know if Susan has started to play this song or if I have fully drifted into my own world, but I am happy to hear this sound and float in this way, whatever else is happening outside of my mind.

But suddenly I am ripped out of the moment. The music stops. My eyes open and I am half blinded by spots of artificial light. The sound of Susan’s phone ringing again replaces the tranquillity of her playing. This time I hear what she is saying.

‘What now, Mother? I am trying to practise.’ There is a pause whilst her mother replies. ‘Because it is important, Mother! How am I supposed to get into a good music school if I don’t practise?’ Another pause. ‘Because I love to play music and because that is what eighteen-year olds do, Mother. They leave home and go to university.’ I can guess what Susan’s mother is saying and realise that she isn’t just mean to Susan, but that Susan must have to look after her in some way. Maybe she’s an alcoholic or a manic depressive or just emotionally immature, but either way, I know that Susan would be mortified to know that someone could hear this conversation. I jump up to leave, but in my panic to not be seen, I rush and kick back the chair I’ve been sitting in. It’s positioned in front of a metal radiator, which rattles noisily as the chair hits it. I hear the door pulled open and Susan appears.

‘What do you want?’ She says. I mumble the words ‘I’m sorry’, as I grab my bag and rush down the corridor, bashing a table as I go. Susan really is the loveliest person, so I feel terrible that she saw me, and knew I was there, and knew that I heard her phone call, and made her feel exposed. It’s obvious that she doesn’t want anyone to know what her life outside of school is like and I wish I hadn’t ruined that for her. Obviously, I’m not going to say anything, but that isn’t going to make a difference to how she feels. I want her to know that I won’t say anything – that she doesn’t have to worry – that I couldn’t possibly understand, but that I think her music is amazing and that I wish her all the very best of luck with her applications, which I know she won’t need because any college would have to be profoundly stupid not to take her.

Shit.