The Temple House Vanishing Read online

  He stopped and turned to me as we left the woods. We were standing on the cliff, high above the sea. There was scrub grass and yellow gorse bushes all around us, bees and wasps hovering above them. I could smell seaweed.

  ‘We have decided to christen you the Thinker, Louisa. Everyone in our class has a pet name and this is yours. Victoria, as you know, is the Outlier.’

  He was slightly out of breath and his shirt was open at the top and there was a small bead of sweat in the hollow at the base of his neck. I focused on it as he spoke because looking at him straight in the eye was almost impossible.

  ‘What is yours?’ I asked.

  He looked at me with amusement.

  ‘Shaman, perhaps, or Alchemist. Victoria, what do you think?’ he asked.

  Victoria had emerged from the woods into the clearing where we stood. She had put on large heart-shaped red sunglasses. She had also removed her jumper and tied it around her waist. Her arms were brown. She looked the epitome of Eurotrash cool.

  ‘I think Shaman. He is trying to help us break on through to the other side. He also takes drugs. He really is our very own Jim Morrison.’ She ducked her head as he gently swung for her.

  ‘That is a ridiculous and completely unfounded rumour, Victoria. I inhale nicotine only, now. And that is less an addiction and more of a long suicide note to myself.’

  They were sophisticated and other-worldly.

  As they bantered, I felt like an outsider, as usual. The girl who experienced life as if she were behind a thin pane of clear glass. Near but far, seen but out of reach. I had been the bright one in my other school, the one with the library card and the good marks. I was the one who walked on, head down, past the other girls as they stood in groups outside the fast-food shop down the road from our house. And now here, I could not decide who I was. My personality, my character, was not yet set, it was fluid. I was a shape-shifter. I would be studious if everyone else didn’t give a shit; I desired to be idle and rebellious, if all around me followed the rules. Was I particularly contrary or just without a backbone? The only thing that tied all the elements together was some need for recognition. I seemed to carry that with me, regardless of circumstance. It made me nervous, this need to be seen, because behind it, I knew, lay something else. A sense of shame.

  I was looking for someone to absolve me of this.

  And now with Victoria and Mr Lavelle I wanted to be part of their world, creative and bohemian but also uncaring. Despite my glee, the sense of excitement, I knew deep down, even then, that there was something cruel about them. An unthinking playfulness that might lead to hurt.

  Mr Lavelle pushed through some of the gorse bushes and another path, even more overgrown, emerged and we were winding our way down some broken and uneven steps that had been cut into the side of the cliff. The sea was calm and inviting in the light of late afternoon and we could hear only the gently rhythmic sound of the waves against the rocks below. Seagulls flew over our heads; they were nesting in the craggy rocks above us. The path was narrow and you had to concentrate on not slipping so we were silent for a while. An old sign indicating the area was prone to rock falls lay half hidden and rusting on the ground.

  ‘This is a feat of engineering. Built in 1925 by the son of the house, our collector, he travelled all over Europe and took a liking to the French Riviera, where cliff-side villas and pools were de rigueur. He was also into young pool boys, so the story goes,’ said Mr Lavelle.

  He pulled his jumper off and tied it around his shoulders as he spoke. His shirt raised up as he did so and I noticed his back was lean and tanned. I wondered again what age he was. And imagined him for a second naked with Miss Clement, the French teacher. I shook my head to try and remove the unwanted image. It made me embarrassed.

  ‘Isn’t there some kind of a ghost story about him? Like he killed himself in the house or something?’ asked Victoria who was behind me.

  ‘Not in the house, in the woods. He hung himself. He had run up debts and was about to lose the house. That’s when the nuns bought it, in the 1940s. And dear, dramatic Victoria, no he does not walk the corridors at night. That’s Sister Ignatius.’

  ‘I haven’t been able to sleep properly since getting here,’ I offered.

  Victoria laughed behind me.

  ‘Oh, that’s mandatory. You don’t sleep for ten days. I think they have it written somewhere in the student information booklet,’ she said.

  We had to climb down the last section as the steps had given way completely. Mr Lavelle held my hand. Then he did the same with Victoria.

  The swimming hole was grim. It was a small rectangular structure, built into one of the narrow ledges that formed part of the cliff. It must at one point have been painted white but was now covered with green and brown moss. The short ladder into it was rusted and broken in parts. It was less a pool and more a very large outdoor bath. There was some graffiti on the side.

  ‘It’s ages since I’ve been here, I forgot how unimpressive it is,’ said Victoria, ‘almost not worth the trek.’

  She sat down on the section of long grass that ran on one side of it and took out a bottle of water from the small bag she had carried on her back. She offered me some but I refused.

  ‘Can I have a cigarette now?’ she asked. ‘We are far enough away from the school.’

  Mr Lavelle handed her the packet and his lighter. I pretended not to be surprised.

  ‘You just aren’t seeing the potential. Think of it painted pale blue or green on the inside, or even better with some Roman mosaic on the bottom and you floating, with this view out of the corner of your eye. Not that we are here to plan a renovation. Anyway, I just love that he had the idea for it; sometimes that is enough,’ and he sounded slightly disappointed that she hadn’t been impressed enough with the site. He sat down beside Victoria and lit a cigarette, looking around the scrubland that surrounded the pool.

  ‘I think we can sit six or seven of us here easily in the grass. The school has insurance anyway, in case of any casualties on the walk.’ He shielded his eyes against the sun with his hand and looked up at me. ‘I liked what you wrote about the skull in class today.’

  I noticed Victoria’s knee was touching his, they sat so close together.

  ‘I expected you to give me death, but you chose vanity instead. Unusual. I don’t think in my year here anyone has suggested it as a symbol for that. But then I’m not sure if anyone has chosen the skull before.’

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  ‘I think anything to do with the face or head is vanity, really. Whether it be beauty or brains. The fact that it’s a skull just shows the pointlessness of everything,’ I answered.

  ‘Can you quote some lines for my pleasure again?’ he said.

  Victoria raised her eyebrows as he spoke. She stared out to sea.

  ‘I can’t really remember it now,’ I said, acting like it was all nothing.

  He sat forward suddenly.

  ‘I remember some of it: Often placed in still-life settings with rotting fruit and wilting flowers, skulls are a physical demonstration that beauty disintegrates. So visceral.

  ‘Well, I hope your drawing next week captures this underlying sense of futility in the human condition,’ he said, sitting back again, ‘and the vanities we distract ourselves with.’

  ‘You know, when I think of myself, I only ever think of my head. As if everything about me ends here.’ I gestured to my neck.

  ‘A disembodied consciousness,’ said Victoria.

  ‘You think therefore you are. A Cartesian,’ said Mr Lavelle. ‘The skull will be your emblem this year.’

  He took his hand down and put his face up to the sun.

  They were closer to the truth than they knew. I mostly felt like I was barely there. My body only an idea, something that could not be seen or trusted fully.

  ‘I’d like to do some philosophy classes here, actually. I think it would really benefit everyone, teach you to think more clearly. You know, in
France it is compulsory in all schools. I studied philosophy for a bit, back in the day,’ he said, ‘though it’s not for everyone. Some people can’t handle the blankness. The reality that one is alone in all this.’ He pointed to the sea and the sky.

  I looked up and I thought that refuge, if there was any, was up there, in the sky. A world of illusion and dreams. The heaven the nuns talked about.

  ‘They can go to religion class then, while we are with you,’ Victoria replied.

  He smiled at her.

  ‘Your essay on the heart was interesting, Victoria,’ he said. ‘It did feel more, how would I say, Catholic, all that intense suffering. Maybe you can stay with religion and Louisa can join me and the existentialists.’

  Victoria stood up suddenly. I watched her walk to the edge of the cliff and for an instant I thought she was going to get angry with him.

  ‘I could just about make out the words between the smudges. Were they teardrops?’ he said.

  Crying. It was like a flicker of something. Like when in the Hall she had said she despised everything.

  ‘I spilled my drink. It was late by the time I started writing. I was tired,’ she said.

  She stayed standing on the edge of the cliff, staring out to sea.

  ‘Well, you each have your emblems now. It will be interesting to see what you make of them,’ he said.

  Silence for a second.

  ‘Where did you teach before here?’ I asked, sitting down on a rock across from him, seeking to change the subject and entice Victoria back.

  ‘I was in college before I came here. Then I travelled for a few years in Europe. Temple House is my first official teaching post. I have done some private tutoring.’

  He didn’t bother to look at me as he answered, and I felt strangely put out by his lack of attention. But he was watching Victoria.

  ‘What did you study and where?’ I asked.

  He didn’t seem to hear me.

  Victoria threw her cigarette over the edge of the cliff.

  ‘He really is the most favourite teacher by far, among the students and teachers, especially Helen, and Mademoiselle Clement,’ she said, turning around, all sense of her annoyance now gone.

  He laughed at this.

  ‘Though not our religious brethren. There have been murmurings and complaints,’ he answered.

  I wondered what about but didn’t have the nerve to ask.

  ‘Oh, they love you really,’ said Victoria, staring at him. ‘It’s all about new thinking these days, a fresh perspective. They let him do what he wants.’

  ‘How do you like it here so far?’ Mr Lavelle asked me, ignoring Victoria.

  ‘It’s different. A whole new set of rules to get used to,’ I answered.

  ‘Oh don’t get too used to them, you will bore us,’ Victoria said, kicking the dirt with her shoe.

  ‘I doubt that, I have already pissed off Helen. She pretty much told me I am destined to fail here, or something similar. She seems especially unpleasant.’

  I could hear my voice changing again, the language more elaborate.

  I smiled as I spoke and Victoria responded, interested again.

  ‘Helen is just madly uptight and jealous,’ she said. ‘Her father was in the papers the other week, he seems to have misplaced some cash. A scandal brewing, by all accounts, which should be amusing. He’s the head of a bank, you know, and they say he’s very religious. Apparently he hits himself with a leather strap in the evenings.’

  I laughed and so did Mr Lavelle.

  ‘No, I am serious, he is like a monk, or not a monk but some kind of a priest, lay priest type thing.’ She stumbled over the words. ‘It’s like a secret society of some kind.’

  ‘I have clearly failed the secret handshake test,’ I answered.

  Mr Lavelle laughed once more.

  Victoria walked over to me and put her hands on my shoulders in a kind of mock-serious manner. I could see myself reflected in her sunglasses. And for an instant I felt like I was wavering, distorted like my reflection and not real any more. ‘You are a big deal when it comes to exams. I overheard Sister Ignatius talking about you in her office. You apparently have a withering intellect, which will reduce us all to putty. They didn’t, of course, say that you are also very pretty, in a kind of unconventional way, which for Helen and her like is the ultimate sin and therefore you must be denounced publicly.’

  I had never thought of myself as pretty, my face a riddle to me. Something undecided about it, like it hadn’t found its place in the world yet. It wasn’t ready to be categorized. I felt myself blush.

  ‘Beauty, they say, is the highest form of genius’, said Mr Lavelle, checking his watch. ‘I think it’s time we headed back. It’s going to be tricky enough to convince Sister Ignatius of this visit here. I will need to use all my powers of persuasion.’

  ‘Or you could just lie to her?’ said Victoria.

  He stared at her briefly, a quizzical look on his face, as if she was constantly surprising.

  ‘Helen told me everyone is, like, related to someone else who went here. Is that true?’ I asked.

  I could sense tension between them.

  ‘Oh yes, I am the last in a long line of Temple House girls. We are born, not bred,’ Victoria said with a laugh, starting to put her jumper on. ‘It’s tradition.’

  ‘It’s like inbreeding’, said Mr Lavelle, ‘they need some new blood. They are starting to grow three heads and get hunched backs.’

  He looked at me calmly as he spoke, no smile this time, and he didn’t need to shade his eyes with his hand. It was then I noticed the sun had gone in, the glare off the white rocks had faded. Victoria looked at me and I shivered. It would be evening soon. In that moment, it seemed very clear to me that they were both going to feature strongly in my life over the next few months. And that nothing would be the same after.

  I could hardly wait.

  ‘I think we better plan to bring food with us next time,’ said Victoria. ‘You don’t want people complaining or passing out.’

  ‘Noted,’ said Mr Lavelle.

  We started to make our way back, only speaking occasionally. Mr Lavelle whistled for a bit. Victoria, who was at the front, had picked up a large stick and trailed it along the gravel and dust path. Every now and then she would throw a question over her shoulder at me, like what was the last film I had seen, and whether I considered Morrissey’s solo career a failure. There were blackberry bushes along the way. I thought maybe we could come back and pick them together, have a picnic and smoke. I decided I was going to start smoking. And maybe wear tweed.

  As we reached the woods, she picked up the pace and moved further ahead. I watched as her back slowly retreated into the gloom, her uniform disappearing into the shadows of the trees. I had a vague sense of fear, as if I would not see her again, that the afternoon had been a dream and nothing would ever match up to it. I regretted that it was Friday and my parents would be collecting me in an hour and I wouldn’t see Victoria until Sunday evening and she might have forgotten me by then. I distrusted happiness. I walked quicker to try and catch up with her.

  I heard Mr Lavelle call out after me. I turned back and gestured at my wristwatch so he would know that I rushed, not away from him, but rather to something else. That time was against us. There was a shaft of light coming through the trees overhead and he stood under it. His hair was golden and shiny. Celestial, I thought, and it seemed like everything was exactly as it should be.

  He didn’t respond to me or smile and for a second we just looked at each other.

  And I sensed the same unease as I had standing beside him in front of the cabinet of curiosities on that first day.

  He is hungry and restless.

  Chapter Eight

  The lives of the saints.

  I was sitting beside the window. There was a gardener kneeling and digging in the vegetable patch. Victoria sat behind me. Every now and then she kicked my chair with her foot. I turned once or twice, thinking s
he wanted me, but each time she just stared blankly back. The late September sun reflected on the blackboard and we had to pull the blinds down. Someone in the class had a cold and kept sneezing. Their desk was covered in balled-up used tissues.

  The clock over Sister Frances’s head ticked on. She was redfaced and gesticulating with her hands. Every now and then the black cross around her neck would swing with her movements. She started to walk back and forth at the front of the class.

  When she was facing away from us, Victoria leaned forward and whispered in my ear, ‘She is lost in the majesty of suffering.’

  Her breath was hot on my neck.

  Sister Frances went on.

  Saints were grilled on red-hot stones and pierced with arrows.

  They were pressed to death, the weight of a door on frail bodies.

  Their skin was removed.

  One was hacked to death by his own pagan students.

  Victoria laughed then. And I did too.

  We were sent from the room.

  In the corridor outside the classroom, she leaned against the door and I slid down the wall and sat on the floor.

  ‘Can you believe this?’ she said, pretending to knock her head against the door.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, closing my eyes briefly.

  And I did believe it. The shaming of the body, the sacrifice of the flesh.

  But I couldn’t tell her that.

  ‘I might get a tattoo,’ I said.

  Victoria sat down beside me, interested.

  ‘Of what?’ she asked, her eyebrows raised.

  ‘Sister Frances’s weirdly round head,’ I said, ‘right here.’

  I pulled my sleeve up and pointed to where the tattoo would be. My arm looked frail and thin, pale.

  She laughed and lightly traced the spot where it would go.

  ‘I’ll get one too,’ she said, ‘of Mr Lavelle.’

  This didn’t surprise me.

  ‘Or I could get a full list of the school rules branded on to my arm,’ I said, sitting forward and looking at her.