is very happy to offer her a place in pre-prep starting the autumn term. He is ultra-blond with a long, effete forehead and a thin, sculpted nose. His face has a dapper, ruddy complexion as though he spends most of his free time sailing, which I guess he does. He sits at a large oak desk surrounded by prints of famous sailing ships, the sort you might find hoisted on a dry dock and visited by tourists. All along a bookshelf are bottles containing models of such ships. I regard them as one might a taxidermy collection, which the headmaster notices.
‘My hobby,’ he says, rather grandly. Cartwell is his name. He has a big brass plate on his desk engraved in swirling, girlish letters so that everyone knows.
‘You do these yourself?’ I am amazed he will admit to such a thing. There’s something distinctly creepy about this man. My mind drifts to thoughts of strange potions in backrooms or remains under floorboards.
Cartwell nods, making a little movement with his hand as though he doesn’t want to boast too much about it. We are invited to sit down in two captain’s chairs at the side of his enormous desk. Turning to Emily’s file, he says, ‘She’s an unusually articulate girl, isn’t she?’ He reels off her test results as though reading a sales report. I notice his peculiar habit of continually rearranging the objects on his desk as he speaks. In the last few minutes, for example, he has moved a paperweight from the lower left corner to the upper right corner, lined up his pencils, wiped the surface of his blotting paper with the back of his hand, stacked a group of Post-it notes and ordered a number of business cards. All I can think, as he outlines for us the results of the diagnostic tests they gave Emily, is how these habits seem somewhat obsessive and unnatural. Also, that I am quite sure he buffs his fingernails.
I say, ‘Have you looked at Emily’s drawings?’
Amid many test reports on Cartwell’s desk are dozens of Emily’s cartoons: Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Pluto, plus several pictures of Dumbo flying through the air. I brought the drawings to show the school because I believe they illustrate something of Emily’s personality, her interests, what makes her who she is. I think she’s a genius, but Mr Cartwell only frowns at the images. ‘Yes, er, they are very nice,’ he says as though staring at a pungent mound of disastrous ethnic cuisine he has no intention of ever tasting. ‘Would you like them back?’ he asks now, handing them over.
I am about to launch into a discussion about how important art is to Emily when Stephen takes his shoe and puts it on top of my boot in a secret communication that means Don’t Say Anything. Stephen does not often try to control me in conversation, although he does have an uncanny way of subduing my opinions. But this gesture at this particular time is a mistake on his part. I am not in the mood for it. There’s something about the way Cartwell keeps assuring us that Emily won’t be held back by children with ‘problems’ because the school carefully screens such children out that has me on edge. Plus all the rearranging of knick-knacks on his desk. I keep thinking that Cartwell himself clearly has problems. His face is grim, serious, as though explaining a procedure for qualifying neurosurgeons rather than talking about children. He keeps clearing his throat in rapid grunts that sound like someone imitating gunfire. Stephen’s foot on mine presses in an annoying manner and it feels to me to be exactly the sort of obstacle that requires swatting away. So while Cartwell goes on about his wonderful school and the screening procedure that makes it so, I take my umbrella, the old-fashioned sort with a long, pointed steel end, and knock it firmly into Stephen’s Achilles tendon.
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