Bed of Roses

by Daisy Waugh

  ‘You’ll die o’ boredom, Solomon, you ass,’ says his old friend Grey McShane when Solomon telephones to tell him the news. ‘What the bloody hell are you going to do with yourself down here?’

  ‘Work, of course. And I thought I might buy a bit of land,’ Solomon adds vaguely. ‘Buy a little tractor…The children would love it…Or perhaps I might become an MP.’

  Grey belly laughs. ‘With your record?’

  ‘No. All right. Fair enough. What else do people do in the country? I don’t want to just flop there like a rich bastard.’

  ‘Like you do at the moment.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Solomon rests his large feet on top of the seventeenth-century dining table which serves as his desk at the London gallery, and lights himself a cigarette. ‘Any ideas? Maybe I could sponsor a croquet competition. Or darts. Nothing too strenuous, so we can get the geriatrics in on it too. Since Fiddleford seems to be half-populated by the overnineties. Do you think they’d enjoy a croquet and darts knees-up? Might do. I certainly would. To celebrate our arrival.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ Grey says distractedly, prodding at a tray of dover sole being held out for his inspection.

  ‘Macklan could build a podium, for giving out the prizes. And I’ll get trophies made. Anything else? You must do us a banquet. With a pig on a spit. Can the restaurant stretch to that? I’m sure it can.’

  ‘Of course it can.’

  ‘Excellent. This is beginning to take shape. Perhaps I should organise hot-air-balloon rides. Flora and Dora are obsessed—’

  ‘Right then,’ chuckles Grey. ‘Well, I’ve forty covers for lunch today, so I’ll leave you to mull that over, shall I, Solomon?’

  They arrange for Solomon to come round, discuss suckling pigs and pay homage to the new baby that Friday, and hang up only for Grey to call back sixty seconds later. He suggests that Solomon might like, as part of his non-flopping policy, to volunteer at the village school as a governor.

  A stunned silence. ‘You’re joking, right?’ Solomon says. He sounds like a true Londoner, for once. Always does when he’s surprised.

  ‘No, I’m not fucking joking,’ snaps Grey. ‘Don’t be a bloody snob. We’ll talk about it when you get down here on Friday.’ And with that Grey slams down the telephone.

  34

  Fanny gets the HM Inspectors’ report back a week later, on the Friday they are due to break for half-term, and slightly earlier than expected. Mrs Haywood the glass-eyed secretary hands it to her with a knowing smile, and lingers a moment, fiddling ineptly with the untidy papers on Fanny’s desk while Fanny, with cold, sweaty hands, fumbles to open the envelope.

  ‘Well?…’ says Mrs Haywood at last. ‘What does it say?…I expect they’re delighted, are they?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ says Fanny, too nervous to know where to start. ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘Look at the summary, dear,’ orders Mrs Haywood. ‘And don’t look so worried! You’ve worked ever so hard for us. You’ve done ever so well. If they can’t see it then they’re blind as bats, and I’m sure we’ll all have a few things to say about that…’

  Slowly, Fanny’s face breaks into a grin.

  ‘There. You see?’ says Mrs Haywood, surreptitiously dropping a random bunch of papers from Fanny’s desk into the bin, as she always does when she’s in here, if she thinks Fanny’s not looking. As she’s been doing for years, in fact, for every boss she’s ever worked for. (It never seems to matter.) ‘I told you, dear!’ She leans across the desk, gives Fanny a hurried pat on the shoulder. ‘Well. That’s all I needed to know. I’ll leave you to read it on your own. Many congratulations, Fanny. You deserve it.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Haywood,’ Fanny says in amazement. ‘Thank you. I had no idea you—I had no idea you thought I was any good. You never said.’

  ‘Didn’t I, dear? Well, of course I do.’

  ‘Thank you very much.’ Fanny beams.

  Mrs Haywood closes the door behind her.

  Fanny has to read the report’s conclusion once, twice and again before she begins to take it in. In spite of the shortage of governors, she reads in numb amazement, and the shortage of paperwork, and the protracted absence of one member of staff, rarely, if ever, it says, have Her Majesty’s Inspectors noted such improvement in a school over such a short period of time. Miss Fanny Flynn is to be highly commended.

  …Highly commended…

  Fanny shouldn’t have been so surprised. Most of the children’s parents, like Mrs Haywood, would have told her the same. With or without the forbidden dissected pheasants, nature tables etc., Fanny’s hard work and imagination have indeed worked miracles over the school. It’s evident not just in the brightly coloured walls, the murals, the clay models, the weaving looms, the poetry and science displays, the small vegetable garden outside the cloakrooms (just now sprouting carrots). Above all of that, all the variety and imagination on show, Fanny’s success is evident in her students’ faces. Nobody, unless by some fluke Robert White happens to be working, nobody at Fiddleford Primary School ever looks bored any more.

  A copy of the report is sent to the vicar (chair of the board of governors) and to its seven other members.

  Fanny sits at her desk, grinning to herself…Rarely, if ever (she reads it again) have Her Majesty’s Inspectors noted such improvement in such a short period of time…Rarely, if ever…Rarely if ever…such improvement…in such a short period of time…Miss Flynn’s achievements must be highly commended…

  There is a tap on her office door: the light, efficient tap she has come to know so well, accompanied as it always is by the infuriatingly upbeat ‘Only me!’

  Only Geraldine. Wanting to talk about Ollie. Again.

  The feud between Ollie and Dane has spiralled, over the last week, to the point where they now have to be sat at opposite corners of the classroom. Earlier this morning Dane had taken the unprecedented step of contributing a nonaggressive comment to a class discussion. The fact that it was garbled and irrelevant didn’t matter; the will had been there.

  ‘Eh?’ interrupted Ollie, scratching his golden curls and looking facetiously around the classroom. ‘Is Penis Guppy talking German again?’

  Once again Fanny sent Ollie out of the room.

  ‘Do you mind, Fanny? I know you’re busy…’ says Geraldine, pushing open the door and firmly closing it behind her. Fanny has rearranged the furniture in her small office. She’s thrown out the broken filing cabinets and replaced them with a chair. Geraldine doesn’t wait to be asked. She is already sitting in it.

  But Fanny’s had a glowing report from the inspectors. She’s off to Spain tomorrow morning to spend half-term with her mother. She pats the wad of paper in front of her, grinning. ‘Got the inspectors’ report back, Geraldine.’

  ‘Oh! What does it say? Is it nice?’ Geraldine leans across the desk towards it. ‘May I see?’

  ‘I’m amazed it’s come back so quickly,’ Fanny says. ‘They said it would take at least a week.’

  ‘Is it nice? May I see?’

  ‘It’s incredibly nice, actually,’ Fanny says.

  A flicker of surprise on Geraldine’s face. ‘I knew it! See? You shouldn’t have worried so much! I’m so happy for you. May I see it?’

  ‘I was thinking of zooming out to Safeways, actually. Thought I’d get us some champagne to celebrate.’

  ‘May I see it?’

  ‘ ’Course you can.’ Fanny slides it across the desk. ‘Not supposed to, mind. Supposed to be confidential. For governors’ eyes only…’

  The bloody vicar had cancelled last Sunday’s drink at the Old Rectory, and though he has promised to come this Sunday instead, Geraldine is beginning to suspect that he’s a flake. There is only one thing in life Geraldine fears more than a flake, and that is to be left outside of a loop. Any loop. Even a loop of people officially allowed to read the HM Inspectors’ Report of Fiddleford Church of England Primary School. She wants to be on that governing body. Now.

  She clears her thr
oat. ‘It’s not what I came to see you about, but it’s something I’ve been meaning to discuss with you for some time. As you probably know, lovely Reverend Hodge is doing his level-lovely-best to get Kitty and I rushelected on to the body. Via his little church council.’

  ‘Oh.’ Fanny didn’t know. Geraldine has taken care not to mention it to her. Obviously. But the fact that the lovely Rev. hasn’t mentioned it either only confirms Geraldine’s suspicions that he’s a flake.

  ‘Dear Reverend. He’s a sweetheart and I adore him,’ Geraldine continues. ‘But of course, you know how it is with these old soldiers. Their idea of a “rush” isn’t quite…’ Geraldine rolls her eyes, smiling, ‘the same as one’s. Meanwhile, Robert White tells me that you’re desperately short of governors—’

  ‘When did you speak to Robert?’

  ‘A couple of weeks ago now. Poor little chap. I gather he’s terribly sick?’

  ‘Depends how you define “sick”,’ mutters Fanny.

  ‘Hmm?’ Geraldine’s beady eyes try to look confused, but she’s heard. She’s taken it in. ‘So, no. We – Robert and I – were talking about it a few weeks ago, and he happened to remark that we were heinously short. Of governors…I must admit I had rather hoped, Fanny, you would have invited me to join the board.’

  ‘Oh!’ is all Fanny can think of. Again. Her mind races for an excuse. ‘Oh!…How silly…why didn’t I think of it?’

  ‘And as I say,’ continues Geraldine, ‘Kitty, too. She’s keen to join, too. And with her all over the papers she might be quite a useful person to have on board, don’t you agree? We’ll need to organise a little election. But I can do that.’

  ‘Oh, absolutely. Let me, erm—Only I’m not quite sure…how many we need. Or if we need…But it’s such a lovely thought. Can I think about it?’

  Geraldine smiles brightly. ‘What’s to think about, Fanny? Since I’m here…’

  ‘Yes,’ Fanny laughs. ‘But Geraldine, you’re always here.’

  Geraldine looks faintly bewildered. Faintly hurt. ‘OK,’ she says in a smaller voice. ‘OK. Well. Have a think about it.’

  ‘Thank you, though,’ Fanny says limply, ‘I don’t mean to…Was there anything else?’

  ‘Hmm?…Oh. Yes,’ Geraldine rallies at once. ‘I’m afraid there is. Fanny, I found Ollie in tears outside your office this morning.’

  ‘He was in tears, was he?’ Fanny sounds sceptical. ‘Are you sure?’

  Geraldine won’t confirm or deny. She tilts her head. ‘Fanny, Ollie has never been in trouble at school before. Not in London. Not here. Never…And I don’t know what to tell him, Fanny. He’s convinced you’re picking on him.’

  ‘Ollie—’

  ‘And I personally believe,’ Geraldine closes her eyes for emphasis, to block any interruption, ‘that when a child is engaging in challenging behaviour with only one authority figure, and with no one else, then that authority figure must examine her own behaviour to see if it’s actually her behaviour, and not the child’s, which is at the root of the problem. Because Ollie,’ Geraldine’s eyes pop open again, ‘is perfectly well behaved with Clive and me. And he was always good with Robert.’

  35

  Fanny bumps into Grey McShane at the Safeways checkout as she’s paying for the champagne, but is still so consumed by the threat of Geraldine Adams on her governing body that she forgets even to explain to him, her fellow governor, the reason for buying it. ‘We’ve got to stop her!’ she cries, without telling him who to stop, or from what, or anything about her recent triumph. Without even remembering to say hello. ‘She’ll take over the school!’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Geraldine Adams! She’s demanding to be a governor. Can you believe it? And Kitty Mozely, too! God knows…I couldn’t think of a single reason to say no…and she just sort of sat there, looking hurt. But it can’t happen! It can’t. I’d end up killing them both.’

  Grey laughs his deep, rich laugh. ‘You’ll have a job stopping either of them, Fanny. The vicar’s got the General down for a meeting Monday evening to elect them in. It’s as good as done. So,’ Grey gives her an evil grin, ‘much more interesting than that – what did you make of him, Fanny? Handsome, eh? He’s bloody rich, too.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Who? Solomon Creasey, of course. What did you think of him?’

  ‘Solomon? Grey, this is serious.’

  Grey clicks his tongue. ‘Come on, Fanny. He must have made some impression.’

  Solomon Creasey had spoken twice to Mrs Haywood the glass-eyed school secretary, during which Mrs Haywood, thinking he was a delightful gentleman and much better than his reputation, had blithely assured him there was ‘more than enough space’ for his three children to join the school after half-term. But Mrs Haywood hadn’t seen fit to pass any of this on to Fanny. And what with the darts and croquet to organise, and all the other house-moving diversions, Solomon Creasey had failed to pursue the point himself, or tried to talk to Fanny in person. In truth, having been so reassured by Mrs Haywood, he too had forgotten. And this accidental gossip with Grey McShane, in Safeways on the last day before half-term, is the first time Fanny has heard that the population of her small school is about to be increased – by almost 10 per cent.

  ‘But he can’t do that!’ Fanny says angrily. ‘Doesn’t he realise? There are systems and procedures and things. I’m not just a dropping-off place for his children. I mean, doesn’t he realise this school is a publicly funded—It’s a government—I mean, fuck, Grey. Doesn’t he realise there are probably about six million forms to fill in?’

  Grey just giggles. ‘I take it you don’t know about the petition, then?’

  ‘Hmm?’

  Last weekend Dora, Flora and Clara Creasey, riding small ponies and dressed as ancient Romans, delivered darts and croquet day invitations around the village. (Fanny must have been out. She found her own invitation on her doormat.) At the same time they presented a petition: ‘SIGN HERE IF YOU WANT SOLOMON CREASEY AS SCHOOL GOVERNOR’. The girls had collected almost seventy signatures – more signatures than there were parents in the school…

  ‘Which makes him one of us, eh?’ Grey McShane smirks. ‘Solomon’s very keen to play an active role in his children’s schooling,’ he deadpans. ‘He takes that sort of thing very seriously. He told me so himself.’

  ‘What? He’s a governor? But why didn’t he tell me? For God’s sake, this isn’t how it’s supposed to work!’

  ‘Och, Fanny. Who cares? You just said you needed governors, and he’s better than Geraldine. Don’t be so bloody prissy.’

  ‘I’m not being prissy,’ says Fanny. ‘I’m just saying, I can’t believe I’m having to find this out in Safeways. Who the fuck does Solomon Creasey think he is?’

  It turns out nobody wants to drink champagne with Fanny that afternoon. Linda Tardy the teacher’s assistant announces she never drinks; Tracey Guppy takes one look at the bottle and runs out of the staff room; Robert is off sick; Geraldine Adams has left the building; and Mrs Martin the supply teacher has to rush off to pick up her own children from school. They leave Fanny and her champagne all alone, still smiling to hide the fact that she minds, and then her mobile rings.

  It’s her mother. ‘Is that you, Fanny, sweetheart?’ she says, sounding a bit feeble.

  ‘Hello, Mum!’ Fanny cries, feeling full of warmth, feeling suddenly less lonely. ‘This time tomorrow!…I can’t wait!’

  ‘Oh, Fanny love—’ Her mother bursts into tears. She and Derek (a retired tax collector, also her mother’s new boyfriend) have been vomiting all night. ‘There’s a bug going round. We’ve all got it in the Pueblo, and I’m sorry, Fanny, because I’ve been so looking forward to seeing you. And Derek’s been so excited. But I think you’ll be better off staying at home.’

  Fanny swallows her disappointment, listens patiently, even when information begins to emerge regarding the tax collector’s high turd count. She assures her mother that she isn’t too disappointed, that she
’ll come out in the summer holidays, that she has plenty of things to do instead…

  …except Louis’s not speaking to her, and her three closest girlfriends (all teachers) have gone off to Helsinki for half-term. They had asked her if she wanted to come.

  She hangs up the mobile, glances across the empty staff room at the unopened bottle of champagne, decides that if she’s going to drink it alone, which of course she is, then she’ll drink it alone at home, at least.

  Fanny approaches her little cottage in a fog of loneliness. It’s the proudest day of her professional life. And she can find not a single soul to celebrate it with. Not even Brute, whom Fanny, thinking she was going to Spain, has already consigned to the local kennels.

  As she pushes open the front door her foot slides on a large brown envelope. ‘Fuck it,’ she mutters irritably, wrapping her arms protectively around the champagne, and in doing so, knocking her head against her newly repainted red hall wall. Fanny’s cottage is fully adorned now with all the trinkets – the Indian sari curtains, African woodcarvings, Mexican lanterns, Chinese wall hangings, Turkish kilim floor cushions – all the junk she has picked up on her travels and which she has lugged, but never unpacked until now, from one unloved place to another.

  Without bothering to close the front door behind her she bends over to pick up the envelope. On the front her name has been enclosed by a large heart shape, marked out with Xs. She opens it up and laughs as the contents fall out: prints of the photographs of Dane’s bonfire, which Louis took the last time he and Fanny spoke. In the first picture Fanny is flying through the air towards Dane Guppy, mouth open, screaming; the next shows her landing beside the bonfire, on top of him; the third has her finger pointing at the camera, her face distorted with rage, while Dane Guppy struggles for breath underneath her.

  Darling Fan,

  Sorry I’ve been such a jerk.

  I’m a bit lost without you. Can we be friends again?

  L.

  P.S. I guess you may not enjoy these photos as much as I do…