The Learning Curve

by Melissa Nathan

  Nicky looked at the female governors. One was busy writing, the other stared back at her. Was this a trick question? Legally, he couldn’t ask her if she was planning to start a family within the next few years, but there was every chance he wanted to know. Despite the irregularity of his question, she had rarely found her single status a selling point and she wasn’t going to let that one go.

  ‘You’re absolutely right,’ she said with a smile. ‘No, I’m not a mother. But I am very content and I’m sure we’d all agree that that’s the best role model for children.’

  There was a pause which did not convince her that they’d all agree on anything.

  ‘However,’ she continued, ‘I do have three nieces who I look after a lot. Whom I look after a lot,’ she said. ‘Often for whole weekends. But . . . no, I don’t have my own children. This gives me much more time to focus on my pupils, prepare their work, mark their work, help them work on their displays, et eteca, without feeling that I should be rushing elsewhere. I do not clock-watch at all. Far from it.’

  Governor Smith looked at her, nodded slowly and then wrote something down. Nicky decided now was not the moment to question if he had asked Rob whether he was a father.

  ‘I don’t think we need to worry about Miss Hobbs’s ability to look after children.’ Governor Atkins smiled, leaning forward towards her. ‘Year 6 teacher for the past three years with excellent SATS results speaks for itself, does it not, Miss Hobbs?’

  ‘I’d like to think so,’ she replied, adding Governor Atkins to her Christmas card list. ‘And of course, thirty sets of parents trust me enough to spend five hours a day in charge of their children. That’s a big responsibility and one I’m proud to have.’

  All the male governors nodded enthusiastically at her.

  ‘Are you saying that teachers are more responsible for children than their own parents?’ asked Governor Morris, mother of four.

  ‘No!’ replied Nicky. ‘Of course not! Parents spend far more time with their children. But there are still many hours in the week when I am entirely responsible for their children’s physical and emotional welfare, and it’s not a responsibility I take lightly.’

  ‘Yes,’ Governor Morris smiled, ‘but the question is not whether you are up to your present job, but whether you are up to a headship.’

  ‘I think,’ added Governor Atkins, ‘that Miss Hobbs was merely using her experience as a teacher to answer the question.’

  ‘And I think,’ added Governor Smith, ‘that Governor Morris’s comment was, as usual, most pertinent and useful.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Governor Morris smiled at Governor Smith.

  ‘My pleasure.’ Governor Smith smiled back.

  Nicky considered getting them all to kiss and make up. She was grateful when after only an hour, they let her go. Caesar won the battle by standing up and showing her out. She turned to say goodbye to the others and caught Brutus making eye contact with his comrades. She got out fast.

  26

  IF NICKY HAD been hoping for some kind of hint from Miss James about the way the land lay during the next morning’s meeting, she would have been in for a big let-down. Luckily she hadn’t been. She was, however, hoping very much that she would be able to make it through the day. The stress of yesterday and the overdose of headache pills had put her eyelids on a different speed from the rest of her body. Why did her head always seem out of control? It was almost as bad as her hair. She wondered sometimes if the two were linked. If her hair were naturally sleek and ‘manageable’ (as they termed it in those infuriating adverts where women’s hair was made of molten metal), would the pain in her head be as manageable? If she thought for one minute that the two were causally linked, she’d go straight out and buy a hair iron.

  The others didn’t seem to have had any bad effects from yesterday’s interview. In fact, Miss James and Rob were on tip-top form and both enjoyed a great gossip together about Harry Potter. Even the Year 4 at the puzzle table was allowed to join in. Nicky conserved her energy and focussed on keeping her eyelids up.

  After Harry Potter, Miss James then told them a joke she’d been told ‘recently’ which they both recognised as Ned’s favourite, nay only, joke. They all laughed loudly.

  As the meeting progressed, it dawned on Nicky that the clues were all there, should she wish to find them. Rob and Miss James were now old friends, and Ned had been able to deliver his joke properly, something he rarely managed to do in the staffroom.

  Not that she was downhearted or anything, but facts were facts. She was doomed.

  By the time Miss James asked her and Rob for updates on the Bournemouth trip and instructed them to start nagging their respective teachers to complete their reports in time for her to sign them all, Nicky felt that she was just bluffing by being there.

  After the meeting, she stood at Miss James’s puzzle with a despondent heart, while Miss James had a quick word outside with Janet.

  Nicky frowned at the wretched puzzle helplessly. ‘Isn’t this thing finished yet?’ she mumbled to Rob. ‘They’re usually done by now, aren’t they? This one’s gone on for ages.’

  He shrugged. ‘It’s only a puzzle,’ he said, sticking a piece somewhere in the former Yugoslavia. Nicky watched him wander out of the office and then looked back down to the puzzle. She stared at it some more. It’s only a puzzle, she told herself. It’s only a puzzle. She scanned it slowly, her eyes twizzling in and out of focus. Only eight hours till bedtime, she thought. It’s only a puzzle.

  She let her eyes focus on the southern coast of Spain, where she’d been on holiday a couple of years ago. She wondered idly if she’d be able to find the resort she’d visited. She looked all along the coastline which, thanks to the entire population of Heatheringdown, was now satisfyingly complete. She looked again. The resort she remembered wasn’t there. She frowned heavily. And, if she wasn’t very much mistaken, the coastline itself seemed to be waving in the wrong direction. And then she spotted some lettering which she was sure was Czech and not Spanish. She kept her finger on the spot, blinked very hard and started examining the rest of the puzzle. Sure enough, there were pieces in it that had been forced to fit, their colours and lettering completely wrong.

  Miss James came in, saw her and laughed.

  ‘Gosh, my dear!’ she said. ‘Still here?’ She walked to her desk and started hunting for today’s assembly notices. ‘That one’s taking for ever, isn’t it? I think it’s the longest one yet.’

  ‘Um,’ said Nicky. ‘Miss James.’

  ‘Hmm?’ She was delving through her papers.

  ‘I think I’ve spotted something.’

  ‘Hmm?’

  Nicky looked at her and waited. Miss James looked up.

  ‘I have a feeling I know why it’s taking so long,’ said Nicky.

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘People have been cheating.’

  Miss James’s features froze so instantly she looked like a photo. ‘What do you mean?’ Her voice was cold.

  ‘Well,’ Nicky looked back at the puzzle, ‘some of the pieces are wrong. They’ve just been put anywhere.’

  Miss James came to look. Nicky pointed at the pieces. They stood there for a while and then Miss James said, almost inaudibly, ‘Thank you.’

  That morning in assembly Miss James made no jokes and when she caught her glasses on her necklaces, she merely untangled them. She spoke gravely about the fact that somewhere in the school there was a cheat. Maybe several. And not just any cheat. A cheat in the biggest team game the school had ever undertaken. A cheat who had not just let down themselves, but let down the entire school.

  There was silence.

  Miss James explained that the puzzle on her desk in her office was not just a puzzle. It was a symbol. A symbol of a society working together towards a worthy purpose, that of creating a decent, hard-working, honest generation of men and women. She was ashamed and disheartened. And to have this happen just before the end of the school year, and days before her own re
tirement after twenty years as Headmistress, was doubly disheartening. She expected to have the culprit – or culprits – in her office at lunch-time.

  When no culprit appeared, she did the same the next day, with an ultimatum this time. If no one had come forward to admit their behaviour, the entire school would lose the half-day holiday from the last day of term. It would not be a half-day, it would now be a full day. By the end of the week, she was stony-faced throughout assembly. There were no jokes, there were no anecdotes.

  The morning meetings changed too. They were now short and sorry affairs with Miss James going through the motions. The puzzle table lay empty and the new blank space it left in the room looked oddly naked.

  After one such meeting, Nicky held back and asked Miss James if she was all right.

  Miss James looked at her.

  ‘I have been lied to,’ she said simply.

  To her surprise, Nicky began to long for the return of Miss James’s infuriating smiles. Meanwhile, she got back to filling her own capacity for worry to breaking point. The deadline for numbers for the Bournemouth trip was tomorrow morning nine o’clock sharp. Her deadline for relaying dietary requirements to the hostel was the day after, which would mean checking all the forms and invariably calling the parents who had forgotten to fill that bit in. She also needed to finish organising five days’ worth of activities for those pupils not going on the trip in good time to give to the teacher overseeing them while she was away, as well as finish all her end-of-year reports because there would be so little term-time after the trip. Reports were no longer the two-line judgements of yesteryear. Nicky had to find enough positive, encouraging and inspiring things to say about each child to fill a small booklet. In some cases, it was the most creative writing she did all year. Plus she still had a detailed, loving letter to write to her entire class for their end-of-year book which was being painstakingly assembled by one of the mothers.

  Even without a full-time job, this amount of work could easily fill a week, possibly four days if she didn’t sleep. But she liked her sleep. It was getting harder and harder to get up in the mornings and she had on occasion even been known to press her alarm snooze button.

  The next day, her worry capacity zoomed up to the red zone. She was in the staffroom when Amanda almost ran up to her, eyes and smile wide with anticipation.

  ‘You’ll never guess who’s coming on the trip!’ she declared.

  ‘Well, that’ll save time,’ replied Nicky dully, without pausing from what she was doing.

  Ally and Pete laughed heartily at this and Rob offered a smile.

  ‘Go on,’ Amanda demanded. ‘Guess. I’m so excited!’ Amanda turned to Rob.

  ‘Blimey.’ Rob smiled. ‘The Queen?’

  Amanda shrieked with laughter. ‘Wrong sex.’

  ‘Prince Philip?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Shergar,’ suggested Pete.

  ‘Rumpelstiltskin,’ offered Ally.

  Amanda was now only talking to Rob. ‘I’ll give you a clue. He works at this school, but he’s not a teacher. Has a child in Year 6 called Oscar. Blond hair. And green eyes.’ She looked at Nicky, incapable of controlling a smirk. Martha joined them.

  ‘You are kidding me!’ Martha told Amanda. They both shrieked.

  ‘Nope!’ laughed Amanda. ‘Go and have a look for yourself. He’s on the list. Next to his little boy. Just under me!’ She shrieked with laughter again.

  Now Nicky stared openly at Amanda, finally shocked into reacting.

  ‘You’re coming?’ she said, trauma overriding her politeness chip.

  ‘Of course!’ laughed Amanda. ‘I’m not going to miss a treat like that.’

  Nicky grimaced. ‘Are you actually aware of how much work this trip will involve?’ she asked. ‘It’s not a holiday.’

  Amanda’s smile stiffened on her face. ‘Thank you, Miss Hobbs. I’m perfectly aware of what is involved in a school trip.’

  ‘We’re going to the British seaside, Amanda.’

  ‘I know where we’re going.’

  ‘On the coast.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘With colleagues, not friends.’

  Amanda affected a smiling concern. ‘Oh, you seem really shaken up about this.’

  ‘On a glorified coach trip.’

  ‘I had no idea you’d be this upset.’

  ‘Sleeping in a hostel! Sharing showers! Working!’

  The others weren’t laughing any more and Amanda’s smile vanished so completely it was hard to believe it had ever existed.

  ‘I know,’ said Amanda pointedly, ‘and I’m going. Get over it.’

  Nicky turned to Ally and Pete.

  ‘You see?’ she told them desperately. ‘If Amanda can do it, you two can.’

  ‘If Amanda can do it,’ retorted Ally loyally, ‘anyone can.’ She turned to Amanda. ‘No offence, Amanda.’ She turned back to Nicky. ‘But I’d rather teach, thanks. And I want to have a week without you all. Especially without Miss James and Janet. I’m going to steal all the envelopes. It’ll be fun.’

  ‘I want to see Gwen doing assembly,’ said Pete.

  They all turned to him. ‘Why?’ asked Nicky.

  He lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘Apparently, she’s big in her local amateur dramatics society. She’s been having special coaching. The theme’s Reproduction.’

  ‘Oh! Excellent!’ laughed Ally. ‘I can’t wait.’

  Nicky was officially depressed. The nightmare had grown to Hitchcockian dimensions. Every day and every night for a whole week being scrutinised by Miss James (who had now not smiled for days). Every day and every night for a whole week competing with Rob who was either playing it cool or hinting at their possible future. And at the same time she would need to maintain order, discipline, fun, variety and comfort for forty kids away from home, some for the first time. No Ally for much-needed moral support. And every day and every night for a whole week in close contact with Mark, who made her head shrivel and her body swell from too much thought. And all this while being observed by that wily witch Amanda.

  ‘I’ve put my name down!’ screeched Martha. ‘I’m coming too!’

  And Martha.

  Nicky left the room to have a look at the list, followed close on her heels by Ally. Sure enough, there was Mark’s name, next to Oscar’s. (Just above Martha’s and below Amanda’s.) They stared up at the list.

  ‘By the way,’ murmured Ally, ‘you might have gone at Amanda a bit strong in there.’

  ‘Why the hell is he going?’ Nicky asked. ‘For a start, what’s Oscar doing going on this trip in the first place? Everyone knows it’s for the underprivileged kids.’

  ‘Maybe Oscar wanted to join in with the other kids for a change.’

  ‘Then why’s he bringing Daddy?’

  Ally looked at her. ‘First you hated Mark Samuels for not being involved enough in his son’s life, now you’re angry because he’s getting too involved. He can’t win, can he?’

  Nicky turned to Ally. ‘You honestly think he’s going on a crappy work trip to Bournemouth to be involved in his son’s life?’

  ‘What are you insinuating, Miss Hobbs?’ asked Ally, her eyes wide. ‘That Mark Samuels has an ulterior motive?’

  Nicky spoke through gritted teeth. ‘He’s a man, isn’t he?’

  ‘So what do you think it is, then?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I don’t like it.’

  ‘Why? If he’s after anyone, it’s you. You’re the one he’s tried to kiss.’

  ‘How do I know that?’ Nicky turned to Ally suddenly. ‘I’m just the one I know about. For all I know, he’s tried it on with all of us. Amanda’s in his office all the time. The first time I went in there he was so red I thought he was going through the male menopause.’

  ‘Well, he hasn’t tried it on with me,’ argued Ally.

  ‘I mean, think about it,’ continued Nicky, ‘this is a man who engineered a fake meeting at his house just so he could try and get off with
his son’s teacher. Which involved lying to our boss and, now I think about it, risking my career had Miss James found out the truth. For all we know he’s doing things like that with all of us. I wonder how many others he’s tried it on with?’

  ‘So do I,’ retorted Ally. ‘This is meant to be an equal opportunities school.’

  ‘Maybe all those bitchy things he said to me about Amanda were just to make me think he was on my side.’ Her voice rose. ‘Yes! He sounded me out first before laying into her. Like he was finding out my opinion before he gave his; you know . . . lulling me into a false sense of security, so I opened up and told him what the right thing to say was.’ Ally shook her head. ‘Maybe,’ continued Nicky, ‘he did the same to her about me. He’s ingratiating himself with all of us, one by one, like we’re all . . . I don’t know . . .’

  ‘Gibbering morons?’

  ‘I’ll tell you one thing.’

  ‘The aliens are coming?’

  ‘I bet he got a darn sight further with Amanda than he did with me.’ She gasped. ‘And if Oscar hadn’t interrupted us just before he and I . . . you know . . . God knows what would have happened. I bet I’d have stayed over. I could have lost my job over him. Jesus Christ. What the hell was I thinking?’

  ‘“I’m happy”?’ suggested Ally.

  ‘I mean, how much do I really know about this man? All I know is that he was a crap father for the first decade of his son’s life. I also know that he lied to his boss – and mine – just to get a quick snog. Those are the only things I actually know about him. Everything else is just flirting and wishful thinking. His idea of climbing the career ladder is probably sleeping with the next Headmistress! He’s from the City, Ally. They do things like that there.’