A Village Affair

by Julie Houston

  ‘Oh gosh, that’s a load off my mind,’ I said gratefully.

  Why the hell was I going along with all this? Why wasn’t I standing up saying, ‘Woah, just a cotton-picking minute, Mr famous-businessman David Henderson. I’m off. I resign. Going home to Jenni Murray, my duvet and a bar of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk?’

  My stomach gave a loud rumble and I realised I’d not eaten a thing since the soggy mushroom vol-au-vent of Saturday night.

  ‘Sorry,’ I muttered again, embarrassed.

  ‘Been too nervous to eat?’ David grinned, and bent down, opening a drawer in front of him. ‘Yep, thought as much.’ He pulled out a huge and expensive-looking box of Hotel Chocolat biscuits, and pushed it towards me. ‘Priscilla did have a predilection for chocolate. Come on, fill your boots, give yourself some energy. You’re going to need it.’

  *

  ‘Mrs Beresford, could you have a quick word with Mrs Dawson, Rainbow’s mummy?’ Jean Barlow, the school secretary, popped her face round the head’s door where I was still gathering myself before going down to my classroom to get things ready for this Grace woman.

  ‘Yes, of course, show her in.’ I smiled in what I hoped was confident, head teacher mode.

  A short, nervous-looking woman around my own age, knocked and stepped into the office. ‘Hello, er, Mrs Beresford? I was hoping to have a word with Mrs Theobold…’ She hesitated. ‘I mean I did mention it at the end of last term… but I’ve just heard…’ Mrs Dawson blew her nose on a damp-looking tissue. ‘Anyway, it’s still carrying on…’

  ‘What is? Is there a problem with Rainbow?’ Giving thanks to the God of names for giving the child a damned silly name I was immediately able to remember, I smiled encouragingly.

  ‘It’s that Chantelle girl again,’ she whispered crossly.

  ‘Is it?’

  Mrs Dawson nodded, but added nothing further.

  ‘What is? What’s Chantelle?’

  ‘We had a problem with her all last year. Bullying our Rainbow. Demanding she bring summat in for her every day. It’s started again, first day back. “I’ve got to take summat in for Chantelle.” That’s all our Rainbow will say.’

  ‘And did Mrs Theobold have a word with Chantelle?’

  ‘Well, she did, but Chantelle denied it all. She’s very sly for a five-year-old.’

  ‘Oh, Rainbow is so young?’

  ‘Well, no, our Rainbow is six now. Chantelle’s in a different class which meks it worse, really.’

  ‘And is it money that she’s demanding from Rainbow?’ Golly what sort of school was this that had four-year-olds demanding money with menaces?

  ‘Oh, I gets sick of it. Our Rainbow always nattering, “Mum, I’ve got to take summat for Chantelle.” “What can I tek for Chantelle?” And she ’as a tantrum when I say she can’t take my diamond engagement ring for Chantelle this morning. Well, Mrs Beresford, I’ll leave it with you. I hope you can sort it better than Mrs Theobold – God bless her.’

  Light was beginning to dawn. ‘Does Rainbow sometimes bring the things back that she’s taken for Chantelle?’

  Mrs Dawson wiped her nose again. ‘Well, that’s the funny thing. I often find the stuff she’s taken for her back in her bag.’

  I smiled. If being a head was going to be as good fun as this, I was going to enjoy myself. I leant forward. ‘Mrs Dawson, have you ever heard of Show and Tell?’

  *

  It wasn’t. Good fun, that is. I dealt with at least five parents before nine fifteen, all of them wanting to tell me something about their child, whether it be a case of suspected chicken pox, a demand for Learning Support or an imminent divorce and could I possibly be the one to tell the child daddy wasn’t coming home? (I couldn’t, despite thinking I’d be getting some practice in for when I had to break similar news to Freya.)

  I’d briefly met the supply teacher, Grace Stevenson, who assured me that, despite being out of the classroom for four years, she was ready to get stuck in. I had immediate misgivings: education and all that went with it had changed dramatically over that period of time, with new government directives being thrown at us on a daily basis. But I didn’t have time to do much more than reassure her I was there if she needed me, thrust plans and documents into her hands and scuttle back to the office to practise the assembly Clare, Fiona and I had cobbled together sitting in the garden the previous morning. She looked almost as bemused as I felt.

  *

  I made the decision – my first, I realised, as head teacher – to leave assembling the troops until just before lunch, giving me more time to practise what I was going to say as well as open the myriad letters, emails and government directives that had amassed over the latter end of the summer break. Priscilla Theobold had just returned from a three-week round-the-Mediterranean cruise with, according to the gossip filtering out of the staff room at break time, a much younger lover, when she’d keeled over and died, hence the build-up of administrative stuff that needed sorting.

  ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day.’

  ‘Sorry?’ I looked up from the pile of paper that was beginning to spread out around the office chair like a snowstorm.

  ‘What the mind can conceive, it can achieve.’ Jean Barlow smiled sympathetically and handed me a mug of tea and a chocolate digestive. ‘Just one step at a time, Mrs Beresford, and you’ll be fine. Mrs Theobold used to dump most of this sort of stuff into the bin, unopened.’

  ‘Really?’ I looked up, slightly dazed. ‘Oh, and please call me Cassie. I was Cassie when I was deputy… well, of course I still am deputy…’ I trailed off. The last thing I wanted was the school secretary thinking I was being presumptuous.

  Jean looked slightly shocked. ‘Mrs Theobold always insisted on being called Mrs Theobold.’ She paused. ‘Now, at what point do you want to go over this little lot?’ She wafted a pile of files in my direction. ‘Last summer’s SATs results.’

  ‘Let me get my first assembly out of the way, Jean, and then we’ll look at them together, shall we? I’m surprised they haven’t already been gone through.’

  ‘I know Karen Adams, being literacy coordinator, and Jenny Lane, maths coordinator, have already compiled statistics, but it was always Mrs Theobold’s habit, on the first day of the new academic year, to use them to tell the staff where they were going wrong…’

  ‘Or right, surely? We all need a bit of praise, don’t you think?’

  Jean smiled. ‘Life doesn’t give you things you can’t handle, does it? Well, I’ll leave them with you, then?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ I smiled with far more confidence than I felt, added the files to the tumescent pile already in the in-tray, and then watched as the whole lot slithered to the floor with a crash.

  Shit.

  Shoving escaped paper into what I hoped was its correct file, I hoisted the lot back onto the desk and set off down the corridor to introduce myself to each new class.

  *

  By the end of the afternoon I felt I’d been in charge at Little Acorns for ever. My very first assembly had gone well, apart from Karen Adams, the Year 3 teacher, looking bored stiff in between raising her eyebrows at another as I talked, and I’d floated down the corridor back to the office – probably the result of a surfeit of caffeine and Hotel Chocolat premium chocolate biscuits on an empty stomach as much as pride in a job well done – and began to think I could possibly do this. I could be head teacher, albeit for a few days until a new captain was brought in to save the sinking ship.

  And then flashbacks to Simon outing Mark and Tina would suddenly take me unawares, and my heart would lurch and I’d have to dash and offload my nervous stomach once more in the tiny loo next to the head’s office. But, on the whole, I held myself together, even to the point of adding another layer of lippy before heading back to yet more administrative tasks Jean insisted on finding for me. David Henderson, who’d apparently had a meeting in Manchester, had left fairly early in the day but returned by mid-afternoon. His presence, and the thought that really, a
s Chair of Governors, he was more in charge than I, had a calming effect on my whole being and we made good headway with a list of things that needed our immediate attention.

  ‘You’re doing fine,’ he smiled, leaning back and stretching his arms above his head while stifling a yawn. ‘You know, you were our outright choice for the job of deputy. There was only one other candidate who came anywhere near. I think Priscilla liked the idea of having a man as her second in command, but in the end your interview and presentation far outweighed your rival’s boyish good looks.’ David laughed and I smiled back. ‘That’s better,’ he added, standing and reaching for his black pinstriped suit jacket. ‘I’ve another meeting down in Midhope, or I’d stay on with you.’ He yawned again. ‘As Jean would say: tomorrow’s another day. Go home and put your feet up and open a bottle of wine. Go and tell your husband you’ve survived.’

  By five I was running on empty. I decided enough was enough and looked around for my new little linen jacket that I’d not seen since abandoning it after assembly. I retrieved what had now become a crumpled rag from under another pile of box files and headed for my classroom, in the hope Grace Stevenson might be still around for a quick chat. She wasn’t.

  ‘… her best friend, apparently. Can you imagine that? Bad enough your husband shagging some stranger, but your best friend… Two years, the other woman’s husband shouted out to everybody there. And don’t tell me any woman wouldn’t know if it was her best friend. Course she must have known what was going on. Must be pretty thick if she didn’t. My sister knows her vaguely – the other woman, I mean, not our new leader – Tina somebody… said it was all great entertainment…’ Karen Adams’ unmistakable nasal whine drifted malevolently through the open door of her classroom. How dare she discuss my business with all and sundry? I was about to go in and challenge her and whoever was in there with her when the sheer fury I was feeling suddenly changed direction and I knew it was the real perpetrator of my anguish I had to confront: Tina herself.

  I let myself out of the main door, nodding in the direction of Stan, the caretaker, who was desultorily sweeping the hall floor as I did so, jumped into my car and headed straight for the centre of Midhope and Tina’s office. Scalding molten lava was boiling through every bit of me, pulsating in a rampage of fury as I drove.

  I pulled up in the car park of Holmes, Clavell and Dixon Solicitors and, not stopping to lock the car door, strode up the stairs to Tina’s office.

  ‘Where is she?’ I yelled at a surprised Brian Holmes, Tina’s senior partner.

  ‘Hello, Cassie. Are you wanting Tina?’

  ‘Too right I want the bitch. Where is she?’ I looked round wildly, the red mist that had descended still in front of my eyes.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Brian jumped up from his chair, putting out a hand to calm me.

  I shrugged it off and strode towards Tina’s office. ‘She’s not here, Cassie. She’s gone on the train to Leeds. Won’t be back for ages yet.’

  ‘Right. OK.’ I marched back down the stairs, scrabbling in my bag as I descended to the main door and car park once more. My utter fury, as I snatched the lid from the gold-coloured tube, swivelled up the lipstick and scrawled:

  MY HUSBAND, SERPENTINA, NOT YOURS!!!!!

  in bright red, two-inch-high letters across the full length of Tina’s white sporty BMW, only came to a halt when I realised the man in the black Jaguar F-type, looking absolutely stunned at my antics, was David Henderson.

  6

  Do You Want Me to Resign…?

  The next morning, knowing this was going to be my last day as a head teacher – probably as a teacher in employment as well, come to that – I decided I might as well walk the ten minutes across the fields down to school to pick up my things and make my exit. When I’d finally arrived home from my little vandalising spree of the evening before, I’d not bothered to get in touch with my union rep. Instead, once I’d defrosted, and the three of us had eaten one of the many batches of lasagne, shepherd’s pie and chilli I’d prudently prepared, cooked and frozen during the summer break, I headed for the sitting room.

  Refusing to give houseroom to any thoughts of Mark and Tina, my new job or my recently developed hobby as a graffiti artist, I dispatched Freya to her room. I was still clinging to the fabrication, for Freya’s benefit, that Mark had been suddenly called down to London – as he so often was – but I knew I was going to have to tell my daughter the truth pretty soon. She wasn’t stupid and was already asking questions.

  Aided by a glass of red wine, a pack of Marks & Spencer’s Percy Pigs and a rerun of Peaky Blinders, I managed an hour without breaking down in tears or further thoughts of violence apart from nodding appreciatively at Tom Hardy’s character slitting a few throats that got in his way.

  Once in bed, images of Tina with Mark danced before my closed eyelids. I pulled a pillow over my head in an attempt to obliterate and extinguish the pair of them together. The daft thing was that, had it been any other woman but Tina he’d been having an affair with, Tina would have been there with me, calling Mark every name under the sun as she stayed with me until I slept. She’d probably have moved in with me for a few days, letting me talk, pouring me gin.

  How bloody ironic. My best friend. Why the fuck had she done this?

  I hadn’t just acquired a husband from Davina’s momentous wedding do all those years before, I’d also found Tina. Being an only child – with just a cousin who had only ever resented, or at best grudgingly accepted, my presence – I could only ever dream of a huge extended family with a whole gang of exuberant loving siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins.

  I used to write stories where the main character – a girl, always my age – was at the centre of a huge, functional family living in a rambling house by a meadow full of wildflowers. She had a rosy-cheeked mother who stayed at home and baked – but who could abandon, at the drop of a hat, her home-baked bread and scones, and, flinging off her pinny, donning an exquisite ball gown, sweeping up her hair into a smooth blond chignon and, on the arm of the tall, handsome father, go off to some glamorous party, leaving my girl to be looked after by a big sister.

  Oh, how I’d longed for this big sister who’d tell me stories about the fairies in the kitchen cupboard from her bed in the room we shared; who, as I got older, would whisper and talk to me about periods and take me shopping into town; would let me borrow her clothes and show me how to draw a straight black line on my eyelids.

  Cupid’s arrow had scored two direct hits on me during those hours at Davina’s wedding because I fell in love twice. With Mark, obviously, but also with Tina. Three years older than me, she was the big sister I’d longed for and never had. I wasn’t quite sure why Tina took me under her wing so robustly, certainly in the weeks and months after the wedding when she’d ring and arrange to meet me on the weekends I was home from Derby seeing Mark. It never, for one minute, occurred to me that it was Mark she was after rather than my friendship and, to be fair to Tina (fair to the bitch? Was I mad?) I honestly believe the love I had for her was reciprocated. Or she was a bloody good actress.

  In the fifteen months that followed Davina’s wedding, before Mark and I were married ourselves, I would spend my weekends with Mark in Leeds where he was living and working at the time. I’d drive up from my tiny brand-new one-bedroomed flat in Derby, leaving work and arriving in the centre of Leeds most Friday evenings.

  It was such a wonderful time. I loved my teaching job in Derby, but adored my weekends in Leeds with Mark and Tina. Mark and I would start the weekend with a bottle of wine, sex, a pizza and then more sex. Saturday morning would usually be spent in bed and doing chores – I willingly cleaned Mark’s flat for him – and then it was my time with Tina. We’d meet for a glass of wine either in Parkers Wine Bar or Len’s Bar on York Place, stay for lunch and then head for the shops. Harvey Nicks had just opened its first branch outside London and we adored it, trying on the expensive shoes and designer dresses neither of us could afford on our n
ewly qualified wages. We coveted one pair of scarlet Jimmy Choos so much that we made a pact, buying the pair between us and keeping the shoes on a two-week rota as well as on birthdays and special occasions before handing them over to the other for her turn. We never once fell out about them, but religiously polished and handed them over to the other as we’d agreed.

  By the time Mark and I were engaged, Tina had taken up with Simon, whom we’d all met at Davina’s wedding. She’d been out with him a couple of times but didn’t appear all that keen on him and didn’t see him at all for about nine months after that. Once Mark had proposed and we’d started looking for a house, and I’d relocated back to a teaching post in Midhope, Tina took up with Simon again and they became an item, marrying just a few months after Mark and I.

  I’d asked Tina to be my bridesmaid and been hurt when she’d turned me down, laughing that I should have tiny tots to accompany me down the aisle, not someone three years older.

  ‘But you’d be my matron of honour, like my big sister,’ I’d argued, trying to get her to change her mind. She refused – probably the only issue on which we ever really disagreed.

  Mark and I moved back to Midhope where our social life revolved around Clare and whichever man she was with that week, as well as spending time with Fi and Matthew. Once Tina and Simon also moved over to Midhope, the seven of us went everywhere and did everything together. I loved all my three ‘sisters’: Tina, Fi and Clare, but Tina, had a special place in my heart.

  *

  So, after another pretty restless night, once I’d sorted breakfast, found a lost pair of trainers in the linen basket, doled out money – Oh God, money: where was money going to come from once I was jobless and husbandless? – and left a note for Charlene, my cleaner, I slipped on my flatties, shoved my heels in my bag and set off down the fields towards school.