The Learning Curve

by Melissa Nathan

  Oscar frowned. Daisy sensed he needed more information.

  ‘Maybe Miss Hobbs has told him she likes your dad, or something. Why else would he need to make up that lie?’

  Oscar shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I don’t understand any of it.’

  ‘Well, don’t you worry,’ said Daisy contentedly. ‘I do. And I’ve decided. I’m going to be a private detective when I grow up.’

  Oscar looked at her with something approaching awe and fear.

  The next day, Oscar and Daisy accidentally left the camera in their dorm, so couldn’t get the film developed. They wouldn’t have had much time anyway, as the class went on a day-trip to an adventure playground and there wasn’t a chemist in sight. They had decided that they had to give Oscar’s dad proof when they told him of their discovery, so it would have to wait another day. On the coach trip to the playground, though, they were able to finish the treasure hunt.

  She lies not in water, but in stones

  Bordered by commerce, instead of sailors’ bones

  was the mermaid they’d seen in the city centre.

  Thank you is a simple word, and words cannot express

  How deep our gratitude goes on, for what you gave to us

  was the war memorial.

  It was easy once you got into the swing of it. You just had to remember that Mr Pattison was a self-righteous, pompous twit. It also helped having gone beyond the restricted area before all the other kids.

  The next day was meant to be a full day doing the treasure hunt. Because Oscar and Daisy had finished theirs, they were going to do some more spying and Oscar could get his film developed. He was so excited he could barely sleep all night. As it happened, they didn’t have any luck with the spying, but after lunch they sat behind the bandstand, where they knew – thanks to following Mr Pattison – that they would be invisible to everyone else. They fought over the photos.

  ‘I took it!’ shouted Oscar.

  ‘If it wasn’t for me you wouldn’t have known anything!’ shouted back Daisy.

  They opened them together.

  The photo was blurred, and mostly of Mr Pattison. But if you looked really carefully, you could make out a bit of Miss Taylor’s hair. And, through his legs, some of her skirt. It was proof enough. It reminded them both of the kiss and they made loud, slurpy noises on their arms and laughingly pushed each other away a lot, to compensate.

  Then they practised how Oscar would tell his dad in the most dramatic and important way possible. He needed quite a lot of tutoring on this from Daisy, so it was decided that if his dad bought him a thank-you present, Daisy was to get half of it.

  It wasn’t until after tea that Oscar got his father alone. There was one hour before bedtime, during which he was meant to be reading and then getting ready for bed. He knocked on the adults’ dorm door. His dad opened it. He was alone. The others were all either chatting to some children, preparing things for tomorrow or having their turn to get rat-arsed.

  ‘I’ve got something to tell you,’ announced Oscar. ‘Something very dramatic and important.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Daisy and me saw Mr Pattison kissing Miss Taylor yesterday,’ he blurted. ‘I mean, really kissing her. Like he was angry.’

  He waited for his father to start crying and hug him. Mark stared at his son.

  ‘How on earth do you know this?’

  ‘We spied on them! Look! I took a photo.’ He thrust the photo in front of his dad’s face.

  Mark jerked his head back and blinked at it.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ he whispered. ‘What the hell am I looking at, Oscar?’

  Oscar could barely get the words out.

  ‘You’re looking at them kissing. Look, that’s her hair, behind his head. And that’s her skirt through his trousers. You have to squint a bit –’

  His dad pushed the photo down. ‘I meant “What the hell have you done?”’

  ‘I took it!’ cried Oscar excitedly. ‘To show you! We spied on them! Daisy knew it all along!’

  ‘What on earth has got into you, Osc?’ his dad whispered.

  Oscar backtracked. ‘I told Daisy what you said about Miss Hobbs and Mr Pattison. And she said Mr Pattison was Miss Taylor’s boyfriend, not Miss Hobbs’s boyfriend. And she was right. She thinks men are shits. Is that true, Dad?’

  His dad just stared at him.

  ‘Well, aren’t you going to do anything?’ asked Oscar. ‘Tell Miss Hobbs? Tell Miss Taylor? Tell Mr Pattison?’ He paused. ‘Buy me a bike?’

  ‘Tell Miss Hobbs?’ repeated his dad. ‘And be the one to break her heart about the man she wants to spend the rest of her life with? And then hope she falls into my arms out of gratitude?’

  ‘Yes!’ cried Oscar. Gosh, his dad was such an idiot sometimes. ‘Daisy would like a bike too, but I said I couldn’t promise. But she was ever so good, though. She’s going to be a private detective when she grows up. She really helped –’

  ‘Is that what you do with our secrets?’ shouted Mark. ‘Run and tell Daisy? Are you going to tell her about my job, too?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘And as for you wanting a reward for spying on someone, I’m absolutely speechless.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘I’m . . . I’m so disappointed in you, Oscar, I don’t know what to say.’

  Oscar went hot. He wanted to hide from his father, but he wanted a hug at the same time.

  ‘Well, I’m going to tell Miss Hobbs if you’re not,’ he said, his breath coming fast.

  ‘Don’t be an idiot,’ shot his father.

  ‘I’m not an idiot!’ shouted Oscar. ‘You are!’

  ‘Oscar!’

  Oscar raced out of the room. He went straight to bed and lay curled up, face to the wall. Daisy tried to get him to talk but he just pushed her away.

  That night, Mark decided not to join Rob in the lounge. It was Ned’s turn to stay sober. Janet joined Rob, though, and drank him under the table. Unfortunately, Nicky had decided to as well, unable to spend another evening in the company of Amanda and Martha and finding it impossible to stay still when she knew Mark was with the others. By the time she realised he wasn’t joining them, she knew it would have looked too forced to walk out. She was stuck with the wrong crowd again.

  After the first night, Miss James had forbidden any of them to drink too late, so after an hour, Rob, Janet and Nicky returned to the dorm. They found Miss James fast asleep, her raucous snoring punctuating the whispers of Amanda, Martha and Mark, who were all sitting on Amanda’s bottom bunk. Nicky felt so envious she could almost taste it. Rob held the door open for Nicky, and when she caught Mark’s eye briefly, he looked away.

  After the events of the first night, a nocturnal routine had evolved in the adults’ dorm. Ned was strictly forbidden to sleep on the mattress next to his bed until Miss James had used it three times. She had always done this by midnight, and after then, Ned lay in the middle of the dorm, letting out thunderclaps that shattered everyone’s dreams. The novelty of these violent outbursts had worn off and no one found them funny any more. Revenge was taken by stepping on his sleeping face en route to the bathroom. By the end of the trip, Miss James had a bruised coccyx, hip and knee, and Ned had a swollen jaw.

  Oscar woke early the next morning, remembered the argument with his dad, and didn’t speak to Daisy once, all the way through breakfast. Afterwards they sat on the grass and tried to forget everything and pretend they were doing the stupid treasure hunt. Daisy told Oscar that if they couldn’t work on his dad, they were going to have to work on Mr Pattison or Miss Taylor.

  ‘I don’t want to help him,’ said Oscar. ‘I hate him.’

  ‘No, you don’t,’ said Daisy impatiently. ‘You’re angry with him. Because you love him so much. But because you’re emotionally stunted you can’t handle the emotion. All men are emotionally stunted. My mum said.’

  ‘But Miss Hobbs loves Mr Pattison.’

  ‘No, she doesn’t,’ said Daisy evenly
.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Oh just leave me alone!’

  ‘Don’t you want Miss Hobbs and your dad to be together?’

  Oscar gave a shrug. Then he thought of how he’d ruined everything the night Miss Hobbs had come to their house. He had to make it up to his dad, even if his dad hated him for it.

  ‘Don’t think of doing it for your dad,’ said Daisy, reading his mind. ‘Do it for you.’

  Oscar nodded. He thought of Miss Hobbs spending time with them at the weekend, going swimming with him, and introducing him properly to her eldest niece.

  But what should they do next? They tried thinking of something conclusive, something brilliant, but all they could come up with was leaving the photo on Miss Hobbs’s pillow.

  No. That was immature and cowardly, they decided. It was also not a good enough photo.

  So, they decided to do what any good detective does when he or she doesn’t know what to do next. They were going to do some more spying. And this time they needed to be able to hear what was being said. And there was only one way to do that.

  31

  THERE WERE NOW only two more days of the holiday left. Daisy and Oscar knew they had to do their spying tomorrow evening because there was a day-trip to Brownsea Island on the last day, and they would all be getting back to the dorms too late. Evenings were the only time when teachers had any free time alone.

  They spent the whole night making their plan, except between the hours of three and five, when things went a bit hazy before Oscar woke to dribble on his arm and Daisy snuffling into her elbow. By 6 a.m. their entire plan was settled and given a name, complete with codes. By 7 a.m., when the morning bell was rung to get up, they were ready for a good night’s sleep.

  Oscar was so excited that he couldn’t eat a thing for breakfast. Luckily he was too tired to, anyway. Even more luckily, breakfast was kippers. The day was boring, merely a stretch of time to be crossed before spying could commence and Plan O-D (Oscar-Daisy) could be put into action.

  When evening came, they exchanged the secret sign (a scratch on the left earlobe with the right index finger) during tea, and snuck away to their empty dorm. They sat behind the half-open door. From here they had a perfect view of who was coming in and out of the adults’ dorm opposite. They went over their plan.

  ‘If you go in and someone’s in there?’ asked Daisy.

  ‘Plan A,’ Oscar said.

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Pretend I want to talk to them.’

  ‘And if someone’s in the bathroom?’

  ‘Plan B.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Hide.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Spy.’

  Daisy nodded. ‘Right. Now. I’ll be out here. If you hear “tu-whit, tu-whoo”, what does it mean?’

  Oscar looked at her. ‘Someone’s doing a crap impersonation of an owl.’

  ‘Oscar! This is serious.’

  ‘Someone’s coming.’

  ‘If you hear it twice?’

  ‘All clear.’

  ‘Right.’

  They heard something. Daisy looked out into the corridor, Oscar peeked through the crack in the door.

  ‘Hobbit approaching,’ she whispered urgently. ‘Hobbit in hole.’

  ‘I know,’ hissed Oscar. ‘I’m next to you.’

  ‘Well, go on, then!’

  Oscar tutted. ‘She’ll still be in there.’

  ‘She might be in the bathroom.’

  ‘Give her two more minutes.’

  Daisy looked at her watch. Exactly two minutes later, she said, ‘Right. Go on.’

  Oscar jumped up and skidded in his socks across the empty corridor and into the adults’ dorm. He heard Daisy giggling behind him. The dorm was empty, the door leading to the bathroom showing an engaged red strip under the handle. Plan B it was. Hide. And Spy. Heart hammering, he glanced back at the dorm door. If he left now, no one would be any the wiser. He looked again at the bathroom door. He crouched down and lay flat on his back next to the nearest bed, preparing to slide under. He came face to face with the bottom of it. There wasn’t enough room for him. He heard the toilet flush, and leapt up. What should he do now? It hadn’t occurred to him that there wouldn’t be room to hide under a bed. Where else was a self-respecting child to hide in a teachers’ dorm? He climbed to the top bunk, whipped up the duvet and lay under it, as flat as could be. Quickly, he sat up again and piled some of the clothes scattered at the foot of the bunk on top of the duvet. He was a natural! Then he lay back down again, completely flat, piling a jumper round his head, but leaving his ear nearest the wall uncovered, so he could hear everything clearly. This was perfect. He could hear everything and was totally invisible. He heard the bathroom door open – Miss Hobbs! – and shut again behind her. He could hear her humming. It couldn’t have gone better.

  Then he fell asleep.

  Across the corridor, sitting cross-legged on the floor, Daisy picked up her magazine and opened her emergency supply of biscuits stolen from the kitchen earlier in the day. Then her eyes shut and she leant back heavily, the door closing behind her.

  Nicky sat on the bottom bunk – Rob’s bed – too knackered to climb into hers. Why was Mark ignoring her? Had he picked up on her innermost thoughts and found them repulsive? Had he told her that he hated children expressly to stop her from imagining anything ever going on between them? Oh, the humiliation. Still, she told herself immediately, if he persisted in calling kids awful and kept ignoring her, it would definitely make it much easier to go with Rob’s white-picket-fence vision of life together. A girl could be offered much less and live quite happily on that, she told herself, thinking of Claire.

  She lay back on Rob’s bed and let out a low, heavy sigh. The door opened.

  ‘Hey!’ said Rob. ‘Starting without me? I knew you were competitive, but that’s ridiculous.’

  She shot up into sitting position. ‘I’m too knackered to climb into my bed. Honestly, it’s an obstacle course just to get to sleep.’

  Rob laughed and sat down next to her.

  ‘Don’t worry, Nicky,’ he said softly. ‘Not long now.’

  She managed a small smile. ‘Yeah, then the longest job interview known to man will be over.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Rob, sidling closer to her, ‘and then we can ignore the old bat and just get on with our lives, eh?’

  Nicky leant her back against the wall and looked at him.

  ‘Mr Pattison, if I didn’t know you better, I’d think you were trying to put me off the race before it was over,’ she said archly.

  To her surprise Rob answered seriously.

  ‘Hardly!’ he cried. ‘Fucking hell! I’m only the guy offering you everything you’ve ever wanted instead of winning a stupid old bat’s idea of a race.’

  Nicky frowned.

  ‘Everything I’ve ever wanted,’ she repeated, nodding dully.

  ‘Yeah!’ He sounded piqued. ‘Kids, husband, financial security, the whole kit and caboodle. But if you want to go ahead and win some fuck-off stupid race instead –’

  ‘Ah!’ she said, suddenly getting it. ‘I see, you mean everything I ever wanted when I was twenty-three!’

  He looked at her and his eyes went suddenly soft. ‘I know you, Nicky,’ he said with a gentle urgency. ‘Better than anyone else in the world. And I know you haven’t changed that much.’ He put a large hand on her thigh.

  ‘You don’t know me more than I know me, Rob,’ she said, moving his hand off her thigh.

  ‘Sometimes you’re your own worst enemy,’ he whispered, putting his hand back, more gently this time.

  She tried to concentrate.

  ‘And sometimes our worst enemies are our friends in disguise,’ she said, putting it back.

  That seemed to really annoy him. ‘What the hell does that mean?’

  She hadn’t meant to annoy him, she was just talking hypothetically, while trying to keep his hand off her th
igh. But now she’d started, she’d better keep going.

  ‘You know,’ she said, sweetly, ‘if you really felt strongly for me, as you claim to do, you’d be happy for me trying to be Head. I’m happy for you. I don’t keep trying to talk you out of it, do I?’

  ‘It’s exactly because I do feel strongly for you that I’m trying to help,’ pleaded Rob. ‘I know you, Nicky, and I know that you’re not thinking this through! If you settled down with me, you’d have the family you always wanted within a year and you wouldn’t give a shit about this stupid promotion.’

  ‘Will you stop going on about me and kids!’ cried Nicky. ‘You’re bloody obsessed!’

  ‘Nicky, you can try and pretend to yourself, but I know the truth. I’m the one you finished with because I didn’t want to give you children before you were twenty-five! I’m the one whose shoulder you cried on because you thought promotion meant no kids, remember?’

  ‘I was twenty-three, Rob! What the hell did I know about myself? I thank God I never rushed into having kids that young. And I only cried once! It was just the shock of it. You seem to forget that I didn’t cry when the headship came up.’

  ‘Look, you may be in denial, but I can see it like it is,’ said Rob. ‘You’re not getting any younger. If you want more than one child – and I know you do – you’ll have to pop them out quickly. And believe me, you won’t have the time or energy to be a head teacher of a school as well. And you’ll be such a good mother that you won’t care anyway!’

  ‘What the hell gives you the right to tell me what I want and don’t want?’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Love?’ he said softly. There was that hand again.

  There was another pause.

  ‘And anyway,’ she said, trying to lighten the tone while moving his hand again, ‘maybe I’ll find a man who’s already got a family. Maybe I’ll be a fantastic stepmum and a brilliant headmistress at the same time.’

  ‘Oh for fuck’s sake, Nicky!’ To her amazement, Rob started shouting. ‘You’re so fucking naïve. You live in cloud-cuckoo-land. Which planet are you from? It’s like watching you try to do Miss James’s pathetic puzzle every morning. You must have wasted hours doing it.’