I ground my teeth. ‘Claudia McFarllen, one of these days –’
‘OK, OK, I’m going!’ She reached up, gave me a quick, disarming peck on the cheek then, grinning widely, sauntered off, no doubt pushing her socks down and hiking her skirt up en route to the hall, if indeed she was even going to the hall. I sighed and watched her go. Smart kid that.
As I trudged off to the locker room to dump her stuff, I went past the nursery school. Outside the window I saw a mother I knew, Sarah, struggling with a screaming baby. She had him hoisted up on her hip and was trying to quieten him as she peered through the nursery window at her four-year-old. She had a daughter in Claudia’s class too, and I’d often watched her with her brood and thought – by rights, that should be me. Ten, four, and nine months, three children and a busy home to run. I’d watched with envy, as I’d watched other mothers too, unloading young children out of Discoveries and into buggies, tucking a little one under an arm. And I always counted.
‘Is he OK?’ I asked, coming up beside her and peering through the window.
‘Oh, hi, Olivia. No he’s not – look.’ She jabbed her finger at a screaming four-year-old, his fists clenched, red in the face from sobbing, on the other side of the glass.
‘They’ve got a new teacher this term. Miss Pinter’s retired, and the new one’s really sweet, but it takes Ned ages to settle with anyone new.’
‘Plus he knows you’re out here,’ I pointed out.
‘Yes, but if I just leave him I’ll feel terrible.’
Ned was opening his lungs and giving the performance of his life now.
‘I’ll tell you what. I’ve still got to dump Claudia’s stuff. Why don’t you sit in the car and when I come back past, I’ll tell you if he’s OK? I bet you anything he’s calmed down.’
‘Oh, would you? Only this one’s dying for a feed so I could give him a bottle in the car.’
‘I’ll see you there in a minute.’
She scurried off gratefully to her car and I wandered off to find Claudia’s locker in the changing rooms. A smelly cacophony of gym shoes, sweaty socks and verrucas met my nostrils, and memories of Imo, Molly and me came flooding back. Imogen, of course, had been captain of everything, I’d tried hard but had been terminally useless, and Molly had just skived as much as possible. We’d learnt to smoke in changing rooms like these too, and I wondered how many years it would be until Claudia was hugging a radiator and executing perfect smoke rings with her Ten Number Six or – excuse me – Silk Cut Extra. Probably only about six months, the rate she was going.
As I came back out, I went down the internal corridor to get a better look at young Ned Parker through the double glass doors. Sure enough, there he was, dry-eyed, not a care in the world, busy revving up a tractor and going ‘Vrrooooom!’ as he ran it up and down a small girl’s leg. I smiled, remembering Claudia’s nursery days in London. My God, she’d had to be dragged screaming and kicking, had clung like a sobbing barnacle, had had to be prised off with no anaesthetic, but the moment my back was turned, had apparently cut the crap and slipped off to single-handedly commandeer the pedal car from the big boys. I gave Ned one last glance and was about to move on, when the sign on the classroom door caught my eye. I stared. Miss Harrison. I stared some more. I went hot, and then very cold.
My eyes came up from the sign. I gazed through the glass. An elderly woman looked up from the pasting table where she was helping a child do something seasonal with dandelion clocks and a Pritt Stick. She smiled at me. I knew her; she was one of the assistants, Mrs Hooper – she’d been there for ever.
‘Can I help?’ she mouthed.
My eyes flashed around the room like a Colditz searchlight. The new teacher wasn’t visible. She could be in the plastic house, of course, or maybe helping a child go to the loo. Mrs Hooper came bustling towards me, but just before she reached me, I turned and shot off before she could open the door. I ran, panting, gasping, all the way down to the car park. Sarah, sitting in her car, saw me through her windscreen. She saw my face and clutching her baby, shot out of the front seat, hand to mouth.
‘Oh my God – what’s happened! Is he all right?’
‘He’s fine, Ned’s fine,’ I gasped, clutching the top of her open door. ‘Sarah – the new teacher in there, Miss Harrison, is it?’
‘Yes, why?’
‘Have you met her?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Have you any idea what her first name is?’
‘Her first name?’ She screwed up her face and thought for a moment. ‘Oh God, yes I do know, because one of the other mothers told me … something funny. Something very old-fashioned and … let me see now … Nina! That’s it, Nina Harrison.’
Chapter Six
‘She’s a bloody teacher at her bloody school!’
‘Terrible, terrible. Here, have an aspirin.’
‘I mean, what am I supposed to do, walk past her classroom every morning and say, good morning, Miss Harrison, and how was my husband’s performance last night? It’s outrageous!’ I bellowed.
‘Course it is. Here, a nice cup of tea.’
Mac handed me the cup while Alf stirred some sugar in. Spiro was bustling around my feet with a stool. ‘Up, up,’ he muttered, lifting my legs, ‘then the blood go straight to the brain.’
‘Spiro, there’s enough blood storming round my brain at the moment to float an Armada,’ I hissed. ‘If I have any more I’ll bloody haemorrhage!’
Nevertheless, I succumbed to having a stool positioned just so under my feet, then leant my head back and gazed around in a dazed fashion. I appeared to have collapsed in the sitting room and I stared bleakly at it now with its half-stripped walls, ripped-up floorboards, broken windows and, in the foreground, a slightly blurred vision of my workforce, my three burly men, standing over me clutching aspirins and mugs of tea, faces full of concern. I groaned.
‘She look pale,’ murmured Spiro, peering in.
I stared blankly at him. ‘She’ll have to be sacked!’ I snapped.
He jumped back.
‘Of course she will,’ soothed Mac.
‘The head won’t stand for that. What, having an affair with one of the pupil’s fathers? Hah! No, no, she’ll have to go!’
‘Hang her!’ spat Spiro. ‘Or dip her,’ he added brightly, ‘like they used to do to witches on the island where I come from.’
‘You’re right, Spiro,’ I sat up. ‘She is a witch. A conniving, insidious, poisonous –’ I clutched my mouth. ‘Oh, my poor Claudia! My little girl! Imagine the shame, the humiliation – ooooh … my poor baby!’
‘I go,’ said Spiro, turning. ‘I go now and keel the beetch!’ He shook his fist.
‘No, no, Spiro.’ I put a restraining hand on his arm. ‘You’re sweet but, actually, we can’t kill her. We can just render her unemployed.’
Mac sucked his teeth dubiously. ‘Yeah, well, if you can, like, luv. Only it ain’t so easy to shift workforce these days, and I should know. They’ve got written conditions, see, employment rights.’
‘Rights!’ I screeched. ‘How can she talk about rights? What right does she have to be shagging my husband? And then, goddamit, to go and teach innocent children! God in heaven – one minute she’s pirouetting naked around a bedroom, licking honey off my husband’s buttocks, and the next thing we know she’s singing “Incy Wincy Spider” to four-year-olds! It’s scandalous! No one in their right mind would allow it!’
‘Of course not, of course not. Head back,’ soothed Mac. I obediently crashed my head back on to the chair in fury and Mac began to massage my shoulders in a very businesslike manner. ‘You’re very tense, you see, very tense indeed. This is what you need, now relax.’
‘He very good,’ confided Spiro in my ear. ‘I had one. I went bye-byes.’
‘I wouldn’t mind going bye-byes for bleeding ever,’ I muttered grimly as Mac attacked my shoulders.
‘Give her the tea now, Spiro,’ Mac ordered, pummelling away like billyo.
This is surreal, I thought as I crunched away maniacally. Here I am, in this chaos of a building site, collapsing in a pathetic heap, whilst one of my builders pats my feet, another massages my shoulders and another administers the drugs. Jesus! I’ve lost it, I’ve totally lost it. I shut my eyes tight. But a teacher. A bloody teacher! My eyes snapped open suddenly, like searchlights. So how the hell had he met her then? At a parents’ evening or something? Sidled up to her after the school concert and given her the eye? But Sarah had said she was new … yes, of course, and I’d never seen her before either. My brain went scurrying into overdrive. Right – so he must have met her just after we moved here – about six months ago – that way the timing made sense. But, good grief, a nursery school teacher? That didn’t make sense at all! Because despite the terrible name, I’d secretly had her down as a glamorous investment banker, shooting him hot looks across the dealing-room floor, flicking her ash-blonde hair back over her Armani suit, brushing behind him as he sat at his screen, wafting Chanel up his nostrils. In my worst nightmares I’d even seen her driving him back to her Chelsea pad in her Porsche, peeling off her silk underwear to reveal a seamless tan, slipping seductively between her designer sheets, an aristocratic filly who probably wore her tiara in bed and whinnied at the moment critique, and all the time – all the time she really was just a bit of a Nina! I shut my eyes and groaned.
Simultaneously, in my left ear I heard, ‘What d’you fink then?’ in an anxious undertone. ‘Only I got money on it.’
I opened one eye. ‘Money on what, Alf?’
Mac, still at my shoulders, cleared his throat. ‘Well, Alf was just wondering, like, since we’re here an’ that, if we could just turn the telly on for a minute an’ have a butchers at the 11.40 from Newmarket. Only we’ve had a little flutter.’
‘What?’ I peered around as three expectant faces gazed down at me. I sighed. ‘Oh, fine, fine, yes, go on,’ I said weakly. ‘God, I may as well lose total control here.’
Mac gave Alf an economic nod and Alf instantly flicked the switch. Alf then settled at my feet, Spiro crouched down close beside me – clearly not wanting to leave my side – and then kindly slipped me a bag of Wotsits. I gazed at them blankly in my lap. He sighed, opened the packet, took one out and popped it in my mouth. I munched listlessly, watching blankly as the horses raced out of their starter gates.
‘Come on, my darling,’ Mac breathed ecstatically in my ear, still massaging furiously, which was a bit disconcerting. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. ‘Come on, my gorgeous … my gorgeous … little … beauty!’
‘Who are we on?’ I muttered.
‘Creamy Carmel,’ he said, ‘and she goes like a tiger.’
‘Bully for her.’
At length there was a collective groan. ‘Well, she did last week, anyway,’ said Mac, matter-of-factly. ‘Put the kettle on, Alf.’
I was vaguely aware that not a lot of work was being done around here, but Mac’s fingers had gone into overdrive and I appeared to be glued to my seat, paralysed, eyes shutting and head nodding, totally unable to take command. After a bit Mac spoke.
‘I bin meaning to talk to you about that kitchen.’
‘Oh yes,’ I mumbled. Kitchen. Good. We could call this a site meeting.
‘Yeah, it’s about them cupboards.’
‘Mmm, yes,’ I muttered. ‘There does seem to be a curious lack of cupboards, Mac, and you did say –’
‘I know, I said I’d make them for you, nice and farm-housey, like, stressed pine.’
‘Distressed, I believe, but give them ten minutes in this house and they’ll be stressed too.’
‘Whatever. Anyway, the fing is there’s a lot of them buggers to make, more than I originally fought, and I reckon I’m gonna need more labour.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yeah,’ he sighed. ‘I mean what wiv Spiro on bricklayin’ and Alf on concrete, I can’t do all the joinery meself, so I was thinking of bringing in my Lance.’
‘Your lance?’ I frowned. Jousting came to mind. Wimples and knights. ‘Would that help?’ I muttered helplessly as visions of Mac, galloping round the kitchen spearing cupboards into place, sprang to mind.
‘Yeah, my boy Lance – he’s my eldest, like. He’s a chippy by trade, like me.’
‘Ah.’ Yes, well that cleared something up. I’d been wondering what Mac was.
‘He’ll be down here by the end of the week and then we’ll get cracking on them cabinets straight away, orright?’
I gulped nervously. ‘Yes but, heavens Mac – four labourers!’
‘Now don’t you go worrying your head about the money, luv,’ he soothed, kneading away furiously now. ‘I’m doin’ you a nice little package deal here, bein’ as how you’re in straitened circumstances an’ that. Never let it be said that Mac Turner would squeeze money out of an abandoned woman!’
‘Ah, so Lance is free?’ I asked hopefully.
‘Nooo,’ he said cautiously, ‘not exactly, but he’ll be doin’ it for half whack, orright? An’ he’ll be staying in the caravan too, so there’s no need to worry ’bout accommodation.’
‘Well, I hardly thought he was staying with me!’
‘And that way we’ll have that kitchen of yours sorted in no time. There.’ He gave my shoulders a final slap. ‘You’re done, luv. Ready for anything now, and if you don’t mind my sayin’, what I suggest you do – now that you’re nice and relaxed – is get down to that school double quick and give them merry hell. If you look sharp and get your skates on you could bend that headmaster’s ear in his lunch hour.’
I sat up and glanced at the clock. Gosh. Yes. He was right. If I went now I might just catch old Michael Harty before lessons started. And, how peculiar – I shook my head – I really did feel better – I got unsteadily to my feet – if a bit woozy. I wondered if that really was aspirin Spiro had been slipping me, or valium perhaps. I staggered a bit and then lunged for my handbag. Blimey, anyone would think I was drunk. My audience watched my performance politely and I noticed that nobody seemed to be getting up to do any work, but then again, they had been very sweet, hadn’t they? Very considerate. It seemed churlish to mention it.
‘See you later then, boys.’ I tottered unsteadily to the door.
‘Ta-ta, luv.’ Alf settled back comfortably and surreptitiously turned up the volume a bit with the remote control. Spiro’s eyes seemed to be slowly shutting.
‘Bye, luv,’ smiled Mac, who, as the foreman, at least had the grace to get up and see me to the door. ‘Now don’t forget, give them hell,’ he said as he followed me out to the hall. ‘Oh, and by the way …’ He plucked at my sleeve, glancing round to make sure no one was listening.
‘What?’ I whispered, hand on the doorknob.
He found my ear. ‘You’ll like my Lance.’
I flushed. Pulled away. ‘Well, I’m sure I will, Mac.’
‘No, but, you know,’ he nudged me. Winked. ‘They all like Lance.’
‘Excellent,’ I muttered faintly, deliberately misunderstanding him. ‘Lovely to have popular children. Can’t wait to meet him,’ and with that I bustled out to the car.
God, that was all I needed, I thought as I slammed the door and crunched the gears into first, roaring out of the drive. Some gum-chewing, heavily biceped beefcake, plastered with tattoos and making goo-goo eyes at me over the cement mixer. Terrific. I shuddered and put my foot down, roaring off down the high street and simultaneously reaching for my mobile phone as I went, careering through an amber light and breaking the speed limit. Molly was out, but I managed to track Imogen down, similarly on her mobile, but in the dealing room of Sotheby’s pursuing some fine art. I’m not sure it was entirely convenient, but she loyally listened to my tirade and was suitably outraged, albeit in hush
ed tones.
‘They’ll have to sack her,’ she hissed firmly. ‘She’s completely compromised you – be with you in a minute, Damien – put you in a totally invidious position. We’ll get a lawyer on to this, Liv. I know the most marvellous chap in the City who’ll stitch her up in no time, but the school will have to let her go, anyway. Quite frankly, they’ve got no other option.’
Sadly, Mr Harty seemed to think they had quite a few. After much corridor marching I finally ran him to ground in the upper school dining room as he sat at a table that was brimming over with upper fourth and testosterone, his eyes glazing over and looking defeated as he toyed listlessly with his treacle sponge.
‘A word please, Mr Harty,’ I muttered sweetly in his ear.
He looked up, startled, then recognising a wild-eyed mother, and knowing the breed of old, paused only to wipe the treacle from his moustache before getting up and following me wearily from the dining hall. Hundreds of fascinated pre-teen eyes followed his exit, and somewhere amongst those eyes, I spotted my daughter’s. I have an idea they were horrified.
Safely ensconced in his office, Mr Harty scuttled hastily behind his large desk and sat down relieved, presumably hoping that two square metres of reproduction oak gave him the edge. He was a moon-faced man with a totally bald head, who apparently had grown the bushy moustache to compensate. His shiny pate reputedly shone more when he was anxious and, I have to say, by the time I’d finished with him, it was glowing like a beacon.
‘Well, this is, of course, a very delicate situation, Mrs McFarllen,’ he faltered, fiddling nervously with a pencil on his desk. ‘We must tread very carefully here, as I’m sure you’ll agree.’
‘There’s nothing delicate about it at all, Mr Harty. She’s having a totally indelicate affair with my husband, Claudia’s father!’
‘Well, quite, and I can see how difficult that must be for you, but the problem is, she’s an awfully good teacher and that’s so important in the nursery, you see – so crucial in the formative years. The parents will be up in arms if I let her go.’
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