Still Falling for You

1

‘ Always have an umbrella and a spare pair of knickers in your bag. You never know when you might need them. ’

While I find the second part of my mother’s advice disturbing, I wish I’d listened to the first part. My mother has always had a way of creeping into my thoughts when disaster strikes. I try to quieten her voice in my head, but like old Blu Tack, she sticks.

I keep wondering how I’ve got here. I don’t mean King George’s Academy’s car park but at this junction of life.

Instead of rushing inside the grey building, I’m sitting in my old Fiat, dissecting all my past life choices, while the rain is pounding insistently against the window. The sheets of rain are so dense I can only see the blurry outlines of the imposing building. Hands clammy, I’m clutching the steering wheel in a death grip, and my breath is coming out in short puffs like I’m practising breathing techniques for labour. Finally, when I snap out of self-pity and the start of a panic attack, I check the glove compartment again to confirm what I already know and one of the reasons why I’m stuck in the car. After checking the weather forecast twice and being assured by Carol Kirkwood that there was no chance of rain, I left my umbrella at home. If the decrepit place can be called that.

Clenching my teeth, I gather my bag, scarf and the almost empty standards portfolio and tuck my DBS form in it so it doesn’t get wet. I’m reconciled to the fact that there’s zero chance of me staying dry.

I get out of the car and immediately my brogues fill with water because I’ve stepped into a puddle the size of Lake Titicaca. My shoes squelch as I rush towards the looming colossus. The neat blonde bob that I only had done yesterday is now plastered to my cheeks in the vague shape of sideburns. Hair gets in my mouth, and I try to spit it out, but it sticks to my upper lip instead. I catch a glimpse of myself in the glass panes of the entrance door and flinch in shock. All reedy and with hair in all the wrong places, I’ve never resembled my Uncle Anthony more than now.

The vintage yellow jumper is glued to my arms and clings to the outlines of my lanky body, making me look vacuum-packed. Professional. Bah. I missed my chance of looking professional by being late on the first day of my ECT – Early Career Teacher – year. Schools like this with a great reputation and Outstanding Ofsted rating don’t let things like this slide.

Nobody would believe me if I said that the power socket I plugged my phone into to charge last night wasn’t working, alongside half of the stuff in the blasted studio I’ve occupied for the past three weeks. But due to Aaron, my ex-boyfriend, deciding to test the new sofa with his acupuncturist, I couldn’t stay another minute in our bungalow. I moved out with only two grand in my bank account while waiting for Aaron, the cheating piece of human faeces, to arrange repayment of my share. Life has been a beach.

I enter the building, sliding doors snapping behind me and immediately cutting off the storm’s audio. I walk to the glass door that separates the reception from the school’s corridor, but the prim-looking, middle-aged receptionist stops me before I even reach for the handle.

‘I’m sorry, but the school is closed to parents and pupils.’ Her left eyebrow lifts at the state of me. She doesn’t look sorry but thoroughly unpleasant. She has dark and expressively judgy eyebrows for somebody whose hair is the colour of lemon sorbet.

‘I’m the new teacher,’ I mumble because I’ve lost the last scraps of courage I had on the way to that glass door. I push the standards folder in my arms up, but it immediately slides down under my elbow again.

Mrs Receptionist scans me up and down before she pauses on the thin jumper plastered to my chest. I peek down, and to my embarrassment, the green bra I’m wearing underneath is showing through. The offending underwear has turned into a beacon of light, my hardened nipples beam headlights. I should have done my laundry and opted for a safe black bra, but, apparently, a furnished studio doesn’t always come with a washing machine.

I try to cross my arms, but that’s impossible while carrying a folder, a bag and a wool scarf. She grimaces with distaste.

‘Name?’ The receptionist gazes at one of the screens of her fancy-pants dual monitor.

‘Collins. Holly Collins.’ I’m doing the whole James Bond thing without planning to. I barely stop myself before I say vodka martini, shaken, not stirred because I don’t think Mrs Receptionist would appreciate my joke. I get hysterical under duress. My best friend, Lydia, would find this situation hilarious. The corner of my lip twitches, and my belly starts bubbling vinegar-mixed-with-baking-soda style. I need an outlet.

Without offering me a smile or a blink of an eye that would confirm she’s human and not an evil anthropoid robot vowed to destroy all humanity, she gestures to the door. ‘Our online register is currently down. Please use the staff register book on the table round the corner.’ That’s when she stops paying me attention.

Palms slick, I push against the glass barrier, but nothing happens, and I have a sudden urge to either cry or laugh. My lip wobbles. I’ve never been a crier, but who knows today? At last, she must press a button because the door beeps and I walk through to the other side.

I lean over the register and sign my name as neatly as I can while my sleeve is dripping water onto it, obscuring the names of the other staff. Once it’s done, I realise I have no idea where to go, having been in the school only once for my interview.

I know where the principal’s office is, but just the thought of Jane Trainer, the school principal, and her impenetrable face makes me think I’d rather volunteer for a dental extraction than ask for help when I’m already running late. When she interviewed me during the last week of the term, I couldn’t stop squirming when her dark eyes behind purple-framed glasses bored into me with unusual intensity. After thirty minutes in her office, I felt like I’d undergone an X-ray scan. I was gobsmacked when she offered me the job the same day. I doubt she would appreciate me coming into her office now and dripping on her carpet.

For about half a second, I consider asking the prim receptionist, tuning into the swift, almost aggressive tapping of her fingers on the keys of her ergonomic keyboard. I think better of it.

I think longingly back to my old school, but they’re the reason I’m here. After working as a teaching assistant for two years, completing my PGCE – Postgraduate Certificate of Education – while teaching full-time, all I got back was ‘Sorry we can’t extend your contract due to funding issues’ at the end of June. Only two weeks before the end of term and before the most important milestone of my career, my ECT period. I try not to think of the possibility of not passing my ECT and having to redo the entire teaching degree. I shudder as panic zaps down my spine.

‘You look lost.’

I flinch as a male voice sounds behind me.

I school my features into a neutral expression because the last thing I want is for a new colleague to witness my discomposure. When I’m ready, I turn around and gawk. I didn’t expect a tall, brown-haired and exceptionally good-looking specimen of manhood standing in front of me. With my five-foot-nine height, men are usually shorter than me, but this guy is at least six feet tall. He’s wearing a tight-fitting navy T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms that do fantastic things to his thigh muscles.

‘Is it raining outside?’ He feigns confusion. His lightly stubbled jaw spreads into a lazy grin.

‘No. What makes you say that?’ I quip.

He cackles appreciatively and then scans me head to toe in a very different way from the receptionist. Eyes as wide as charger plates, he ends up staring at my chest. I twist so I’m standing at an angle, and he tears his look away.

‘Are you the new teacher by any chance?’

My credibility is saved. ‘Yep.’ I straighten up. ‘Holly,’ I say more firmly, my words carrying newly found confidence scraped from the almost empty barrel labelled self-esteem .

He extends his toned arm. ‘John Fitzwilliam. The PE teacher.’ His grip is firm and confident, and he’s giving me a wide-toothed smile that probably causes all women to swoon or melt into a puddle. ‘This way.’ He points down the long corridor. ‘I can see you’ve already met Mary, King George’s efficient receptionist. She brings constant joy to this place.’ I make a face, which makes him chuckle.

A little bit of warmth pours back into my body. Maybe it won’t be so bad here.

‘So where did you teach before?’ John makes small talk as he leads me down the narrow corridor and up the stairs to the upper level.

‘Nigel Longfleet Academy,’ I say and strategically arrange the scarf so it hides my chest.

‘I’ve heard of that place. Weren’t they marked requires improvement by Ofsted?’ He scratches his chin and the muscles in his arm press against the fabric of his T-shirt.

‘That was the Ofsted inspection before last. They got a good a few months before I left.’ It’s a sore spot for me because I worked hard during my teacher training year and was praised by the Ofsted inspectors only to be dismissed two months later. But I’m not going to divulge all that to a virtual stranger even though he seems nice. Aaron used to be nice to me before he was repeatedly nice to the acupuncturist on our John Lewis sofa.

‘My car’s broken down. What’s your excuse?’ he asks.

We steer left and start walking along another long corridor whose walls are covered in examples of pupils’ independent writing and art projects. A number of internal windows to my right show the classrooms on the other side.

All the classrooms are spacious and light, fitted with interactive boards the size of my studio flat’s wall. I could get used to that. Some of the doors have tinfoil-covered robots made out of cardboard boxes standing guard. The air smells of glue and paper, making me feel at home straight away.

John is still staring at me, and I remember he asked me a question. ‘Pardon?’

‘The reason why I’m late? My car broke down.’

He winks at me, and I feel a little aggravated. I don’t want him to think I’m one of those constant latecomers, no pun intended.

‘Road maintenance.’ I check my watch nervously; we’re fifteen minutes late.

We pass the inclusion team’s office, and I wish we had already reached our destination, but John is strolling down the corridor like he’s taking a walk in a park.

‘Just wait for Alex. He’ll flip his lid.’ John exclaims with mirth.

My heart kicks up as it always does whenever the name is uttered despite ten years passing by.

Then the weirdest thing happens. John grips the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger, plasters a pained expression onto his face and then huffs with exaggeration. It makes me think of somebody I used to know, minus the huff and dramatics.

‘Who’s Alex?’ I barely make myself say the name, mentally scanning my memory of the school’s limited website currently under construction. I don’t remember any Alexes there.

‘Don’t worry about the old fart. He always gets his knickers in a twist over something. He’s just got promoted to assistant head, and now he thinks he’s been elected prime minister and can boss everyone around.’

He pats my shoulder in camaraderie and somehow the gesture, despite his sexist pun, reassures me.

The tightly knotted bundle of nerves inside me eases. Alex is my age so it can’t be my Alex. Not mine, I correct myself inwardly. Painful memories of Alex Bennet, my first love, flash through my mind. Alex was the first person whoever said he loved me. There’s only one other person who said those words to me and I wish that person nothing but gangrene, rat torture or life entombment.

But despite the zero chance that this Alex is the same person, John’s action brings back memories that heat my cheeks. Alex used to pinch his nose whenever his mum forgot to pay the internet bill, spilt a glass of milk on the floor without wiping it properly or when she left her hair-curling iron on and it burnt a patch into the towel underneath it before Alex switched it off. Alex was a fixer. He made you think that everything would be OK, even if the world was literally going to rack and ruin around you. He definitely didn’t ‘boss people around’ and think he was important. Quite the opposite.

My mind wanders towards the happiest year of my life when I was seventeen and madly in love. But guilt and hurt chase away the warmth building in my chest and muddy the memories.

John stops in front of a classroom door, truncating my self-pitying thoughts. I pull myself together. Through the internal windows, I can see twenty-odd people sitting on child-size chairs. The desks interrupting the small pockets of people are littered with empty chocolate wrappers, half-eaten packets of biscuits and unfinished mugs of tea and coffee. They’re all listening to somebody speaking in front of the whiteboard half obscured by the door.

John walks in without knocking, beaming, winking and waving like he’s a celebrity on The One Show . I’m a ghost in his wake, a sodden shadow. The room is crowded, but I don’t have any strength left to carve my way through. Thankfully, John does that for me with his big personality and wide shoulders.

He heads towards the only two empty chairs in the far-right corner of the classroom, right under the literacy working wall decorated with rainbow-coloured streamers.

I stop and start a few times as people’s crossed and stretched-out legs, bags and chair legs get in my way. It feels like hours before I’m even halfway to my seat. A couple of people smile at me encouragingly, but the majority ignore me and a few even scowl as if my late arrival spoils their day. I finally slump down next to John and school my features to neutral. The back of my jumper drips onto the lino floor in the silence that has reigned over our arrival.

I look apologetically at Jane, the school principal, who’s standing by the teacher’s desk with a PowerPoint presentation running in the background. It says safeguarding update in shouty capitals and it’s still on the main page. Maybe they were just starting. Good.

‘Now we’re all here, we can start,’ Jane announces not unkindly, but there’s something wary about the way she says it that makes me stiffen. For some reason, Jane’s eyes flick to the opposite side of the classroom before they return to the front.

The realisation hits me like a punch in the gut. They’ve been waiting for us. I slouch in my chair and pull out a notebook, wishing the ground would swallow me whole and spit me out in a different dimension.

Jane discusses the day’s agenda. All of us will first sit through a safeguarding update and then we will set off on our own, completing an online safeguarding training before the first tea break. Then the whole afternoon is devoted to classroom prep and another tea break. Jane even includes a teaching assistant rotation to help out with classroom displays. I’m impressed with how organised this school is.

John’s knee knocks into my notebook. Looking like he’s ready to take a nap, he’s manspreading with one of his ankles crossed over his knee, his foot hovering dangerously close to the nearest cup on the desk. When he catches me staring, he winks at me. Not wanting to seem unapproachable, I smile despite feeling like shaking him like maracas. If he was any more laid-back, he’d be horizontal.

It happens then. I peruse the classroom to familiarise myself with all the faces in the room when I meet with a pair of the greenest eyes I’ve ever seen. My stomach plunges while my heart claws up my throat. The one and only Alex Bennet stares back at me from across the classroom like I’m a stranger.

He looks different. His wild red hair is short, and he’s dressed in a grey suit with a waistcoat. His features are harsh and unsmiling. The temperature between us drops to Arctic in the dead of winter, but nobody else notices.

At that precise moment, Jane says, ‘Alex, the floor is yours.’

But he’s still staring at me like he hasn’t heard her, and a few people turn their heads our way. Finally realising that people are gawking at him, he focuses on Jane and his face relaxes, resembling, a little, the Alex I knew. My chest twists.

When he passes by, a black-haired woman to John’s left titters while openly assessing Alex’s backside. Then she whispers something to John who leans toward her a little too eagerly.

Alex stands in front of the room with confidence, and it hits me once again. This is really happening. I’ve never been more grateful to have mastered the art of a poker face. But despite my best efforts, I can’t stop cataloguing the changes that the last ten years have made to Alex’s body. The boy’s gone, and instead, there’s this intimidating grown man. He’s filled out around his arms and shoulders while still retaining some of his boyish leanness. He’s also taller, but maybe it’s the effect of the power suit and the confidence he holds himself with. Immediately, his demeanour puts me on the defensive.

‘Morning, everyone. It’s nice to see you back. I hope you had a restful summer and are ready for the new term. Let’s get to work.’ His voice is deeper, more clipped, and it makes my insides twist into figure-eight knots.

This version of Alex is alien. The eighteen-year-old Alex never spoke in front of more than three people and avoided crowded spaces. That Alex detested power suits and authoritarian figures. He’s become everything my version of Alex hated.

Alex starts speaking. I vaguely catch the words safeguarding and law , but my head isn’t really in it. I’m still utterly stunned, a feeling similar to local anaesthesia before minor surgery.

I watch him as he leans to retrieve a stack of handouts and passes it to a woman in the front who distributes them. A smattering of freckles shines golden across his nose and cheeks under the spotlight above the teacher’s desk.

He points towards various people in the room who are directly involved with safeguarding procedures. Ellie, the SENCO and designated safeguarding lead, who is a woman in her forties and beams at everyone perhaps too enthusiastically for the start of a new academic term, her assistant Becky, and Tom, the pastoral lead, who is my dad’s age and has a wild mop of greying hair.

By the time I recover, Alex wraps up the update and directs people to complete the safeguarding online training in their respective classrooms.

Most people immediately vacate their seats and a few grumble that this whole meeting was pointless, eventually trickling out of the classroom. Nothing new here. A few people hover, chatting with their colleague friends. I pretend to be gathering my things when in truth, I’m inconspicuously checking Alex out. He sits down by the computer and starts tapping on the keyboard like I’m not here at all.

‘Morning, Holly.’

I find Jane towering over me. I wonder how long she’s been standing there. Her brown eyes behind the purple glasses have sparks of amusement in them that I haven’t seen before. I think she’s trying not to laugh at the state of me.

‘I see you’ve had a bit of a disaster this morning.’ Her eyes drift to my sodden jumper. ‘Sorry I didn’t respond to your email.’

I emailed Jane to tell her I was going to be late due to road maintenance before I left my flat.

‘I’m so sorry. I’m never late, but I guess today has been…’ I trail off, but she stops me from finishing the sentence anyway.

‘Don’t worry about it. I know you’re always punctual. Your previous school spoke highly of your commitment.’ My eyebrows rise in surprise. ‘Some days everything goes wrong.’ She hits the proverbial nail on the head. ‘Do you have anything to change into?’

‘I didn’t think I would be struck by a tsunami, so I didn’t pack a change of clothes. I’m sure it’ll dry soon.’

She shakes her head. ‘That’s not acceptable. Come with me and I’ll find you something.’ She throws a quick look Alex’s way, but he doesn’t even lift his head.

When we get to her office, Jane rummages through lost items and finds me a green T-shirt that fits snuggly around my torso. It’s embarrassing because I’m ninety-nine per cent sure that it belonged to a child.

After, she leaves me in my new classroom and tells me my ECT mentor will be with me shortly. Before she leaves, a puckered v appears between her neatly plucked eyebrows.

My new classroom feels empty, a clean slate. The windows running along the entire outside wall let in the morning sunshine. A solitary beam reaches my desk and sets the surface alight, a silver lining.

I get an overwhelming sense that everything is going to be OK. It’ll be the new start I so desperately need and not even the unexpected appearance of Alex is going to spoil it. It’s a big school and the chances of seeing Alex often are minimal.

The door swings inwards, and my ECT mentor enters the room. I train a pleasant smile on my face, but it drops immediately when I home in on a neat grey suit.

Bollocks.