The Joiners pt 18.

by
Angharad

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At school the following week, Carrie bumped into Mrs Chivers who told her to come and see her in the lunch break. Carrie was not impressed but she duly turned up after detaching her mind from a double period of chemistry and all the joys of organic chemistry and the carbon atom.

"Ah, Miss Carpenter, do come in," said the music teacher.

"Miss," she said showing a little subservience to the teacher not sure if she liked her yet or not, but most of it seemed to have been positive even if she was her new project.

"I spoke to the headmistress about you."

"Oh," gasped Carrie not sure if this was going to prove good, bad or indifferent.

"Yes, she said you were bullied at your previous school and that was why you're gracing us with your presence." Carrie stood and blushed but said nothing. Perhaps ol' Chivekovsky didn't have anything more than that so she wasn't going to inform her of any detail. "You had a free period on Thursdays after religions, if you want, she will allow you to come here and practice for the two lessons, so instead of looking at religion, we'll be looking at some music theory and some extra practice."

Carrie was surprised, she wasn't that interested in religion as were neither of her parents, so it was no great loss and she was prepared to forgo her free period to get some extra music tuition in.

"Thank you, Miss, when will it start?" she wasn't sure yet but it seemed like a step in the right direction and more than they ever did at her previous school.

"On Thursday, so you'll come here after mid-morning break."

"I'll be here," she nodded and smiled at Mrs Chivers, "Will I ever get a go on the grand piano in the hall?"

"When you've shown me you're capable of treating it with the respect it deserves. That instrument is a very expensive and delicate piece of craftsmanship, only those with sufficient skill and respect are considered worthy."

"Do you play it, Miss?" asked Carrie not realising that she could be seen to be challenging the teacher.

"Occasionally, I trained to concert level, at the same college as Dudley Moore, who I suspect you've never heard of."

"Uh, no, Miss."

"Look him up, it's worth the effort."

"I will, thank you, Miss."

Later at lunch, Carrie typed in Dudley Moore into her phone and skimmed the article in wikipedia, "Wow, old Chivekovsky went to Magdalene College, Oxford."

"Is that good?" asked Jane.

"Yeah, Oxford is pretty good for music."

"What's pretty good, when it's at home?" asked Michelle.

"Like world-class, especially for classical music, so perhaps she can play the piano a bit?" Carrie was learning a new respect for her music teacher. "My Dad went to Oxford."

"Does he play the piano?" asked Jane.

"No, but he studied architecture."

"Don't tell me your mum went to Harvard?" said Michelle as they ate their lunches.

"Uh no, she went to Cambridge..."

"Not nuclear physics?" joked Jane.

"No," laughed Carrie, "English and journalism, she's a writer, though she hasn't done any for a while."

"What did she write?" asked Jane.

"Oh, stuff for newspapers and magazines, women's issues, that sort of stuff."

"Not that interesting, then?" said Michelle.

"Dunno, never read any of it," said Carrie biting off a chunk of her roll.

"Perhaps you should, you're a woman too, remember?" said Jane sharply.

"Whose taken your lollipop?" asked Michelle.

"Well, I get tired of people writing things off because it's woman's stuff, women make up half the people on the planet but bloody men control it all and it doesn't seem fair." Jane was on her hobby horse.

"It isn't," agreed Michelle, "but at the moment I've got more important things to worry about. Come on, Beethoven, we're gonna be late," she aimed at Carrie and the three of them went off to their next class as the bell rang.

"Oh, I won't be in the religions class anymore," said Carrie as they strolled back to academia.

"How come?" asked Jane, "Any chance we can get out of it too?"

"Sure if you wanna do music theory and piano," smirked Carrie.

"Uh, no thanks, I'll stay and wind-up Holy Joe a bit longer," laughed Jane as they entered the class for geography.

When Carrie got home that evening, she told her mother that she was getting an extra lesson of music. "I heard it was two extra lessons," said her mum.

"How d'ya know that?" asked a bemused Carrie.

"The headmistress rang me and asked if I minded you having a lesson on religion changed to one of music theory plus a free lesson you had being changed to piano theory and practice."

"Oh," shrugged Carrie, "dunno why I bother."

Penny chuckled, "They have to tell us about any changes to your timetable and normally you have to do some religious education by law, unless the school or your parents feel differently. Seeing as you plan to study music, I thought you could sort out what you want to know about world religion in your own time and at your own pace but the extra music study and practice should be more useful at the moment."

"I don't think so, Mummy, it has no interest for me at all," Carrie tossed away as she was about to go up and change.

"Just remember that some of the finest music ever written was because of religion and people like JS Bach earned their living as kapellmeister at different times of his life as well as organist in several churches. At one time it was the best type of job for musicians and gave them regular employment. Mozart and Vivaldi also did religious music."

"Yeah, okay, Ma, you've made your point, I'm going to change, got geography and chemistry homework tonight."

"I'll give you, Ma, you scallywag," Penny called up the stairs after Carrie disappeared giggling.

While they were eating, Carrie asked her mother a question. "Mummy, do you miss not working?"

"At times why?"

"I was talking with Jane and Michelle and I realised that Mrs Chivers went to Oxford."

"All the best people do," smirked Rob.

"Cambridge is above it in the rankings, Dad," offered Tara making a silly face at him.

"Why does it matter where they went to university?" asked Penny and why she was discussing her teacher's education.

"Well, Oxford has a reputation for music, Dudley Moore went to the same college as Mrs Chivers."

"Who's he?" asked Tara.

"He performed with Peter Cook in Beyond the Fringe, Penny showed her Cambridge affiliation. "He was one of the tranch of clever performers we produced, including Jonathan Miller, who was a real intellectual. "
"Didn't he train as a doctor?" asked Rob.

"He was far too clever to be a doctor, said one of my tutors when his name came up on one occasion. He worked with Alan Bennett, while at Cambridge," said Penny.

"Who are all these old crumblies, Mum?" asked Tara.

"The cream of a previous generation, sadly many of them are now dead."

"Alan Bennett, did that wonderful talking heads thing, didn't he?" Rob said.

"That film about the old lady living in a van in the garden, wasn't that, Alan Bennett?" said Tara happy to get into the conversation, she hated it when it got too highbrow for her as her parents were really quite clever people.

"Yes, it was and a true story," confirmed Penny.

"Oh I remember that," said Carrie.

"So if everything goes pear-shaped, Car, you can always go and live in his garden or Mrs Chivers' one," teased Tara.

"Jus' gonna tell you the same," Carrie threw back at her sister.

"No women, in that group, were there?" said Rob, demonstrating his credentials as a feminist supporter.

"Don't think so," agreed Penny racking her brains, "least if there was they disappeared without trace. As happens all too often." After this the conversation moved on to less controversial subjects like homework.

"That was nice of you to remember there were no women in the Cambridge set," said Penny snuggling into Rob as they lay in bed together.

"I have to, I'm very much in the minority in this household, with three harridans here."

"Harridan?" said Penny loudly with all the pretend indignation she could muster before Rob started to tickle her and they got very affectionate.

The next day she was with Jane when they bumped into Mark and Sean, a few words were exchanged with sneaky bits of eye contact and much blushing. See you after school, said the boys, Mark smiling briefly at Carrie.

"You're in there, girl," teased Jane to Carrie as they dealt with the prospect of Mr Andrews and his odoriferous cardigan, however, Carrie gave up trying to hold her breath for an hour and instead tried to think about Mark and was he inviting her to get together after school? Being new to interactions with boys as the opposite sex, she wasn't sure about lots of things and for the first time in her school career, her big sister wasn't there to advise her, or even compete with her but mainly to protect her and while this was exciting and gave her a little frisson of excitement, it was potentially rather frightening as well. She'd have to play it by ear but also watch what other girls did and remember that she wasn't exactly the same as most girls in the knicker department and so she had to keep that area well away from prying hands. That she shouldn't be indulging in sex of any sort beyond a bit of petting she was well aware of but awareness didn't always stop them becoming gymslip mothers or in her case possibly denounced as a freak and it going around the school at the speed of light.

Michelle's mother was collecting her from school, so it was just Jane and Carrie who ventured to the school gate where two boys were laughing and joking while they waited for their love interests to appear. The girls had been busy in the loo checking their appearances from a hundred and fifty angles, while refreshing lip balm or gloss and mascara and little squirts of body spray before reacquainting themselves with the two adolescent males.

Greetings were exchanged between the foursome and they strolled off towards the bus stops on the nearby main road. "So what about Friday, will she let you come out then?" Mark enquired of his choice of would-be female company.

Carrie had told him that Penny wouldn't let her date any boys during the school week, what she didn't add was that Penny wouldn't be exactly happy that Carrie wanted to date boys at all given her complications.

"She might, I'll ask her when I get home. What are we gonna do if I can date you?"

"What d'ya fancy? There's a new space adventure film in the multiplex."

Carrie wasn't sure if she wanted to go to see a space adventure film, since becoming a girl full time her tastes had changed and the boy type activities she'd once enjoyed she seemed to eschew. Her mother had thought more about it than she had wondering if some of her behaviour was simply copying Tara and Macey or were deeper things happening.

Penny felt sad that Cary's friendship with Colm had seemingly receded to nothing at the same time she didn't want to appear to be encouraging Carrie to go out with a boy, especially as Carrie hadn't initiated the idea. It was, therefore, a bit of a surprise when Carrie asked her if she could go out on Friday evening.

"Where are you going and with who?" she asked as she sorted the washing she'd just taken out of the dryer.

"Just some kids from school, probably going to the cinema."

"Which kids from school?"

"What you want name, rank and serial number?" she complained remembering that was all captured soldiers had to reveal to their captors.

"At least that, if they're boys I want a full health inventory plus a polygraph test on their intentions towards my younger child, not to mention a financial statement, and a copy of their educational achievements thus far."

"Muuuum," wailed Carrie, suspecting that Penny was just teasing her but she wasn't entirely sure never having had to ask if she could go out with someone before, this was virgin territory for her and Penny's over the top interrogation was intending to keep her territory, totally virgin until she was physically sorted and an independent and autonomous adult. "We're jusy gonna see a film, that's all, sex isn't until second dates like you told me." Two could play at teasing.

"No I said until two years, not two dates," Penny's heart had skipped a beat when Carrie had responded to her silly question and while she knew that Carrie couldn't have sex even if she wanted to, she believed that Carrie was probably more averse to it than most teenage girls, some of who were as driven by their hormones as most boys. She fully expected to have real battles with Tara over boys and the heart-rending outcomes they would have, now she realised she would probably have similar battles with Carrie as her hormones started to work and she developed into a young woman.

"Two years?" gasped Carrie, "crikey, Mummy, I'll be drawing my pension by then."

"Going into the sixth form, maybe, but you're likely to be about ninety by the time the government pay you a pension."

"Nah, I'm gonna be a pop star like Karen was and retire at twenty."

"Who's Karen?" asked Penny placing her washing in the laundry basket for it to be ironed.

"Karen, you know, our namesake."

"Oh that Karen, I see, I hope you have a business plan?"

"Uh, only bit I've got down so far is make loadza dosh and have loadza fun."

"Those may do as objectives, what are you going to use as your method?"

"Look, his name's Mark, okay and he's got beautiful blue eyes and amazing eyelashes."

"I knew you'd tell me in the end, they always do," she cackled like a stereotypical mad witch and Carrie shook her head and rolled her eyes.

"We're only going to the cinema to see some stupid film, nothing's gonna happen is it? Not with this body."

She sensed a sadness in the tone of Carrie's response and as she stood up to speak with her younger daughter, the latter had run upstairs thereby defeating the interrogator's ambition, this was followed by the slamming of the bedroom door and Penny knew she'd have a wonderful evening in prospect.