by Zoe Heller
“Get out!” Richard roared. “Go back inside!” For once, Polly had no rejoinder. She glanced briefly up at her mother and then went back into the living room.
Sheba stood still, looking down at the woman’s fierce, red face.
Later on, she would come to see how much of the mother there was in the son: the brown complexion, the bullish physique, the tragedy mask eyes. At that moment, though, the woman’s features seemed so alien and hostile that Sheba was momentarily persuaded she wasn’t Connolly’s mother after all.
“You’re scared now, aren’t you?” the woman jeered. “Come on—get down here. I want to talk to you.”
It was electrifying, she says, to have a stranger shouting commands at her in her own house. Richard was peering up at her too now, his face very pale next to the woman’s. Sheba could tell from his bewildered expression that he had not yet understood. He still regarded himself as in league with his wife against this dumpy intruder in their hallway. I have only a few minutes left of my old life, she remembers thinking, as she began walking down the stairs.
“The headmaster rang us today,” Mrs. Connolly said. “He wants us to come in and see him tomorrow about Steven. Won’t say why on the phone. I say to Steven, ‘What can he want to see us about?’ And he starts crying. Sobbing his heart out. I got it out of him. He’s told me everything. I’ve even seen those dirty letters you’ve been sending—”
“Now hang on a minute—” Richard said.
“No, Richard,” Sheba interrupted.
“That’s right,” Mrs. Connolly said. “You can’t deny it, can you? Why don’t you tell him what you’ve been doing with my son?”
“You must control yourself,” Richard said. “There’s a child in the house.”
Sheba suddenly remembered Ben, still sitting in his cooling bath. “Polly!” she shouted. “Come upstairs and watch your brother.”
Mrs. Connolly’s mouth silently opened and closed like a fish’s maw. “Don’t be telling me to control myself! I’ve got kids too, you know.”
Polly emerged from the living room again. “Could someone please tell me what’s going on?” she demanded.
“Shut up, Polly, and go upstairs,” Richard said.
Polly trudged sullenly past Sheba.
Sheba was standing on the last step of the staircase now. Tears were coursing down her face.
“That’s right, cry,” Mrs. Connolly said, “you perverted bitch.”
“I’m sorry,” Richard broke in. “I’m going to have to …” He put his hand on Mrs. Connolly’s arm and tried to turn her towards the front door. But she writhed away from him. “Evil cow!” she screamed at Sheba.
There was a brief struggle, in the course of which Richard’s spectacles fell to the floor and Mrs. Connolly’s hat came askew. “Don’t … you … touch … me!” she screeched at Richard. For a moment, the three of them—Sheba, Richard, and Mrs. Connolly in her tipsy hat—stood still.
Then Richard bent down to retrieve his spectacles. He was putting them back on and had just begun to say something to Mrs. Connolly in the fruitily appeasing tone that Sheba calls his “Come now” voice when Mrs. Connolly made a running lunge at Sheba.
The contact lasted only a few seconds, but when Richard pulled Mrs. Connolly off, she was holding a surprisingly large amount of Sheba’s hair in her hand.
“No more!” Richard roared. He took hold of Mrs. Connolly’s shoulders. There was scuffling and shouting. Sheba stood clutching the hall table, sobbing. She recalls, with some amazement, seeing Richard clasp Mrs. Connolly from behind and attempt to carry her, in an awkward bear hug, to the door. Mrs. Connolly’s crepe-soled winter boots dragged on the hall carpet like a corpse’s.
After the door slammed, there was a tiny window of silence, and then the doorbell began to ring. Richard stood with his back to the door, breathing heavily. Sheba sat on the floor. They stared at one another across the hallway, listening to the long, urgent alarms of the bell and, just audible beneath them, the muffled opera of Mrs. Connolly screaming on the front step.
Sheba did not call me after Mrs. Connolly left. Her hands were full with Richard, I suppose. The next day she chose—wisely enough—to stay at home and skip her scheduled interview with Pabblem. I tried calling her from school several times that morning, but she did not answer. As a result, I was in the dark for much of the day, forced to piece together what had happened from the scraps of frantic gossip being exchanged by my colleagues. Sheba had been found out having an affair with Steven Connolly, people were saying. There had been a fistfight between her and the boy’s mother. It was possible—even probable—that she had seduced other boys. The police had been called in.
At first break I found Elaine Clifford in the staff room, surrounded by a crowd of glinty-eyed teachers, as she relayed the latest dispatches from Dierdre Rickman in the headmaster’s office. At that very moment, she reported, Pabblem was “in conference” with the police and the Connolly family. Sheba had been called in to face the music, but she had refused to come, and the police were now on their way to her house to arrest her. Pabblem was in a terrible state by all accounts. Just an hour ago, he had shrieked at a work experience intern for making his coffee too milky. Dierdre Rickman attributed this behaviour to feelings of guilt and anger. Pabblem could not forgive himself, she said, for the fact that Sheba’s lurid misdeeds had occurred on his watch.
Personally, I doubted this theory. If Pabblem was in a nasty mood, it seemed much more likely that he was wracked with regret at having lost the opportunity to bully and humiliate Sheba. Had it not been for Mrs. Connolly’s precipitate action—her insistence on barging into Sheba’s home the night before—Sheba would have come to school that morning and Pabblem would have had her in his clutches for at least a couple of hours of thundering interrogation. Now she had escaped him, and there was nothing for him to do but surrender control of the investigation to the police. Poor old Pabblem had been robbed of his sadistic moment.
Somewhere in the middle of Elaine’s performance, Mawson came in to hand out copies of Pabblem’s much-delayed “Where We Go Wrong” report. Pabblem had been scheduled to give an introductory talk at lunchtime about the challenging new ideas contained in its pages, but now, owing to what Mawson called, with redundant discretion, “an unforeseen matter,” he was obliged to cancel. A small cheer went up from the staff when they heard this—succeeded by a loud groan when Mawson announced that a new meeting had been set for the following week. Pabblem, he assured us, was still very much looking forward to hearing staff “feedback” on his proposed initiatives.
On the way back to my classroom, I spotted Bangs scuttling along the ground-floor corridor of Old Hall. His name had not come up yet in any of the staff discussions I had overheard. Everyone seemed to be under the impression that Mrs. Connolly was responsible for uncovering Sheba’s affair. I knew better. His eyes met mine just as he was about to enter the staff toilet. He froze, like a surprised cockroach. His mouth opened to say something, and then he seemed to decide against it. “Little shit!” I hissed as he closed the toilet door behind him.
At around four o’clock, I finally managed to get Sheba on the phone.
“Sheba!” I said when she picked up. “Thank God. I’ve been trying to get you all day. Are you all right?”
“No … well, it’s a pretty awful mess here. As you can imagine.”
“Have you seen the police?”
“Yup. Yup. They came this morning. Richard went with me to the station. There was a lot of stuff they had to do. Fingerprinting and so on. We only got back an hour ago.” I had expected tears and screams, but she was weirdly matter-of-fact. It was the shock, I suppose.
“How is he taking it?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I’m terribly worried. He’s still not answering …”
“What?”
“Oh, sorry, Richard you mean? He’s … I don’t know.”
“Shall I come over?”
“No, better not. I don�
�t think Richard wants visitors. And we haven’t spoken to the children yet.”
The next day, there was a small item about Sheba in the Evening Standard. It wasn’t much—just a paragraph at the bottom of page four about a North London teacher being charged with indecent assault on a pupil. But I knew then that the floodgates were about to open. I spoke to Sheba briefly at lunchtime. She was even quieter now—almost catatonic. She still didn’t want me to come to the house, so there was nothing for me to do after school but go home and fret.
On Wednesday morning I was called in to see Pabblem. It did not occur to me that he was going to talk to me about Sheba. I assumed that he wanted to discuss the third-years’ special history project on Ireland. According to a rumour floating about at the time, he was hoping to honour the sufferings of Irish peasants during the potato famine by having the children observe a daylong fast.
There was no preamble to our business on this occasion. Pabblem merely nodded when I entered his office and started talking before I sat down. “As you know, Barbara, Sheba Hart is in quite a bit of trouble.”
I nodded. “Yes, I’m aware of that.”
“Quite a bit.”
“Yes.”
“I gather you’re close to her.”
“She is my friend, yes.”
He looked at me meaningfully.
“Is there something you …?” I began.
“No, I won’t beat about the bush, Barbara,” he said. “It’s been brought to my attention that you may have known about Sheba’s relationship with Steven Connolly for some time.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
There was a heavy silence.
“Brian Bangs tells me that you spoke of the relationship to him before Christmas. Is that or is that not the case?”
“I advised Brian of my suspicions, that is true.”
“Oh? Brian seemed to think you were more than suspicious. He seems to think you were pretty certain.”
“Well, he’s wrong.”
“Very well. But did it not occur to you to share your suspicions with one of your senior colleagues? With me?”
“No. As I say, they were only suspicions. I am not a gossip.”
“You are aware, of course, that Sheba’s conduct with this boy is a criminal offence? A very serious one?”
“I am aware of that.”
“Are you also aware that failure to pass on information about a criminal offence may be construed as criminal in itself?”
“I see what you are insinuating, but I’m afraid you’re mistaken. I had no information to pass on. As I have explained, I am not in the habit of trading in unsubstantiated rumour.”
“And yet you were happy to pass on an ‘unsubstantiated rumour’ to Brian?”
“Look …,” I began.
Pabblem stood up now. “You and I don’t get along, do we Barbara?” he said. “It’s not for want of trying on my part, I think. I’ve certainly tried. I know you’ve been unhappy with my leadership of St. George’s. I know you find my way of doing things a little”—he made a quotation gesture with his fingers—“newfangled. But I think you’ll admit that I’ve made a real effort to see your point of view. Haven’t I? Wouldn’t you admit that?”
I looked out of the window at the headmaster’s garden. A lone sparrow was pecking hopefully at the sheet of ice covering the birdbath.
“I think we’ve both tried to be civil with one another,” I said.
“Yes, and it’s still not working between us, is it?”
“We’re not obliged to be friends,” I said.
Pabblem walked around his desk and crouched down next to my chair. “I’ll tell you the truth, Barbara. I find myself in a bit of a bind here. I am extremely reluctant to believe that you acted as Sheba’s accomplice—”
“Excuse me—”
“And yet,” he said, raising his voice, “and yet I am under a very clear obligation to pass on any relevant information regarding my staff to the police. It’s a tricky situation. You can see …”
“I wasn’t an accomplice. I have done nothing wrong,” I said.
He laughed and stood up. “Come on, Barbara! If you tell me you didn’t know about Sheba, then I believe you. But you must understand that, if you stay with us, I shall have to put the police in touch with you. As long as you’re a member of my staff, I need to be sure there’s not even a semblance of wrongdoing …”
“This is nonsense …”
“ … It shouldn’t be a big problem, talking to the police about this. Not if you really didn’t know. I just thought it might be something you’d want to avoid. So I’ve been wondering—”
“But look—”
“Please!” Pabblem held up a hand. “Let me finish, Barbara!” He paused for a moment, before continuing. “As I say, I’ve been wondering how I might help you out. It occurs to me that this might be a good opportunity for us to take stock … to, you know, reconsider your role here at St. George’s. Since you are of an age—forgive me—at which retirement is a plausible option, I’m thinking, well … perhaps that might be the best course of action for you now.”
I stared at him. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that you have two choices—”
“One choice, two alternatives, I think you mean.”
“Whatever.” Pabblem shrugged. “I’m offering you a dignified exit.”
Not trusting my own composure, I did not reply.
“Look,” he continued, “you needn’t decide now. It’s a big decision. Why don’t you go away and have a think about it?”
He planted himself against the door as I got up to leave. “I’m glad we had this talk, Barbara. You’ll let me know what you decide, won’t you? ASAP?”
I did not reply, and he remained standing in front of the door. “Can we agree on, say … tomorrow afternoon as a deadline?”
Finally I nodded, and he moved to one side. “Atta girl,” he said.
I was halfway down the corridor when he called out to me again. “By the way, Barbara, have you had a chance to look at this?” I turned to see that he was holding up a copy of “Where We Go Wrong.” I shook my head. “Oh, Barbara!” he said, cheerfully. “Tut tut! Do try and give it a read. There are some very exciting things in it, if I say so myself.”
16
Eddie rang yesterday to let Sheba know that he and the family will be returning from India in a week. Sheba relayed the news with such glazed-eyed indifference that I was sure I had misheard her. “A week?” I repeated. We have always known that Eddie would be back in June, but I suppose I had been counting on some last-minute reprieve.
“Yes,” Sheba said idly. “He wanted to know how the garden was doing. Have you been watering it at all, Barbara?”
“Don’t worry about the bloody garden,” I said. “What about us?”
Sheba looked at me, startled. Then she shrugged.
“Do you think there’s any chance he’d let us stay on for a bit?” I asked.
“Oh no,” Sheba said. “I don’t think so. He told me to leave the keys on the kitchen table when I go.”
“And where, pray tell, does he think you’ll be going? What are we going to do?”
Sheba said nothing.
“Are you listening to me, Sheba?” I said. “We can’t camp on the streets—”
“Oh God, oh God,” she cried suddenly. “Don’t shout at me. I can’t bear it.”
There was silence in the room.
“Ohh, you mustn’t mind me,” I said after a moment. “I’m just a worrywart, you know that. We’ll work something out.”
“No, no,” she said, suddenly remorseful. “I oughtn’t to have snapped at you.”
“Not to worry,” I said.
She shook her head. “Poor Barbara. I must be a nightmare to live with these days.”
“Nooo,” I said, getting up to put on the kettle. “Not at all.”
After we had had some tea and I judged her to have recovered from her
little outburst, I went to the shops to get something for our dinner. I left her lolling in an armchair in the living room, watching television. But, when I returned an hour or so later, she was lying on the living room floor and her eyes were red from crying. I thought at first that she had been mulling over our impending homelessness. But then I saw that she had been reading something. Spread out before her on the carpet was my manuscript.
I am usually scrupulous about putting my writing away. But Sheba has been so self-absorbed, so incurious about her surroundings of late that I guess I had allowed my precautions to become a little lax. The previous night, instead of taking the manuscript up to bed with me and putting it under my mattress as usual, I had placed it on the bookshelf, inside one of Eddie’s large photographic volumes.
“You told Bangs,” Sheba said when I walked in. Her voice was trembling slightly.
I put down my shopping bags. “What?”
“You told Bangs about me and Connolly.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“Stop it!” Sheba screamed. “Don’t lie to me. I’ve read it all in … in … your little diary.” She scrambled up from her prone position and brandished the manuscript at me. “What is this? What are you doing with this?”
“Sheba … don’t get het up. It’s something I’ve been writing … .” I began.
“I see that. How dare you? How dare you? What are you planning to do with it? Sell it and make a million?”
“I … I thought it would be useful to put everything down. I thought it might help with the court case.” I stepped forward to try to wrest the manuscript from her, but she darted away.
“Help?” she said. “To hear about me buying thongs and … and … hitting my daughter? What a wicked, wicked person you are! You betrayed me! You told Bangs.”
“For goodness’ sake, Sheba,” I said. “You would have been found out anyway. Your own daughter knew you were up to something. And the letters! How could you have expected not to be caught?”
Sheba stared at me. “What an idiot I’ve been to trust you. All that filth and lies you’ve been writing …”