by Hannah Tovey
I was conditioning my hair when I heard the door go. I ignored it. When I eventually got out of the shower, I heard it go again.
‘I’ll be there in a minute now,’ I said, grabbing my towel.
I walked out of the bathroom and, standing there in the corridor, was Scott. He was wearing a white cotton T-shirt that clung to his body, showing off his bronzed forearms.
‘Surprise, Ivy.’
I dropped my towel and ran to him. His hands clung to my back as we held each other.
‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘How did you get here?’
‘I needed to see you.’
I held his face in my hands and kissed him.
‘Thank you,’ I said.
I looked down at my pasty, naked body. I had an unruly pubic bush, and my legs were covered in bruises from the children clambering over me at school.
‘Why don’t you sit down,’ I said. ‘I’ll get dressed.’
I put on a pair of leggings and Gramps’ rugby union hoodie and made us both a cup of tea. He sat on the sofa, his eyes fixed on the floor. I asked if he wanted to put the TV on, but he didn’t respond.
I passed him the mug of tea and sat down next to him.
He looked at me with a feeble half-smile, and I knew. I knew that he knew, and he knew that I knew.
‘You’re never moving to LA, are you?’ he said.
‘No. And you don’t want to come back here, do you?’
‘I thought if you came out in the summer, see what life’s like out there, you’d change your mind.’
I would never change my mind.
‘I’ve taken an enormous leap of faith to get where I am today. I’m finally happy, Scott. I can’t give that up.’
‘I know how much you love working with Finn, but you can get another class. There’ll always be another class.’
‘You know it’s more than that. You talked about us raising a family together, but how could I do that six thousand miles away from my family?’
‘We can come back all the time. You can FaceTime.’
‘That’s not enough. I need to be able to pop home for the weekend and argue with Mam over absolutely nothing. I need to sit on the beach with Anna and talk about Gramps—’
‘You’ve never been open to the possibility of moving. You won’t even try.’
It occurred to me in that moment that all of this was on me. All the questions were about my willingness to move to LA rather than his willingness to make a go of things in London. If he really loved me, why wasn’t he willing to stay? Why wasn’t I enough?
‘What do you want, Scott? You need to be honest with me.’
He paused for a second, his eyes lowered. When he spoke, his voice was so cracked, I could barely hear him.
‘I want to make something of myself. I have aspirations too, you know?’
‘I understand that, Scott.’
‘This job, the money – I can support Mum, she wouldn’t have to worry.’
‘So, this is about money?’
‘We lost everything when Dad left. I can’t let that happen to us again.’
‘But it won’t happen again. You’re not responsible for your parents; it’s not up to you to fix things.’
I could feel the tears start to come. I looked up at the ceiling and tried to compose myself, but it was no use. Whatever I said wouldn’t have made a difference. His mind was made up.
‘I can’t do this any more,’ I said.
‘I don’t want this to be it.’
‘And you think I do?’
I was shaking now. He took hold of me and I dissolved into him.
‘These past few months … ’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘I love you, Ivy.’
‘I love you, too. I’m sorry it’s not enough.’
I let go of him and stood up. My face was soaked; I could barely breathe.
He got up and tried to hug me again, but I took a step back.
‘You should go,’ I said.
‘I’m sorry.’
He placed my keys on the kitchen table, walked out of the room, and out of the front door.
‘I’m sorry, too,’ I said.
You go your whole life, and nobody touches you. You think they do, but then you meet one person and your life is changed for ever. I knew when I met Scott that he was going to be that person. Yet there we were, breaking up.
46
Amit’s mother was picking him up from school early. I walked him out to meet her and wondered at her graceful physique as she strutted down the pavement and into the playground. She was wearing gold block-heeled sandals and a kaleidoscopic kantha-embroidered silk saree, with a fixed tie to one side, showing off her delicate waist.
‘Hello, Ivy,’ she said.
‘Hello, Mrs Chowdhury.’
‘Please, call me Rakhee.’
She turned to Amit. ‘Why don’t you go play on the slide while I talk to Miss Edwards?’
Amit did as he was told and ran off.
‘I wanted to thank you,’ she said.
‘Thank me?’
‘For being such a wonderful teacher to Amit this year. And for being so gracious … about Jamie.’
‘We don’t need to do this, Mrs—’
‘Rakhee.’
‘Sorry, Rakhee.’
‘It wasn’t until things had progressed between us that I became aware of your history.’
There was a drain beside me. I wanted to crawl into it and drown in the sewage below.
‘You don’t need to explain,’ I said. ‘It was a long time ago.’
‘I wanted to ask if you’d feel comfortable with Jamie picking Amit up from school sometime, or doing the drop-off? Our nanny Kate is taking some time off.’
This was exactly the conversation I wanted to be having before my final formal observation.
‘If it’s too much then I can get someone else to do it.’
What on earth was I supposed to say to this?
‘It’s not too much,’ I said. ‘We’re all adults.’
‘Thank you, I appreciate it.’
She called Amit back over. ‘Say goodbye to Miss Edwards.’
‘Bye, Miss Edwards.’
‘See you tomorrow, Amit.’
I watched them walk away. Amit turned back around and called my name.
‘Yes?’ I said.
‘You’re my favourite person in the whole world.’
I choked. All I could do was give a feeble wave.
Back in the classroom, the observing tutor had taken her seat at the front of the class. Mr Reid walked over to me and asked if I was all right.
‘You look like you’ve seen a dead body.’
I refused to let Jamie affect me in the classroom. This was my space, my time. He wasn’t welcome here.
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Can we get started, please?’
‘Remember, Ivy – you’re an outstanding trainee. Don’t think of the tutor, look at the children and their faces – let them give you courage.’
Thirty minutes went by. Primrose was whining at Sammy for touching her pencil. Beside her was Hakim, using a ruler to measure his bum cheeks, and then there was Mabel, making fart noises with her mouth. I watched as the tutor made notes. I wasn’t going to let it rattle me. I placed my middle finger and ring finger on my thumb, before raising the pointer finger and pinkie finger to the air.
‘Everybody, eyes and ears to me, please,’ I said.
The room fell quiet as the children made their own ‘Quiet Coyotes’ and held them up in the air. I looked to Mr Reid whose smile was as big as his face, and I knew I’d done it.
I thanked the class for listening and visualised the pint of gin I was going to sink when this was all over.
‘It’s fantastic to see someone so consistent with their praise and sanctions,’ the tutor said. ‘That takes real skill. Bravo, Ivy.’
I was about to respond when I heard a scream from the back of the room. I turned around and saw Horatio bent
over Jamar. Before I could process what was happening, I heard Horatio retch, and thus began an onslaught of vomit all over Jamar’s hair. In a split second, Mr Reid had run over to them, his ‘Cleaning Bee’ basket in tow. Beside me stood the tutor, holding her bag up to her face, attempting to shield herself from any airborne vomit. It could have been so perfect. I was so close.
The children had since vacated the room, and Mr Reid and I were on our hands and knees, scrubbing the floor in a desperate attempt to get rid of the putrid smell.
‘It was the beetroot chocolate brownies. I shouldn’t have let them eat so much.’
He looked at me with a furrowed brow. ‘It did bring a whole new meaning to “Purple Rain”.’
He opened a new bottle of bleach and emptied it into the mop bucket.
‘You are just like Scott,’ I said.
He put the mop down.
‘Have you heard from him?’ he asked.
‘No. It’s easier for us both if we don’t speak.’
‘And how’s that going?’
‘Well, it’s been sixty-six days since I last saw him, and forty-three since we last spoke and whilst I’m dying on the inside, I think I’ve mastered the art of outward composure.’
‘Ivy, I’m so sorry.’
‘It’s fine.’
‘Don’t say fine; fine’s half-dead.’
I smiled. ‘You remind me of my sister. Have I ever told you that?’
‘I hope that’s a good thing?’
‘It’s the highest of compliments.’
‘I won’t mention him again, I can see it upsets you.’
‘He was meant to be flying back next weekend. I’m either going to get blind drunk or sit in my bedroom and cry for forty-eight hours.’
‘Please tell me that was a joke?’
‘Yes, it was a joke. My sister’s taking me for a spa day.’
‘I hate the spa, I don’t like people touching me.’
I laughed. ‘You’re rather odd, aren’t you, Finn?’
‘You’re one to talk.’
He put the Stones on Spotify and turned the music up loud. I watched him as he danced, using the mop as a microphone. It says a lot about my romantic life that I was considerably aroused by his senior moves.
‘Can we call it a day now?’ I said. ‘It’s cleaner than before the vomit.’
‘You go, I need to do the desks one last time.’
‘The cleaner’s due in tonight.’
‘You and I both know he doesn’t do a deep-clean, not to my standard anyway.’
I started to pack my stuff away.
‘Before you go,’ he said, running over to his desk, ‘I wanted to give you this.’ He reached into his drawer and got out an envelope.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
I read the first line.
Dear Miss Edwards,
I am pleased to inform you
‘We can’t officially offer you the role until today’s observation is written up,’ Mr Reid said, ‘but it’s safe to say you’re going to meet the teaching standards, and, when you do, you’ll have another letter, an official one, to say that we’d love to have you back with us in September, for your NQT year.’
I threw my arms around him.
‘I can’t believe it, thank you.’
‘You belong in a classroom, and we’re honoured you’ve chosen ours.’
‘I needed this so much, thank you.’
‘You did this, Ivy. Remember that.’
I phoned Mam on the way home to tell her the news.
‘My darling Ivy is officially a successful professional,’ Mam said.
‘I’m not officially anything yet, Mam.’
‘Stop it, you’re ruining my speech.’
‘You have inspired, motivated and challenged,’ she said. ‘You have set the highest standards in the classroom. You have created a safe place for children to learn and grow and develop into the first-class citizens of tomorrow. You are taken seriously, but you’re also seriously fun. We are so proud of you. Rwy’n dy garu di.’
‘I love you, too,’ I said. ‘And thank you for the speech, it was quite something.’
‘I thought of it last week in the shower. It was only a matter of time before they told you the good news, and I wanted to be ready.’
‘Thank you, Mam. You’re a natural orator.’
‘You’re my clever, clever angel. How do you feel?’
‘Overwhelmed.’
‘Don’t do anything stupid to mess this up.’
‘Like what?’
‘Remember the stunt you pulled in sixth form.’
‘Fair point.’
I wanted to ring Scott. There were so many times over the past two months that I’d reached for my phone to contact him. But I couldn’t, so I’d have to smoke a cigarette or eat a sickening amount of carbs instead.
I saw him everywhere. I saw him on the number 55 bus, in our café on the canal, and in the shower talking to himself. I saw him waiting for me at the school gates when I finished late, when Mrs Alan complained about her husband being an awful cook, and every day in Mr Reid’s sympathetic glances.
I hadn’t checked his Instagram for a while, but that evening I went on his profile. There was a photo of him and his dad, leaning against a crimson Chevy convertible, with the Californian coast behind them. It was the first photo he’d uploaded in a couple of weeks. He captioned it with ‘Recreating summer of 2005 with Pops.’ There was a love heart emoji next to it. They looked so relaxed together.
‘Don’t write anything,’ Dilys said. ‘You’ll only look desperate.’
I ignored her and wrote, ‘Have the best time together x’.
I turned my phone off and went into the kitchen to get started on dinner – a lavish blow-your-socks-off three-course Italian extravaganza for one. Shortly after my break-up with Jamie, there was a disastrous incident involving Nigella Lawson’s squid spaghetti, but not this time around. This time, I was prepped. There would be no more meltdowns in supermarkets, and, whatever happened, I could not, and would not, go back to 99p microwavable rice. I got out the Parma ham, figs and burrata, and got to work on the starter.
47
‘What are you going to do this summer, Miss?’ asked Mabel.
‘I’m going to go to Wales, and somewhere else I haven’t decided on yet.’
‘Will you fight any dragons?’
‘Yes – my mother.’
Nancy charged at me and fell into a heap on the ground.
‘Remember to keep your journals and paintings for me to see next term, OK?’ I said to her.
‘Why can’t you be our teacher next year?’ Nancy said.
‘Because you’re going up a year, and I’m staying with Mr Reid. But I’ll still be here, so we can see each other.’
Nancy asked me to come down to her level. I crouched down beside her, and she whispered into my ear, ‘You’re my best friend, Miss Edwards.’
She wrapped her arms around my neck and I told her I loved her.
Nancy spotted her mother walking towards us and started spinning in circles.
‘Mummy’s going to have a baby and it’ll explode from her belly button like a big rocket ship,’ she said, before running off to play with the others.
‘She’s so excited to have a baby brother,’ I said to Sharon.
‘She’d be more excited if it was a girl. She asked me last week if she could give him away.’
We looked out to the children and I wondered what on earth I was going to do without them all summer.
‘I bet you can’t wait to get to LA,’ Sharon said. ‘When do you fly?’
‘We broke up,’ I said, stumbling over my words. ‘It was four months ago … ’
‘Oh, God. I’m so sorry – I didn’t know.’
‘It’s OK. He wanted to be in LA, I couldn’t leave … ’
My voice trailed off.
‘I hope you already know this, but the children adore you. Nancy has a photo of the two of you bes
ide her bed, when you both dressed up as Tigger.’
‘Jesus, Sharon, I’m trying to hold it together over here.’
She went in for a hug.
‘Thank you so much,’ I said.
‘No, thank you, Ivy.’
We said our goodbyes, and I made my way back inside.
‘Is that the last of them?’ Mary asked.
‘It is. I need a stiff drink. Are you coming to the pub?’
‘Finally! I’ve been gagging for a pinot blush since noon.’
Back in the classroom, Amit was sitting with Mr Reid.
‘What are you still doing here?’ I asked him.
‘His nanny’s running late,’ Mr Reid said.
At that moment, Mary came into the classroom.
‘Your carriage awaits, Amit,’ she said.
Amit jumped off his chair and ran down the corridor. I followed him, wanting to say hello to Kate. But it wasn’t Kate waiting for him in the playground, it was Jamie. I’d not seen him since Christmas, but of course he’d make a guest appearance on the last day of term.
He tussled Amit’s hair.
‘I’m sorry I’m late. I was picking Dad up—’
‘You need to be on time for pick-ups; it’s not fair on Amit – or us.’
‘From hospital, Ivy. He had heart surgery.’
‘Oh my God, how is he?’
‘You know how William is, offensively stubborn. He needs a total rehaul of his diet, which hasn’t gone down so well.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Don’t be sorry. We talked about you last week; I told him you were a teacher now. He always liked you, you know.’
I laughed. ‘No, he didn’t.’
‘He did; he has a funny way of showing it, that’s all.’
‘How has your mum been?’
‘She’s on the aperitifs from three every day now, instead of five, so supper is a lively affair.’
‘Ah, Cressida Langdon, what a woman.’
‘Can we go now, Jamie?’ Amit asked.
‘Yes. Say goodbye to Miss Edwards.’
‘I miss you already,’ he said, clutching my leg.
‘I miss you too, Amit.’
Amit was talking to me, but I couldn’t register what he was saying. There was a man walking across the playground towards us.