Chapter 18
18
I knew, following my visit to Hudson House care home, I was going to have to bite the bullet and take up Mason Donoghue’s teaching job offer.
Having spent most of the day with Jess at the home, I was now utterly in awe of care workers, of their commitment, professionalism and hard work. And it was hard work for Jess: back-breaking stuff, always on call, helping, soothing, advising, sorting medication, while constantly accompanying the elderly, often incontinent, men and women both to the loo and the shower, at the same time as keeping an eye on her team of new-to-the-job care assistants. I’d shadowed Jess as she did all the usual hands-on stuff such as providing personal care, including showering, bathing and shaving the whiskery old men while persuading them to clean their teeth. Apart from the shaving, the ritual reminded me of dealing with kids. Was it any wonder that Jess was so good, not only with ten-year-old Lola, but with Sorrel as well? Although, when I was chatting to Jess as she went about these tasks, she admitted she’d come to a standstill with our little sister, intimating that Mum had ended up back in hospital because of Sorrel and she, herself, was almost at her wits’ end with her.
While carefully, almost lovingly, combing and tying back with a pink ribbon the thin hair of ninety-five-year-old Sara, Jess had turned to me, looking me determinedly in the eye, and said, ‘I need help, Robyn. Not sure I can cope with Sorrel any more. Please stay up here with us and take up Mason’s offer.’
And then she was off once more, with me trailing after her, helping Desmond with his mobility issues and Basil with his lost spectacles before setting off down to the kitchen to check on the preparation of lunches. Then, once she’d found Annie, who’d gone AWOL, she had commenced the twice-daily monitoring of the blood pressure and heart rate before making sure she was on hand to support with feeding and hydration.
Even while taking her half-hour lunch break, Jess continued working, jumping up with a smile on her face to chat to a worried family to update them on their relative’s progress. I was exhausted and all I’d done was trail after Jess, sitting, chatting and patting (as Jess called it) lonely men and women, some simply counting the days and hours until relatives were free – and willing – to visit them once more.
If they ever did.
I messaged Mason Donoghue but when after an hour there was no reply, rang him on the number he’d given me. Still no response, so I found and rang the St Mede’s reception number, which was answered immediately.
‘Could I speak to Mr Donoghue?’
‘I’m sorry, he’s not actually in today. Can I take a message?’
‘It’s Robyn Allen. Could you tell Mr Donoghue I’d like to take up both his offers?’
‘His offers?’
I hesitated. ‘Both myself and my sister, Sorrel Allen, will be in school in the morning.’
‘Oh, that’s in the diary. Mason has already confirmed you’ll both be joining us. No problem at all. See you in the morning.’
And with that she rang off, leaving me looking at my phone like the second-rate actor I now apparently was.
‘Oh, Mr Mason Donoghue! Pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you, you full-of-yourself bloody headmaster?’
Ninety-eight-year-old Beryl, who’d stuck to my side most of the afternoon, cackled in delight, patting my arm in encouragement with a papery-skinned hand. ‘You tell the bastard,’ she whooped. ‘Never liked teachers or headmasters: I was slippered more times than I can remember when I were a lass…’
Wednesday morning and Sorrel and I duly presented ourselves at St Mede’s Reception, waiting a good twenty minutes until Mason Donoghue was free to see us. He immediately requested – ordered – that Sorrel accompany one of his members of staff to Lost Property where she’d be temporarily kitted out with the school blazer and tie, saying, when Sorrel started to demur: ‘My school, my rules, Sorrel. You’ll need to wear our stuff until you are able to buy the uniform yourself.’
‘I’m not a bloody charity case,’ she began.
‘And rule number one at St Mede’s is no swearing. Oh, and rule number two is no phones in class. You’ll be given a key to a locker where you can leave your personal things as well as your phone.’
‘Good luck with that.’ I smiled chummily towards this new boss of mine, but he didn’t respond.
‘Robyn, once Sorrel is settled can we have a meeting at some point?’ He looked at his watch. ‘Where I’ll get Petra to go through all the policies with you.’
‘Petra? Policies?’
‘Behaviour; Health and Safety; Safeguarding; Anti-bullying; First Aid…’ He narrowed his eyes slightly. ‘You know, the usual stuff?’
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘And you’ll want to see all my certification?’ I could be just as professional as Mason Donoghue if I needed to be. Although to be honest, once I’d left my last school, determined never again to darken the door of any educational establishment, I’d been about to make a bonfire of all my curriculum documents, teaching plans, files and everything else that goes hand in hand with being a teacher. But Mum, proud of my achievements, had rescued the lot from the bin, placing it neatly – reverentially – in the top two drawers of the chest in the box room. Thank goodness she had: I’d spent the previous evening going through it all, my pulse racing with anxiety at the thought of standing once again in front of a class of kids, but also reminding myself of some of the lessons that, not only had been successful, but I’d actually sometimes quite enjoyed teaching.
‘Ah, Petra?’ Mason was making his way back to his office, but turned and called over his shoulder to a pretty blonde sporting a tracksuit who’d just made her way into Reception. ‘Have you time now? This is Robyn who I was telling you about yesterday. She’s joining us on supply, covering English, dance and drama and some PSHE.’
‘Got everything you’ll need, Robyn.’ She waved a pile of stuff in my direction. ‘Do you want to come down to my office and we can crack on like a pit pony?’
‘Sorry?’ I stared at her.
‘There’s a lot to get through,’ she amended, obviously realising I had a deficient sense of humour as well as, when she caught sight of the brace on my knee, a knackered left leg.
‘I’m not sure I can do this,’ I said as I limped after this little firecracker of a woman, who was probably not much older than me, panic threatening to engulf me as I sped up in her wake. My pulse was racing and I actually felt physically sick. Sick with longing for my old life and for Fabian.
‘Tie,’ Petra barked at some little dot of a lad who obviously hadn’t yet learned how to manoeuvre the stiff fabric hanging round his neck. She bent, flinging the material deftly round itself before adjusting the knot and sending him on his way. ‘Monday’s homework?’ she demanded of a tall, neatly dressed girl with a headful of braids, but Petra accelerated, without waiting for any response or excuse on said homework. ‘Sorry, Robyn, you were saying?’ She turned to speak as we moved along corridor after gloomy corridor. ‘Your leg bothering you? ACL?’ she asked knowingly.
‘Well spotted.’ I panted after her as we went through empty classrooms, making detours and short cuts before finally arriving at a door marked:
MS P WATERS
Deputy Head Teacher
‘Had one myself after skiing,’ she announced, nodding in the direction of my knee. ‘Mine was torn. Had to have three months off work. If you’re able to walk on it like that, you’ve only got minor damage. I’ll try and make sure you’re able to sit down some of the time in the classes you’ll be taking. Mind you’ – she frowned – ‘I know Mason’s hoping you’ll be able to lead us in dance and drama.’
‘Lead you?’ I stared. ‘I’m here on a supply basis. I’m hoping, seeing I’ve not been in a classroom for over a year, someone will be leading me .’
‘Well, of course, we’ll do everything to help. Mason insists we all muck in together. I’m trained Phys Ed, so I still do a lot of the games and PE as well as mopping up lessons where we’ve not been able to afford a day’s cover. But dance? Wow? You were in the West End? I guess they had to replace you? Temporarily? Are you able to go back?’
‘I doubt it,’ I said, remembering the cavalier fashion with which Carl Farmer had replaced the pregnant former dancer with me. I determined, however, I’d be ringing both Carl at the theatre and Dorcas, my agent, later on today. As well as getting a professional opinion on my knee from the local GP. If this Petra knew as much about ACLs as she appeared to, there might be some hope for me yet.
Petra waved a hand towards the chair in front of her desk, seating herself behind it before reaching for the pile of papers, sifting through each one and asking me questions as we went along.
‘Cuckooing? FGM?’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I’ve forgotten what they are. I don’t suppose I had any reason to be concerned about these things in London.’
‘I think we have to be aware of drugs and female genital mutilation in all walks of life, not just in schools,’ she admonished. ‘But obviously, especially in schools when we’re working daily with kids.’
‘And here in a village like Beddingfield?’
‘Little Micklethwaite,’ she amended. ‘And absolutely. The danger is in assuming that because we’re not London, not in Manchester, these things don’t happen out here in the sticks. You need to be aware of behaviour – of clues – that a child in your class is being manipulated either by other kids or by adults and could be involved in something they shouldn’t. Not necessarily by outside influences, of course,’ Petra went on. ‘Kids can be in fear of their own families.’
‘Right.’
Petra held my eye for a fraction longer than necessary before handing over the wad of documents. ‘OK, behaviour policy. We have strict written guidelines on which you need to proceed when a student’s kicking off.’
‘And is that often?’
‘This is St Mede’s, not Eton,’ Petra retorted before relenting somewhat. ‘Much, much less so since Mason took over two years ago. He is an absolutely superb head. The school is on the up and up. I think he’s asked you to come here because he’s obviously seen something in you – believes you’ll be an asset to the school.’
Or, I thought, cynically, he can’t get anyone else to venture over the doorstep.
Two hours later and with my head spinning and the bell for break only adding to the pain that was starting to build over my eyes, Petra handed me the remains of enough paper to have decimated a forest and stood up. ‘Come on, caffeine.’ She grinned.
‘Gin?’ I asked.
‘Safeguarding rules, remember,’ she replied, laughing.
We made our way back along corridors packed with a veritable army of kids, little Year 7s in new, too big uniforms mingling awkwardly with man-sized giants sporting downy bumfluff on their top lip, but all intent on their fifteen minutes of freedom outside in the September sunshine. As we neared the main exits, streams of youths met and joined like a confluence of rivers and a couple of scuffles broke out. Petra was immediately in there, barking orders, holding back one stream while allowing another to move forward. ‘Main exit’s been damaged and is unsafe to open,’ she explained over her shoulder. ‘Hence the pushing and shoving to get out.’
The pervasive odour, peculiar only to high schools, of rubber-soled trainers, leather satchels, school dinners, sweat, cheap floor polish and disinfectant assailed my nostrils and I closed my eyes slightly, remembering how I’d sworn never again. Teaching and me just weren’t a fit.
‘Coffee?’ Petra asked, seeing the panic in my eyes. ‘Honestly, it’ll all come back.’ She grinned. ‘Like riding a bike.’
‘Never very good at bike riding,’ I muttered. ‘Fell off and broke my thumb when I was ten,’ I added but, nevertheless, carried on through the escapees in Petra’s wake, in search of coffee.
‘New girl in Year 11’s pretty bolshy,’ a sandy-haired bloke, probably in his late fifties, was saying to no one in particular, the rest of the staff too busy grabbing sustaining coffee, tea and KitKats in their fifteen minutes’ break to be interested in what he was saying. ‘Been kicked out of Beddingfield High apparently. Should have been on her way to the PRU but, for whatever reason, our lord and master’s decided to give her a place here.’
‘Not daft though.’ A tall black woman around my age turned towards the sandy-haired bloke. ‘She knew almost as much as me about the Weimar democracy, its political change and unrest, and the Munich Putsch as well.’
‘Well, she needs keeping an eye on.’ The other sniffed, slurping at his coffee while still masticating his biscuit. ‘It won’t be long before she starts showing her true colours.’ Noticing me for the first time, he turned in my direction. ‘Hello,’ he said contemplatively, his small eyes taking in every bit of me in much the same way as Julius Carrington had mentally undressed me on the first occasion I’d met him.
‘Hi.’ I smiled, determined to be friendly: I needed the natives on my side if I was to be working here. ‘What do you teach?’
‘Wankers mainly,’ he replied, the start of a smirk on his face.
‘This is Robyn, everyone,’ Petra said hurriedly, shooting a look of utter disdain at the man. ‘She’s joining us tomorrow, covering some English and drama and PSHE, but, fantastically, because she’s been working in the West End, no less, will be able to give us direction in dance and theatre studies.’
‘I don’t think…’ I started, a rictus of a smile on my face, but she’d turned to the man lavishly buttering toast in the kitchen area of the staffroom. ‘Dave? Going to leave Robyn with you now. If you can go over the English stuff she’ll be doing?’ Petra turned back to me. ‘Dave’s Head of English,’ she explained and then, looking at her watch, added, ‘Sorry, going to have to scoot. Got a meeting with Mason and then I’m teaching Year 7 games. Half these kids can’t catch a ball. And the other half are convinced they’re the next Messi and it’s only a matter of time before they’re signed up by Man U.’
I spent the next ninety minutes sorting out more admin and being given the low-down on the English curriculum by Dave Mallinson, Head of English at St Mede’s, who I found helpful if a little distant. He and Sandy Head were old retainers, he told me, been at the school for years and would probably be carried out, covered in chalk dust, breathing their last gasp.
‘You still enjoy it, then?’ I asked. ‘The teaching, I mean?’
‘Must do or I’d have taken early retirement years ago. When we really were at rock bottom, in special measures and the authority was intent on closing us down, I was about to go then. But Mason came along and started turning the place round.’ He looked steadily at me. ‘It’s a good place to be if you can get a handle on the pupils. Kids are not born disruptive, badly behaved you know? Most want to learn, to fit in, to please. Unfortunately, the crap they’ve had to put up with at home, how they’ve been brought up, the challenges they’ve had to face before they even started primary school, let alone high school, have had them at a disadvantage from the get-go.’
‘I know, I know.’ I smiled, slightly irritated. ‘I do understand that. I’ve obviously done the child development, the psychology, the behaviour modules…’
‘Ah, but you don’t start really understanding what it’s all about until you’re hands-on. You’ll be fine, Robyn. Just take it a day at a time. Oh, and if you need some work on that knee – ACL, is it? – my wife’s a physio. I’ll give you her details.’
I was starting to feel a little calmer. A little more, you know, I can do this. Maybe until Christmas? Just a term; sort my knee; sort Mum and Sorrel and then get myself back to London. Go and find Fabian and tell him I knew my bloody pride and prejudice had been to blame… It was all my fault…
By lunchtime I felt as though I’d never been away from the chalkface. Petra came back to the staffroom as the lunch bell sounded, inviting me along to the canteen where I’d be expected to not only do a couple of dinner duties, but actually – on Mason’s insistence – sit with the kids and eat as well.
While not overly impressed with the fare on offer – the ubiquitous pizza and chips with a lettuce leaf and half a tomato masquerading as salad – I was more so with the orderly queues and level of noise. Then I understood: Mason Donoghue was not only tucking in at a table with the younger kids, but apparently keeping a friendly, if steely eye on the older ones as well. (I’d not thought it possible for an eye to be both friendly and steely until I’d seen Mason in action.)
‘Mason insists he’s in situ here every lunchtime,’ Petra explained. ‘And if he can’t be, then at least one of us from the senior leadership team must be.’ Her tone was reverential as she spoke of her leader, who now was making his way over to a girl sitting at a table by herself looking solitary, a look of defiant anger on her pretty face.
Sorrel.
Petra put a warning hand on my arm. ‘Leave her, Robyn. Mason’s going to chat with her. The last thing she needs is her big sister fussing over her. That really would have her heading for the hills. Pizza and chips?’
And I would have found myself calmer, more able to meet the challenge, had I not followed Petra back to the staffroom for the last ten minutes of the lunch hour and overheard a conversation.
‘Woah, he is fit ,’ one of the younger members of staff was saying as four of them stood gathered around a table, perusing the front page of The Daily Herald . ‘What’s he called?’
‘Carrington,’ another said, reverentially. ‘Fabian Mansfield Carrington. Blimey, look at those eyes. He looks like Jamie Dornan…’
‘Who?’
‘You know! That gorgeous actor in Fifty Shades . Hell, I wouldn’t kick him out of bed.’
‘You should be so lucky,’ another scoffed. ‘But yes, I know what you mean. He’s all dark and smouldering…’
‘You’re joking .’ A petite Asian girl in the white coat of a science teacher was indignant. ‘How could you fancy him? He’s defending that misogynistic murderer Rupert Henderson-Smith. How could you want to be anywhere near, let alone in bed with, someone who’s making a shedload of money trying to get that bastard off? Blood money. What about the poor families who’ve lost their daughters? For heaven’s sake, what’s the matter with all of you?’