Gina Esperanza

Saturday! And we’re going, shopping in the MGG-Multistore! Me, Olivia, Sophia, and Lily - our culture-vulture. No school today, no homework, no pain and confusion, just FUN! It’s going to be a lovely day again, hot, and sunny, just like I feel, and I feel like that Italian style flowered frock. I love the way it flows when I walk and swirls when I turn. Today I feel pretty, and when I look in the mirror: I am pretty! So there!

Three hours later Gina and her friends were riding up the escalator on their way to the Young Vogues floor, Olivia and Sophia had been ribbing her about her old granny frock that she was wearing. She didn’t mind and had told them:

“You’re just jealous!” The two of them had then hugged and squeezed her tight, both kissing her on the right and then the left cheek.

Lily looked at the three of them and said:

“The three demoiselles de Rochefort.’’

‘’Ahem, ladies would you mind moving aside and upwards a little, you are blocking the way.”FF

“Oh, sorry, sorry,” Gina blurted out as the others stifled giggles.

“Ok, culture girl move up the stairs a bit faster,” said Gina, her laughing happiness made her friends twitter with delight.

Arriving at the top of the moving staircase, she heard the music. She listened again and felt her blood move.

“That’s the opening of Die Pastorale,” said Lily.

As Gina’s head cleared the top of the stairs she saw bubbles rising from a bag on the floor near the counter. They were seemingly revolving to the slowly expanding and then soaring music, catching the ceiling’s lights and scattering them like tiny suns. She felt the music begin in her ankles and rise up through her stomach that prickled and vibrated with anticipation. She instinctively moved to the open area of the family department. Her feet, then her whole lissom body moved with the music. Her arms floated outwards, curving inwards again she felt her hands and fingers stretching upwards, she could feel the elegance and beauty of the moment.

Then she began to dance.

A small child near the pram display tugged at his mother’s sleeve.

“Mummy, look — she’s flying.”

An old lady standing next to her daughter and her daughter’s daughter put her hands to her cheeks.

“Oh look Maureen, isn’t that lovely?”

Her daughter did not answer her. She couldn’t, for tears were streaming down her face.

The old man who had followed Gina’s little group up the escalator, looked up from his telephone and lowered it, his face expanding into a smile.

The children were the first to move. They edged closer to Gina, and away from their parents, drawn by the bubbles, by the music, by the lovely girl who was swaying, twirling, and swirling across the floor among so many beautiful bubbles. One little girl began to sway, copying Gina’s slow, spiralling arms. Another hopped in and began jumping with delight.

Gina didn’t notice them. She didn’t notice anyone, anything.

The universe had become music. Beauty. Depth. And the sheer breath of it became the world she was in. It was becoming louder filling the air and the room almost completely. The joy, and gentility of it. It moved her, she could feel her soul, that her father had told her about. She felt herself pirouette again, now languidly, her elongated hands tracing delicate shapes in the air, she sensed her face was smiling, full of innocence, once more open, and unguarded. Her only feelings were that of flowing harmony.

“This is where I belong,” she said to herself.

When the passage came to an end, the onlookers spontaneously clapped and cheered, and some even whistled. Gina awoke and looked across to her friends:

“I need an ice-cream.”

All three friends ran across to her and hugged and kissed her, crying, and laughing.

“Oh, Gina! that was beautiful,” sobbed Lily.”

-----------------------

Monday Morning 9.15 am

I can’t make sense of this, can’t even make out the words, never mind what they mean. ‘It one costs 19 ponds, no that must be pounds, how mond boes 20 nuits cost?’ That can’t be right! I don’t know and I can’t -

hold on girl, that must be units per cost. I’ve done this before, and if I use the calculator.. Oh, look at those lovely birds on the tree behind the far window.

“Gina! No calculators! Let me see your work! As I thought, you have only got as far as the second question; all the others are far ahead!”

Oh, dear God, please spare me this! I can see Janet Brown smirking; she’s enjoying this, and she won’t be the only one. Some of the others, my friends will feel sorry for me, again. I don’t know which is worse. I feel hot, my cheeks are burning. I’m sweating. I feel sick.

“Enough of this, stand up Gina and bring your things with you!”

“I don’t understand, Ms Bingham.“

“Get up, please and bring your exercise book with you, you are holding everyone back! It’s time to call a halt. I’ve had enough of this, stand up!

Because of the tears I can’t judge the position of the desk and chair properly. I feel my left ankle bend. The floor is suddenly beneath my hands. I can’t stop the tears, on all fours I observe them drip, drip onto the parquet floor. Someone laughs.”

“Quiet!”

I feel her hand on my upper right arm, she pulls me up to my feet in this stony, silenced, class room.

We are now walking along the corridor. Outside the birds are still singing, I can just hear them through the many windows. It is so long, our footsteps echo. She still has me by the arm. I can’t free myself. I am beaten, defeated. We go into the secretariat, straight into the head’s office. Mr Morris. He is behind a big desk with his big spectacles. I can barely see him. I feel myself shaking and shuddering with big tears.

“Ms Bingham, this is most unusual, pray what brings you and this young lady in distress? Here take my handkerchief, dear girl.”

It is a big one. I wipe my tears. They won’t stop, nor does the shuddering, its getting worse. I try to say thank you and all that comes out are huge hiccups raised to the ceiling.

“Mr Morris, please excuse this interruption. However, I can’t teach like this. I cannot teach this girl even basic arithmetic, and furthermore, she can barely read and write. She has received all the help this school can give her. She has had remedial classes for English and Maths; to cap it all she’s repeating this school year again!”

“Yes, yes, quite, quite, Ms Bingham. Dear girl calm yourself, please sit down.”

He moves towards me. Something in me slips and then gives way completely. I see arms in front of me swinging and flailing. I hear screams and swear words. They are so loud and horrible! Suddenly, I am tightly enclosed, but it doesn’t hurt. There are big arms around me. I smell tobacco and aftershave, like my father. Oh, my poor father. The screaming is very loud, my tears have stopped and through the gap in Mr Morris’s arms I see Ms Bingham standing wringing her hands looking pale and shaken. The school secretary Ms Roberts is standing next to her, she is crying too.

I can’t fight Mr Morris; I can’t even hit him; he is too strong. He seems to be crooning something nice.

We stand there forever, everything swims before my eyes, am I underwater? I hear a black, disturbed, burble of concern.

Then the two shimmering men in white are there and a man in a black suit. Can ghosts swim? I feel them pressing on my shoulders and I’m sinking down, down and land on a hard surface. It is a chair. Through my loud, jagging, gulping, I can just about breathe.

“This may tweak a wee bit.”

I feel the steel of a pricking in my arm. A cold sting – not, what was it again? I look across, past the men in white to Mr Morris he looks very upset, and I hear someone laughing. It is me. Fancy that! Oh yes now I have it: ‘By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes.’ How fascinating.

---------------------------

The ceiling is white. I can’t move, not much, anyway.

“Gina, Gina, la mia piccola, you are awake at last.”

“Papa, papa I am so glad to see you, but not that you see me, like this. I can’t move they have tied me down. I’m so frightened Papa.”

“Yes, sometimes they do that to the strong, noble, and beautiful.”

“Oh, papa!”

“No more tears Gina, no more tears, piccolo fiore. They said that once you were feeling better, you can come home with me tomorrow, if you feel well enough.”

“I want to go with you now.”

“You must rest mia cara, the doctor says you’ve had a very nasty turn and they want you to stay the night.”

“Papa, they don’t want me at school anymore.”

I can’t bear the sight of my sad father’s pain. I turn my head and look at the white wall.

I hear him sigh and feel his loving hand stroke my head, slowly and again and again. I feel so tired. Papa is here to take my shame. I am drifting down into darkness, to mama.