Head Start

by Judith Cutler

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A simple precaution like leaving a radio on to deter intruders wouldn’t work during the daytime, of course: everyone who knew who I was knew where I’d be – even the oil delivery firm, which I called the moment their switchboard eventually opened.

  Not that the oil company could promise a same-day delivery, the bored-sounding woman at the other end of the phone told me, since obviously this was the sort of weather when everyone wanted a top-up. Furthermore, since the village wasn’t scheduled for another visit for a while, I’d have to pay a special call-out fee. She took my credit card details straightaway – I gathered it wasn’t unknown for customers to agree a delivery with one firm only to change their mind and switch to a rival supplier. I wasn’t surprised. But in any case, I didn’t have time to trawl through the phone book for alternatives – the first teachers were already arriving, stamping the snow off their boots and talking about hot chocolate. I would join them – the bite I’d snatched in the cold hole of my kitchen was a long time ago. In fact, I’d share with them the croissants I’d bought last night. I nipped out to fetch them. It would be highly indecorous to stomp across the pristine playground kicking snow for the simple pleasure of it, but one of my therapists had insisted that simple pleasures were good for you.

  It then dawned on me that at least the fresh fall of snow would expose the footsteps of anyone stepping over my fence. Step was the word – it was a perfunctory affair, comprising lengths of two by two set edgewise on stubby little posts with v-shaped notches to accommodate them and narrow bands of zinc or something to hold them in place. It was too low for a child to creep under it, but a five-year-old could just about jump over it, especially if someone held their hand. So it marked a boundary, but no more. Yesterday the children had ranged over it unchecked, but now the pristine novelty of the main snowfall had worn off I would declare it out of bounds – though I suspected the prohibition would be honoured more in the breach than the observance.

  That had been the fate of my snow ‘No Parking’ cones, now no more than unlovely smears – the same colour, now, as the stains of animal urine against the school gates.

  My colleagues seemed a mite uneasy in my company when I joined them in their minute staffroom, but accepted my largesse with abandon. They seemed to be waiting for me to start the conversation. I suppose I might have started by asking where Tom was: if Liz, who also had to take her children elsewhere could be in, why couldn’t he? But I’d wait till I could corner him alone.

  What I did say was that they all deserved a breakfast Buck’s Fizz, with more champagne than was normal, for all they had done yesterday. Helen grinned: chocolate was warmer, she said. ‘In any case, I don’t really deserve anything: all I did was act as Base Camp yesterday. It was everyone else who ran round.’

  I turned an enquiring eye in her direction. ‘And you’d have been really safe in the playground on your crutches, wouldn’t you? I honestly wouldn’t have been surprised if you’d called to say you didn’t dare try to get in. And you managed again this morning, too. Well done.’ I turned to the others. ‘In fact, well done, everyone. We’ll celebrate by having the most perfunctory staff meeting possible tomorrow. I daresay that Melanie has already circulated a notice of meeting? One of the items on the agenda was going to be changing the usual staff meeting day from Friday to Monday to give you a better start to the weekend: would that suit everyone? No home or family commitments on Mondays? Excellent. And just to warn you – I like short, swift meetings. So I expect any reports to be circulated beforehand – email, so that Melanie can simply download them as appendices to the minutes. Short reports. In English, not jargon. Now, there are four croissants still begging to be eaten: I promise you the calories don’t count as much in weather like this.’

  If I was surprised by the muted responses to anything I said, and a decided avoidance of eye contact, I didn’t have time to ask any questions now, though there would be a few delicate enquiries when I could speak to individuals. And no doubt Melanie could enlighten me when the morning rush was over. As it was, it was action stations for us all: the first bell was sounding, so the children should be lining up ready to march into school, and we should be lined up inside to greet them. There would be more outdoor jollity later, but not until we’d decided when.

  ‘Why not just make a longer lunch break?’ Liz asked. ‘It’d be a good way of motivating. No progress with maths, no fun later.’

  ‘Or even the second half of the afternoon, so they could go straight home and their mums and dads would have to deal with the soggy clothes?’ Tom chipped in, appearing at the half-open door.

  ‘But that would look like extra playtime, not a learning experience,’ Liz objected.

  ‘God, get her and her jargon!’

  ‘Liz has a point, Tom. What I want you to do is choose yourselves if and when you go out, making sure they have appropriate tasks and time afterwards to complete them. Let me know so I can come out with you – not in any way to supervise you but to be there in case of an accident. OK, people – time to let them in.’

  I watched from the sidelines. In the children trooped. Class by class. Not tidily and not quietly.

  On the other hand there was no running. And definitely no welly-wanging.

  But there was staring.

  So far in my brief time in the school no one child had stood out in any way. There were short children and tall ones, some thin, but more fat, almost entirely white, with one little boy of Indian origin whose parents were optometrists, and one stunning Malaysian girl, whose mother, according to Melanie, worked in a local care home. They all had abilities I wanted to nurture and difficulties I wanted to help them overcome. But not one of them was like this child. She had long, dark auburn hair, with the pallor that often goes with it. But her pallor was extreme: she might have been wearing a white mask. With eyebrows and lashes invisible, the illusion was even more marked. Her round eyes were as black as buttons. Her mouth, already pursed as an old woman’s, was minute. The only large feature was a desperately prominent nose. I wanted to feel sorry for her; instead I was repelled. As she made her way to the cloakroom she stared. As she yanked off her wellies, she stared. As she hung up her coat and stowed her gloves neatly in the pockets, she stared.

  It wasn’t until she trotted off to her class that she spoke. ‘Your heels are much too high,’ she said, closing the door behind her.

  ‘Prudence,’ said Melanie when I mentioned the incident. ‘Prudence Digby. Not Special Needs, not at all, but – just like that. She … she’s not popular.’

  I wasn’t surprised, if that was her usual demeanour. ‘With the kids or with the staff?’

  Melanie shrugged expressively. Her back crunched again. ‘Rumour has it that with her propensity for eavesdropping – some people even call it spying – she’s in training for MI5. I’ve got her sick note here: apparently she’s had the D and V bug going the rounds.’

  ‘I thought I hadn’t seen her before.’

  ‘I suspect you’ll see her again. Quite often.’ But the phone rang before she could say more.

  They were all good teachers, no doubt about that. They’d all devised suitable tasks, some more inventive than others, but everyone, from Tina, a wisp of a girl who had her group doing snow sculptures, to Liz, working out the best weight for a throwable snowball, had come up with something of which Ofsted would approve. Even Tom was working with a will, organising a competition to devise the best snowshoes and skis, to which I contributed my mite in the form of those very elderly tennis racquets I’d found in the sports stockroom: I didn’t mind investigating that in broad daylight, and certainly hadn’t uncovered anything to cause any alarm but, thanks to Simon, I still wasn’t sure about doing it on my own at night.

  None of the racquets had strings intact; most were, in my view, too heavy for the average primary school child’s wrist. I would sacrifice the lot. They became templates for some shoe designs, while other children tied them over their wellies
as they were. At the end of the period, Tom started a race for his group to give the new designs a proper testing. I stood at the finishing line, applauding.

  As they trooped in, I fell into step with Tom. ‘That was a cracking lesson – well done!’

  ‘Just so long as you’re not expecting me to teach tennis in the summer.’ There wasn’t a glimmer of a smile.

  ‘If I do, it’ll be with more appropriate racquets.’

  ‘You’ve no idea how long it took me to get those – I raided every charity shop in a twenty-mile radius.’

  ‘And paid for them yourself, I gather? There was nothing left in the budget?’

  ‘Diddly-squat.’

  I picked up his tone: it would have been hard not to. ‘And tennis matters enough for you to go to all that trouble and expense? You play?’

  ‘Wrist injury. Like Laura Robson’s. Ended everything.’ He made a vicious slicing gesture, presumably with his non-playing hand.

  ‘I’m so sorry. But tennis’s loss is teaching’s gain. It’s a great shame an Ofsted inspector didn’t happen to be passing,’ I added, when he didn’t respond to my genuine compliment. Or did he find my comments merely ingratiating? Come to think of it, perhaps they were. I’d spent so much of my life being ingratiating to Simon to try to defer the next assault it had become horribly like second nature. ‘Now, in future, I’m going to hold my staff meetings on Monday afternoons after school; I’ll let you know well in advance so you can let all the Chess Club kids know.’

  ‘Why?’ he demanded, like a child being told vegetables were good for him.

  ‘Because every teacher I know is so knackered by Friday afternoon that he or she deserves to go home at a civilised hour. Even – perhaps especially – if you all spend most of your weekends working. OK?’ I fell out of step with him lest he modify his demeanour from grudging to downright rude.

  Stepping from behind a waste bin, Prudence materialised at my side. ‘It’s quite obvious that he doesn’t like you, Miss Cowan. And equally obvious that you don’t like him.’

  As I opened my mouth to rebuke her for such inappropriate comments, however beautifully they might be expressed, someone just behind her fell over and needed instant repairs and comfort. But I would be keeping my eye on Prudence.

  Still awaiting an oil delivery, I returned to my office to continue working after a hasty supper. Though I was tempted to watch series episodes I’d missed on my computer, I resolved to master yet more documents. Emails first, of course. The first pinging its way into my inbox was from the Chair of Governors, no less. It was a request to make myself available for a meeting of the board of governors at nine on Saturday morning – so many governors now worked that this was felt to be the most convenient time. An agenda would follow shortly. I might smile ruefully at the notion that having governors who had to work for their living instead of swanning round like Lord or Lady Bountiful with endless leisure was somehow newfangled, but I also seethed. An agenda needed preparation from all concerned, especially the newcomer – me. At least I had prepared and circulated the agenda for Friday’s staff meeting, attaching, thanks to Melanie, minutes of the last one, chaired by the now sick deputy head. They didn’t seem to have discussed much: I wouldn’t have held a meeting with so little to worry about.

  What I did have to worry about was Saturday’s encounter with the governors: how on earth could I acquit myself with any honour if I had no idea what facts I needed to know? I had a nasty feeling, as I picked my way back to the cold of my house, that they were going to be more interested in what I didn’t know; and, of course, what I hadn’t done.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The joy of meetings is vastly overrated, with the charm of analysing statistical returns a particularly dispiriting part. But it was Friday afternoon and the promised staff meeting, so it had to be done: absences of both staff and pupils; scores in classroom assignments leading in time to SATS and league tables; any concerns about individual children. Riveting stuff. I’d added a quick appraisal of the snow-days’ activities.

  Naturally I wanted to raise the subject of Prudence: there was nothing in any of her records to suggest behavioural issues, let alone anything like autism. On the contrary, she was always described as a model pupil.

  ‘God knows why! She’s not model at all, unless she’s a model Machiavelli, complete with a copy of The Prince in her bag,’ Tom said. ‘Trouble, pure and simple. The trouble is she’s so bright that she can twist words and situations, to her own ends.’

  Liz nodded. ‘She was the one who kept trying to bring her mobile in, despite Mrs Gough’s diktat. She said that the rule violated her human rights. Human rights! She involved one or two of the others too. But Mrs Gough stuck to her guns.’

  ‘Wasn’t there quite a row with the parents last term?’ Helen asked. ‘We had to point out that just because Mrs Gough had left no one had changed the rule.’

  Liz said, ‘Long story. It seems—’

  ‘That the clock is ticking,’ Tom said baldly.

  ‘But what you have to say may well be important,’ I said, trying to override him, though I couldn’t have made the point more succinctly myself. ‘Liz, perhaps you could brief me next week? Any other pupils I need to know about? Not because their behaviour needs to be recorded, but just because you might be uneasy?’

  Liz and Helen exchanged a look. ‘A couple of reception kids are soiling or wetting themselves – they don’t seem to like using the loos.’

  ‘Boys’ or girls’ loos?’

  ‘Both. Not the main ones, just the ones near the stockrooms. They’re useful for kids using the breakfast club, which these children go to.’

  ‘But they don’t have problems when they get to their classroom and can use the ones serving the rest of the school? Odd.’ I made a note. ‘Has anyone talked to them? To their parents?’

  Helen said, ‘I know their parents quite well: I’ll try to catch them on Monday – the snow’s made it all a bit chaotic, hasn’t it?’

  Which got us neatly into the last item. I thought we’d have a nice mutual congratulation session. Wrong. A lot of parents were unhappy, according to Tom – who else?

  ‘On what grounds?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, you know the sort of thing.’

  ‘I’ve never run a snow day at this school so I don’t. Did you have time to circulate a list of criticisms, Tom? No? Did anyone else have negative feedback?’ I looked around. ‘Helen, you were hors de combat while it was all going on and therefore neutral – could you spend ten minutes, fifteen absolute max, gathering everyone’s comments and email them to us all? If I get the mini-report by eight on Tuesday morning I can put guidelines together for our next Arctic adventure.’ I looked ostentatiously at my watch. ‘We all have homes to go to.’ Except me. ‘As you know, I’d like to move these meetings to another time. Is three-thirty on Mondays a good time for everyone? Excellent. Not next Monday, obviously: we’ve covered everything and you need to make proper arrangements. And remember, you email any document or reports to Melanie and indeed the rest of us so that we waste the minimum of time. Now, just one more thing. The stockrooms the other side of the hall. They’re both chaotic, dangerous even. There’s been no response at all to the note I sent you all earlier.’ I looked each in the eye, receiving blushes and mumbles in response. ‘I’ve been trying to empty them on my own, but it’s like a flea biting an elephant. If you think there’s anything worth saving there, we’ll have to sort it out. If you don’t, I’ll get in a contractor to clear the lot.’

  Tina, who had been almost anonymous all week, raised a hand as if she was one of the children she managed so beautifully. ‘If people put stuff in there, they must have thought it was worth keeping, mustn’t they?’

  ‘Like those tennis racquets,’ Tom observed to the room at large.

  ‘In that case, in the absence of volunteers, we’ll have to have a working party to deal with it. Tom, would you consult everyone and decide the best time to do it? Soon, of course. Very
soon. Thanks, everyone: go safely and have a good weekend.’

  You’d have thought after all these years I wouldn’t mind going home to an empty and unwelcoming house, but I still did. Especially when I was cold and wet, having measured my length as I left the school. The steps, which I had personally cleared and salted, were a sheet of ice. It looked as if someone had poured a bucket of water over them. At least my bag and laptop were undamaged, and all I sustained were bruises. But the ice was something I must certainly deal with before the governors’ meeting – two at least were elderly women, and might have wrists and ankles weakened by osteoporosis. A fall like mine would do them no good at all.

  At least I’d soon be warm. I’d seen the oil tanker delivering to other houses in the village, even though I’d not had time to have the pleasure of watching it fill my tank.

  If I’d had all the time in the world I’d not have seen it fill my tank. My tank was echoingly empty. Perhaps the tanker was still around the village somewhere? To my embarrassment, I pulled my coat tighter and started running round the village streets. At least everyone was tucked into their cosy living rooms and couldn’t see me. As it happened, I did come across the lorry, just about to pull on to the main road out of the village and, more or less daring the driver to run me over, I flagged him down.

  ‘The Old School House?’ The driver, a balding man in his fifties, spoke with a slight but perceptible Black Country accent, very like Pat’s, and strangely reassuring. The label stitched to his overall bore the name of Terry.

  ‘No.’ If only I could afford that! ‘No, the old caretaker’s house. The tank’s absolutely empty.’