“What?” snapped Kate. “A Pupil Referral Unit? Isn’t that where expelled children get sent?”
“Actually,” piped up the sheep-faced woman in the corner who had not yet spoken, “children don’t automatically get sent to the PRU if they get expelled. Usually it’s when children have been expelled from at least three other schools,” she explained earnestly.
The other women turned, as one, and glared at her.
“Oh, that makes it much better,” said Kate sarcastically. “Why does he have to go there? You said yourself he’s not a bad boy. You’re not even expelling him. Are you?” Mrs. Marshall looked down at her hands.
“Are you?” Kate demanded.
“Mrs. Thompson,” said the educational psychologist woman with heavy patience, “we absolutely do not see Jack as being a—well, a very—disruptive child; not the usual PRU child in many ways. However, we simply think it is worth considering because our PRUs are extremely well resourced. Naturally enough many of the children—almost invariably boys at primary-school level, by the way—also require the kind of expert special guidance and intervention that we believe Jack would benefit from enormously. If the PRU is the place to get it, then . . .” She too held her hands out in a shrug.
“But where do other children like Jack go? The ones who need extra help but who aren’t properly naughty? Why does he have to be surrounded by children who have real behavior problems? That won’t be good for him, surely?”
The other women stayed silent. No one would meet her eye.
“What about Greystone Manor?” she said.
At this the women smiled and shook their heads. “Well, of course Greystone Manor would be lovely,” said the sheep-faced woman with a world-weary smile. “If budgets were endless all our children would go to schools like Greystones. However, in the real world . . .” she trailed off.
“I heard the LAE—I mean the LEA—did sometimes fund children in the public sector to go to Greystones, if they needed the kind of help it offers.”
Sheepface blushed. “You may well have heard that, but I can assure you, securing the funding is a very different matter. I’m not saying it never happens”—her face communicated that it pretty much never did happen—“but if that’s your plan, I wish you luck. You’ll need it.”
“Fine,” said Kate, springing to her feet. “Because Greystone Manor is where Jack is going to be going. Thank you so much for your time, your advice, and your encouragement,” she said, sweeping her gaze from one end of the line of women to the other, nearly spitting out the final few words, as she gathered up her jacket and bag, rattling the door handle slightly in her keenness to get out and trying forcibly to resist the impulse to slam the door. She succeeded and allowed herself a moment of pride at her restraint. To be fair, the women were doing their best for Jack, but it was hard hearing that others didn’t think of your son in the same glowing light that you did. It was very hard. She wished she had Tom to share her delight in him and tell her he was perfect, despite what anyone said.
The other parents turned to watch with interest as Kate flew out of the building as if propelled by some invisible force. She gathered herself, pulling her jacket around her and smoothing her hair, before walking slowly to join the crowd at the school gate. A couple of the mothers snickered and turned away. Kate looked for Seema but then remembered she didn’t pick up on a Thursday. She had no allies.
She was not left alone for long. There was a parting of the waves in the crowd which quickly manifested itself as Anastasia arriving. She was impeccably poised as usual, her hair and makeup immaculate as if she had done nothing all day since dropping her son off that morning other than polish herself to perfection. She had a tendency to announce that Thursday was her “me day” although Kate had wondered before what it was that stopped all the other days of the week from being Anastasia’s “me days” too.
Kate dropped her head and tried to disappear. The last thing she wanted was an ego-bruising interaction with Anastasia.
“Kate!” Anastasia cried.
Damn.
“Anastasia,” she replied, summoning up a ghastly smile.
“I’m glad I’ve caught you,” said Anastasia, her eyes raking appraisingly over Kate from head to toe, and—from the downward quirk of the corner of her mouth—finding Kate wanting, as usual. “The jewelry evening . . . I’ve been thinking.”
“Oh good,” said Kate, her heart sinking. What now? Canapés? Jugglers? A fun fair?
“Yes, I’m just concerned.” Anastasia put on her concerned face. Kate was expecting a furrowed brow but there was no sign of that. For Anastasia brow-furrowing was, well, frowned upon—and, in any case, probably physically impossible as a result of all the botox.
“I’m concerned,” Anastasia went on, “that it might be too much focused on the selling. I don’t want my friends to feel they’ve been taken advantage of. That they’ve been brought to my house just for me—you—to sell them stuff.” Anastasia made it sound as if the selling was a purely exploitative process, bearing no benefit for the buyers at all.
“I am focusing very much on things which would make good Christmas presents,” Kate reminded her.
“Yeah, sure, I’m certain you’ll sell lots,” said Anastasia. “My friends are generous like that, as I am sure you know.”
Kate wasn’t sure she did know that Anastasia’s friends were nice girls. If Anastasia was anyone to go by, they weren’t nice at all.
“So, I just thought it would be great if they had a chance to have a go themselves!” she announced, thoroughly pleased with herself for her sterling idea.
“What? At making jewelry?”
“Well, obviously making jewelry, what else did you think I meant?” said Anastasia, suddenly terse.
“There’s not a lot I could teach in such a short time.”
“Teach? It’s not rocket science, is it? Surely, they can be allowed to thread some beads onto a bit of wire or something . . .” said Anastasia meanly, adding, “I do think people tend to want to complicate things, just to—I don’t know—make themselves look clever perhaps?”
Ouch. That was an Anastasia special. Kate took a deep breath. The temptation was to tell her where to stick it, but luckily for Anastasia the adrenaline coursing through Kate’s veins after her encounter with the special needs team had ebbed away.
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Lovely,” said Anastasia, tightly, turning away. Within moments she was huddled with her little group of friends, and Kate could tell she was getting a slagging off. Every now and then one or other of them would glance in her direction and then lean in to share another observation with the rest of the group.
As soon as Kate got home and had Jack ensconced in front of the telly with milk and a Marmite sandwich, she called Helen.
“I know you don’t usually do Fridays for me, but I just need you to take Jack while I go and speak to this woman at Greystone Manor,” she asked tentatively, once she had briefly filled Helen in on the situation with school.
“Why don’t you take him with you?”
“Because, despite my declarations to those snotty women who told me he wouldn’t get in, I am pretty confident he won’t. And it’s probably really nice, and there’s no point upsetting him because you know what he’s like about change. Although I actually have no clue what I’m going to do if I can’t make it work. I hope it’s horrible. That would solve a problem in a way . . .”
“You should go and look at the PRU, you know,” said Helen, tentatively. “You never know . . . it might be okay.”
“Not you as well,” said Kate, feeling betrayed. “He’s not going there. So, will you—can you—do it tomorrow?”
“Of course. I’ll do anything to help you and Jack. You know that.”
14 Days ’til Christmas
“Kate?”
The voice on the phone was gravelly and faint. Kate sat up in bed and held the phone closer to her ear.
; “Blimey, Helen, you sound terrible!”
“I’m not great. I’ve been throwing up all night and I feel like I’ve been hit by a bus. It looks like this gastric flu thing. I can’t even get out of bed without keeling over. Jason’s having to take a day off work to look after me.”
“You poor thing,” Kate exclaimed, already rapidly recalibrating her day in her head. Damn. The timing was terrible.
“I’m so sorry, I just don’t think . . .”
“Of course not,” Kate interrupted. “You can’t look after Jack today, that would be ridiculous.”
“I wouldn’t want to give this thing to him . . . or you, but it’s a problem.”
“Never mind that; you just look after yourself. Get Jason to take care of you and tell him he’ll have me to answer to if he doesn’t,” she joked.
“Come on, you, what’ve you got this afternoon?” she said to Jack when she got off the phone.
“Maths and carpet time on Friday after lunch,” said Jack, pulling a face.
“Not today you haven’t,” she said, ruffling his hair. “The weekend starts early. I’ve got some finding out to do, and you’re coming with me.”
The school was less keen on the change in plan.
“Mrs. Marshall does not encourage school absences for any reason,” said the receptionist oppressively. She pursed her lips.
“Mrs. Marshall is encouraging Jack to be permanently absent from this school, as it happens,” Kate said bitterly, “and I have to collect Jack at lunchtime because I will be unable to get back here in time to collect him at the end of the school day. Please therefore ensure he is ready for me at one o’clock.”
Daniel was not having a good day. His morning had been taken up with a lucrative, long-term client who owned a significant chunk of Bristol and was constantly on the prowl to see how he could extract more money from it. Daniel’s job was to review Sam Bird’s portfolio and advise on steps involving rents, acquisitions, and sales. This morning he had been escorting him around several commercial properties, but something prevented him from including Noel’s shop. Mr. Bird was looking to buy and not rent, in any case, but he was not one to accept no for an answer. That was another reason why Daniel had not mentioned it. There was something extremely distasteful about the thought of allowing Noel to be pushed around by someone with a different agenda.
Now, he had to admit, he had a problem. What with Brian from the Apple Café turning it down, he had made no progress with Noel’s request for him to find a suitable tenant.
“I’m going out,” he called to Paul as he shrugged on his coat. It was nearly three o’clock on Friday afternoon and the light, on this already dull day, was fading.
“You coming back?”
“Probably not,” admitted Daniel. “It’s Friday.”
“Part-timer,” Paul accused him without heat.
But Daniel wasn’t playing hooky. He pulled his coat collar around his ears—the wind was vicious—and headed off to Christmas Steps.
Not being a talented shopper, he had never paid attention to the other shops on Christmas Steps. Now, he stood at the foot of the steps looking up, disconsolate and demotivated, sad to see the Olde Sweet Shoppe so altered but checking out its neighbors with a more professional eye. There was a wedding dress shop, a florist, a café, and a strange little shop selling old-fashioned menswear—cravats, silk handkerchiefs and ties, suspenders. Did people ever wear such things? How did it survive?
Taking a deep breath, Daniel shook himself and decided to open a conversation with someone. Talking was the key. Looking around him, he headed for the shop most brightly lit. It was the wedding dress shop.
The doorbell clanged as he entered, and a young woman appeared from an inconspicuous doorway beside a rack of wedding dresses. She was striking, and she knew it—a shock of short, pink hair was the initial impression, and the rest dropped into place as a tall, willowy figure, with chiseled cheekbones and extensively ripped jeans. On closer inspection she also had a constellation of tiny diamond studs, a scattering in her ear, including the lobe and cartilage, and another on the side of her nose.
“Hello?” she smiled.
“Hi!” he looked around. “Er . . . so, wedding dresses, eh? I assume I’m not your usual customer.”
“We serve all sorts,” said the woman solemnly, suppressing a smile. “Is it for yourself ?”
“Um, no.” Daniel was flummoxed. “Do you get that?”
“Absolutely. We do a wide range of larger sizes, especially for the shoes,” she said, waving at a stand of elaborate shoes, all either white or shades of cream. “We are very discreet.”
“Mmm, thanks, but no thanks . . . I don’t think white lace is really me.”
“Ecru or taupe can be very flattering on some skin tones,” she teased gently.
“Huh?” said Daniel. “What the heck is an ecru?” He scratched his head. “You know about paying rent, right?” he dived in, without preamble.
“I do,” she inclined her head.
“I mean, is this your business?”
“Yeah,” and then when Daniel looked surprised she squared her shoulders. “You think I’m too young, don’t you? I know my stuff . . . but actually it’s me and my girlfriend. Partner. We co-own.”
“Sorry, no, absolutely,” he said striking his forehead with his hand. “I don’t really know what I’m asking . . . I’m a chartered surveyor, just trying to get a handle on how to market the empty unit up the street.”
“Noel’s place?”
Daniel nodded.
“I’m Grace,” said the young woman, holding out her hand to shake. “Cup of tea?”
“Go on then. I’m not stopping you working?”
She shook her head. “It’s a quiet time for us, this close to Christmas. People get engaged to each other over Christmas and the New Year, so January is always mental. We have Christmas weddings too, but we’re pretty much there with all that. I delivered a dress yesterday, just one more to go, final alterations to do. The bride keeps losing weight. They do that. It’s the stress . . .” she chatted, as she pottered efficiently around the little kitchenette in the back of the shop, while he leaned against the door frame, watching.
“So, how are you helping Noel, exactly?” she said handing him a steaming mug.
“I’m not at liberty . . .”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, he’s practically my dad . . . okay, my grandad. He’s wanting to give up the shop. We all know that. We’re worried about him. You know he’s in his nineties, right?”
“I sort of do,” admitted Daniel, “but he’s amazing. More like someone in their seventies, if that. He looks ageless.”
“He’s the father of Christmas Steps,” said Grace. “Especially with a name like Noel.”
“Oh yeah, I hadn’t thought . . .”
“Christmas Day is his birthday. His parents had a sense of humor. It could have been worse. Noel is a nice name.”
“It is.”
“And he’s a really, really nice man,” said Grace, giving Daniel a fierce look.
“I know.”
She looked at him appraisingly over the rim of her mug for a long few seconds. “Sorry. Let’s start again, I’m just nervous about the whole thing with Noel. We’re all worried about him. And then there’s all this other stuff that’s going on with the rates. We’re fighting for our lives here. At least that’s what some of us feel.”
“Tell me.”
“The City Council is reviewing all our rateable values. And they ain’t going down.”
“I saw that. Clearly the rateable value of the Olde Sweet Shoppe went up recently. Mind you, if you own your unit that’s a good thing. It means the market value must have risen.”
“That means nothing to us. Most of us along here don’t own our shops. Noel is the exception.”
“Okay, and you’re worried your rents might rise.”
“It’s a real possibility . . . If rates are supposed to be—what?—forty percent of t
he rent and they’re currently higher, then landlords are going to come into line aren’t they? Mind you, if the rates dropped I don’t suppose rents would drop would they?”
“Have you contacted your landlord?”
“It’s an offshore company. We don’t get any correspondence from them except rent demands. They basically ignore us if we contact them about repairs. Me and my partner have had to do loads to this place. The guttering, the drain outside . . . The guy who rents the flat upstairs is really decent and he shares costs with us.”
Daniel’s heart went out to her, she looked so despondent.
“And you’re all in the same boat?”
“This place, the café, the cake shop, and the gentleman’s outfitters are all owned by the same guys. The florist, Jenny, she’s in a better position because she owns her building and lives in the flat above. Her rateable value went up at the same time as Noel’s and by a similar amount, so it’s definitely a blanket thing. Obviously, she and Noel haven’t got the rent worries though.”
“Why don’t you move out of here and rent the other shop off Noel? At least then you’ll have a decent bloke for a landlord.”
“Nice idea,” said Grace regretfully, “but Noel’s shop’s half the size of this one. I couldn’t make it work.”
“Shame,” said Daniel, seeing her point. “The landlords would be idiots to put all your rents up to a level you can’t afford,” he reassured her. “You’d all move out, close down, they wouldn’t get anything then.” But even as he was saying it, he knew the truth. Any commercial landlord—like his client this morning—would welcome the chance to put a unit back out on the market at a higher rent if they could. Christmas Steps would just evolve. It would attract tenants who could afford to pay more. Like a herd, they would all come together—those high-price boutique shops—and the current atmosphere of Dickensian charm would be gone forever. That was the way of the world.
Suddenly a thought struck him. “What did you say your landlord’s name was?”
“I didn’t. I said it was an offshore company. “Eagle Ltd.” or something. Actually, not Eagle, but I think it’s a bird, I’ve got the paperwork somewhere.”
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