‘You’re home early. Trouble?’
‘Nah. Mrs Howard was sick and had to leave the meeting early. I borrowed their ute.’
She went to her bedroom and sat on the bed. The adrenaline was still pumping. She needed to be cool and stop breathing so heavily. Maybe a shower would help. Typically, as soon as she was under the water, her mother was knocking on the door. ‘Are you in, darling?’
‘Just.’
‘Can you be quick? I need to have one.’
Her mother couldn’t let go of the idea that if one shower was going there wouldn’t be enough hot water for a shower in the other bathroom. It wasn’t true but there was no point arguing.
‘Didn’t you have a shower before you left?’
‘Didn’t you have one before you went babysitting?’
There was silence. Madison couldn’t think of an explanation.
Then Jennifer continued: ‘We had a fire at the school. I really need to wash the smoke out of my hair.’
‘A fire?’ Madison leaned out of the shower cubicle. ‘A bad one?’
‘It’s ruined the classroom.’
‘Wow. What caused it? Arson?’
‘Don’t know yet. We’ll have to wait for an investigation.’
‘Wow.’ Madison was back in the shower quickly finishing off. It wasn’t every day the school burnt down. Mind you, it wasn’t every day you were caught having sex with a married man by his wife.
JENNIFER
When she told Andy, he was immediately concerned, keen to take action, wondering if he should take his fire-fighting unit down to the school to help out. You could always rely on Andy to jump to. She assured him there was no fire left to fight and then he began asking the difficult questions. She told him she had no answers, she wasn’t going to speculate and it was no time for a post-mortem, all the while thinking ‘calm, calm’, and visualising herself as the strong, unflappable leader of the community that she had been.
As far as keeping the whole thing a secret, Madison was a hazard. If anyone would pick up on a change in Jennifer’s behaviour, a blush up the neck, a sparkle in the eye, a discomfort, it would be her daughter. Also, Madison knew she had gone to the school early, before the meeting. Jennifer had dropped her off at Sarah and Ian’s on the way. And, being someone who scrutinised adults as closely as she did, there was a pretty good chance that Madison knew she had an occasional cigarette. She must remember to watch herself. But at least Madison would be discreet. She wouldn’t feel the need to tell the police or her father, but she would be disappointed in her mother and would also probably use it as some kind of weapon against her. But that could be dealt with down the track. Brock was the immediate concern.
She hadn’t expected Madison to be home but then she remembered Sarah’s departure and realised that Sarah and, as a result, Madison, wouldn’t have heard about the fire. She realised this standing outside the bathroom door urging Madison to speed up because she knew once Madison was in the shower there was no telling when she’d get out. Sometimes she thought her daughter ought to be permanently water wrinkled. Then when Madison pointed out she’d already showered that day she thought she’d been rumbled. It was obvious that Madison knew why she needed a shower. Panic was starting to take control and she could fell herself blushing when she remembered the fire. The fire, not the sex, was the reason she needed a shower!
‘Out, Madison. Now. I’ve got to get back to the school.’
Warm water definitely helped. It removed the smell of smoke from her skin and her nostrils, and took away the taint of Brock. She emerged ready for the next stage. Already she was plotting how to make sure she had Brock where she wanted him and how to get the department under control.
The department always maintained that it didn’t like to shut small schools but people who had moved on from there to other jobs told her the real feeling was that small schools were a massive pain in the neck. They were always complaining and wanting attention, took a lot of managing and used a large amount of resources for so few students. It was much cheaper and more efficient to have all your students in the one spot, in the one uniform, under the one principal.
Now that Stony Creek no longer had a classroom, closing the school permanently might be offered as a practical solution to such a terrible catastrophe. Someone in the department would suggest, and you never knew where these suggestions came from, that a better bus could be financed for the trip into Fresh Well, that a broader education, with more kids to play with, and better teachers could be found there, and wasn’t Stony Creek always complaining about the quality of teachers they had to accept? It was an old refrain. But it hadn’t won the day any time previously and wasn’t going to now. Stony Creek Primary School needed her.
As she brushed her hair she mused that the department would try to delay the delivery of a temporary classroom, hoping to get Stony Creek parents thinking about whether the school was going to shut and consider moving to another school. There were always parents thinking of moving their child on to a better school, whether it was better or not, because they thought it was a sign of strength and individual decisiveness. Jennifer knew very well that when you had so few students the desertion of one or two could make a big difference, sometimes a snowballing difference that ended in the closure of the school. It was imperative that she got a classroom for the school by the start of next term.
There were three weeks of holidays to mount an argument for keeping the school open, harass the department about a temporary, demountable classroom and get Brock to confess. Alice McKinnon, cluster director at the department, was in for a harrowing time.
She wondered if the promise of sex would be enough to get Brock to concede. Maybe the sex and his feelings for her (did he have feelings for her?) would let him see that she had much more to lose than he did. For him it was just a job, and a job that he hadn’t really wanted very much at that. And it wouldn’t be any sort of blackmail or prostitution (heaven forbid), because she did actually quite badly want to have sex with him again. She would have to control that desire to make sure it held its power and its currency. She was showered, dressed, rationalised and ready to go.
BROCK
Some of the women had escorted Brock back to his house, while others scooted home to retrieve Magic Pudding casseroles that reproduced themselves in fridges and freezers, at the ready for the next disaster. They had wrapped him in a blanket, warning of shock, and he decided against warning them about the shock they would be in if they found out whose post-coital cigarette caused the fire.
After the casseroles were delivered and he’d thanked them, he assured them he would be fine. They left him alone, warning they would return tomorrow and maybe all hours in between.
He appreciated their kindness but was glad to be unshackled from their close scrutiny. The whole thing was a catastrophe. He might as well pack his bag right there and then. No one would suspect Jennifer. The finger would be pointed directly at him. Smoking in a school building? Burning that building down? He wasn’t sure what he could be charged with or whether they were sacking offences, but no community or employer would support a teacher who was so careless they accidentally burned down their own school.
Jennifer would be safe. They would be much keener to believe the arsonist was Brock or some random person, secretly setting the school alight while the meeting was in progress. And even if he wanted to (and he didn’t), there was no way he could prove that he and Jennifer had been having sex and then use that as leverage against her. Besides which, no one would believe him anyway. And what about the husband? Those farming types didn’t look like they would take a live-and-let-live approach to cuckolding.
Then again, he didn’t know Jennifer that well (even in the biblical sense). Maybe she was about to put her hand up, say the cigarette was hers and that she was totally responsible for the fire. ‘Brock had nothing to do with it and the school can’t exist without him.’ She did seem to be a woman of principle (except when she was with the princi
pal). It was a nice thought, but not one he believed for a second. Jennifer would hang him out to dry. You didn’t need to be perceptive about people to know that.
That was a real pity. He had really come to like the place in the past few weeks and he was quite taken with the way they appreciated him. The money was good, too. He’d never really had money before. He’d also really got to like Jennifer. All in all, a complete disaster.
So he gloomily ate his casserole at the table, still wrapped in the blanket, and thought about whether his couple of months as principal would count for anything when he applied for his next job. ‘Oh, you’re the principal that burned down the school.’
And then there was a knock at the door. He stood, and was nearly at the point of dropping to his knees and praying it wasn’t Betty Thomson when Jennifer opened the door. She looked beautiful and severe, as he knew she would. He sat back down to his meal and wondered if Betty mightn’t have been a better option.
‘How are you?’
‘I’m okay. A little singed.’ He waved the edges of the blanket. ‘The ladies were worried about me being in shock.’
‘Not as much shock as they’d be …’
They both laughed with what seemed to Brock like genuine amusement.
She sat down next to him and breathed out heavily. He could feel her shoulder against him.
‘What a night.’
‘God, what a night.’ They laughed again. This time nervously. Even here, in terrible circumstances, where he had accepted the worst about her, she sparked something deep inside of him.
‘Do you think it could have been caused by the wiring? Or an arsonist?’ She was doing her best to sound innocent.
‘Sure.’ It was very quiet. Brock simply didn’t believe in those sorts of coincidences and he couldn’t see the point in promoting their possibility. ‘Was there paper in the bin when you put your cigarette out?’
‘Who’s asking?’
Her tone had changed. She was further down the road than he’d realised. It was a pretty clear confirmation of his suspicions. She was going to admit nothing and tough it out. Brock could hear his own chewing, loud in his ears, and the voice of a man on the TV saying how much he didn’t want to get voted off the program. Almost as a rebuke, the casserole was very tasty.
He decided then, mid-mouthful, that the only consolation he would seek from this whole thing was one more go-round with Jennifer. Everything else was already forsaken. If he fought and somehow, magically, showed Jennifer to be in the wrong, the community would hate him anyway. There was no chance of a win taking that path. Sex with Jennifer was all he could hope for.
‘You’d better give me that pack of cigarettes.’ He didn’t look at her.
‘I’ve already thrown it out.’
‘There’s no point you jeopardising everything. I’ll say I was having a nervous ciggie in the office before the meeting and didn’t put it out properly.’
He felt her arm go round him. ‘Are you serious?’
‘Yep. I expect that’ll mean I’m out of here, maybe even out of teaching. But I’ll be all right.’
‘It was an accident, Brock. They can’t fire you for a simple accident.’
They sat for a moment listening to that new idea revolve in their heads. It was an accident. Smoking wasn’t illegal. You don’t retrench someone for a mishap. Do you?
‘You’d better wait till they determine the cause of the fire. It would be terrible to confess to something you didn’t …’ She thought better of finishing the sentence and squeezed his arm instead. ‘Thank you.’
He felt heroic and suddenly aware of the blood in his body. It caused him to turn confidently towards her, buoyed by bravado for the second time that day. She was radiant and irresistible.
Jennifer understood his intent immediately and smiled at him, put up a hand as a buffer and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Not now.’ She stood up abruptly. ‘Another day. Promise.’
And then she was gone, mission completed, no flirty little wave this time.
‘Fuck’. It was the only comfort available.
MACK
Mack Booth’s joints were a bit dodgy and he couldn’t see very much anymore, but he could still hear pretty well, something he was proud of considering he’d had a lifetime of open cab tractors and poorly muffled machinery. Now from the rickety verandah of his cottage, just further than an old man’s stone’s throw from the road out of Stony Creek, he heard his daughter-in-law’s car go past again. He’d been sitting in the dark looking out at the stars because the air was so beautiful and light after the heaviness of the hot day. Jennifer going past was like a dusty diesel insult.
He knew Madison was babysitting at the Howards’ and Jennifer had a meeting at the school. But since then, Ian’s ute had gone past and Jennifer’s car had come home from the direction of the school then gone back and then come home again. Jennifer’s car went to the school a lot. Too much for a married woman, in his opinion.
Not that his opinion counted for anything anymore, something he had long since accepted, just as he’d accepted old age and failing eyesight and the death of sex. Andy had to run the farm the way he wanted to and he had heard all the useful stuff that Mack had to say at least once and the useless stuff a lot more times. Tolstoy had mentioned something about it, about men of a certain age no longer being listened to, but Mack couldn’t remember where or in what context. Nevertheless it was true. He had reached that point in life. People caught parts of what he said, but only so they could show courtesy. They would repeat a phrase with glassy eyes and nodding head: ‘Really? The 1950s were wet years?’ but he could have been talking about his underpants for all they comprehended.
He knew, in some men—old Jack Crothers from out on the Carpenter Road, for example, who had two sons, now in the city, was married to Katie Blanch, a big girl, from up north, gone some years now—this sort of communal deafness inspired an urge to talk at length, in greater detail than before, to anyone who stopped long enough and near enough. As if they had a large quota of words (you can’t take ’em with you) to get through before it all ended. Mack had just taken up talking to himself or Leo and listening.
It had been quite a surprise. He’d previously thought listening was overrated but now he picked up on so many things he would previously have been ignorant of that he wondered what else he had missed out on for all those years.
He sat breathing easily, as if it were a privilege, while a lone cricket reported something it thought was significant from the garden bed beneath him and in the distance a fox choked out its guttural, grating love song. To the east, only a few kilometres away, was Stony Creek. To the west, a similar distance, was Andy and Jennifer’s house. All the country in between, a fair swathe of it, belonged to them. It did now anyway. Once it had been his, but now he was on the sidelines.
Were there things he should have heard that might have changed his life? It didn’t matter. He didn’t regret much in the course of his life. He would have liked to have had more women, possibly—the physical side, not their company. He regretted, just a little bit, his faithfulness. That jillaroo, Kirsten, they had on the place in 1980, for instance. She was keen. He could have given her one (or two) and held onto the memory forever. He wished he’d travelled a bit more; he never got to see the Middle East. And he would have liked more good times with Celie.
He would give most anything to hear her voice again, whether she made sense or not. The thought of it made his eyes well up and he felt aged and pathetic. Crying was like impotence. You never guessed it was a real thing when you were young. No matter what, Celie was long gone: several years of healthy, oblivious Alzheimer’s and then a sudden finish.
Best not to think about all that. Better to think about the cars coming and going. And the two different types of smoke in the clear air: a faint chemical building smoke odour from the direction of the school and a different smell from Jennifer’s car as it went past the second time. A cigarette? So distinctive these days. Once
ubiquitous. She must have had a passenger in the car, which was confusing because he reckoned he could name all the people within a thirty-kilometre radius who regularly smoked and he couldn’t think why any of them would get a lift with Jennifer. If someone had broken down they wouldn’t be getting a lift away from Stony Creek. Must be a guest, a traveller from one of those countries that didn’t see smoking as the devil’s work. Unless young Madison had taken up smoking, which was always a possibility. With Madison anything was a possibility—something he didn’t necessarily think was a bad thing. The world did seem to be a very serious place these days and someone who was prepared to stir that up a little had to be a blessing.
And now the night was quiet and the wind changed direction, a light southerly that told him that the bright light at the school was either a bonfire or the school itself.
He couldn’t remember the school burning down before, but there was a time when it was common enough for buildings to burn down. He remembered the Thomsons’ fire and the Vickerys’ and his parents discussing the complete destruction of the Rimmingtons’ place. They didn’t burn down so much now and he wondered why that was.
He considered there was a pretty good chance he’d burn his own place down sooner or later. Leave a hotplate on or the iron or the electric blanket or something. It wasn’t how he planned to go but anything was better than one of those nursing-home places where people lived in their pyjamas, spoke nothing but gibberish and looked unhappy, really unhappy, even if they didn’t know why. One mistake and that’s where they’d send him for his own good. That he would die in there without this broad plain and those mountains and Leo and Madison was clear. Die or as good as die anyway.
Not that his family weren’t doing their best by him. Jennifer and Madison looked out for him, did a lot of his shopping, cooked him meals, bought clothes and made sure the cleaner did a proper job. Andy dropped in now and then. On Thursdays one of them drove him into town so he could sit and chat with the old stagers who were rapidly deteriorating into shufflers and dodderers. It was enjoyable, but being reminded of what the future looked like was losing its charm.
The Good Teacher Page 4