Prosperity Drive by Mary Morrissy Page A

with those Dick can run books at my age. Didn’t much care for them even when I was four.’
    Ruth smiles. She likes this woman; she gets it.
    ‘All that business about Mummy in the kitchen making endless sandwiches. And all Daddy seemed to do was wash the car.’
    A titter runs through the classroom.
    ‘I’m glad you raised that,’ Ruth says. ‘Every pupil is different and often you’ll have to adapt to their needs, which can be quite specific. It means making up your materials as you go along. Word games, picture cards and the like. You can use the labels on household goods, cereal packets, cans. Everyday stuff.’
    ‘How do they manage?’ Jean muses, as if she’s thinking aloud, as if she and Ruth are friends chatting over a cup of coffee, trading confidences. Her forehead creases quizzically. ‘How do they get by? They must be terrified, afraid all the time of being discovered. Always covering up, covering their tracks. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who couldn’t read. But then, how would I know?’
    ‘I remember the first person I met who couldn’t read.’ Ruth discovers herself talking, taking up Jean’s reflective tone. Stop, stop. ‘I remember her name, even, Bridget, Bridget Byrnes …’
    Ruth falters, remembering the advice she always gives her trainee tutors. People don’t want to hear how much you love reading, what prompted you to get involved, my first illiterate and all that. This is about them, not you.
    ‘Now where were we?’
    It was a sin of omission, a lesser offence. If she had told Mr Polgar that Bridget couldn’t read, what difference would it have made? She had protected Bridget from exposure by saying nothing. She wondered idly how Bridget had managed to hide it for so long. Someone at home must have been able to read. She must have memorised the words between classes. Sooner or later, though, Bridget would have been unmasked. Better that Mr Polgar thought her ungrateful than for him to know her secret. The shame of that! This way Bridget’s secret was quite safe, stowed away in Ruth’s hard, competitive little heart.
    All it bought her, in the end, was time. Another year of solo lessons unencumbered by Bridget’s better voice, moreinstinctive feel for the music, her bloody perfect pitch. She remembered the day she arrived for what was to be her last class. She had just turned twelve and Mrs Polgar steered her into the front parlour instead of guiding her upstairs, which was unusual. Mr Polgar came down presently. He had Mimi in his arms.
    ‘Why don’t we sit here for a while, Ruth?’ he said.
    She got to sit – finally – on one of the big armchairs. He perched on the edge of the other one, fondling Mimi’s ears.
    ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said. The expression on his face was candidly sorrowful, but his glassy eyes seemed blankly evasive. ‘About your lessons. And your voice.’
    ‘My voice?’
    Mimi leapt off his lap and scampered away, pushing the door open with her nose. Ruth could hear her nails clicking on the tiled hallway outside.
    ‘Well, you see, often at your age the voice changes, modulates because of …’
    Because of breasts and periods was what he wanted to say, she suspected, but couldn’t.
    ‘And sometimes it’s best not to train the voice during puberty, to let it develop in its own way. Then in a couple of years, if you’re still interested we can work with what will be a fine, mature voice, I hope.’
    The room was dark, shadowy. It was winter, the clocks had just been put back. The lights should be turned on, she thought, but the mood was gloomily in tune with Mr Polgar’s mortifying verdict. Somehow, she thought, somehow he has found out.
    ‘But it’s been fun, hasn’t it?’ He said this with a false brightness, the brightness he used to jolly things along.
    He was absolutely wrong about that, she thought vehemently. The singing classes had been a lot of things for Ruth Denieffe. But fun, never.
    * * *
    The piano lessons