We plodded on round the group. Alice wanted to compare the portrayal of women in the novels of Toni Morrison and Janice Galloway, while Sana was obsessed with Chuck Palah niuk. Danny, Lee and Katie all planned to dae Lord of the Rings. I could sense a slight tightening of Ms Harris’s lip but her only comment was that choosing popular texts meant you had to work harder to find an original take on them. Two other folk wanted to dae George Orwell and Steinbeck. Then it was my turn.
Emily Brontë.
Ms Harris looked slightly more animated. Why Emily Brontë, Fiona?
I’ve just always loved everything she wrote, the poems and ‘Wuthering Heights’.
Have you a specific aspect of her work in mind?
I thought either a sense of place or mibbe her family.
Sounds promising. Can you tell some of the others, who may not be so au fait with the Brontës, what that means?
Well, Emily lived in this remote Yorkshire village – she was the parson’s daughter and her mother died when she was really young. She had a brother and sisters and they all wrote and made up stories and plays thegether. The sisters became really good writers – well folk say Anne isnae as good but I still like her – and her brother fell in love with this married woman and took tae drugs and drink and then he died but he could of been a writer too. Emily was a recluse and wandered the moors and …
I realised everyone was looking at me and my mind went blank.
Thanks Fiona. Your enthusiasm is evident.
Kevin stuck his haund up. What kind of drugs did they have then?
Not now, please – time to pack up. Kevin, can you make an extra appointment to see me?
I shoved my folder in my bag and walked out the room. My cheeks were burning as I heided doon the back stair. Then I heard a voice calling, Hey Fiona, wait, and when I turnt round it was Jas, rucksack slung across one shoulder.
Fiona.
Hi.
Where you off to?
Oh, just home.
Got time for a coffee?
There was a wee place round the corner fae the school, no really a café, just a takeout place wi a few high stools at a counter. Legs dangling, sitting side by side, we talked, hardly looking at each other. Maist of the time I stared doon at his shoes, black shiny lace-ups, nice shoes, nothing like the ubiquitous trainers or boots the other boys wore.
See, Fiona, I dunno anything really about the Brontës but when you were talking it sounded so much as if she was almost opposite to Shelley.
I guess – she hated being away fae hame, got sick when she wasnae at Haworth, near the moors.
And Shelley was always travelling – he almost never had a home.
Emily hardly even spoke, except to her ain family. Folk that met her talked about her as if she was like a sphinx or something.
Jas laughed so much he became unbalanced fae his seat.
Cool. Shelley never stopped talking, he wrote polemic and essays. He turned and looked straight in my face for the first time. But it sounds like they both had this true inner thing – they were pure artists.
It was the first time I’d heard anyone my age talk like that. Dead serious. He looked straight at me and his eyes were dark chocolatey brown. That’s what I want for my poems. I don’t mean I think I can be like Shelley but I want tae have truth in them. Know what I mean?
I nodded.
Do you write as well, Fiona?
I used tae try to write poetry, when I was younger. But I … kind of stopped. Last year.
I’m gonnae dae the creative writing option this year – you should try it too – don’t let your poetry go.
You’re taking Art this year too, aren’t you? He was in my class, so obviously he was, but I wanted to keep him talking.
Aye. Photography, mostly. It’s that immediate. Real. D’you specialise in anything?
No really – bit of painting, collage stuff. I feel I want to dae something different this year but.
What’s your third subject?
History, but History is … well I like it but I don’t feel the same way I dae about Art or Literature.
Same with me. My third subject is Chemistry. I like it but I don’t have that … passion for it.
Silence. Jas looked at his watch. I assumed he was fed up wi me, that whatever had attracted him had fizzled out in the reality of talking to me. I was used tae that. No one ever thought I was interesting.
I’m sorry, Fiona. I’d like to go on talking but I have to get to work.
You have a job?
I work in the pharmacy, my family’s shop.
He climbed doon fae the stool, stood next tae me, looking smaller fae my perch.
You know I think we should work together sometimes – talking about stuff could really help.
Cool.
And that was us.
After school we’d go for coffee, sit on the high stools, then I’d go hame and Jas would go tae work. Later we’d talk on the phone or go out thegether. At first I said I was meeting Mon and Jemma but after a few weeks it felt daft tae pretend. Jas and me were real.
I’d never been in love afore, never even had a crush on anyone really. The rest of the lassies were aye fancying guys or gaun mad over the latest popstar but I never had. When I was aboot fourteen I started tae wonder if there was something wrang wi me, did I have a bit missing? I knew I didnae fancy girls but I didnae recognise the stuff I read in the magazines, the heart stopping, the churning in the stomach. I went out wi boys a few times, usually to make up numbers on a double date, but I never felt anything. When they kissed me goodnight it was less exciting than getting licked by the Jacksons’ cat.
The first time Jas kissed me was three weeks after that first coffee. We’d went tae study in the library after school, sitting side by side at the tables near the reference section. We were baith working on dissertations for English. I was poring over Wuthering Heights, writing out quotes about nature and he’d Shelley’s poetry open in fronty him. I wish someone had taken a photie of us that day; two heids, his hair dark and shiny and straight, mines tangled curls the colour of tea. Notepads and paper spread out in fronty
