When they were small, John and Marion both attended Saint Winifred’s Primary School. John was two years ahead of his sister, and though he was far from popular with the other children, no one ever dared to bully him. Even as a boy, he was tall and square with mousy hair that stuck flat to the dome of his large head and then formed a thin fringe over those puddle-gray eyes. Marion was proud of the fact that her brother was by far the cleverest child in the school and that everyone, including the teachers, seemed a little afraid of him.
Each morning they would walk to Saint Winifred’s bundled up in thick coats and heavy brogues that had been made to order for their exceptionally wide feet. On their way, they often came across troops of rough kids from Northport’s council estate. They would call out names like fatty and snob and sometimes even threw stones. But the stones never hit either of the siblings; they just landed near enough to make them jump, which seemed to satisfy the scallywags, making them screech like heartless monkeys. John told his sister to ignore them, these kids were worthless trash. When they grew up, they would trade glue sniffing and cat torture for burgling houses and wife beating.
Even at Saint Winifred’s Marion found schoolwork difficult. Fractions especially troubled her; the number on top wobbling on its little tightrope with the cruel number underneath waiting to slice it up into pieces. John tried to help her understand them by taking a packet of Mr. Kipling lemon curd tarts from the kitchen and cutting them into pieces.
“See, Marion,” he said, grinding his teeth as he explained it for the umpteenth time. “I’ve cut one cake down the middle. Those are two halves. Now, can you cut it into quarters?”
But Marion learned nothing, and they ended up with a pile of sticky yellow crumbs, which they would stuff into their mouths before Mrs. Morrison realized they had taken the cakes without permission.
At eleven John started Golding’s Grammar School for boys. Two years later when Marion took the entrance exam for Golding’s sister school, Ladychapel High, she failed miserably. So she went to Turner House Comprehensive instead until one day she came home with her coat ripped and FATSO knifed into her leather briefcase (none of the other kids had briefcases; instead they carried nylon kit bags with Bowie Rules or Bay City Rollers Forever written in Biro all over them).
Mother refused to let her daughter go back to Turner House, and in return for a substantial donation from Zetland’s Fine Fabrics towards Ladychapel’s new swimming pool, a place was found for Marion.
Ladychapel girls were high achievers; they excelled at both sports and academic subjects; they were graceful and at ease with themselves in social situations. Marion was none of these things. At the new school, she felt like a zoo animal that had strayed into the wrong enclosure: a bear trying to blend in with flamingos. Every other girl had slim ankles, a tiny waist, long hair, and a delicate neck. There were a few plain girls, but at least they were brilliant at schoolwork. Marion stuck out because she was stupid and plain and had hair that looked like the aftermath of a bushfire. While other girls plotted out their futures as doctors or businesswomen, her only dream was to be allowed to stay at home and eat buttered toast in front of the TV all day long.
The nickname Manatee was given to her by Juliet Greenhalgh. In biology class, they had learned that a manatee was a pale and bloated river-dwelling beast with female breasts. During a swimming lesson one afternoon, in the very same pool her dad helped to pay for, the other girls slipped one by one into the water, while Marion stood with her thick legs stuck to the tiled floor.
Her slim shoulders bobbing in and out of the rippling pool, Juliet shouted out, “Come on, Marion, why don’t you want to swim? Manatees are supposed to love water.” Then the teacher, Miss Oberlin, had said, “Yes, thank you for your comments, Miss Greenhalgh, we all have better things to do than wait for Manatee—I mean Marion—to dive.” Whether Miss Oberlin had called her the name on purpose or not, Marion would never know, but the slip triggered giggles from the other students that echoed around the tiled room.
Running out of patience, Miss Oberlin gave Marion’s lower back a hard shove, sending her headfirst into the pool. Strange shapes swirled before her eyes, and chlorinated water gushed up her nose as she sank with the inevitability of a tombstone pushed into deep water. She had been quite prepared to drown when Miss Oberlin’s callused hand grabbed her wrist and pulled her to the surface.
At Ladychapel the teachers seemed to accept that Marion was stupid and therefore any attempt to help her achieve better grades was a waste of precious time and resources. They never asked her questions in class or even bothered to comment if she did badly on test papers or gave in poor homework. They would wordlessly return her work, red ink covering the paper like scratches on skin, while other girls were kept after class for scoring Cs or even B-minuses.
For Marion, trying to follow the logic of mathematics or science was as dizzying as being trapped in the fun house on Northport Pleasure Beach, surrounded by crazy mirrors and twisted hallways. She was so far behind the other students, she sometimes feared being made to join the sleepy-eyed special kids that flapped their hands (in what could have been excitement or panic) as they were herded onto the bus to the Elizabeth Simon Institute each morning.
John was the only person who seemed the least bothered about her education. He tried to help with her homework, but by the time she had got to secondary school, even he grew frustrated with her lumbering brain.
“You see, it is red because that symbolizes death, Marion.”
“But in the other poem black meant death. I don’t see how I am supposed to know which one it will be every time.”
Perhaps her schoolwork would have improved if she could have studied alone, but just sitting in a classroom surrounded by sharp-minded girls, their expensive fountain pens racing across the page, turned her brains to mush. She spent entire lessons worrying that she might break wind, make gurgly tummy noises, or sneeze in a weird way. The time she had tripped in Geography, smacking her nose against the teacher’s desk, then trying to pretend she wasn’t hurt, only to have the other girls point at her laughing because blood was pouring from her nose, still haunted her. Something so embarrassing would never happen to Juliet Greenhalgh.
Mostly the other pupils at Ladychapel didn’t bully or tease Marion; she wasn’t important enough to attract their valuable attention. Instead they behaved as if she were invisible as she stumbled down long, airy corridors and beneath classical porticos, from one elegantly high-ceilinged classroom to another.
Juliet Greenhalgh played tennis for the county, and her parents owned a chain of restaurants called Café de Cuckoo. Her mother was a former actress-model and had appeared in a commercial for a popular brand of kitchen roll. Juliet was so pretty and popular, Marion was almost flattered to be mocked by her.