Lessons from the Heart by John Clanchy Page A

spazziest kids – in fifteen minutes. And after all the kids have eaten -everyone has hamburgers and chips and ice-cream brought in from a fast-food outlet in the town – and after they’ve run around and played games and uprooted half the tents by falling over the guy-ropes and been sick and that, and done toilet and toothbrush parade, and are still calling to one another and laughing excitedly but at least they’re in their tents, Toni and I can talk together for the first time in the whole day. We’re both lying on our mats, looking up beyond the light of our lamp into the peaked darkness of the tent roof.
    â€˜Aren’t some of these kids just a total pain?’ I say.
    â€˜Hmm?’ she says. ‘I haven’t noticed them too much.’
    â€˜You’re lucky,’ I say, still trying to make contact with her. ‘There’s one little snot in my bus called Billy Whitecross –’
    â€˜That creep,’ she says. As if she didn’t care.
    We lie together for a while saying nothing, and I find I’m thinking of Larkin’s poem again. But about the two of us this time. I always used to know what Toni was thinking.
    â€˜Isn’t he such a spunk?’ she says.
    â€˜Who? Billy Whitecross?’
    â€˜Dwayne.’
    â€˜Dwayne? Which one’s Dwayne?’
    â€˜Jealous,’ is all she says.
    And I don’t say anything at the time, but I think Dwayne’s such a soppy name – Wayne’s all right, but Dwa-yne isn’t a real name at all, not like Mark or Luke or Matthew or John – or Philip, say. Dwayne’s a Hollywood name or American at least and if you look it up in an encyclopaedia of names – which Toni is always doing – sometimes you won’t even find it. Or if you do, it will say, see Duane. But it’s the name some actors and soap stars on TV now have and girls of thirteen and fourteen like it because they think it’s romantic and soulful and that, but you grow out of it.
    â€˜Do you know what he called me?’ Toni says and props herself on her elbow, and in the lamplight I can’t even tell if she’s making fun of herself, or of me, or is even serious.
    â€˜No, what?’
    â€˜Vivid.’
    And Toni forgets this isn’t the first time she’s told me this – and once she even told Mum. Still, vivid ’s pretty good for Mr Prescott because that’s actually what Toni is. She’s not absolutely beautiful or stunning, like some girls, her forehead’s too narrow, she knows that, which is why she still wears a fringe when they went out last century, and her jaw is too heavy for the rest of her face, and some people mightn’t even think she’s pretty. But that doesn’t matter because, apart from her great legs, her face is so alive and her eyes, which I think are the best part of her … and this is really weird because even while I’m thinking about Toni’s eyes, I find I can’t remember their colour, and I must have seen them about a hundred times a day for the last million years, and I look now to check but her face is half in shadow from the lamp. Even though I can’t see them properly it doesn’t matter because I can still see them shining and gleaming in this dim light, and that’s what you remember about Toni, not the colours so much but the life and energy in her eyes and face. It’s a bit of a shock that Mr Prescott should have said that – vivid – because you don’t think of him as noticing that closely. He’s the PE and gym teacher and he’s always talking about speed and balance and power and tension and strength conditioning and aerobic and anaerobic and things, but not vividness. You’d expect him to say something soppy from the newspapers or the TV like vivacious.
    That’s why I’m not entirely sure he did say it. It seems too thoughtful for him, or serious or perceptive – more the