Page 10 of The Island Villa

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Catherine

Catherine Swift had been born with a gift.

There was no one particular moment when she’d become aware of its existence. It was as much a part of her as her unruly blond hair and her lack of coordination. It had grown along with her until it had taken on a life of its own. She couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t had stories and characters racing around in her head. But she remembered clearly the first time she’d written those stories down.

She’d been twelve years old and her mother had delivered her to Clifton House, a boarding school deep in the heart of the English countryside. Her parents were in the middle of an acrimonious divorce and her mother had unilaterally decided it would be less traumatizing for Catherine to be ejected from the family home and live among strangers than to witness the messy decline of a marriage. That was the official line. Unofficially, after a bottle of sauvignon blanc that her mother had claimed was for medicinal purposes, she’d confessed to Catherine that for the sake of her lifestyle she needed to find another husband and she couldn’t do that with a daughter in the mix. It would make things far too complicated. Finding a husband was like applying for a job. You had to focus and give it your full attention.

You’ll like it here, she’d said as she hauled Catherine’s single suitcase along soulless corridors. You’ll make lots of friends. It will feel like home.

Catherine hadn’t liked it, she hadn’t made any friends and it had felt nothing like home. Not that home was a nurturing place. Far from it. It wouldn’t have taken much for school to have been the better option, and it said a great deal about the quality of the establishment her mother had chosen that it wasn’t.

As far as Catherine could see, she’d simply swapped one type of trauma for another.

The school was a large brown brick building with windows that seemed to face everywhere except the places where the bullies congregated. There were no witnesses when three girls decided to push her head down the toilet, and no one to intervene when it was discovered that her long hair made a useful rope with which to drag her along a corridor.

There were, however, rules. More rules than Catherine could count, and they made no sense. Why did she have to walk on the left side of the corridor? Was it such a crime to veer over to the right? Why did lights have to be switched off at nine o’clock precisely, even if you hadn’t finished the chapter of the book you were reading? Why couldn’t she hack off her hair if she decided that short hair was a safer option?

“Home” was a hard narrow bed in a room with ten other girls, none of whom welcomed the arrival of an outsider. Catherine wasn’t “cool,” she had no hand-eye coordination and wasn’t going to be a valuable addition to any sports team. To the other girls, cruel in their assessment of others, she was a target. Sadly, it wasn’t a new experience. Her father, a keen sportsman, had despaired of her. No matter how hard she’d tried, he still shouted at her. He told her regularly she was worthless, and she had no reason not to believe him given that so many seemed to be in agreement.

Fortunately, the school had a library and Catherine had taken refuge there whenever she could, tucking herself away between tall shelves and dusty books, imagining herself as Jane Eyre, alone, rejected, badly treated. She immersed herself in stories, but nobody’s words provided the escape that her own did.

At home, she’d survived by detaching herself, by living life inside her head, removed from the reality of the present. There were no happy endings in her life, so she’d invented them. Her imagination spun stories of relationships that didn’t end the way her parents’ had, conversations that hadn’t ended in broken china, broken limbs or broken hearts. She was happy to inhabit any world, as long as it wasn’t her own.

At school, she’d done the same. It frustrated her that she, who loved words, could never find the right ones when confronted by a bully. She’d decided that it was probably because deep down she agreed with them. She was all those things they were calling her, so how could she defend herself?

Nevertheless, she’d spend hours at night replaying the scenario in her head and devising the perfect put down with herself as victor.

Characters lived in her brain, distracting her during lessons. They kept her company when she was lonely and stood by her side when the bullying became almost unbearable. The only subject she truly enjoyed was English, and the first time the class had been asked to write a short story was the happiest day of Catherine’s life. Finally, she was going to be able to give those characters life. Finally, she was confident that she could excel at something.

She wrote easily, fluently, the words flowing from her brain to her pen and onto the page.

When she’d finished, she wrote her name boldly at the top of the page and handed the work in with pride and barely contained excitement. She’d hardly slept that night, imagining the moment when the teacher would return her work. Miss Barrett was tall, with thin lips, a thin nose and an equally thin sense of humor. She was hard to please and had expended some considerable effort into making English Literature the least popular subject in school. They read Anna Karenina and Wuthering Heights, Madame Bovary and Romeo and Juliet, and Catherine had found herself wondering if there was a subtext to those classes, if Miss Barrett was simultaneously teaching them about literature, while warning them about the follies of uncontrolled passion. They studied tragedy after tragedy, love stories soaked in unhappiness. We’re all going to die single, Catherine thought, which to her seemed a happier outcome than dying for love.

Why did love have to end tragically?

But she’d fixed that. For her assignment, she’d written a story that had uncontrolled passion, but no tragedy.

She couldn’t wait for Miss Barrett to read it and was already imagining the response.

Catherine, I had no idea you had such talent.

She imagined the other girls staring, their faces showing envy rather than contempt as they changed their view of her, wishing that they too possessed her gift. Maybe her ball skills were lacking, and her hand-eye coordination less than impressive, but she could write. She’d be, if not popular, then at least tolerated. Maybe they’d ask her to help with their homework. Catherine, you’re so brilliant at English...

As so often happened in life, things didn’t go the way she’d imagined they would.

Miss Barrett handed back the papers to each girl without comment, rationing praise as if it came with serious health consequences.

Catherine waited, poised for her turn. She could see the grade of the girl next to her, scribbled in red ink at the top of the page. B+ Good!

She was last. Was that significant?

“Catherine.” Miss Barrett returned to her desk as the bell went for break time. “Stay behind.”

Heads turned. Everyone looked at her, curious, scenting the possibility of trouble.

But Catherine knew she wasn’t in trouble. Far from it. She was being singled out for a different reason.

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