The Things We Never Said

by Wright, Susan Elliot

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  A glimmer of winter sunlight forces its way through the clouds, briefly turning the wet playground silver before disappearing back into the greyness of the afternoon. Jonathan braces himself as he walks towards the prefab classroom. He’s teaching a challenging Year 10 group next period, and again it flits through his mind that he could have taken more time off. He’s not sure whether it’s his father’s unexpected death that’s shaken him up or his mum talking about the baby that died: his brother. He still doesn’t understand why she hasn’t told him before.

  The classroom smells of nylon carpet, damp plasterboard and unwashed adolescent. A faint trace of dope hangs in the air, but with no evidence of anyone actually smoking, it’s probably safe to ignore it. He rubs his hands together. It’s like a bloody icebox in here.

  ‘Come on, you lot, settle down. We’ve got a lot to get through. Amber, stop chatting and turn to the front please.’

  Amber turns around, her face screwed up in a sulk. The others keep talking. ‘Can everyone pay attention please.’ He claps his hands loudly. ‘Come on now, that’s enough.’ Gradually, the noise dies down.

  ‘Right,’ he says, ‘let’s get back to The Woman in Black—’

  ‘Why ain’t we going theatre, Sir?’ Amber folds her arms across her chest. She looks furious. ‘The Fawcett says we ain’t allowed.’

  His heart sinks. ‘Mrs Fawcett. Now, what do you mean you’re not allowed?’ They all start speaking at once. ‘Hang on, hang on. One at a time. Amber, what’s all this about?’

  ‘Fawcett, right, she comes into Business Studies yesterday, and she’s like, you lot can’t go “Woman in Black” now, and we’re like, why not, Miss? And it’s because some dude from the business and industries thing was supposed be giving us a talk on Wednesday, but now he’s coming Thursday instead and she’s like, “You can’t afford to miss this excellent opportunity, blah blah”.’

  Jonathan sighs. ‘How many of you does this affect?’ Nine hands go up; almost half the group. He sighs again. This lot would get more out of one trip to the theatre than half a dozen visits from some fat-bellied, shiny-suited businessman.

  ‘You said we was allowed, Sir. How come she says we ain’t?’

  ‘I don’t know, Daniel,’ he says. ‘This is the first I’ve heard of it.’ He drums his fingers on the desk. ‘Look, I can’t promise anything, but I’ll speak to Mrs Fawcett to see if it’s possible to rearrange things.’ But as he speaks he remembers what Malcolm said about this new deputy head: Fawcett? About as flexible as a bloody crowbar.

  The door opens and Ryan Jenkins saunters in. Great. Ryan bloody Jenkins, back already. The boy starts high-fiving his mates as he makes his way to a seat.

  ‘Come on, Ryan,’ Jonathan says. ‘Hurry up and settle.’

  A week ago, he’d had to physically stop Ryan from pummelling the head of a Year 8 kid during morning break. Ryan was bright, but incredibly disruptive. Most of the teachers turned a blind eye rather than deal with him, but that made him think he was untouchable, and Jonathan certainly wasn’t going to walk past while Ryan beat the younger boy to a pulp. He’d hauled him up to the Head’s office and Ryan had been promptly suspended. Now here he was again.

  ‘Ryan, sit down now, please.’ He keeps his voice level, but he can sense trouble already. Ryan leans across the desks to talk to Chloé Nichols, who is still scowling at Jonathan, probably because he told her off in the previous period – a geography lesson he’d had to cover at the last minute. Chloé turns her attention to Ryan and gazes at him with rapt attention, then she and the other girls laugh at something he tells them.

  ‘Okay, everyone.’ Jonathan still tries to keep it light, lets the boy have his moment. ‘I know Ryan’s far more entertaining than I am, but we’ve got to get on now. So, if you don’t mind, Ryan.’ He gestures to a seat and, miraculously, Ryan sits. ‘Okay, let’s make a start. Who can tell me—’

  ‘Look!’ Ryan points at Jonathan’s knees and he looks down automatically. ‘You’ve pissed yourself, Sir.’

  There’s an eruption of laughter and he curses himself for the reflex action.

  ‘Made you look, Sir!’ Ryan rocks his chair back on two legs, grinning, emboldened by the obvious admiration of the girls. The whole group is talking again now.

  ‘Okay, everyone, very funny. Now let’s have some quiet, please. Come on, Ryan, stop behaving like a two-year-old and concentrate on what we’re supposed to be doing.’

  Ryan yawns and stretches expansively. Jonathan ignores it, but Ryan yawns again, loudly this time. ‘Ryan, do you want me to write on your report card?’

  Ryan shrugs. ‘You can’t, Sir. Ain’t done nothing, have I?’

  ‘He was only saying, Sir.’ Daniel; usually a good kid, but easily led.

  ‘Yeah,’ Craig Willis chips in. ‘That you’d, like, pissed yourself, Sir.’ He turns, grinning, towards Ryan. ‘Innit?’ Laughter spatters around the room.

  ‘It’s not piss.’ A girl’s voice from the corner. ‘It’s jizz!’ Another burst of giggling. Lauren? He can’t be sure. Eight or nine girls clustered together, all looking at the boys for approval. He hesitates; fatal indecision. They’re revving up now, gathering power.

  ‘Mr Robson, did Chloé’s tits make you dribble?’

  Don’t react, he tells himself; just don’t react. They’re all paying attention now, watching to see what he’ll do. He used to be able to distinguish the good kids from the troublemakers, but they seem have merged now into a single unit, a pack. He hears his father’s voice: ‘Savages, most of them’. No. They’re just kids; difficult kids.

  ‘Perhaps him like boys, innit? I bet him want to get in Kieran’s arse.’

  ‘No, he ain’t no batty boy,’ Craig calls across the room. ‘Me seen his wife.’

  ‘Bet she’s a dog,’ Lauren chimes in. Chantelle jumps to her feet and starts barking. The class erupts in more laughter; they’re all at it now.

  ‘Quiet!’ he yells, banging his hand down on the desk. ‘Or each and every one of you will stay behind at the end of the day.’

  A brief hush falls over the room, and for a blissful moment he thinks he’s got away with it. Then Ryan turns to the others. ‘Yeah, shut it, you lot. Mrs Robbo’s well fit.’

  Craig grins. ‘Innit? I’d give her one.’

  ‘That is it! Craig, out! Lauren, Chantelle, this is your last verbal warning. And unless the rest of you want a detention at three forty, I suggest you put a sock in it – now! Ryan, bring me your report card.’ His throat aches from shouting; he’s cocked it up – badly.

  Lauren starts to cry. Chantelle puts her arm around Lauren and looks at Jonathan as though he’s just strangled a kitten and stamped on its head. Ryan sits down and leans back, looking at the ceiling with exaggerated boredom.

  ‘Ryan. Report card. Now!’

  Ryan makes a big deal of searching through his rucksack, taking out every item and examining it closely before showing it to the class.

  ‘Get on with it!’

  ‘I am,’ Ryan says, facing Jonathan and rolling his eyes theatrically before turning back to his mates. The noise is dulling now as the rest of the group, sensing fresh sport, watch to see who’ll back down first.

  ‘Found it, Sir.’ Ryan holds the card up and waggles it back and forth. He turns to grin at the class, and then he begins to walk towards Jonathan, slowly, ostentatiously – and backwards. As he gets to the front, he spins on his heels and follows it up by moonwalking towards the door.

  ‘Ryan Jenkins,’ Jonathan says steadily. ‘Do not even think about leaving my classroom without permission.’

  ‘I weren’t, Sir,’ he says, in mock outrage.

  Jonathan takes a breath. Maybe he can still save this. He tries a conciliatory tone. ‘Come on, then. Let’s have that report card please.’

  Ryan offers the card. But just as Jonathan is about to take it, the little shit jerks it up out of his reach. Briefly, Jonathan considers sending him over to Malcolm or to
one of the assistant heads. But what sort of teacher is he if he can’t deal with this himself? He makes a grab for the card, but the boy whisks it behind his back, swapping hands before holding it up again. Jonathan moves fast but his fingers fail to grasp it before Ryan yanks it away again. He can hear the other kids laughing; he knows he’s not thinking straight now, he’s just reacting. The card flashes up in front of him, then vanishes; it appears to his right, then is gone, to his left, then disappears; now you see it, now you don’t; his face is too close, the smell of bubble gum is too near . . .

  He is aware of the silence before he registers the gasp that precedes it. Ryan is standing still now, an unmistakable air of smugness beginning to settle around his features. The kids are whispering. There’s a dent in the plasterboard wall, and tiny drops of blood are blooming from the grazes that are beginning to smart on Jonathan’s knuckles. His fist had seemed to move independently, smashing into the wall just inches from where Ryan was standing – how he’d not punched the little sod on the nose he’d never know.

  ‘Sit!’ he tells Ryan, then he walks out of the classroom, closing the door behind him as quietly as he is able.

  *

  There are piles of blue exercise books all over the floor of Malcolm’s office. He leans back in his chair and sips coffee from his World’s Best Dad mug while Jonathan goes through what happened.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever felt so close to thumping a kid before,’ Jonathan says. ‘I let him wind me up. Oh, and did you hear that Fawcett woman’s cancelled the theatre trip? So they were pretty unsettled before we even started. Then Ryan comes in and, well, that was it. Why’s he back so soon, anyway? I thought he’d be excluded for at least another week.’

  ‘I know,’ Malcolm sighs. ‘Not much of a deterrent, is it? Look, don’t worry too much. I’ll have to put in a report, and you’ll get a ticking off from on high, but everyone knows what an arrogant little tosspot Ryan Jenkins is. He’d probably benefit from a bloody good hiding.’ He pauses. ‘How was the funeral?’

  ‘It was fine. Well, as fine as a funeral can be, anyway.’ He doesn’t add that he’d managed to upset his mum and Fiona straight afterwards.

  ‘Everything else all right? Fi okay?’

  Jonathan hesitates for a millisecond, then nods. Malcolm’s a good friend, but talking to him about their marriage doesn’t feel right. ‘She’s fine. We’re both a bit tired, that’s all.’

  Malcolm nods. ‘Cass was tired in the first few months. Fiona’s about the same age as Cass was when we had Poppy, isn’t she?’

  ‘She’s thirty-nine.’

  ‘Yeah, Cass was forty. The tiredness goes off a bit after the first few months and they have a burst of energy. Then once it’s born, you’ll both be exhausted. And you can say goodbye to a good night’s sleep for at least two years.’

  ‘It’s been a while since I’ve had one of those anyway, to be honest.’

  ‘No wonder you look like shit. I prescribe a large Scotch before bed.’ Malcolm stands up and takes his jacket from the back of the chair. ‘Seriously though, I’m sure this’ll all blow over, and I know you’ve just had the funeral and everything, but you need to watch yourself. I wouldn’t be a mate if I didn’t mention it. I reckon our Mrs Fawcett wants to put a few heads on spikes to justify her existence.’

  Jonathan nods. ‘I’ll bear it in mind.’ He stands up.

  ‘No, you stay there. I’ll go and have a word with those charming young ladies and gentlemen while you chill out here for,’ he looks at his watch, ‘a whole fifteen minutes before period seven.’ He slaps Jonathan on the back as he opens the door and disappears, whistling, into the corridor.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  January 1962

  Although it is well past twelfth night, there are still faded paper chains hanging from the ceiling and straggly bits of tinsel draped over the hunting prints on the wall. The place smells of burnt sausages and tomcat but the rooms are cheap, and as she’ll only be earning five pounds ten a week, that’s the main thing.

  The room is part of a converted attic, and the ceiling slopes either side of a tiny dormer window through which Maggie can see the rain-varnished rooftops of Sheffield. The flinty eyed landlady stands behind her, puffing and wheezing from the climb. There is a half-crown of rouge on each dusty cheek; her mouth is a red scar. ‘Thirty bob a week,’ she says after she’s caught her breath. ‘In advance.’

  Maggie looks at the green linoleum, pockmarked with cigarette burns; the litter of spent matches beneath the gas fire; the faded orange candlewick bedspread and the vase of dusty red plastic tulips on the bedside cabinet.

  ‘I don’t allow food in’t rooms, no loud music, and no lads. Lavvy’s two floors down and bathroom’s in’t basement. Take it or leave it.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll take it please.’ Maggie is conscious of how high and tinkling her voice sounds compared to that of her landlady who, she later discovers, smokes forty Players a day. Maggie wishes her accent wasn’t so obviously southern, although Mr Howard – Clive – seemed to like it. ‘Pretty voice, that,’ he’d said at her audition. ‘Might find you a speaking part if you make out well.’

  ‘Is tha working?’ The landlady does not smile, nor does she remove her hands from her hips as she eyes the ten-shilling notes in Maggie’s outstretched hand. She’ll not let rooms to lasses without jobs, not under any circumstances.

  ‘Yes,’ Maggie says quickly. ‘I’m starting at the Playhouse on Monday – Assistant Stage Manager.’

  The landlady relaxes. ‘Ta, love.’ She counts the money with practised rapidity before putting it in her apron pocket. ‘I’m Dot. You’ll meet Alf, me husband, and the other boarders at teatime – that’s half past five sharp. What’ll we call thee?’

  ‘Maggie,’ she says. ‘Maggie Harrison.’

  Dot nods. ‘There’s a washbasin in’t lavvy but if you want a bath, it’s a shilling and I’ll need a day’s notice. No baths on Sundays – that’s mine and Alf’s bath night – and Mr Totley downstairs has his on a Friday.’ She then runs through the rules of the house: keep the wireless turned down, no music after nine o’clock and no visitors after eight. Maggie can rinse a few things through in the bathroom if she puts a shilling in the meter, but there’s a launderette – Dot pronounces it ‘laundriette’ – on the corner. There’s a telephone box on the main road by the bus stop. The house telephone is Dot’s private number and only to be used by the boarders in special circumstances and if they put thruppence in the box. The gas fire is operated by a coin meter, which takes one- and two-shilling pieces, of which Dot has a supply should Maggie need to change a ten-bob note. Maggie is beginning to wonder quite what the ‘all’ in ‘all included’ in the advert meant.

  ‘Get thi sen unpacked, then, love, and I’ll see thee at teatime – in’t big kitchen, second door on’t right as tha comes down ’ stairs.’

  The bed almost caves in as she sits on it, and there is a musty smell about the bedding. It’s no palace, but it’s hers.

  After Maggie has settled in, she telephones her brother from the call box. ‘I’m here, safe and sound.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘I’ve got the room I rang up about. You should see the landlady! Sixty if she’s a day and plastered in make-up – like those mannequins in C&A’s window.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh, Leonard. Stop sulking.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘You are. You’re talking in that sulky voice.’

  ‘It’s too quiet here without you.’

  ‘You’ll get used to it. Anyway, it’s not like I’m never coming back, is it? You can come and see me once I’ve settled in. And we can write.’

  ‘I was going to write today anyway. I didn’t get a chance to tell you what happened at work last night – you’ll wet yourself!’ He sounds happier now, but she feels a pang. She’ll miss her old job; at least, she’ll miss the dramas and scandals that are part of life in a hotel kitchen. But if she doesn’t get away now, she�
��ll end up doing the same job, in the same place, for the next thirty years. Both her parents had cooked for a living, working in hot, windowless kitchens all their lives, and now Leonard was doing it too.

  The pips go and she puts in another tuppence.

  ‘I’m going to have to go in a minute,’ she says. ‘The landlady’s strict about mealtimes. We’re having toad-in-the hole tonight. It smells awful.’

  ‘You can’t eat muck like that; you’ll die!’

  ‘Quite possibly. What’s on at work this week?’

  ‘Veal escalopes in Marsala sauce, beef Wellington and lobster risotto. See what you’re missing? Listen, I was looking through the Stage this afternoon and they’re auditioning for ASMs in Brighton.’

  Maggie sighs. ‘I want to try somewhere different, smell something other than the sea every time I go out.’

  ‘I thought you liked the sea?’

  ‘I do but . . . oh, Lenny, you know this is what I’ve always wanted to do.’

  ‘What about London? We know loads of people there already.’

  ‘Exactly! And even if I could get into a theatre in London, which I doubt, I’d be bumping into them all the time. I want to go where I can move around without people saying hello every five minutes and telling me I’m looking more and more like my mum.’

  Since their mother died, Maggie has felt like she was growing up under a microscope: would little Margaret have her mother’s looks? Would she be as good a cook? As good a seamstress? As thoughtful and kind-hearted as her dear mother? It was as though her only purpose in life was to step into her mother’s shoes and tread her mother’s path.

  ‘What’s wrong with looking like—’

  ‘Nothing. I just want to look like me sometimes.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ‘Hadn’t you better make a move?’ Fiona glances up from the Guardian. ‘The milkman’ll be here in a minute for his daily shag.’

  ‘Do we still have a milkman?’

  ‘Ah,’ she says. ‘Good point.’