Clara deems the impractical, and more than often, patriarchal world of academia beneath her notice. In her opinion, there is no better teacher in life than experience, and that she has in spades. For centuries survival has been her test, the streets her tutor.
It is to Eleanor that she leaves this reality of written word and primly printed page. Pen, pencil, and parchment. It is what she prefers for her progeny. An institutionalized asylum for the innocent and unemcumbered. A prepaid, protected palace for the pubescent lot.
Even so, within her there dwells a disdain so rich and thick for those fortunate enough to be given that chance, it shames the sales of the most expensive of sauvignons. The make of her is sewn with such conflicting threads as revulsion and righteous pride for the same sour subject. But then the complexity of feeling has always consumed her when it comes to Eleanor.
A mother’s love was an unfathomable thing...even to herself at times.
It is this same strong inclination, devoid of reason but engorged with emotion, that she even deigns to visit a classroom. No matter the number of years, the passage of time, she has never missed the first parent-teacher meeting of the semester.
She slips in as the last stragglers are exiting, taking their disapproving looks of concern as a ducks’ tail to insignificant droplets of water. Barely a bristle, barely a brush. Their condemnation of her cheapness means next to nothing, nothing but the rousing of a tickle of amusement. The soft sort one experiences when watching children of a certain age play at scenes they’ve yet to truly comprehend the weight of. Life - a most damning game. It’s purpose? To LIVE. No one understands. It doesn’t matter HOW. Only that you DO.
She keeps her back pressed to the wall as they pass; a respectful gesture, one that is tinged with the dark delight of being a blatant reminder of human shortcoming, human weakness. The BASE before their very eyes. In the FLESH. Undeniable.
She swings more fully into the all but empty classroom on the heel of her working class shoes and gives a light, brisk rap of her knuckles to the door frame, disrupting the professor’s packing it in for the night. The hour is late, well past the time he should have retired. His dedication to his duty for others speaking volumes for his character. And conviction.
She offers up a chav-ish, abashed but eager smile that splits her lips brightly over white teeth. “Sorry. My shift ran long an’ then I go’ lost. Wha’ is this place, a bloody Escher?” A chuckle as she charges forward, hand out. “Pleased. Claire. Ella’s sister.”
