Chapter 24
24
At the end of that first half-term at St Mede’s it felt as though I’d never known any other life than the one that had me up at six every morning banging on Sorrel’s bedroom door, chivvying her out of her pit and into the shower. There was always a huge sense of relief that she was there, burrowed under her duvet like some little woodland creature, and had actually come home.
It had been cold and miserable all week, the rain coming down in vertical stair rods, the kids cooped up and unable to let off steam in the yard or the one bit of remaining water-soaked and muddy grass over on the playing field. Days like this were dreaded by teaching staff throughout the land, but particularly those in inner-city schools and in areas of abandoned industry, where whole communities had been left to rot, and where the ensuing unemployment and social deprivation, after the closure of factories, pits and textile mills, were rife. The last day of this particularly wet week of the first half of the term, then, was more hellish than usual, resulting in disorganised chaos in my drama sessions, as well as the exclusion of a child.
The torrential rain being the very best autumn could muster, the drama studio had sprung several leaks, with the caretaker, Ken – an ex-army jobsworth perennially sporting an immaculately pressed brown overall – insisting (health and safety, love) he arrange several small orange cones around the resulting puddles. This was a gift made in heaven for Whippety Snicket, who proceeded, not only to stamp in the puddles like the five-year-old he still appeared to be, but to kick the cones around the room, shouting ‘goal’ every time he scored a hit on one of the girls’ backsides. My furious intervention had resulted in him turning on me, kicking the cone at my gammy knee while shouting at me to, ‘Fuck off and get back where you came from.’
With no Joel Sinclair to protect me (I’d actually begun to consider paying the sixteen-year-old protection money) I had no alternative but to call in the senior leadership team to remove the boy from the studio. The other kids in the class were left restless and sullen at one of their own being escorted off the school premises.
Mason had formally excluded Whippety from school for a week for racial harassment (although as it was half-term the following week, there appeared little point) and, too upset to talk and debrief with either Mason or Petra, all I wanted was to cry on Jess’s shoulder. Sorrel was nowhere to be seen, not appearing at my classroom door for a lift home as she sometimes did when the weather was inclement. But that wasn’t unusual and, to be honest, I was relieved I wasn’t having to face yet another truculent teen. How many prospective parents, longing for their own little bundle of joy, would, if they could only have a snapshot of said child fifteen years hence, abandon all plans for the pastel-painted nursery and convert the room into a study or recording studio, a gym or Airbnb? As well as blowing the quarter of a million pounds this child would eventually cost them on a round-the-world trip?
I went straight over to Jess’s, but her cottage appeared as dark and unwelcoming as Mum’s. I assumed she was either on a late shift or had gone to the hospital with Lola to visit Mum, who was hopefully being discharged during the half-term break. Unwilling to face the cold house with last night’s unwashed dishes in the sink without alcoholic sustenance to see me through, I went back out to the car and headed for the village Co-op. I bought a bottle of cheap red and a box of Mr Kipling mince pies (hell, Christmas already?) and, once home, downed the lot in an orgy of self-pity.
I lay on the sofa, red throw over me, while a sardonic Roger eyed me with a mixture of pity and contempt. Until, unable to stand the cheap wine and burp-inducing festive tarts’ fumes I was breathing over him, he offered one final disdainful stare at me before heading for his basket by the unlit wood burner.
‘Don’t you abandon me as well, you supercilious rabbit,’ I sobbed in Roger’s direction before reaching for the TV control, which, I remembered too late, needed new batteries. Heaving myself off the sofa to manually change channels, I searched for a nice escapist thriller or at least a wildlife documentary, but instead found a rerun of Fatal Attraction . Watching the bunny being boiled, I chortled drunkenly over at Roger, turning his basket towards the TV in revenge for his abandoning me, but then felt so mean, I got up, changed channels and gathered him up into my arms, apologising profusely for my behaviour.
And there on the TV was Fabian. Fabian Mansfield Carrington. My Fabian. My heart. My racing pulse. Jesus. Was I having a heart attack? The news channel – some obscure Japanese or Taiwanese programme with subtitles – was reporting on the UK’s Rupert Henderson-Smith’s alleged murders and the cameras were outside Fabian’s apartment. Actually outside his apartment! I clutched at Roger, staring at the screen, reading the subtitles and trying to work out what was going on and why there was a crowd of mainly women with banners on Fabian’s doorstep as he hurriedly disappeared inside. I needed to rewind, see Fabian again, but Mum’s TV control was no longer capable of such sophisticated action. Instead, I watched in fascination as first Julius Carrington, followed by Judge Gillian, walked grimly through the banner-waving women before disappearing together through the West London apartment’s main entrance.
I couldn’t quite work out – not helped by my alcoholic state and a struggling, disgruntled lop-eared rabbit – whether the TV news programme was live or, as probably was the case, a few hours or even several days old. I did the only thing that I could: brushed off mince-pie crumbs and rabbit hair and, with as much acting ability as I could muster in order to counter my inebriation, immediately rang Fabian’s number.
Which came back as number not known.
Fabian was no longer on that number. He’d erased me from his life. I was blocked. Persona non grata.
To my utter shame, I took myself off to bed, the front door unlocked, the TV still on, and crashed out, still in my school clothes, teeth uncleaned, not caring that my little sister, Sorrel, wasn’t back home.
‘So, absolutely no reason, then, to not have a date with Mason,’ Jess opined the following Wednesday as the pair of us, under Jess’s direction, did our best to give Mum’s cottage a thorough bottoming in readiness for her coming home at the weekend.
‘It’s not a date,’ I snapped, breathing heavily as I found fresh linen for both Mum’s bed and the single in the box room, which I knew I’d be demoted to once she was home. ‘Jeez, my fitness has gone,’ I puffed as we turned mattresses, re-made beds, hoovered and dusted.
‘Not a date?’ Jess grinned as she pummelled pillows into submission. ‘You’re off to the theatre with one of the most attractive men I’ve ever come across.’
‘You’ve not met Fabian…’ I started.
‘Oh, Fabian Schmabian,’ she scoffed. ‘I’ve seen him. On TV… Well, to be honest, just the back of him… Yes, on TV, Robyn. I wasn’t going to tell you…’
‘You didn’t need to tell me.’ I sniffed sadly. ‘I’ve seen him too.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes. And I tried to ring him. He’s at the centre of a hate campaign, by the looks of it.’
‘Not surprised,’ Jess said tartly. ‘You can’t be on the side of that misogynist Rupert Henderson-Smith, trying to get him off so he can be back out there to do awful things to more women, without consequences.’
‘Everyone has a right to a fair hearing, Fabian said…’ I began, wanting to put his point of view.
‘Don’t you try to defend him, Robyn,’ Jess snapped. ‘Anyone who defends a serial killer, to get him off to menace women again, deserves the same contempt as the murderer himself. His hands are tainted with those women’s blood.’
‘Hardly,’ I tried again, but Jess was having none of it.
‘In my opinion, take it for what it’s worth,’ she went on, squirting Pledge along every wooden surface within range, ‘Mason Donoghue knocks spots off your Bucks Barrister. And,’ she added, ‘Mason is more your tribe.’
‘My tribe ? What the hell is that supposed to mean?’
‘You know exactly what I’m saying,’ Jess said, giving me one of her looks. ‘So don’t pretend you don’t. You go to the theatre with that gorgeous head teacher. Because, I tell you now, if you don’t, I’m definitely going to make a play for him, invite him here for a meal next time he’s visiting his grandmother at the home.’
‘How come his granny’s up here?’ I asked. ‘When Mason’s from the south?’
‘That’s just the sort of lovely caring man he is,’ Jess said, obviously determined to sing Mason’s praises. ‘I had a chat with him only a couple of weeks ago: his father’s working abroad, and his mother wasn’t prepared to take on the responsibility for her mother-in-law once she’d had a fall. So Mason brought her up here to Hudson House where he can visit her. I tell you, Robyn, he is one very lovely man.’
‘He’s married.’
‘No, he’s not.’
‘He is.’
‘Was.’
‘He still is. Petra said.’
‘Petra?’
‘The deputy head at school. She’s now told me she thinks he’s separated.’
‘Well, there you go, then. Don’t look a separated horse in the mouth.’
‘Sorry?’
‘You will be if you don’t go to the theatre with Mason.’ Jess turned. ‘Right, come on. Sorrel’s room. Get the bin bags.’
Despite telling both Jess and myself that I most certainly wasn’t off to the theatre with Mason and Petra, it was Sorrel who had me changing my mind about going.
‘You can’t ,’ she said in horror. ‘Please don’t tell me you’re going out with the head teacher? On a date? No way!’
This was a red rag to a bull: ‘I most certainly am,’ I said, enjoying winding her up. She’d been particularly elusive and obnoxious this half-term holiday, staying in bed until midday, refusing to go and see Mum in hospital and sloping off, leaving the kitchen as if a bomb had hit it and not returning until the early hours of the morning. I’d tried gently reasoning with her but with little response, so reverted to wielding the metaphorical big stick with a warning that if she continued to stay out late again, I’d have social services, the police and whoever else I could think of out to find out what she was up to.
‘Oh, yes? The AA?’ she’d quipped through a mouthful of toast and jam. ‘The RSPCA? The Lifeboat Service? Ooh, probably not, seeing as how we’re around sixty miles from the nearest coastline at Blackpool.’
Well, at least her geography was on track: I’d had a fifteen-year-old in a geography GCSE class I was covering tell me: ‘Germany’s an island, miss, just off the south coast of France.’
I’d tried ignoring her, hoping that eventually she’d get through this phase relatively unscathed. Then I’d changed tack, pleading with her to tell me what the problem was and telling her that I could help her with whatever was worrying her. Before Jess had come over that morning to help clean Mum’s house, I’d actually done something I’d sworn I’d never do, and gone through her room, her bags and drawers looking for alcohol, for drugs, for weed, the contraceptive pill, for condoms, for rolls of banknotes: anything that might give me a clue what she was up to.
‘Been there, done that.’ Jess shrugged, later that afternoon when, sitting in her kitchen, I confessed to searching Sorrel’s room. ‘You don’t think I’ve not done that myself? And,’ she added, ‘I’d have read her diary if she’d had one. And gone through her laptop, if I knew her password.’
‘She is almost sixteen,’ I countered, slightly taken aback by what Jess was saying. ‘Old enough to be legally married, live apart from a parent, legally entitled to be sexually active…’
‘She’s a child, Robyn,’ Jess said, patting my arm and reaching for the kettle. ‘A vulnerable and unhappy child. Probably the same as quite a few of the kids you teach, who you appear to think are idle, bolshy, under-achieving layabouts.’
‘That about sums some of them up.’ I nodded, stung at what I saw as criticism of both my parenting and my teaching skills. ‘Not all of them, by any means. And I’m sorry if that’s the impression I’ve given you of my pupils. To be honest, I’m beginning to understand and empathise with them?—’
‘You’ve lived too long in the south, Robyn,’ Jess interrupted almost kindly. ‘With rather more privileged?—’
‘While you, Jessica,’ I interrupted in turn, ‘are on your way to becoming somewhat provincial and prejudiced. You need something to look forward to, to jolt you out of the rut you’ve got yourself into, now you’re thirty, for heaven’s sake. A Yorkshire cooking competition would do the trick nicely, I believe.’
Leaving Jess to tutt crossly, I headed back next door, going straight upstairs to the bathroom and running the full hot bath Jess said we couldn’t afford. I added a liberal dose of some of Mum’s bubble bath and climbed in, soaking for a long time while contemplating my injured knee. According to Maria, my physio, I’d not damaged the actual meniscus and, as such, it would eventually recover completely.
There was light at the end of the tunnel. I might yet find myself back dancing in the West End. My favourite fantasy scenario was that Fabian would be in the audience of Mamma Mia! , unaware not only that I’d returned to London, but that I was wowing audiences with my interpretation of Sophie, the free-spirited daughter of the protagonist, a part I’d long coveted. He was with Fish Face, of course, who’d persuaded Fabian to accompany her with the best possible box tickets. She would be leafing through the programme before turning to Fabian with a derisory chuckle, pointing out my photograph. ‘Darling, isn’t this the waitress you once had a bit of a thing for? The one Julius warned your parents was only after one thing…’ At which juncture, Fabian would snatch the programme from her, focusing on the action on stage before jumping up, startling those in the cheap seats below by yelling that he would always love me… always…
‘Can you hurry up in there?’ Sorrel was banging on the bathroom door, bringing me back to the reality of my cooling bath in a rather damp cottage in Beddingfield. ‘I’m off out in ten minutes.’
‘So am I,’ I retorted, refusing to pander to her. ‘Wait your turn.’
‘You’re not actually going out with Mr Donoghue and Ms Waters, are you?’ This was progress – Sorrel actually taking an interest in what I was up to.
‘Might be,’ I shouted through the closed door.
‘Bloody hell, what are you turning into?’ She sniggered. ‘I’ll never live this down if it gets out.’
‘So you have made friends at St Mede’s?’ I called hopefully. ‘You know, with whom you apparently need to live this down ?’ I knew that didn’t make a great deal of sense, but it soon became apparent it really didn’t matter. In the time it took to quickly dry myself and rub in what was left of my precious Clarins body lotion, Sorrel was gone, the fading tail-lights of the Uber winking conspiratorially down the lane.