The School of English. Hilary Mantel

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      ‘Impertinence will not carry you far,’ the butler said. ‘Only by a short route to dismissal, and no employment tribunal for you, do not think it. Her Majesty’s Government in its wisdom is pleased to remove legal aid from you whingeing type of person. So once dismissed they stay dismissed. I am warning you.’

      The floor of the panic room struck cold into Marcella’s feet. The salary promised was small, but she needed a roof over her head, and here was that roof: NW8, live-in, for flexible person must like dogs, with experience of specialist laundry and helpful attitude, non-smoker. At a good distance north of here, there was a room over a fried-chicken shop, where certain of her countrywomen gathered and passed The Lady hand to hand, as if they had never reached the age of the internet: they were not digital, they could not recharge, they were unable to keep a laptop in case it was filched from their very laps, or any portable device that simply added to what they had to carry; they feared street robbers. The Lady, therefore, scanned by so many eyes, became limp and grey; it became circled in red, crossed in green, starred in blue. In the room above the deep-fat fryers, a woman might conceal herself from officers, police or other types: hiding if she was wanted, hiding if she was unwanted – that is to say, dismissed. She might resort there for a night or more, if she had no alternative but the streets. Sometimes the women lay end to end, exhausted, rolled into sleeping bags or blankets, grey faces vacant in sleep; when they woke, they hardly knew their own names.

      So it was with a look both humble and contrite that Marcella made her apology to Mr Maddox. ‘I only asked the meaning of a word. In future I shall buy a dictionary.’

      ‘Well, you are young,’ the butler conceded. ‘Perhaps you may yet learn. “Casualty” is an injured person. Gunshot wound for example.’

      She could see such a person would need to lie down. ‘Who has shot them?’

      ‘Intruder. Kidnapper. Abductor. Robber. Outrager. Terrorist. Desperado.’

      ‘Peril on every side,’ Marcella murmured.

      ‘This is a very basic panic room,’ the butler explained. ‘A bullet will not pierce it, and the air, being filtered, is able to eliminate most chemicals and biologicals, but it is designed to accommodate only till the security men come at the touch of a button. I mean, the panic buttons,’ he instructed. ‘They are placed in all living areas.’

      ‘Are they red?’

      ‘Red? Why would they be?’

      ‘How shall I know them? If I do not spot them I might press them when I am dusting, at a time when there is no terrorist threat, and this can lead to The Boy Who Cried Wolf.’

      The butler stared at her. As she suspected, though his English was more florid than hers, his range of allusion was less.

      ‘Of course they are not red,’ he said. ‘They are concealed so our employers can press them discreetly. They are in hidden places.’

      ‘But I must dust them,’ Marcella said, ‘hidden or not. I was recently in Notting Hill, where I was dismissed for failing to dust the chair legs.’

      ‘That cannot have been your only fault,’ Mr Maddox said. He spoke as if weighing the matter, and his tone was dubious. ‘In Kensington, certainly. In Holland Park, perhaps. In Notting Hill? I doubt it. You had better be open with me. What else did you do? Or should I say, what did you omit to do?’

      ‘I was not raped,’ Marcella said. ‘I consented.’

      The circumstances were simple and they were these. The family – that is to say, her previous family, in Notting Hill – had left for ski break. The child Jonquil was taken out of school, but Joshua, who was fifteen years old, was left behind, either because he was not worthy of ski break, or because it was his exam year, Marcella has now forgotten; there was a row about it in the kitchen, during which Joshua dropped a glass jar of multigrain multiseed on the floor, and this she remembers because of the complaints made for days after, about gritty grains under bare soles. The upshot was that his mother said, we are going for ski break, Joshua, even if you throw the whole of Waitrose breakfast aisle on the floor. You do what you like, Marcella will clear it up. You may get your chance another year, may I remind you we are a hardworking family and we deserve it.

      Later, as she was climbing to her room, she found Joshua sitting on the stairs and crying. He was a huge, thick-bodied boy, and it seemed he was using up all the air, his big face wet with tears, his breath heaving in and out. It was her personal stairs he was sitting on; no reason for him to be there; his room was below, second floor. ‘Don’t look at me,’ he said.

      She understood he was ashamed of crying, such a large boy. But why did he come there, if not for her to look at him?

      She said, ‘Do not snivel, Joshua.’ She meant it kindly, but she saw him stiffen. Perhaps the wrong word? ‘Sniffle, I mean,’ she said. ‘Do not do either. There will be other ski breaks.’

      ‘It’s not my fault my mother fucked off and left me with her,’ he said. Left me with a stepmother, he meant. ‘But it’s always me that has to be punished for it. Why’s that, then?’

      He did not expect her to have an answer. And yet she did. She said gently, ‘When you are punished, Joshua, it is not always because you have been bad. Often it is because others have been bad.’

      She waited. He was not intelligent. He did not understand her. ‘The sooner you know this, the better for you,’ she said. ‘It is not just, of course.’

      ‘Not just what?’ He was staring at her.

      ‘It is not …’ Irritation bubbled inside her, and swelled inside her mouth like a balloon. Always she tried to feel sorry for him. But perhaps if he did not take up so much room, and if he were more hygienic. ‘I mean to say, it is not fair. But it is the way things are. Now, hurry. Your father is waiting to take you back to school. Among your laughing comrades you will soon forget your miseries.’

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