Tom Appleby wandered in at one minute past ten, just late enough to make a point though not quite sufficient to be open to criticism. He took his place without comment and they all sat shuffling papers and drinking coffee waiting for Frank Wagner, by far the most cantankerous of the faculty directors.
For some reason the others tended to defer to Frank, probably because he shouted loudest and went on longest. He had been at the college for over twenty years and was opposed to any form of change. It was difficult enough working with him as a co-director but, since her appointment as Principal, he never ceased to denigrate any proposal that she made.
He and George had been great buddies and the ill feeling he’d stirred up against her amongst the staff had taken some time to settle. At least, since she had taken him on one side and threatened to haul him before the governors for unprofessional conduct, he had stopped the caustic remarks about how much better things would have been if George had been appointed. She supposed she should be grateful that the sneering asides that used to punctuate their early faculty meetings were also now a rarity.
Sarah glanced around the table ready to give everyone her best rallying-the-troops smile but they all appeared lost in their own thoughts. Barry sat pensively stroking his moustache with his little finger, David was reading through his papers intent on making sure he caught no one’s eye, and George took off his glasses and began polishing them. The waiting was making everyone irritable. At five minutes past, she decided to start the meeting without Frank.
The first item on the agenda was the faculty reports. Barry was in mid-flow when Frank waltzed in. Frank’s satisfied smirk disappeared when he realised they had begun. He was about to interrupt when she signalled him sharply to his chair and turned back to Barry, a look of rapt attention on her face. Barry, taking his cue, continued without a pause and all the others followed her example.
The rest of the meeting proceeded smoothly and they reached the final item on the agenda sooner than she had anticipated.
‘You all know about the Careers Convention being organised by the Education Business Partnership,’ she said, trying to sound enthusiastic. ‘The general consensus is that our students who went last year found it very useful and we’re planning to take selected groups again this time round.’
‘These things are always a bloody waste of time if you ask me. Kids just wandering around picking up leaflets about jobs they couldn’t care less about.’ Frank was trying to inflict his own brand of cynicism to belittle the project.
‘The organizing committee is keen that it doesn’t degenerate into a paper collecting exercise which is why they’re encouraging contributors to involve youngsters in something more interactive. Thinking about our own stand, we need to come up with something, preferably involving a few of our existing students, to attract the school pupils. Anyone got any bright ideas?’
She looked around the table hoping to get a more positive response from the others but they all carefully avoided her eye.
‘David?’ she persisted.
‘It would need some thought,’ he mumbled noncommittally.
Sarah did her best not to let her annoyance show. She had anticipated that Frank would try to put a damper on the idea, which is why she’d talked to each of the others before the meeting. David’s retreat in the face of Frank’s scathing comments was particularly galling. She had never expected gratitude for all the support she had given him in the past, but the way he chose to try to align himself with Frank in recent meetings demonstrated his weakness yet again. His defection now, after showing such enthusiasm for the Careers Convention the week before, rankled. She decided not to let him get away with it.
‘David, I’m sure any of the suggestions you mentioned the other day will be fine.’ She turned to the others. ‘David has already said that he’d be happy to co-ordinate our contributions so if the rest of you come up with anything you can pass them on to him. I know both Barry and Dev have some ideas.’ She ignored David’s glare and, before he could protest, she carried on firmly, ‘I would like each of you to put the Careers Convention on the agenda of your next faculty staff meeting and nominate someone to liaise with David. We need to make this a success. It’s an opportunity to recruit more students and that’s what all our jobs depend upon. As we get nearer to the date, Eunice will be talking to all the relevant personal tutors so that we can arrange for the students to attend the Convention. In the meantime, I want all the lecturers to talk to students so that they can get the most out of their visit.’
It was rare for her to take such a dictatorial stance but she did not have the energy to worry about diplomacy. The sooner she could get them out of her office the better. Besides, why should the students miss out on a valuable opportunity simply because Frank wanted to demonstrate his macho image at her expense, and the others were too apathetic to want to raise their heads from their bunkers in case they got caught in the crossfire?
After that gruelling morning, Sarah did something she had not done since she was a child.
Her mother had never been one to be quick with advice so when it was given, both she and her sister, Jenny, tended to pay attention even if they did not always take it. Her mother’s words of wisdom tended to stick in the mind. In her last year at St Margaret’s RC Primary, Sarah had eventually plucked up the courage to confide her fears of going up into the big school after the summer. Sarah could picture her mother now, standing at the kitchen sink, her arms up to the elbows in washing-up suds.
‘I’ve always found,’ her mother had said after a thoughtful pause, ‘if you’ve got something bothering you, especially if you know you can’t do anything to change it, the best thing is to go along to church and light a candle to Our Lady.’
It had not seemed a very logical solution to Sarah’s intractable problem but she’d done it any way. She could remember coming back feeling as though a great burden had been lifted from her small shoulders. With the benefit of hindsight, Sarah could see that her mother had appreciated that no amount of reasoning would have reassured a worried ten-year-old. Whether it was the act of doing something positive, the calming effect of that silent house of prayer or Mary’s intervention to her divine Son on her behalf, it had the desired effect.
St Timothy’s was in the centre of town. It was not her parish church but it was within ten minutes’ walk of the college. She had never visited it before and she was not sure if she’d even find the place open. It was a sign of the times that so many churches had to be locked when there were no services going on she thought, as the flint-fronted building came into view. She was lucky. Perhaps the priest had opened it up in anticipation of a few sorry souls looking for spiritual sustenance in their lunch hour.
Unlike her own parish church, which was a modern square box with a central altar and pews arranged on three sides, St Timothy’s had the traditional nave and transept which reminded her even more of those far off days. Her footsteps echoed in the empty building as she made her way down the long aisle, dimly lit by high stained-glass windows. She genuflected before the sanctuary and turned into the side Chapel.
She was not the first to offer up a prayer that day. The last remnants of a candle flickered in the stand in front of the crude, plaster statue. Sarah knelt at the altar rails and rattled off the customary “Our Father”, “Hail Mary” and “Glory Be” as she’d been taught from infancy and then let her mind go still. There was no need to try to put into words her concerns or plead for the strength to meet her current challenges. Peace came easily in the secure, hallowed place where all the petty troubles of the outside world shrank into proportion. It was that rare kind of communion that comes from the knowledge that your innermost fears are known, and that is enough.
As on that occasion nearly thirty years ago, she left the church with a light heart, confident in her belief that, whatever her present frustrations, her salvation lay in her own hands and nothing and no one had the power to intimidate her.
She picked up the rec
eiver on the first ring. ‘815470.’
Silence. It had been over three weeks since the last menace call. The phone company were supposed to be blocking her calls. The system didn’t help to identify where the call had been made from but, in theory, that number could not get through to her again. He could always ring from somewhere else of course.
As she’d already spoken, it would have been a sign of defeat on her part to put the phone down. The calls had long ceased to have any effect on her and she’d no intention of letting him think he still had the power to upset her.
‘Hello?’ she tried to inject an air of boredom. Impossible in a single word!
Still no answer.
‘Is anyone there?’ A hint of irritation as though she had forgotten completely about the earlier calls.
‘Saa-rah.’ There was a momentary shudder down her spine. She needed to seize the initiative.
‘Oh, it’s my old friend with the asthma problem is it? You know you really ought to see a doctor. I hear they have some splendid Ventolin inhalers these days that ease the breathing straightaway.’
There was a click at the other end.
She should be feeling pleased with herself. For once, she’d got the better of him. So why was she shaking? Why was her stomach churning? Why was she still thinking about him at all?
For an amateur group, the Silbury Players’ production of “Round and Round the Garden” was well up to standard. As Sarah and Matt made their way out, he suggested they went for a drink in the pub next door. Pubs were not really her scene but she readily agreed.
‘Apart from the fact that he was too old for the part, the chap who played Norman was good enough to be a professional.’ The advantage of going to a play or a film before the socializing bit was that it provided something to talk about.
‘He’s the group’s leading light apparently. Works in one of the Building Societies in the High Street,’ Matt informed her. ‘I didn’t see either of them, though apparently he played Norman in the other two plays in the series. The last was a couple of years ago and he’s lost a bit more hair since then.’
As they chattered on, she wondered whether to tell Matt about the phone call she had received the previous evening, but decided against it. She did not want him to feel sorry or protective towards her.
Somehow the conversation got round to Nathan. At the mention of his name, the tension came flooding back. All her resolutions about pushing thoughts of her tormentor out of her mind and enjoying a pleasant social evening crumbled away. All these suspicions about her husband were based on very flimsy evidence. Nathan may have hurt her in the past, but he was not a monster.
Before she could change the subject, Matt asked, ‘When did things start to go wrong?’ This was far too dangerous ground.
‘The moment I first met my prospective mother-in-law,’ she laughed trying to dismiss the topic.
The flippant remark was not so far from the truth in some respects. Her first meeting with Nathan’s parents was indelibly imprinted on her mind. She had known Nathan for some months and, when it became evident that their relationship was likely to become more permanent, she had been invited down to Surrey for the weekend.
Sarah was apprehensive long before the car pulled into the horseshoe drive in front of the imposing mock-Tudor house. Naturally, she knew a little of Nathan’s background; he had been educated at a minor public school, his father was something quite high up in the City and his parents were well to-do but, up till then, she’d not given it much thought. Nathan had fitted into her family so readily it had never occurred to her that she might not find it so easy to slip into his.
From the very beginning, Geraldine had been cool and distant, her cut-glass accent accentuating the gulf that lay between them. It didn’t need words for her to make it very clear that Sarah should be under no illusion that her friendship with Nathan was nothing more than passing fancy on his part – an interlude to see how the other half lived. His future was already mapped out.
Sarah didn’t meet the wonderful Tanya on that first visit, but Geraldine spent the greater part of that weekend extolling her virtues. How beautiful she was – ‘With her looks and figure she could have been a top model’; – how talented – ‘She plays the flute as well as the piano and sings like an angel’; – and how close she and Nathan had been since they were small children. Geraldine even showed Sarah photographs of the two of them together from the time they were little more than toddlers.
Nathan had told her about his mother’s obsession with Tanya; but he had assured her he never had, and never would, see Tanya as anything more than a friend and that living with her would drive him to distraction.
Her own mother’s approval of Nathan had been evident from the moment he had walked in the door. When the two of them were alone she’d said to Sarah, ‘He’s the one isn’t he?’ At that time, she had only known Nathan a few weeks and marriage was something neither of them had even contemplated let alone discussed. After her visit to Nathan’s parents, Sarah found herself talking over her misgivings about Geraldine’s hostility towards her with her mother. In her usual way, her mother made no attempt to give advice. Her only comment had been a question. ‘Are you sure it’s really you she objects to? Wouldn’t she be just the same with any woman who might take away her only son?’
It made perfect sense and from that moment, whatever the provocation, Sarah resolved never to take Geraldine’s hostility personally. She convinced herself that, given time, Nathan’s mother would come round and then all would be well.
Sarah was able to tell Matt the story of that first meeting in such a way that had both of them laughing uproariously, although she’d exaggerated Geraldine’s behaviour only a little. What she failed to tell Matt, and the thing that pained her most about that visit, was Nathan’s response to all this. Geraldine treated him like a little boy and he meekly fell into line. It was a revelation to see the lively, forceful man she had known, so totally dominated.
She had forgotten all about that. Weak people made to feel vulnerable might lash out in all sorts of underhanded ways. She thrust the thought from her mind. All those ideas about Nathan being her tormentor were ridiculous. She had told herself that a hundred times in the last few days. She was getting things out of proportion. But his willingness to defer to his mother’s every whim had made her wonder if there was some substance to all those suspicions after all.
She looked at her watch. Seven minutes past. It was unusual for George to be late for a meeting. She got up and walked through to the outer office.
‘Mr Fitzgibbon didn’t leave any message did he?’
Lucy looked up and shook her head. Before she could ask her to ring through to see what was holding him up, the phone rang. From what she could hear of Lucy’s side of the conversation, it wasn’t going to be a quick call so she decided to wander down to George’s office and see for herself.
She knocked and went in.
‘Just let me save this.’
As he sat with his back to her tapping away on his computer, she stood looking at the neat precision of everything on his desk. The pencil lay parallel to the carefully stacked pile of papers placed squarely in front of the onyx calendar and penholder stand, which obviously held pride of place.
‘Sarah?’
‘I wondered where you were. It’s not like you to forget a meeting.’ She gave him a bright smile.
‘I got your message about it being postponed. It was on my desk when I came in this morning.’
‘I’m sorry?’ Now it was her turn to be surprised.
He bent down and rescued a piece of paper from his bin and handed it over. It was a brief printed note apologizing for having to rearrange their regular meeting to later in the day.
‘But I didn’t write this.’
‘It has your name on the bottom.’
‘Typed. It doesn’t have my signature. I’m afraid this is someone’s idea of a joke.’
‘Who would want to do such a thi
ng?’ His frown spoke volumes.
‘I have no idea but…’ she’d been going to say that she intended to find out, but logic told her that there was no way she would be able to trace the culprit. They all used the same computer software and printers. It could have been anyone in the college. ‘I don’t find it very funny,’ she finished lamely. ‘Let’s not waste any more time. Shall we go to my office?’
She arrived in Norwich late on Friday evening and was surprised to find Greg, her brother-in-law, sitting solemn-faced with her parents in the front room.
‘Is something wrong?’
‘Todd’s been very poorly the last few days. He’s got that dreadful pain in his tummy again and he can’t keep any food down,’ her mother explained. ‘The doctor sent him to the hospital this afternoon and they’ve decided keep him in for observation for a few days. They’re going do some more tests. Justin’s spending the night with us so that Greg and Jenny can be with Todd.’
Despite her mother’s assurances, all three of them looked strained. Greg repeated what he had been told by the specialist and, although Todd’s condition wasn’t immediately life-threatening, the situation was obviously serious.
‘If Justin’s staying here, I’ll see if I can get myself a room in a hotel somewhere. Doesn’t that pub round the corner take guests?’
‘You’ll do no such thing!’ Her mother was on her feet with surprising speed for such a large woman. ‘We’ll manage fine. Your room’s all ready for you and Justin’s on a camp bed in the dining room. You sit there and I’ll go and put the kettle on.’ A nice cup of tea was her mother’s solution to most of life’s problems.
Sarah knew it was useless to protest. It would only make matters worse. Her mother was finding it impossible to keep still and bustled out into the kitchen.
All in the Mind Page 9