Read First Fruits for Free Online Page B

direction,
putting the focus on someone else, leaving me....
    ...Invisible.
    I don't know that this has ever happened
before. And of course it doesn't last, it can't last. But it makes you wonder.
What would happen if they were ever to meet properly, Lydia and my Dad? Who
would he focus on then?
          
    Next day, they are at it again, Hilary and Lydia, both
expecting to sit next to me. Or to put it another way, neither of them wanting
to sit next to Moira.
    Well I solved that one. I went to
sit next to Moira.
    I'd been meaning to anyway. Some things
have to be done occasionally and one of them is reminding myself to sit next to
Moira, just to show I can.
    Now that might sound as if I had some
kind of difficulty with sitting next to Moira, as if there was a problem. And
the fact is, nothing could be farther from the truth. No, the only problem with
sitting next to Moira is that she smells. A kind of vegetable odour, like the
fug which collects at the bottom of a bag of potatoes. Damp, musty. Fleshy.
That's the one problem with Moira.
    That, and the sheer size of her.
    And even the size isn't a problem, not
in itself. Handsome is as handsome does, Dad says. And friends with that kind
of handicap are almost the best friends to have. Gratitude again. Show a bit of
interest and people can't believe their luck. I mean, you should see the shape
of some of the folk who turn up at the Service. You'll never catch them turning
their back on Dad.
    So you'd think Moira would show a bit of
gratitude, but it doesn't happen. So then you find yourself wondering if
she even knows there is a problem - or if maybe, just possibly, her Gran's been
telling her that she's fine, perfect just the way she is.
    No, if there was a difficulty with
sitting next to Moira, it wouldn't be the size of her. It would have to be the
stillness. God surely never made any of us to be that still, as if time and
motion had got lost in all that flesh. That's the stillness of Moira. Something
not quite awake - but not properly asleep either. Something you can't quite
ignore in case...
    ...Well, just in case.
    It doesn't bother me, though. Nothing
about Moira bothers me. Not even the way she stares.
    Moira stares at me all the time.
    I keep expecting somebody to notice, the
way she never takes her eyes off me. But nobody ever does. Notice, I mean.
That's because nobody ever looks at Moira. It never seems to occur to them;
I've watched people's eyes slip over her as if she was part of the furniture.
And that is why no-one has ever noticed. While no-one is looking at
Moira, she is looking at me.
    Watching me with eyes that have no
centre to them, like tablets on the point of dissolving.
    But, so what if she wants to stare? It
doesn't bother me. Not one little bit. And just to show how much it doesn't
bother me, I'll remember to go and sit next to her now and then. Cosy up to all
that bulk and stillness and faint smell of vegetables. She can stare until the
cows come home, until she's seen what she's waiting to see. But it won't mean a
thing. It simply doesn't bother me.
    And that's why, when I plump myself down
next to Moira and she turns to me with that slow, dissolving beam of hers, I
give her just the brightest smile you could imagine. No-one could fail to get
to the message. Kate Carr couldn't give a fig for Moira and her stare.
    Meanwhile, Hilary and Lydia think I'm
just wonderful sacrificing myself like this. But they had better make the most
of it. After break I'm going back to my own seat, and then I'll decide which of
them sits next to Moira.
    I think it will have to be Hilary. She's
bigger, takes up more space - much better built to get in the way of Moira and
her eyes.
     
    Then it's lunch time again and we have to go for our
Greek lesson with Miss Jamieson. Lydia is almost quivering with anticipation.
She's told me about her homework. The entire Greek alphabet memorised, and a
few dozen words as well.
    Let's hope she can work hard enough for
both of us.