A Jarful of Moondreams: What Secrets Are Ready to Spill Out?

by Chrissie Bradshaw

  Teri walked into their room, lay back on the bed and closed her eyes. She hadn’t told Greg about the tests she had taken before travelling to Egypt.

  Greg followed her asking, ‘What are you running from Teri?’

  She opened her eyes to see him looking down at her with real concern. ‘I'm not running; I’m just giving myself some space. I needed space before I heard some test results from the hospital, that’s all.’

  Greg sank onto the bed next to Teri. ‘What sort of tests?’

  He took her in his arms and Teri took strength from his embrace and told him about the pains she was dealing with and her fear that they may be related to her cancer, even though it was three years on.

  ‘The pain hasn’t been so bad since I came here. I haven’t taken half as many tablets,’ she assured him.

  ‘You can’t hide from things like this Teri, you owe it to yourself and the girls to take such things seriously and to find out your results.’

  ‘Oh, I take them seriously, Greg; I just needed to do a couple of things. I’ve had two dreams that I’ve kept in my moondream jar for years and I had to do something about them.’

  ‘Moondream jar?’ he looked even more puzzled.

  ‘Just keep holding me and I’ll tell you about it.’

  They talked, made love, ordered supper in their room and talked some more. Before drifting off to sleep, Teri promised Greg that she would call the hospital first thing in the morning.

  Teri’s hands felt clammy as she held the phone and her mouth was so dry that she could hardly speak. She was eventually put through to her consultant’s office.

  ‘I’m sorry but Mr Amonkar is on leave, he’s lecturing abroad for a month. He doesn’t give results over the phone anyway. I can see from your notes that he was trying to get in touch to arrange a follow up appointment right up to the day he left.’

  Teri couldn’t blame the woman for sounding shirty. She’d probably been the one ringing her number every week and getting voicemail.

  ‘Thank you for letting me know. I’ve been travelling but I’ll call back as soon as I get home.’

  ‘Wait. Have you another number? One that it’s easier to get you with?’ the woman wasn’t going to let her hang up.

  ‘No, no. This number will be fine from now, I’m sorry for your inconvenience.’

  ‘I’m going to look at his diary and give you a priority appointment when he comes back. Can you hang on?’ the voice softened slightly.

  ‘Yes, I’ll do that.’

  She was given the Tuesday after her birthday; that gave her another three weeks. Teri felt Greg's eyes on her as she ended the call.

  ‘What now?’ he asked.

  ‘He’s on leave so I have a reprieve but I do have an appointment date. Now, let’s go diving.’

  CORN MOON

  31

  The summer break always seemed so long to begin with then it flashed by. Cleo picked Alex up from Dunleith the weekend before school started and listened to her chatter away about the brilliant time she’d had in France with the EllaBellas, how she’d enjoyed hanging out with her Dunleith friends but how she would be glad to get back to see Gracie and Lee and the Newcastle crowd.

  ‘Eleanor can be a bit bossy but Isabella just doesn’t realise it,’ Alex confided. ‘I notice it more now that I’ve matured a bit and I try to stand up to her. She doesn’t like it though.’

  ‘Good for you.’ Cleo was proud of Alex. It was hard to imagine that their first trip to her apartment just ten weeks ago had been so strained.

  Alex had actually wanted to spend the first weeks of this term with Cleo until their mum came back from Egypt and, because her coursework was developing well and she was covering the syllabus for her Art, Design and English courses, her own school had no objections. She’d really miss sharing with Alex when Mum got back.

  ‘Now tell me about what you’ve been doing,’ asked Alex. Cleo suddenly felt vulnerable. What would Alex think of her and Dan being a serious couple?

  ‘Cleo? Hello? What’s hard about that little question?’ Cleo flushed and took a deep breath before saying,

  ‘I’ve been seeing a lot of Dan.’

  ‘I knew it! We knew it; the EllaBellas and I said you both looked like you were falling for each other. Now he’s coming back, will you be all serious and getting engaged and stuff?’

  ‘Hold on, I said we had been seeing each other but give it time, Alex.’

  ‘Time, you’re both getting on! Do you want to be with him, a proper couple, Cleo?’ Alex’s eyes were shining and she felt? happy for her.

  ‘Yes Alex. Yes, I do. We’ll have to decide when to tell the families after Dan gets over here so don’t broadcast it.’ She laughed as she thought that request would be a lost cause between Alex and the EllaBellas. ‘Now let’s change the subject so I can concentrate on my driving.’

  Alex went quiet and Cleo could see her thumbs working overtime on her phone. She’d be relaying this back to Dan’s sisters but that was fine. She didn’t really mind who knew now that they were sure of each other.

  Alex stayed at the apartment the next morning because it was a training day. Cleo had arranged for a literacy consultant to run a teaching reading workshop for the support staff and, once that was underway, she had a meeting with the rest of senior management to iron out any problems with staffing and timetables and to discuss all of the school’s new initiatives. This term the building of the TeMPS unit would get underway and she couldn’t wait to see the work finished and the unit up and running by Christmas.

  Gracie and Alex had been in touch by text over the holidays and she knew that Gracie was four months pregnant, so this would enable her to carry on studying when she was in her third trimester and after the baby was born.

  Cleo pulled in next to Telford as he was getting out of a shiny new black BMW.

  ‘Good morning Cleo. I see you still have that old banger of your mother’s. I thought you were going to get something new over the summer?’

  ‘Good morning Boss. I actually like this one. I don’t need to worry where I park it and it holds loads more than the convertible. I will get another car but I’m not in a hurry. I see you’ve changed again...very nice.’ Already, Tef was grating on her and she hadn’t got into the building.

  ‘Every year, Cleo, every year. I couldn’t drive a tank like that.’ He beamed proudly at his own car and was still admiring it as Cleo went into school.

  ‘Cleo,’ hissed Ann, who had the dubious honour of being Teflon’s PA this year. Cleo was in the back of the literacy meeting making sure the right staff were there and that the equipment was working for her guest speaker. She slipped out to see what Ann wanted.

  ‘The Boss wants all senior management in the meeting room now. He says it’s urgent.’

  ‘Do you know what it’s about?’ Cleo asked, as she followed Ann who was hurrying along and checking rooms to find the other assistant heads.

  ‘No, but he doesn’t look happy.’

  They exchanged looks. When was he ever happy? But, this was early in the term, even for Tef. What had rattled his cage?

  They soon found out. A letter had landed in his in-tray informing him that their school was going to be inspected on Thursday and Friday of this week.

  ‘This means that everyone will be working flat out to make rooms ship shape, all teacher’s planning must be checked by a senior manager, pupils must be warned that behaviour will be judged and we will all have to check that our own areas of responsibility are running like clockwork.’

  They all nodded and Cleo started making lists of the hundreds of things she would have to check before Thursday. Whole school literacy in every subject, pastoral care and the start of building the new unit were hers to oversee once she knew her new timetable was running smoothly. No week was a good week for inspection but the first week back took stress to a higher level.

  ‘Who is leading the team, Boss? What’s their background?’ asked Paul Charlton, looking decidedly gr
ey. He was responsible for behaviour with oversight of the PE and humanities faculties and was known to fly by the seat of his pants. Paperwork was his downfall and he’d be in school from now until Thursday to get through this.

  ‘Interestingly enough, it’s a local chap. Well he was local. I’ve just run a check on him and he attended a local grammar school, went on to Oxford in the eighties and has been a head teacher in the South for a number of years. Ralph, Ralph Fenwick, son of one of the old grammar school heads.’

  Cleo felt the blood drain from her face and her heart hammered painfully against her chest as she fought for breath. Oh shit, she felt the room swim and had to grab onto Paul to steady herself.

  ‘Steady on, Cleo. It’s not that bad - I bet your paperwork is in a better state then mine,’ he whispered.

  The pounding at her temples made Cleo feel sick. There could be no doubting it; this Ralph Fenwick must be the one mentioned in Mum’s diary. She wasn’t just preparing for an Ofsted school inspection; she was preparing to meet her biological father.

  If Cleo looked tense and worried all day, nobody mentioned it. The school’s happy ‘just back from holiday’ atmosphere had been smothered as quickly as a sea fret could chill a sunny Whitley Bay day.

  Lots of staff were stressed when there was no need to be. Cleo knew that the school had produced improved exam results, this year’s grades were exceptional for an inner city school and it was outstanding in most areas. The inspection might keep them on their toes until the end of the week but they’d get though with flying colours she was sure. If only her nerves were due to this government hoop they had to jump though.

  Cleo was relieved to get home and touched to see that Alex had defrosted a large shepherd’s pie that they’d brought from Mum’s freezer at High Rigg and it was bubbling away in the oven. Over dinner, she explained how everyone was in a ‘tizz’ about their inspection on Thursday. Should she tell Alex the rest? Why not, Alex had seen the diary at the same time as her.

  ‘You can’t be serious? Like your father, he is coming to school on Thursday and he doesn’t even know who you are? Bloody hell Cleo, how will you tell him?’

  ‘Tell him? Of course I won’t tell him. It’s none of his business. He lost that right when he dumped Mum and went to Oxford and she didn’t get to go.’ The tears that welled in her eyes were dangerously close to falling.

  ‘Don’t be upset Cleo. I just thought you’d want him to know how well you’ve done. He was a head, his father was a head and now you’re a deputy head, it’s a sort of family thing isn’t it?’

  ‘He’s not my family.’ Cleo was sure about that.

  Whoa! I’ve just thought, maybe he’ll look like you? I mean you’re dark haired with those dark eyes and look nothing like Mum or me.’

  Cleo stared in horror at Alex. ‘Bloody hell; I hope it’s not that obvious!’

  Alex grinned, ‘Only you and I would guess because you haven’t even got Mum’s maiden name. Miss Cleo Moon you will keep your secret until you decide!’ she added in an excellent impression of TV’s ‘Big Brother’ commentator.

  Cleo was usually in school by seven thirty and suppressed a smile when she saw that Teflon’s car was already there. He had been hell to deal with for the past three days but she knew he would be oozing buttery charm to today’s visitors.

  Cleo had just begun to listen to the school’s messages, to see who had fallen at the first hurdle and was phoning in sick on an inspection day, when a sleek silver car took up one of their ‘reserved for visitors’ spaces. She swallowed hard and resisted rushing to the window. It was bad enough facing an inspection but she’d met that particular challenge before. Looking at the other half of her genetics, she couldn’t think of him as her father, for the first time was something she had never experienced.

  The school door buzzer sounded in Tef’s office as well as hers but he obviously wasn’t there. For security, the door remained locked until reception staff came on duty. Feeling calm, almost as if this was an out of body experience, Cleo walked into the foyer to release the door.

  ‘Hello there, Ralph Fenwick, chief inspector.’

  Cleo took the outstretched hand, gazed into eyes as brown as her own and knew straight away that this really was him.

  ‘Cleo Moon, deputy head.’ she matched his firm handshake thankful that her voice sounded normal. ‘We have a room set aside for you and your team, if you’d like to wait there, I’ll go and find Mr. Teflon for you.’

  ‘Did you say Teflon?’

  Did she? No! ‘Mr. Telford is the head. I’ll just locate where he is,’ she said.

  ‘No, don’t bother the head yet. I like to get into schools early to see what goes on so I’ll just shadow you, if you don’t mind.’

  Cleo shot him her questioning look, unsure of how to answer this request and received a similar questioning look in return. Bloody hell. This was a fine start to the day.

  ‘OK,’ she nodded. ‘It’s a busy time for me so, if you don’t mind starting without a coffee, you can watch me sort out staff absences. I arrange cover for any absent staff before school starts.’

  ‘You lead on Miss Moon,’ he said.

  Day one of the inspection went well and Mr. Telford was extremely happy at the senior team’s debriefing at the end of the day.

  ‘It’s looking like we’re going for ‘outstanding’. Just need to make sure that inclusion and community cohesion and safeguarding is up to scratch tomorrow and observe some more excellent lessons. Cleo, I’m giving you the lead man first thing tomorrow morning. You can tell him about your new TeMPS unit, show him the plans and the area that’s being refurbished and then pass him along to Paul to find out about sport in the community.’

  Next morning, their tour of the new facility went smoothly and afterwards Cleo led Ralph Fenwick to the cafeteria. She would answer any further questions over coffee and then Paul was going to meet him to discuss the school’s links with the community.

  ‘I must tell you that you’re doing a wonderful job in creating this unit for the area, Miss Moon. It’s being refurbished with a donation to the school for this purpose, you say?’

  ‘Yes. We were going to raise funds but the moment the project was mentioned, we got the full amount by an anonymous donor.’

  ‘That’s great luck.’

  ‘We would’ve raised the funds, eventually,’ bristled Cleo. ‘But yes, it was lucky to be able to start sooner than we anticipated. The school has planned how to fund the staffing. It’s mainly from our school budget but other schools in the area will contribute because they will be using the facility for their own single mothers too.’

  ‘Just so. That’s great team work and you must be proud to be leading on such an important initiative.’

  ‘I am,’ Cleo smiled and as RF, she thought of him by the initials she’d been writing on copies of reports for the past week, smiled back at her, his face warm and open and understanding. Catch on, she told herself, this is a man who dumped one of these very girls.

  ‘Things must have changed a lot for pregnant students since your schooldays,’ she commented evenly.

  RF seemed surprised by the comment and sat back in his chair looking at her as if wondering what to say.

  ‘I’ll tell you something, Cleo, and then you will know just what a difference you’re making. I knew a wonderful girl, a real scholar at history and a brain that would take her to Oxford and further. She fell pregnant and every door to education closed. I don’t know what happened to her but something like this... it would never have happened.’

  Cleo’s heart thudded; she bit her lip to stop making a comment, but couldn’t help it.

  ‘What about the boy in your story? There must have been one. I suppose he just sailed on with no worries and the girl paid the price?’

  RF looked at her intently, ‘I think that boy could never forget how he’d ruined a life, maybe two, Cleo but that was the past and now, thankfully things are different.’

  Paul came into th
e cafeteria, pulled up a chair and set several files on the desk as RF and Cleo locked eyes.

  ‘I hope you’ve seen all you need to see; I’ll leave you with Mr. Charlton.’ Cleo managed to stay calm and walk sedately off before finding the ladies and bursting into tears. Tears for her mum and for herself and none for the boy who might have had no choice himself all those years ago.

  It was an hour after most staff had left the building and Tef was still in a meeting with the lead inspector. The senior management team were all huddled in the staff room. Waiting. Telford burst in shouting,

  ‘We’ve done it!’ Tie loose, jacket off and shirt buttons bulging, his red face had never been so animated with delight. ‘We have really done it. We are an outstanding school. Grade one across the board. We have got an excellent management team, apparently. Now let’s all have a glass of champagne.’

  Ann came in just on cue with two bottles of the real stuff and real glasses. Tef must be in celebratory mood!

  The darkening sky reminded Alex that the days were getting shorter and she needed a school coat. The moon was hidden by cloud and there was that fine drizzle and a chill in the air signalling that autumn was around the corner. Alex sat on the low wall by the staff car park, her hair soaked and her thin jacket giving no protection from the wind that was starting up. She was beside his car waiting for him to come out. It had to be soon and it had to be before Cleo.

  Alex had thought long and hard about this. She hadn’t talked to anyone else. She didn’t want to tell the EllaBellas, she couldn’t call Mum without telling the whole story and she knew that Cleo didn’t want to tell Ralph Fenwick anything. Alex had considered it from all points of view and thought that this was a secret that had gone on too long and she might be able to help Cleo to get her real father back. She had to try. Cleo would be glad once it was done, wouldn’t she?