Lessons from the Heart by John Clanchy Page B

sort of thing someone like Toni would say, or would want someone to say about her, which may be the same thing. Though it is true, whoever said it. Toni is the most vivid person I’ve ever known. Apart from my mother, that is.
    â€˜Well, you are,’ I tell Toni.
    â€˜What?’ she says, and I realize she’s drifted on to something else.
    â€˜Vivid.’
    â€˜Do you think age makes a real difference?’ she says.
    â€˜Not in itself. It’s more your interests are different.’
    â€˜You mean, like if you’re married and have children and that, and the other person hasn’t?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    Mr Prescott is probably about twenty-seven or twenty-eight, though he looks younger, and sometimes if he’s in the middle of a group of older kids, it’s hard to pick him out. He was in the Institute of Sport in Canberra on a scholarship for running – he used to do middle distance, and he still does, he was in the top ten in the last City to Surf race – but, as he tells you himself (he’s nice and not up-himself just because he was an elite athlete), he wasn’t good enough to get to the Commonwealth or Olympic Games, so he thought he’d better do a Phys. Ed. course and teach. And I like him because he’s helped me and even said I could be a good runner, I have good body conformation and am strong through the hips and thighs – these are other words he uses instead of calling you vivid – and I get all this not just from my Mum but from Dad too, because my Dad, Stavros, was a gym instructor and water-polo coach when he was in Australia. But I don’t have any time for running with the HSC and if I want to keep up piano and French lessons with Mum, and I like to swim before school when Mum can make it.
    Mr Prescott understands all that and doesn’t push me, unless it’s school sports time and he wants me to do three weeks’ training leading up to it, which I don’t mind. But apart from sports he doesn’t have ideas and doesn’t think to talk to you about your life or poetry or feminism like Miss Temple, but mostly just hangs about the oval or the gym or goes up to the tea-room in his shorts and he has a terrific tan because he’s out in the sun so much. When he walks up the stairs, still in his shorts, some of the Year 7 and 8 girls whistle and go, Ooo-ah, and he just grins back – but you don’t expect it from someone in Year 12. But Toni’s been swooning about him for a year now, and Mum and I always just laugh as she melts all over our living room.
    â€˜He’s got such gorgeous legs.’
    â€˜And what colour are his eyes ?’ Mum says, because she likes to join in and tease Toni, and she’s sitting there feeding Thomas while she does this. And Katie’s sitting on the other side of her because she loves to see the baby feeding and can’t take her eyes off him sucking on Mum’s breast and keeps saying soppy things like ‘He’s really gobbling it, he’s so greedy, isn’t he?’ before she pulls herself together and says, ‘I bet he sicks up later.’
    And though I’d never admit it, I do actually enjoy it as well -just being around when Mum’s feeding, not looking so much because it’s all fairly ugly, and the milk and muck goes everywhere and you have to keep wiping your nipple. Mum’s nipples are now so huge, and I keep hoping she won’t wear singlets to the swimming pool and I tell her it’s cold when it’s about forty degrees and she ought to wear a tracksuit and not take it off till she gets to the side of the pool. It’s more just the noise I like, just hearing the sound of Thomas’s lips sucking – Thomas, can you believe; we’re not allowed to say Tom . The sound’s really restful, and I do look sometimes, I admit that, and wonder what it would be like to have a baby sucking on your breasts – not a