Teach Me Dirty

I heard the door go, and jumped up with a start, all set to race after her, but Helen was still glued to the spot with tear-streaked cheeks, her bag slung over her shoulder. I looked to the door and my lungs collapsed.

I recognised Mr Palmer. I’d seen him at parents’ evenings at least once a year for the last six, but I’d never seen him so angry. He looked from Helen to me and back again, with the look of a man who’s lived enough to know when something is amiss.

“What the fuck is going on in here?” he said, and he wasn’t looking at Helen, he was looking at me.

Helen pulled it together like a trooper. “Dad! I, um… we just finished…”

“Just finished what?”

She pointed at the painting. “I was just getting cleaned up. Paint everywhere.”

The guy stared right at me, stared at me like I was a disgusting piece of shit, which I clearly was.

“Mr Palmer, hi, I’m Mr Roberts, we’ve met before.”

“I know who you are,” he said. “Get in the car, Helen.”

“But, Dad, I’m fine…”

“You’re not fine, it’s gone eight a bastard clock and you’re phone is off, and this, whatever the fuck this is, this is not fine.” He was red in the face. “Now get in the fucking car.”

Helen looked at me, and it was pitiful.

“Don’t look at him! Just get in the pissing car!”

“Goodnight, Mr Roberts,” Helen said, and her voice was still quaky.

“Goodnight, Helen.”

She didn’t look back, but her Dad did.

And the look in his eyes told me he had my card marked.

Helen

“It’s nothing! I just got paint in my eye, that’s all.” I stared out of the window, watching the High Street pass us by. I was all messed up inside, like my heart had been mashed into pulp. The lump was still in my throat but I breathed through it.

Dad was quiet, and that’s never a good sign. I can handle his mini rants, they explode like a firework and fizzle out in no time, but this… this brooding was worse.

“Did he do something?” I felt his eyes on me. “Helen! Did he do something? If he did something to you…”

I managed a fake laugh. “No. Of course he didn’t do something to me. He’s my teacher. We painted canvases all day and it was hard work, and I was late and got paint in my eye. I’m sorry you were worried.”

“I’m a lot more pissing worried now.”

“Why?” I forced myself to face him. “Dad, seriously. He’s my teacher. You know, the one you said would be glad when I went to university, the one I need to grow up and forget about, the one who’d never possibly be interested in me or my stupid teenage crush, remember?”

“I know what I said, Helen, and I said it for your own good.”

“I’m just a kid to him.” And I meant it. I did feel like a kid to him, just a stupid kid, a stupid virgin.

“You’d better be, for his sake.” He pulled onto our estate and parked up in the driveway. “He looked really fucking shifty to me.”

“Everyone looks shifty to you.” I sighed. “I’m sure he was embarrassed, you charging in there like some kind of police raid.”

“You were late. Your phone was off. It’s irresponsible, Helen, what did you think we were going to do? Just wait for you to roll in later? You could have been anywhere for all we knew.”

“I’m eighteen years old, Dad. I was painting. You knew where I was. It’s hardly partying all night and smoking crack.”

“This isn’t a pissing joke.”

“I’m not laughing.” I got out of the car and took a breath, and there was that horrible lurch in my stomach, the one that makes me feel queasy.

Dad got out of the car, and his eyes met mine over the roof. “I don’t want you being on your own with him. No more cosy art nights, Helen, understood?”

“That’s ridiculous!” I folded my arms. “Dad! That’s just crazy.”

“Crazy or not, I know shifty when I see it, and that man was shifty.” He walked past me to the front door.

I followed him inside, and Mum was waiting. Her hair was in a messy bun and she had her fluffy slippers on, hardly at code-red alert level like Dad was. “You found her, then? Told you it would be nothing, George.”

Dad dropped his keys on the table. “Just as well I did.”

Mum pulled a face at the state of me. “What happened to you, love? Are you upset?”

There’s a universal law that when your mum asks you if you’re ok you start crying, even if you were ok before. The lump in my throat turned into a rock, and I couldn’t speak, just dithered my hands in the air like a stupid little girl.