Читать книгу Peyton Place - Grace Metalious - Страница 5

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Maple Street, which bisected Elm at a point halfway through the business section, was a wide, tree-shaded avenue which ran north and south from one end of town to the other. At the extreme southern end of the street, where the paving ended and gave way to an empty field, stood the Peyton Place schools. It was toward these buildings that Kenny Stearns, the town handyman, walked. The men in front of the courthouse opened drowsy eyes to watch him.

“There goes Kenny Stearns,” said one man unnecessarily, for everyone had seen—and knew—Kenny.

“Sober as a judge, right now.”

“That won’t last long.”

The men laughed.

“Good at his work though, Kenny is,” said one old man named Clayton Frazier, who made a point of disagreeing with everybody, no matter what the issue.

“When he ain’t too drunk to work.”

“Never knew Kenny to lose a day’s work on account of liquor,” said Clayton Frazier. “Ain’t nobody in Peyton Place can make things grow like Kenny. He’s got one of them whatcha call green thumbs.”

One man snickered. “Too bad Kenny don’t have the same good luck with his wife as he has with plants. Mebbe Kenny’d be better off with a green pecker.”

This observation was acknowledged with appreciative smiles and chuckles.

“Ginny Stearns is a tramp and a trollop,” said Clayton Frazier, unsmilingly. “There ain’t much a feller can do when he’s married to a born whore.”

“ ’Cept drink,” said the man who had first spoken.

The subject of Kenny Stearns seemed to be exhausted, and for a moment no one spoke.

“Hotter’n July today,” said one old man. “Damned if my back ain’t itchin’ with sweat.”

“ ’Twon’t last,” said Clayton Frazier, tipping his hat back to look up at the sky. “I’ve seen it turn off cold and start in snowin’ less than twelve hours after the sun had gone down on a day just like this one. This won’t last.”

“Ain’t healthy either. A day like this is enough to make a man start thinkin’ about summer underwear again.”

“Healthy or not, you’d hear no complaints from me if the weather stayed just like this clear ’til next June.”

“ ’Twon’t last,” said Clayton Frazier, and for once his words did not provoke a discussion.

“No,” the men agreed. “ ’Twon’t last.”

They watched Kenny Stearns turn into Maple Street and walk out of sight.

The Peyton Place schools faced each other from opposite sides of the street. The grade school was a large wooden building, old, ugly and dangerous, but the high school was the pride of the town. It was made of brick, with windows so large that each one made up almost an entire wall, and it had a clinical, no-nonsense air of efficiency that gave it the look more of a small, well-run hospital than that of a school. The elementary school was Victorian architecture at its worst, made even more hideous by the iron fire escapes which zigzagged down both sides of the building, and by the pointed, open belfry which topped the structure. The grade school bell was rung by means of a thick, yellow rope which led down from the belfry and was threaded through the ceiling and floor of the building’s second story. The rope came to an end and hung, a constant temptation to small hands, in the corner of the first floor hall. The school bell was Kenny Stearns’ secret love. He kept it polished so that it gleamed like antique pewter in the October sun. As he approached the school buildings now, Kenny looked up at the belfry and nodded in satisfaction.

“The bells of heaven ain’t got tongues no sweeter than yours,” he said aloud.

Kenny often spoke aloud to his bell. He also talked to the school buildings and to the various plants and lawns in town for which he cared.

From the windows of both schools, open now to the warm afternoon, there came a soft murmuring and the smell of pencil shavings.

“Hadn’t oughta keep school on a day like this,” said Kenny.

He stood by the low hedge which separated the grade school from the first house on Maple Street. A warm, green smell, composed of the grass and hedges which he had cut that morning rose around him.

“This ain’t no kind of a day for schoolin’,” said Kenny and shrugged impatiently, not at his inarticulateness but in puzzlement at a rare emotion in himself.

He wanted to throw himself face down on the ground and press his face and body against something green.

“That’s the kind of day it is,” he told the quiet buildings truculently. “No kind of a day for schoolin’.”

He noticed that a small twig in the hedge had raised itself, growing above the others and marring the evenness of the uniformly flat hedge tops. He bent to snip off this precocious bit of green with his fingers, a sharp tenderness taking form within him. But suddenly a wildness came over him, and he grabbed a handful of the small, green leaves, crushing them until he felt their yielding wetness against his skin while passion tightened itself within him and his breath shook. A long time ago, before he had taught himself not to care, he had felt this same way toward his wife Ginny. There had been the same tenderness which would suddenly be overwhelmed by a longing to crush and conquer, to possess by sheer strength and force. Abruptly Kenny released the handful of broken leaves and wiped his hand against the side of his rough overall.

“Wish to Christ I had a drink,” he said fervently and moved toward the double front doors of the grade school.

It was five minutes to three and time for him to take up his position by the bell rope.

“Wish to Christ I had a drink, and that’s for sure,” said Kenny and mounted the wooden front steps of the school.

Kenny’s words, since they had been addressed to his bell and therefore uttered in loud, carrying tones, drifted easily through the windows of the classroom where Miss Elsie Thornton presided over the eighth grade. Several boys laughed out loud and a few girls grinned, but this amusement was short lived. Miss Thornton was a firm believer in the theory that if a child were given the inch, he would rapidly take the proverbial mile, so, although it was Friday afternoon and she was very tired, she restored quick order to her room.

“Is there anyone here who would like to spend the thirty minutes after dismissal with me?” she asked.

The boys and girls, ranging in age from twelve to fourteen, fell silent, but as soon as the first note sounded from Kenny’s bell, they began to scrape and shuffle their feet. Miss Thornton rapped sharply on her desk with a ruler.

“You will be quiet until I dismiss you,” she ordered. “Now. Are your desks cleared?”

“Yes, Miss Thornton.” The answer came in a discordant chorus.

“You may stand.”

Forty-two pairs of feet clomped into position in the aisles between the desks. Miss Thornton waited until all backs were straight, all heads turned to the front and all feet quiet.

“Dismissed,” she said, and as always, as soon as that word was out of her mouth, had the ridiculous feeling that she should duck and protect her head with her arms.

Within five seconds the classroom was empty and Miss Thornton relaxed with a sigh. Kenny’s bell still sang joyously and the teacher reflected with humor that Kenny always rang the three o’clock dismissal bell with a special fervor, while at eight-thirty in the morning he made the same bell toll mournfully.

If I thought it would solve anything, said Miss Thornton to herself, making a determined effort to relax the area between her shoulder blades, I, too, would wish to Christ that I had a drink.

Smiling a little, she stood and moved to one of the windows to watch the children leave the schoolyard. Outside, the crowd had begun to separate into smaller groups and pairs, and Miss Thornton noticed only one child who walked alone. This was Allison MacKenzie, who broke away from the throng as soon as she reached the pavement and hurried down Maple Street by herself.

A peculiar child, mused Miss Thornton, looking at Allison’s disappearing back. One given to moods of depression which seemed particularly odd in one so young. It was odd, too, that Allison hadn’t one friend in the entire school, except for Selena Cross. They made a peculiar pair, those two, Selena with her dark, gypsyish beauty, her thirteen-year-old eyes as old as time, and Allison MacKenzie, still plump with residual babyhood, her eyes wide open, guileless and questioning, above that painfully sensitive mouth. Get yourself a shell, Allison, my dear, thought Miss Thornton. Find one without cracks or weaknesses so that you will be able to survive the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Good Lord, I am tired!

Rodney Harrington came barreling out of the school, not slowing his pace when he saw little Norman Page standing directly in his path.

Damned little bully, thought Miss Thornton savagely.

She despised Rodney Harrington, and it was a credit to her character and to her teaching that no one, least of all Rodney himself, suspected this fact. Rodney was an oversized fourteen-year-old with a mass of black, curly hair and a heavy-lipped mouth. Miss Thornton had heard a few of her more aware eighth grade girls refer to Rodney as “adorable,” a sentiment with which she was not in accord. She would have gotten a great deal of pleasure out of giving him a sound thrashing. In Miss Thornton’s vast mental file of school children, Rodney was classified as A Trouble-maker.

He’s too big for his age, she thought, and too sure of himself and of his father’s money and position behind him. He’ll get his comeuppance someday.

Miss Thornton bit the inside of her lip and spoke severely to herself. He is only a child. He may turn out all right.

But she knew Leslie Harrington, Rodney’s father, and doubted her own words.

Little Norman Page was felled by the oncoming Rodney. He went flat on the ground and began to cry, remaining prone until Ted Carter came along to help him up.

Little Norman Page. Funny, thought Miss Thornton, but I’ve never heard an adult refer to Norman without that prefix. It has almost become part of his name.

Norman, the schoolteacher observed, seemed to be constructed entirely of angles. His cheekbones were prominent in his little face, and as he wiped at his wet eyes, his elbows stuck out in sharp, bony points.

Ted Carter was brushing at Norman’s trousers. “You’re O.K., Norman,” his voice came through the schoolroom window. “Come on, you’re O.K. Stop crying now and g’wan home. You’re O.K.”

Ted was thirteen years old, tall and broad for his age, with the stamp of adulthood already on his features. Of all the boys in Miss Thornton’s eighth grade, Ted’s voice was the only one which had “changed” completely so that when he spoke it was in a rich baritone that never cracked or went high unexpectedly.

“Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” Ted asked, turning toward Rodney Harrington.

“Ha, ha,” said Rodney sulkily. “You, f’rinstance?”

Ted moved another step closer to Rodney. “Yeah, me,” he said.

“Oh, beat it,” said Rodney. “I wouldn’t waste my time.”

But, Miss Thornton noticed with satisfaction, it was Rodney who “beat it.” He strolled cockily out of the schoolyard with an over-developed seventh grade girl named Betty Anderson at his heels.

“Why don’cha mind your own business,” yelled Betty over her shoulder to Ted.

Little Norman Page snuffled. He took a clean white handkerchief from his back trouser pocket and blew his nose gently.

“Thank you, Ted,” he said shyly. “Thank you very much.”

“Oh, scram,” said Ted Carter. “G’wan home before your old lady comes looking for you.”

Norman’s chin quivered anew. “Could I walk with you, Ted?” he asked. “Just until Rodney’s out of sight? Please?”

“Rodney’s got other things on his mind besides you right now,” said Ted brutally. “He’s forgotten that you’re even alive.”

Scooping his books up off the ground, Ted ran to catch up with Selena Cross, who was now halfway up Maple Street. He did not look around for Norman, who picked up his own books and moved slowly out of the schoolyard.

Miss Thornton felt suddenly too tired to move. She leaned her head against the window frame and stared absently at the empty yard outside. She knew the families of her school children, the kind of homes they lived in and the environments in which they were raised.

Why do I try? she wondered. What chance have any of these children to break out of the pattern in which they were born?

At times like this, when Miss Thornton was very tired, she felt that she fought a losing battle with ignorance and was overcome with a sense of futility and helplessness. What sense was there in nagging a boy into memorizing the dates of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire when the boy, grown, would milk cows for a living, as had his father and grandfather before him. What logic was there in pounding decimal fractions into the head of a girl who would eventually need to count only to number the months of each pregnancy?

Years before, when Miss Thornton had been graduated from Smith College, she had decided to remain in her native New England to teach.

“You won’t have much opportunity to be radical up there,” the dean had told her.

Elsie Thornton had smiled. “They are my people and I understand them. I’ll know what to do.”

The dean had smiled, too, from her heights of superior knowledge. “When you discover how to break the bone of the shell-backed New Englander, Elsie, you will become world famous. Anyone who does something for the first time in history becomes famous.”

“I’ve lived in New England all my life,” said Elsie Thornton, “and I have never heard anyone actually say, ‘What was good enough for my father is good enough for me.’ That is a decadent attitude and a terrible cliché, both of which have been unfairly saddled on the New Englander.”

“Good luck, Elsie,” said the dean sadly.

Kenny Stearns crossed Miss Thornton’s line of vision, and abruptly her chain of thought broke.

Nonsense, she told herself briskly. I have a roomful of fine, intelligent children who come from families no different from other families. I’ll feel better on Monday.

She went to the closet and took out her hat which was seeing service for the seventh autumn in a row. Looking at the worn brown felt in her hand, she was reminded of Dr. Matthew Swain.

“I’d be able to tell a schoolteacher anywhere,” he had told her.

“Really, Matt?” she had laughed at him. “Do we all, then, have the same look of frustration?”

“No,” he had replied, “but all of you do look overworked, underpaid, poorly dressed and underfed. Why do you do it, Elsie? Why don’t you go down to Boston or somewhere like that? With your intelligence and education you could get a good-paying job in business.”

Miss Thornton had shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know, Matt. I just love teaching, I guess.”

But in her mind then, as now, was the hope which kept her at her job, just as it has kept teachers working for hundreds of years.

If I can teach something to one child, if I can awaken in only one child a sense of beauty, a joy in truth, an admission of ignorance and a thirst for knowledge, then I am fulfilled.

One child, thought Miss Thornton, adjusting her old brown felt, and her mind fastened with love on Allison MacKenzie.