“But it has happened, and that’s all that matters,” he tells me, and then we’re falling, deeper and deeper, into each other’s hearts and into the sort of deep rest you’re swallowed so wholly by, you don’t know anything but peace.
Chapter Eleven
Jules
March
The kids put away their books and pens and talk amongst themselves as they finish up for the day. After they’re gone, and the classroom is empty, I look around and feel glad I don’t have to come here every day. Not to this classroom, anyway. This one isn’t very nice. It needs redecorating. The interactive board is temperamental and only works when it wants to and the pupils seem to sit on top of one another in this small, diagonal-shaped room.
A knock on the door alerts me and I look up to see Jack, the headmaster.
He eyes me warily. He’s still not very happy with me, I know it. However, he knows how valuable a teacher I am. “I was hoping to catch you. Vernon said you were in today.”
“Yep, the agency called me.”
Jack walks further into the room, his arms swinging until he hides them behind his back to mask his nerves. He stands a good few metres from where I’m sat at a desk that isn’t mine. I’m just clearing up my materials before getting myself off home. Substitute teaching means no more meetings. No more staff looking to me for support. Just handing kids exercises and babysitting them.
“I wish you’d come back,” he says, and anxiously clears his throat before finally looking me in the eye, “why won’t you?”
All the aforementioned reasons and more.
“I’m a mother now, Jack. I don’t need the stress of before. This really suits my home life with Warrick. He works hard enough for the both of us.”
Jack’s face twitches. My words are not what he wants to hear. He shakes his head a little but stops himself. He’s trying hard not to piss me off even though I can tell what he really thinks.
“I’m disappointed. Just, disappointed.” His eyebrows raise and he looks out of the window, his smart grey suit seeming awkward against my substitute-style woollen dress, tights and knee-high boots.
“Maybe one day, but not right now. I didn’t even think I would be back this early, but you know.” The twins are six months old now. I had to return to work part-time for the sake of my sanity. Two boys is hard work.
“I guess I can’t ask for anymore than that?” he says pursing his lips.
I shake my head. “You’d be the first to know if I were coming back for real and this is the first school I would consider, trust me.”
I won’t tell him that since I started agency work, numerous other schools have seen my name on the register and offered me full-time positions elsewhere – even one of the private schools nearby. You know, one of those where kids beg you to teach them. If only that was me, but it’s not. I need to be where I am needed most. At the moment, I know where I’m needed most – at home – and for the time being this is me. Before I went abroad for three years I was teaching full-time and I was all or nothing so before I even consider coming back properly, I have to take into consideration that I might get dragged into and under it all again – and let it take over my life once more.
I stand and pull my coat from the back of my chair and add my scarf too. I drape my shoulder bag over my arm and give him an apologetic smile. He walks me out through the corridors and remarks, “Vernon’s taking paternity when Ruby has the baby. There’ll certainly be an opening for acting Head of English in his absence.”
I look at him curiously. “He’s going to stay at home while she comes to work?”
Jack nods and his eyes reveal his cynicism too. “Yep. Their decision, I guess.”
“He gets paid more, though?”
“Not everyone is built to stay at home. I’m not,” he argues as we stroll downstairs and into the main corridor of the building. We pass the clerical offices and reach reception where I hand over my visitors’ badge and sign out etcetera.
“That’s why I do this, best of both worlds,” I tell him and hold out my hand for him to shake.
“A handshake! Please, Jules! After everything!” he says with a big, grandfatherly smile. He holds my shoulders and hugs me briefly.
I try to reassure him again, “You really would be the first to know, honest.”
“You’re still breaking my heart,” he says behind me as I head for the door, tossing him a look over my shoulder and a wink. I’m out of here.
I drive through the foggy streets toward my childminder’s house. I’m still not used to these infernal winters and I’m bloody well counting down the days to spring. Even when I was heavily pregnant last summer, I was still in the back garden sunbathing everyday, sweating like a bitch but nevertheless happy as a pig in shit. It’s 3.30p.m. and you can tell the days are drawing out, which gives me hope Warrick might drag himself out of the moods he’s been experiencing lately.
Occasionally I mention Australia but he always says, “We’ll see,” and I just let it go. However, three years living in temperate climates has made it hard to readjust being back here. It’s sometimes cold, so cold, even the heating and fire combined struggle to warm my bones. Sometimes the air doesn’t move and I yearn for rain or snow or anything changeable. Anything but this clingy nothingness and dull, dank darkness.
I land at my childminder’s villa mansion on Park Avenue and after me knocking for about five minutes, Kitty finally opens up. “I am so sorry! The kids have been little terrors today!”
I’m assaulted by screams as soon as I cross the threshold.
“I hear!” I say and walk into her house, over the large brushed doormat and onto the original flooring she has in here, a mixture of red, black and green tile.
Kitty is wearing a painting apron over her grey shift dress. She really dresses like a school ma’am and it amuses me. She doesn’t need any money, her husband is in shipping, but she child minds because her daughter is an only, late child. Kitty didn’t fall pregnant until she was forty-five, after years and years of trying. I trust her with my children and most of all, she’s accommodating to my infrequent need for childcare. I take jobs as and when, because sometimes Warrick works away, and other times I just want to be alone with him on his few days off.
“Did he try again, then?” she says knowingly as we head for the kitchen.
I see through the doorway to the living room that the children are penned in and fighting over a toy cookie jar that makes almost as much noise as them. My non-identical twin boys Harry and Charlie are already sitting up and squawking, giving her daughter Emily a run for her money even though she’s eighteen months old. Kitty is a glamorous mum with her dresses, styled blonde hair and full make-up, but I’ve embraced having an excuse to tie my hair back every day and wear generic wool dresses that can easily be pulled off and replaced with an exact replica.
“Jack, you mean?” I answer her question.
Kitty is good on the uptake. Or maybe I am her only adult conversation most days. She fills the kettle and switches it on and while it’s whistling away, I feel a terrible sort of anxiety swill through the bottom of my gut. I can’t explain it. I haven’t had anxiety for years and this has come from nowhere. For some reason, I start thinking about my dad. I’ve no idea why.
She talks loudly, “Yep, I bet he tried to recruit you again. You did say you were at St. Clare’s today?”
I look up and realise she’s searching my face. I did go vacant for a minute or two, then. I don’t know why. Dad’s left my thoughts.
I laugh as I recall, “He told me I was breaking his heart, can you believe it? The old dog.”
Kitty laughs as she uses a tea towel to buff up two cups for us. “It’s not your problem you’re one of the best. You’re entitled to your own life for a while, too.”
I chuck my head back on a long sigh and revel in the sounds of children screeching and battling next door. They all sound so happy. Maybe the twins don’t need me as much as I think they do, maybe Jack’s right, maybe St. C
lare’s needs me more.
“Umm. I think it’s funny how he moved from school to school for so many years and then settled here, don’t you?” I say as I gratefully accept my tea from her.
She nods and peers over her cup at me, understanding. Kitty and I get on really well for some reason. I’ve told her a lot about Warrick and me because I trust Kitty, she’s a mature woman and she used to be a health visitor so she knows the score with most things in life. She’s not like Ruby, who’s still a little immature.
“I think from what you’ve told me about that girl Hetty you saved and how you and Jack turned around that English department, it’d be hard for even the most cold-hearted person to move on from that. Sometimes people and places get under your skin and into your bones… that’s surely what’s made him stick around here?”
She’s just saying exactly what I really think.
Jack used to be one of those fixer-upper type people who switched from one school to the other, casting healing spells, before moving on to the next underperforming institution. Maybe he is just pining for the old days.
I chew my nail and look away from Kitty when I say, “I left even though I loved it but I also came back to the city… for my own reasons. He might have a soft spot for me but times change, people change and move on. I wouldn’t want to be that anal-retentive person I used to be, never giving myself any let-up. I can’t be like that now. Rick’s job is so demanding and we have three kids.”
I think about why Jack wants me back so badly. Why can’t he appreciate that I am putting my family life first?
“How many teachers do you remember from school?” she asks me.
I purse my lips. “One, two?”
“How many grown kids still shout down the street at you?”
I laugh and admit, “Too many.”
“People never forget a really good teacher, Jules,” she says with affection in her eyes, “he’ll be raw until you eventually go back, but he’ll wait. He knows you’re worth waiting for.”
I shake my head and finish my cuppa. “Right, I suppose I better get these ragamuffins back home then!”
“Yep, they’ve been brill. Just call when you need me again. I’ve only got the Robertsons’ kids now and they only come for two hours a morning while she goes golfing. People come and go, you know.”
I grab the car seats from the hallway and separate the straps in the seats so I can just plop Harry and Charlie right in. Yeah, like that’ll be happening.
I stand at the living-room doorway so the boys can see me and they squeal to realise I am here to collect them. They never notice me walk in as I slip through the corridor.
“Babies!”
They start throwing their arms around like lunatics and inevitably roll onto their sides and struggle to get themselves up. It’s funny. Boys being boys, they want to run before they can even stand!
I use the backs of their denim dungarees to lift one and then the other into my arms at the same time. I kiss Charlie first, the one who looks most like Warrick. His dark hair is all over the place and he’s going to be very tall. He was the biggest of the two and still is. I kiss Harry who looks more like me and he grimaces. Harry is a daddy’s boy and has white-blonde hair sticking up in massive spikes.
Kitty helps me dress them in their coats and shoes and I have great difficulty securing the boys in their seats because like their father, they much prefer to be free to roam, kicking their legs and punching with their fists.
“Now, now, boys,” I tell them with giggles and pinch their cheeks, “you’ll get more attention from the ladies if you just sit nicely and observe, trust me.”
Harry looks at me gone out and Charlie either winks or grimaces, I’m not sure. From the other side of the playpen, Emily looks upset to be losing her playmates and Kitty reassures the little girl, “They’ll be back soon, Ems.”
I don’t know if she understands exactly but Emily nods with a heavy heart and climbs into a bundle of blankets in one corner, no doubt ready to rest easy after toying with my boys all day long.
Kitty opens the door for me and I use the ramp at the side of the house, avoiding the steps so I might navigate away without any calamity. “Thanks Kitty, see you soon!”
“No worries, Jules. Say hi to Rick for me.”
As I carry the seats to the car, I see their eyes start to fall, the tired little mites. Buckling them in, I thank Warrick for buying me a seven-seat vehicle.
Once at home, I leave the babies sleeping in their seats in the living room and begin chopping vegetables for dinner. My husband texts me to let me know he won’t be late and so I put dinner in the oven, expecting him home just a little after half past five. While I wait for the twins to wake and Rick to get home, I’m reminded of the moment I thought about Dad earlier. That was odd. I haven’t seen him in five years.
***
I’m buttering my husband’s toast the next day when the phone rings. It’s just after nine but Rick has a late start today, pro rata or something. I naturally assume the call will be for him because it usually is and I choose not to work Thursdays or Fridays, and today is Friday.
“Hello?” I answer with the phone beneath my chin, resting against my shoulder.
“Julianne Jones?” It’s a generic male voice.
“Yep.”
“I’m PC Clark of Humberside Police. I’m calling about your father. Are you at liberty to talk?”
“Oh, what’s he done? Whatever it is, I’m not bothered. He can bail himself out. We haven’t spoken in years.”
He clears his throat and continues awkwardly, “He’s dead, Mrs Jones, I’m sorry to say. A care worker called an ambulance early yesterday evening. He suffered a massive stroke.”
“What?”
“Apparently he had early-onset Alzheimer’s.”
“What?” I repeat.
“I am sorry you’re finding out like this.”
“He never… I didn’t know he was ill. We had a very difficult relationship,” I explain, but I feel guilty. I feel, confused.
Why are the police calling?
“There is nobody else to call,” he says as if reading my mind, “and the carers didn’t have your number or address. I’m told he had a will so perhaps his solicitor will be in touch soon. Shall I pass your details onto the funeral director? Your dad organised his rites already.”
So, he knew he was dying? He must’ve accepted his prognosis and never thought to tell me, never thought I’d want to know, never thought there might be an urge to say goodbye.
“Pass my details on but I’m not sure–”
“Here, take my number,” PC Clark dictates, “just in case, so you can contact me.” I write it down on the kitchen notepad, feeling sure I missed a digit or two. The twins are making a mess of their highchairs but I can barely move to swipe upturned bowls out of their way.
“Goodbye, Mrs Jones.”
“Oh, uh, yeah. Goodbye.”
Surely I missed half a conversation, but I don’t know why I’m feeling spaced out.
The tone of him having hung up shocks me and the phone slips from my hand to the floor. The babies stare and Charlie starts crying, so does Harry, following in sequence.
I physically can’t move. I stumble and try to grab the sideboard but miss and slip, falling to my knees. “No.”
That’s all I say and then I scream. I don’t know why. I just scream.
My husband crashes down the stairs in just his work trousers. He has half a can of shaving foam still on his chops and looks at me with horror.
I stop screaming because I feel a fool.
“Jules, what’s going on? Bloody Nora love, I thought you were being attacked.”
He looks at the house phone, laid mysteriously on the floor, and puts it on the sideboard in its cradle. He wipes his face dry with a hand towel and takes both our babies in his arms, hushing them. I’m still on the floor in a heap.
“Slowly, tell me what’s happened,” he begs, his eyes wide, his fa
ce full of fear.
I can’t shift my tongue. I point at my mouth and try to move words out, but I can’t.
“Write it down,” he says tossing me the notepad and paper.
I look down at the paper and it looks as though a child wrote a load of nonsense instead of that copper’s number. I manage to write two words very illegibly:
Dad. Dead.
Warrick looks at the words and surveys me. It takes him about three seconds to make a decision.
He picks up the phone and dials. “Bri, I won’t be in today. We’ve had a family death… yeah, Jules’ dad… I’ll be in touch… yeah, I know, I’m sorry. She’s shaken up. I’m not going to leave her.”
Brian says a lot of words on his side of the phone and Warrick provides yes or no answers, presumably in response to what needs doing and how.
“Do you wanna see his body?” my husband asks as soon as he gets off the phone.
That’s the first thing he asks me? Wow.
I shake my head, no.
“Who rang? The boys in blue?”
I nod.
The twins are cradled to Warrick’s chest and Harry has a tiny bit of shaving foam in his blonde hair.
“Natural, I’m presuming?”
I manage to find a word, finally. “Alzheimer’s.”
“Jesus, I’m so sorry Jules.”
“It’s okay,” I say, because I don’t know why I’m acting like this. My father meant nothing to me! I can’t even remember one time he cuddled me, gave me a kiss, said he loved me.
“It’s not okay, babes. Look at you.”
The twins are weighing on his arms and he’s struggling with them both now, chucking them up and down in his hands to keep them tight to his chest.
I stand and take Harry but he squeals for his dadda. Charlie holds out his hands so we swap over.
When I’ve got Charlie, Warrick moves towards me and cuddles us all together in one big Jones bundle. Warrick eyes me with concern and brushes his lips over my cheek, covering me with bits of leftover shaving foam.
“I’m not upset,” I argue, because I’m not. “I don’t know why I was screaming… except the bloke said Dad knew. He knew, he was aware at one stage and made arrangements… so that meant he chose not to tell me. At some point, he made that decision. He chose… he chose… not to say goodbye.”
Beyond Angel Avenue Page 9