Flour Babies - Anne Fine [40]
‘Others may settle to dandle their babies,
My heart’s a tall ship, and high winds are near.’
Martin’s look of confusion cleared instantly.
‘Well, obviously it’s a metaphor,’ he began. ‘The protagonist has chosen to use the analogy of –’
He stopped, partly from terror, and partly because Simon’s sudden grip on his throat had cut off the air in his windpipe.
‘I wasn’t asking for a lecture,’ Simon informed him sternly. ‘I just want to know what it means.’
He took his hand away, and stood waiting.
Martin Simon tried again.
‘What it means,’ he said, ‘is that the fellow has to go. Just as a ship with its sails spread has to move with the winds, so this chap knows the moment is coming when, however much he may want to stay, the sort of person he is – the sort of character and temperament he has – is going to force him to leave. He has no choice.’
Simon stared up at the sky. His eyes were prickling, and he swallowed hard.
‘No choice?’
Martin said firmly:
‘None at all. That’s just the way it is with someone like him.’
At this point, Wayne broke in, asking Martin suspiciously:
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘It’s in the words,’ Martin explained patiently. ‘That’s what they mean.’
‘But how do you know?’
It was Simon who came to Martin’s rescue, putting Wayne firmly in his place.
‘Listen,’ he said. ‘You and me, we know how to play football and have a good laugh, right? Now Martin here, he’s an ear’ole. He’s useless at football. He couldn’t kick a jelly in a drain. But he knows about things like songs and poetry.’
He turned to Martin.
‘Isn’t that right?’
Martin nodded.
‘Right,’ Simon said. And then, since the discussion of cultural strengths and weaknesses seemed to have petered to a halt:
‘Well, thanks very much.’
On an impulse, he stuck out his right arm. For just a moment Martin couldn’t fathom why, and then he realized Simon wanted to shake hands with him.
‘That’s all right,’ he said, responding as promptly as he could. ‘Any time.’
‘No,’ Simon assured him. “That’s it, I expect. I’m pretty sure I’ll be all right now.’
And indeed, Martin couldn’t help thinking, there was a strange, unearthly look about him once again, almost an aura, as if, like Sir Galahad, he’d seen his vision of the Holy Grail, and knew he’d come across his heart’s desire.
9
Miss Arnott rooted in her bag for aspirins. ‘That’s the third time he’s tramped past this door, singing at the top of his voice.’ She turned to Mr Spencer, who was hunched over the staffroom table, rubbing the pencilled black centres out of most of the crotchets in the song books to try and turn them back into minims. ‘Why can’t you teach them quieter songs?’
Without raising his eyes from his salvage work, Mr Spencer defended himself calmly.
‘I never taught him that one. And what you teach them makes no difference. Those lads in 4C would belt out a cradle song as if it were a battle hymn. There’s nothing I can do about it. Just thank your lucky stars the boy has a fine voice.’
Miss Arnott dropped a second aspirin in her water glass.
‘Call it a staff rest period,’ she muttered bitterly. ‘It’s just a different way of suffering.’
She lifted her head.
‘Is that him coming back again? I can’t bear it. What is the boy doing, traipsing up and down this corridor, time and again?’
Mr Henderson broke off sipping coffee to tell her.
‘If it’s Simon Martin you’re complaining about,’ he said, ‘Dr Feltham roped him in to carry Nimmo-Smith’s Microprocessor Controlled Pedestrian Crossing along to its stand for the Science Fair. For once, the boy’s only doing what he’s told.’
‘Was he told to sing sea shanties at full tilt while he did it?’
‘Shall I tell him to turn down the volume?’ Mr Henderson stuck his head round the staffroom door, but he was a moment too late. Mr Cartright had already appeared at the other end of the corridor.
‘Simon Martin!’ he bellowed, cutting the enthusiastic tenor off at source. ‘Why aren’t you down here at our weigh-in?’
Simon stopped short with his arms full of oscilloscope.
‘I’m carrying