by Mandy Baggot
Doing as he was told had never been one of his strong points. But, at the moment, he didn’t know what to do. It seemed any kind of stability and normality he had was falling away like an avalanche beneath his feet.
He nodded, accepting. ‘Yeah.’
‘So, we’re agreed?’ Deborah said, sounding more than a little surprised. ‘You are going to follow my plan and we are going to get you out of this hole you’re currently in with regard to the public and the press and relaunch your new clean, more wholesome than ever image.’
‘Christ, you didn’t say anything about wholesome.’
‘The beard needs sorting out, Ray,’ Deborah told him definitely. ‘I know they’re still trending, but it needs proper care and attention. I’ll book you in with the barber.’
He couldn’t help but run fingers down his face. It had got a little long, he supposed. It was something to hide behind a little though. He had gone through all the stages of facial hair over the past year.
‘And, if you can promise me you’ll be nothing but civil, I think we ought to set up a meeting with Ida.’
His heart sank then. Like it had been dropped into the Atlantic. He knew that would have been on Deborah’s agenda. How could it not be? Ida had sold this non-story to the press and they were spinning it around like a DJ with one of his records. It needed to stop. He wanted it to stop. He just didn’t know at what cost that would be and that scared him. It really scared him. Suddenly all he could hear was the clattering of pots and pans in the kitchen. Loud. Heavy.
‘Ray?’ Deborah said. ‘I’m not hearing anything from you.’
‘OK,’ he replied quickly, shaking the noises out of his head. What else was there to say?
‘OK?’ Deborah checked.
‘Yeah, OK.’
‘Good,’ Deborah said, taking a sip of her drink. ‘Right, then we need to find you somewhere to live and get your things moved over there. I’ll call Gio for the details of this storage locker. Bloody cheek of him if you ask me. So, is there anything else I should know? Absolutely anything else that’s going to hit the fan in the coming days?’
Ray thought back to the pubs he’d been in after his altercation with his dad. He didn’t remember being obnoxious to anyone. No matter how wasted he got he usually remembered later if he had been out of line. But then his thoughts went to Stretton Park Primary and all those children with their mobile phones. That could definitely come back to haunt a new wholesome image. He might have had hold of a hedgehog, but, fed into the arena by uncontrolled means, the journalists could make it look like he had harmed the animal. Plus, he had felt rougher than new guitar strings this morning so he could guarantee the photos would be full of heavy-lidded, red-rimmed eyes at the very least…
‘Ray?’ Deborah said. ‘This is serious. Is there anything else I need to know about? Anything that could blow up in our faces at a later date?’
Ray shook his head and planted a fork in his piece of black pudding. ‘No, Debs. There’s nothing else.’
Fifteen
Stretton Park Primary School
Emily had never craved gin as much as she was craving it now. It was a year since she had gone tee-total, and until now she hadn’t really missed it. The odd occasion when she breathed in the scent of Jonah and Allan’s Waitrose red wine maybe. It was more like she missed the idea of alcohol, the thought that she could drink something that would soothe her woes or relax her to sleep. But now she wanted some to blot out the rest of the festive countdown. Hedgehogs. Rashid being a little twerp. The Christmas show.
She had told the children about the Christmas performance that afternoon and, as predicted, they had got all bulbous-eyed with excitement, chattering with ideas of dressing up as robots (Felix) or doing a tribute to Frozen (Cherry and Alice). Most of the other boys had declared the show idea ‘sick’ and Emily was so out of touch she couldn’t remember whether ‘sick’ meant ‘bad’ or ‘good’ these days. What she also didn’t know was where to start? She didn’t want to phone Mr Jarvis and see if, at seventy-five years old, he would like to pen songs for a Christmas performance. Was he even still alive? He’d had a nasty bout of pneumonia before he left…
‘Bloody hell!’ she blasted as she caught her finger under the nail she was trying to hammer in. That hurt and it was starting to bleed. Emily put her finger to her mouth and sucked. This sucked! No money in the budget to call a repair man and she wasn’t going to ask Susan’s husband to abandon a golf day because she was incapable of replacing a couple of shelves. It was a couple of shelves! Anyone could sort that, couldn’t they? Without a trip to A&E…
‘Hello?’
Someone was still here. But she’d checked the whole school before she embarked on this DIY crusade. Dennis had flitted off minutes after the bell had rung with talk of faggots for tea. Linda Rossiter had lingered for a while, wrapping empty cardboard boxes with Christmas paper to put under a quirky and frankly rather scary looking tree made from recyclables. Emily wasn’t sure how festively attractive empty Heinz cans, Pringle tubes and Walkers packets could be… ever. There had been no one else. So, who was here?
She stepped out of the stationery cupboard and there was her answer. Standing in her classroom, beard freshly trimmed to nothing more than a light coating of stubble, no hat and shaggy brown hair tamed and swept back behind his ears, wearing black jeans with boots and a maroon jumper under that thick winter coat, was Ray Stone. In his hands were two tool bags.
‘Hiding with the paperclips again, Miss Parker?’ he commented with a grin.
‘What are you doing here?’ she half-whispered like Susan had bugged the room. Maybe she had bugged the room. When times were slightly less lean there had been talk of every class having its own Amazon Echo Dot…
‘You’re bleeding,’ Ray said, dropping the bags and hastening towards her. ‘You got a first aid kit in this place?’
‘No,’ Emily said. ‘I mean, yes. But it’s nothing.’ Ugh. It had dripped a bit on her skirt. And her skirt was hand wash only. Everything vintage was hand wash only unless you wanted it in pieces or fit for no one but a six-month-old baby.
‘Let me see.’
He had reached to take her hand and she found her insides boiling up at the very thought of his skin touching hers. She’d gone mad! It must be some sort of reaction to doing shelf repairs or being in a confined space. She quickly put her finger in her mouth again, the metallic taste a bit grim, but if she sucked hard enough surely it would stem the blood flow.
‘You shouldn’t be here.’ She had said the words through a mouth full of finger and it hadn’t sounded quite as clear as she had hoped. She withdrew the digit and carried on. ‘You need to be DBS checked to be here.’
‘I’ve been DBS checked,’ he replied.
He didn’t smell of alcohol or Plasticine anymore. He smelt of something possibly made by Radox with undernotes of Givenchy.
‘I’ve done some music workshops with schoolkids before. Older than yours. More into Drake songs than my songs. Definitely not into “Baby Shark”.’
Emily couldn’t help but raise a smile at that comment. The Baby Shark song had been the bane of her life last year.
‘Come on,’ Ray said. ‘Let me fix those shelves.’
Now she was suspicious. Why on earth was this singing sensation back in her classroom armed with tools like a handyman?
‘What’s going on?’ she asked him, waving her finger in the air in a bid to dry it of her saliva. ‘Is this some new reality TV show you’re part of?’ Or maybe Susan Clark was behind this. She could have set this whole thing up in a bid to catch Emily out. First a superstar in the shed and now he was back with everything except overalls. What was the Head going to throw at her next?
‘I knocked down the shelves. I’ve come to fix them. That’s it.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ Emily said.
‘You and all the British press,’ Ray commented with a sigh. He followed it up with a smile. ‘But I’ve learned to ride that
choppy ocean like the very best surfer. So, put me in the cupboard again, Emily.’
‘I’ve been doing perfectly well on my own, if you must know.’ She sniffed, watching a blood droplet slide its way down her forefinger.
‘Really?’ he queried, stepping into the storage space. ‘You’re using nails to hold up the shelves?’
‘What else would you use?’
‘Is there any more of that coffee going?’ he asked. ‘Because I’m confident, by the time you’ve made us both one, I’ll have these back in place stronger than ever before.’
She swallowed. What to do? Accept this unexpected help or order him off the premises again? Was he really DBS checked? Did it really matter if there were no children on the premises?
‘But, do me a favour,’ Ray said. ‘Put a plaster on that cut before you make the coffee. I don’t like my Nescafé with an extra shot of plasma.’
Sixteen
The shelves were proving a little trickier than Ray had envisaged. The walls of the inside of the cupboard were crumbling every time he tried to fix something to them. He was currently plugging them with a combination of tissue paper, Rawlplugs and Blu Tack. And now, Emily had just put festive music on her phone.
‘It’s still November you know,’ he called out.
‘What?’ Emily replied over the strains of ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’.
‘You don’t have to play Christmas music just because all the shops and cafés are.’
The volume decreased suddenly, and he heard her boots on the linoleum floor, coming closer. He turned his head a little, holding a screw into the flaky wall as she appeared.
‘If you must know, I’m seeking inspiration.’
‘You play the xylophone?’
‘Glockenspiel actually.’
Her face was so deadpan he didn’t know if she was serious or not. A sigh left her lips and he forced the screw into place with a hard push.
‘I’m in charge of the Christmas show this year,’ she said.
‘Yeah?’ Ray answered, steadying the half-up bracket. ‘You do a nativity with tea-towels and donkey suits and stuff?’
‘I wish it were that simple,’ Emily said. She commandeered a high stool from the edge of the room and climbed up onto it.
‘When I was at school,’ Ray began. ‘I was always the innkeeper. I was the tallest and apparently that meant the role was mine.’ He smiled. ‘I never did find any Biblical evidence that the innkeeper was a six-footer.’
‘Well,’ Emily said. ‘This year Mrs Clark wants a show to end all shows.’ She sniffed, hands at full stretch as she made adjustment to the hanging display on the ceiling. ‘I think she would actually love it if I could get Hugh Jackman to star in it.’
‘I hope he’s DBS checked,’ Ray answered.
‘Oh!’ Emily exclaimed. ‘I’m so sorry. That was really, really rude of me!’
Her hands were at her face now, looking embarrassed. She really was very attractive. He picked up another screw. ‘It was only a joke,’ Ray said. ‘I’m sure Hugh Jackman has all the right credentials.’
‘I know, but here I am saying in a roundabout way that he’s a singing star and you’re here, an actual singing star…’
‘In a cupboard,’ Ray said. ‘Mending your shelves because I knocked them down in between trespass and animal protection.’ He picked up the screwdriver. ‘And you’ve seen the news, no one is really wanting me to appear in anything at the moment. Well, anyone apart from Loose Women who would probably want to pick over the bones of my former relationship like it’s leftover Christmas turkey.’ Why was he telling her this? Because he needed to broach the subject of the children’s mobile phone photos of him…
‘I don’t watch shows like that or really read anything but the BBC Breaking News on my phone… except I really should turn off the alerts because it keeps making the dramatic music noise in the middle of class even if I put it on silent.’ She was up on her tip-toes now and the stool didn’t seem particularly stable.
‘Did my news get an alert on the app?’ Ray asked.
‘Should it have?’
He sighed, refocusing on the task in hand and using the screwdriver hard to vent his frustration. ‘Some people seem to think it’s more important than anything.’
‘Some people are stupid,’ Emily answered.
He looked back up at her then and she was smiling down at him.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I always try to teach my children to be all-accepting. Treat everyone equally and don’t be quick to judge. There’s so much miscommunication in the world, so much pre-ordained directioning – from politicians to Strictly Come Dancing. I want my Year Six’s to know their own minds and walk their own paths.’ She smiled again. ‘But don’t tell Mrs Clark that. I think she’d rather they just followed the rules without thinking too much. Which is hard when you’re ten and want to know everything about the world.’
She was animated now, not in her movement – thank God, given the stool situation – but in her manner. There was a light in her eyes when she talked about the class of individuals he had encountered that morning, a very deep affection. He didn’t remember any teachers he had giving off anything like that vibe. And, Miss Parker was serving all this with a side-order of sultry he could almost guarantee she knew nothing about…
‘They like you,’ Ray commented, putting the wood back in place and reaching for a spirit level. ‘The kids.’
‘Well, I’m not sure that’s true of all of them. I have a job to do and that involves making everyone try the hardest they can. Some try more than others, shall we say?’
‘You listen to them,’ Ray remarked, standing back from his work and looking hard at the bubble sitting in the trap of the level. ‘Not everyone listens these days.’ Like the press. Like his dad. Had his mum really listened to him like he thought she had? Or had she been far more wasted than he liked to remember?
‘I can’t disagree with that. My flatmate – ex-flatmate I should say – never listens if it opposes some grand plan of his. And my mother never usually hears, let alone listens.’
‘Families, eh?’
‘Yes,’ Emily answered. ‘More trouble than they’re worth. Although don’t tell the children I said that. Not that you’re likely to see them again, but… whoa!’
Ray looked away from the shelves to see the stool starting to sway and Emily, on top of it, rocking back and forth attempting to maintain her balance. He acted fast. Jumping out of the cupboard, he got to her exactly as the stool finally gave way and she came tumbling towards the ground. He caught her, mid-air, steadying her in his arms.
‘Oh, my… I don’t know what happened,’ Emily breathed, shock coating her words, shaking a little.
‘You stood en pointe on top of a stool that’s seen better days.’ He swallowed, as she gazed up at him. ‘You could have really hurt yourself.’ Holding her close was doing the strangest things to his insides right now. He seemed to want to brush away that fringe of auburn hair that was almost in her beautiful eyes…
‘We don’t have the budget for… big, strong…’ Emily started.
His heart was beating faster wanting to know what she was going to say next.
‘Ladders,’ Emily finished. She jumped down out of his arms and brushed her hands together the way British people do when there’s not the remotest chance of their palms actually being dusty, but they need to do something to move the situation forward…
‘Well,’ Ray said, stepping back over towards his handiwork. ‘Those shelves aren’t going to be moving any time soon.’ She moved to stand next to him. ‘You know, if you have to hide any other men in there ever.’
‘Oh… well… actually this morning was a first for me.’
She was blushing now. It was sweet and also somehow incredibly sexy. He cleared his throat. Holding her had definitely done something to him. ‘Listen, Emily, I’m not going to lie, this press attention is difficult at the moment and my agent is doing her best to fight fires but
, well, she’s not Captain Marvel, you know what I’m saying?’
‘I think so. She can try and help, but she can’t work miracles?’
‘Yeah,’ Ray answered. ‘Exactly that. So, I’m going to need to know that none of those photos the kids took of me this morning are going to end up on the internet.’
‘Oh… I see.’
‘I’m not saying they’re the kind of kids to do that but, at the moment, the whole world seems out to get me.’ He put his hands up, knowing he sounded particularly pathetic. ‘Not that I’m asking for anything like sympathy but…’ He was. A bit. And he hated asking for anything. ‘OK, so, my agent needs to know that nothing is going to hit the fan while she’s busy trying to…’
‘Emulate Captain Marvel,’ Emily suggested.
‘Exactly that,’ Ray agreed.
‘I understand,’ she answered with a pragmatic nod. ‘I’ll speak to the children in the morning and I’ll ask them to delete any photos.’
It was the best he could hope for. What had he been expecting? For Emily to visit the kids at home? Demand their devices and check their Snapchat history? ‘Thank you,’ Ray said sincerely.
‘No, thank you,’ Emily said. ‘For… breaking my fall just now and for fixing the shelves.’ She smiled. ‘As much as I hate to admit it, I probably couldn’t have done it on my own. If I knew anything about home improvements I would be fixing my own central heating right now.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s either going to be as cold as Siberia when I get home or roasting hot like… jalapeños dancing in Death Valley… with a fever.’
‘Your heating’s still broken?’ Ray asked.
‘Yes. Apparently. Perfect timing with Christmas coming and the flatmate going and this school play to coordinate.’ She sighed. ‘But, first world problems, right? I’ll work it out.’ She started to stack chairs on top of tables and tidy up.
‘Well,’ he began. What was he doing? What was he going to say? He didn’t have time for any of this… but he did have the experience. ‘I could take a look at it for you, if you like.’