Chapter 25
25
‘Oh, you came? Good.’ There was genuine pleasure on both Petra and Mason’s faces as I walked towards the pair waiting outside the town’s main theatre. ‘I hope you’ve a pen and paper with you?’ Mason added.
‘Pen and paper?’
‘To make notes for St Mede’s production next term.’ Mason grinned, taking my arm and leading the pair of us towards the main entrance.
‘In your dreams,’ I said, eyebrow raised. ‘I’m here for a free night out to one of my favourite musicals.’
‘We’ll see.’ Mason laughed, showing us to our seats.
‘You OK?’ I asked Petra, who I noticed didn’t seem her usual self.
‘Think so.’ She smiled. ‘Hope so.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ The three of us sat down, Petra in the middle and, for that, I was grateful. I wanted to take in every bit of the production without worrying that my arm might be making contact with Mason’s, that his leg might brush against mine.
‘Pregnant,’ Petra whispered.
‘Sorry?’ I stared.
‘I’m pregnant.’
‘Oh, wow! Gosh. And are you happy to be pregnant?’ I realised as soon as I said it that this was a totally personal question and hurriedly added, ‘I mean, you appear to be such a career girl, loving your job.’
Petra laughed. ‘I do love my job and I’ll have to go back to it once the baby is born. But I’m so excited, I can’t tell you. Mind you, I thought the sickness would have finished now I’m twelve weeks and can tell people.’
I glanced across her towards Mason, who was studying the theatre programme intently. ‘Mason won’t know what to do without you.’
She laughed. ‘His face did fall when I told him, but there you go. We have to produce the next generation or there’ll be no one to teach.’ She laughed again. ‘You know, Robyn, I realise you think you’re no good at this teaching lark, but both Mason and I have watched you. You’re a natural.’
‘A natural?’ I scoffed. ‘I hate it.’
‘No, you’ve just had to handle exceptionally difficult kids at the beginning of your career. If you move to an easier school, where kids aren’t bringing baggage from home with them, where they’ve been given breakfast before they set off, where the whole family’s not living in one room in a B&B…’
‘Shhh,’ Mason warned, smiling across at us while conspicuously brushing at his sleeve. ‘Leave the chalk dust where it belongs, you two. We’re here to enjoy the performance.’
‘And make notes.’ Petra grinned, nudging me. ‘We’re here for a purpose, don’t forget.’
I didn’t need to make notes: the whole performance was stamped on my memory from the very beginning of what turned out to be a quite spectacular production from joint local amateur companies. Both leads – Sandy and Danny – were, according to the programme, professional performers who had worked in big productions in Birmingham and Leeds.
I was so envious. I jumped, I pliéd , shimmied, leapt and danced with them all on stage, but particularly Sandy, a nineteen-year-old who, I could tell, had a whole performing life in front of her. With a thud of my heart, I had the sudden realisation that at twenty-eight, with a knackered knee and my early dance career chances scuppered by bloody Covid, I was maybe on a one-way track to the elephants’ graveyard of spent musical theatre performers. There must be loads of us, desperately trying to claw our way back out of the mire that both age and injury had had a hand in toppling us into. But with gorgeous young things like this Sandy ready to tread on our heads and push us back down, what producer would even look at us?
‘You OK?’ Petra whispered, putting a hand on my arm. I realised I was crying.
‘Sorry, just a bit hormonal,’ I whispered back, trying to smile.
‘Me too,’ she said. ‘Need the loo. Sorry.’
I couldn’t believe the effect this production of Grease was having on me. I’d assumed it was going to be a local amateurish performance, with proud parents enthusiastically cheering on their little darlings when they missed a cue or fluffed their lines. But this was slick, professional, fabulously executed. Blimey, if a small area of West Yorkshire was able to produce and showcase such incredible talent, there must be a whole pool of young performers dreaming of heading to the West End and beyond.
I felt sick at the thought.
‘I feel really sick,’ Petra said, sliding back into her seat on my right. I realised she’d been gone for a good fifteen minutes.
‘You OK?’
‘I’ve actually been throwing up as well as peeing. Bloody hell…’
‘Shhh.’ An elderly red-faced man behind us leaned forward and prodded Petra’s shoulder as she stood once more, white-faced.
‘Excuse me,’ I hissed at him. ‘My friend isn’t well.’
‘Just pregnant…’ she started.
‘Can you sit down? I can’t see.’
‘A mint?’ Grandad’s other half offered sympathetically, scrabbling in her bag and rustling paper. I was immediately taken back to the Central Criminal Court when I’d first spotted and fallen in love with Fabian, when Minty Breath had chummily offered me a Polo mint. Oh, Fabian, where are you now?
Petra sat, but the elderly man behind sighed audibly as she stood again. ‘Sorry, you two…’ she said turning to Mason and me, a hand to her mouth. ‘Look, I’m spoiling this for you both. I’m going.’
‘I’ll come with you.’ I made to stand.
‘I’m fine,’ Petra whispered through her hands. ‘If I don’t go, I’m going to throw up here.’
I was now not only totally immersed in my own misery with the realisation that I was more than likely a has-been, but the offering of a mint to Petra had just brought back all my longing for Fabian. I was seriously thinking of following Petra out of the theatre and home, until Mason moved next to me, fished out a clean folded hanky from his jacket pocket and handed it in silence to me.
I hadn’t realised just how much I was crying and, embarrassed, I wiped at my eyes before handing it back to Mason.
He shook his head, indicating I should keep it, but took my hand briefly in his own before releasing it and concentrating on the production once more.
This was ridiculous. It was about time I got my big girl’s pants on and started to accept my lot in life.
‘Do you think we could get it together?’ Mason whispered, a hand on my arm, his face turned towards me as his eyes met mine, holding them almost in challenge.
‘Get it together?’ I stared back before, embarrassed, I turned away. Please don’t say my boss was propositioning me. ‘Get what together?’
‘A production of Grease ? At St Mede’s?’ He smiled, obviously amused at my reaction. ‘What did you think I meant, Robyn?’
‘Oh, right, of course.’ I was so glad the lights were down, and he couldn’t see my flushed face. ‘Actually, I don’t see why not,’ I added, relieved there appeared to be no hidden agenda in his request.
Relief or disappointment?
We stayed put during the interval making polite conversation about school, how he was going to miss Petra once she was on maternity leave. He asked about Sorrel, how she was behaving at home, because he felt she’d settled at St Mede’s a lot better than he’d anticipated. While she was only six weeks in, he admitted he’d not been certain she would stay the course, would possibly still end up at the PRU. Or, as was more likely, her education would just peter out and no one would really be bothered to get her back on track for her GCSEs and beyond. ‘And, to be fair’ – he grinned – ‘I didn’t expect you to be still here by the time half-term arrived.’
‘Not much option really,’ I said, slightly put out he’d thought me flaky enough to get out when I couldn’t cope. Mind you, I had taken on the job kicking and screaming.
‘You’ve not had it easy, have you?’ Mason smiled. ‘An often absent, famous father? A single mother with a condition that meant her being taken into hospital at the drop of a hat?’
‘How on earth do you know all this?’ I looked at him in some indignation.
‘How do you think?’
‘Sorrel?’
‘Sorrel? No, she’s only just deigning to say good morning to me. She’s certainly not at the stage of opening up to me or Petra, although Petra, I know, has tried several times.’
‘Ah, Jess? Of course, I forget that you and she meet up at Hudson House.’
‘And,’ Mason went on, briefly touching my hand once more, ‘how you two had to be taken into care when your mum was poorly again?’
I nodded, not wanting to remember. They hadn’t been good times: on one occasion Jess and I had been split up – her sent to one set of foster parents, while I was taken, shouting for Mum and particularly for Jess, with whom I’d always shared a bedroom, to another set. I’d been so homesick, so desperate to be with my mum and my sister. Luckily Jayden had returned from some gigs in the Caribbean to rescue and care for us the best he could. During our teens, Mum’s illness appeared to go into remission, but then she was pregnant with Sorrel and went downhill again when a bout of post-natal depression took hold. I think because Jayden seemed to me, at the age of four, to have rescued me from the foster family I’d not liked, of all three of us girls I was the one to have developed more of a relationship with him. Jess and Sorrel were always in agreement that he was a waste of space and Mum was better off without him.
And like Jayden I had performing in my blood. Now Mason and this wonderful production of Grease had gone some way to persuading me that I could after all be up for producing a show at St Mede’s. No way could we be up and running for Christmas, but maybe, just maybe, we could be ready for Easter. Did that mean, then, despite all my protestations, I was still going to be in Beddingfield and at St Mede’s until Easter? I spent the remaining second half of the production with ideas buzzing in my brain, simultaneously trying to work out how I could take such a mammoth task on board and what direction I would take.
By the time the production had come to its conclusion and Mason and I, along with the rest of the audience, jumped to our feet to join the standing ovation, I was feeling something akin to excitement. Anticipation at any rate.
‘Can I give you a lift home?’ Mason asked as we descended the theatre steps before facing the chilly evening outside.
‘Got my car,’ I said. ‘Well, Mum’s car.’ I held up the keys as proof. ‘Actually,’ I said, and, to this day, I don’t know why, added, ‘I’m really thirsty. Do you fancy a drink?’
Mason hesitated and I thought, oh, hell, what on earth was I thinking? A supply teacher asking her head teacher out for a drink?
‘OK.’ He smiled. ‘I could murder a pint.’
We walked in embarrassed silence, across the road from the theatre and into the warmth of The Albert, a traditional pub adjacent to the town’s library.
‘I’ll get them,’ I said purposefully. ‘I invited you. And you bought the tickets.’
‘I earn more than you.’ He grinned. ‘What do you fancy? Look, there’s a couple of seats over in the corner. Go and bag them before someone else does.’
Seeing as it was after ten and there were very few other drinkers in the pub, that seemed unlikely, but I did as I was told. I took off my jacket and sat, watching as Mason got into an easy conversation with the landlord before coming over with our drinks.
I was genuinely thirsty and, so it seemed, was Mason. We drank gratefully, putting our drinks down on the table at the same time.
Now what?
‘So…’ Mason began.
‘Have you…?’
We both started talking as one and had to stop, smiling inanely at each other.
‘OK,’ I said, leaning over the table and meeting his eye, ‘I reckon we could try it.’
‘Really?’ His eyes widened in pleasure, and I thought once again what a really gorgeous-looking man he was. Easy to be with, confident in his own abilities, determined against the odds to make a success out of his school.
‘Really. Although’ – I grimaced – ‘I must be mad even contemplating it.’
‘You know, taking on the direction and production of something like this would really enhance your status with the kids at school. They all want to be stars…’
‘Or footballers.’ I smiled.
‘Or footballers,’ he agreed. ‘The thing is, it won’t just be for those who can act, dance and sing. I want this to be a whole school and community production, with all staff, as well as mums and dads, helping with stage management, making costumes.’
‘I can’t see many of these kids’ mums with a sewing machine,’ I started. ‘And how many of their dads are actually around?’
‘Don’t stereotype,’ Mason warned. ‘Don’t let your prejudices make you think our kids’ parents won’t be around for them.’
‘I’ll believe it when I see it,’ I said with a raised eyebrow. And then, because I was nosy, or because I was beginning to feel some sort of warm glow in the presence of this man, I asked, ‘So, kids? Do you have any?’
‘Five hundred and sixty at the last count.’ He grinned.
‘You know what I mean.’ I tutted. ‘Although that’s probably more than enough.’
‘Actually, it isn’t,’ Mason said.
‘Oh?’
‘If our numbers decline much further, the school will close. With the new head in place at Beddingfield High, we’re seeing a quite serious drift away from us. The authority would love to get our site, bulldoze it to the ground and sell it off for housing.’
‘Right.’ I was still at the point of thinking razing St Mede’s to the ground wouldn’t be a bad thing.
‘And, to answer your question, no, I don’t have children of my own.’
‘You’d make a great dad.’ I tittered nervously. Where had that one come from? One minute I’m asking my boss out for a drink and the next I’m giving him the idea I’d like him to father my children. Well, almost.
‘I think so,’ he said seriously.
‘Think so what?’ I was spending too much time gazing into his amazing chocolate-brown eyes – oh, hell, what a cliché – and couldn’t quite remember what I’d asked him.
‘I think I’d be a great father. Trouble is my wife doesn’t agree. Actually, that came out wrong. I don’t know whether she thinks I’d make a good father or not: it’s a long time since we discussed it.’
‘Right,’ I said once more, not quite knowing what to say, feeling a little flare of disappointment he was actually married.
‘My wife and I are separated,’ Mason said, holding my eye for slightly longer than was necessary.
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ Liar, liar, pants on fire. Petra had been right, then. I felt a little flare of hope replace the previous flare of disappointment.
‘So.’ Mason appeared to want to change the subject. ‘What are you up to the rest of the week?’
‘A ton of planning for next term, I guess.’
‘You’re getting there.’
‘I suppose I am. I really think I am and then a series of unfortunate events happens, like Friday when Whippety Snicket tells me to eff off.’
‘Whippety Snicket?’ Mason started to laugh. ‘How descriptive! But don’t take it personally, Robyn. Blane Higson’s told all of us where to go at some point in his career at St Mede’s.’
‘Even you?’
‘Even me.’ He grinned. ‘If you knew his background, you might understand why he reacts as he does. You know, dad upped and left when Blane was tiny and I’m not sure where his elder brothers are now. Mum’s a heroin addict and more than likely on the game to pay for her next fix. He has ADHD?—’
‘Haven’t they all?’
‘Quite a few have,’ Mason said seriously. ‘Don’t believe The Daily Herald , which would like us to believe it’s all a made-up syndrome, designed to bleed more benefits from the state.’
Feeling I’d been put in my place, I changed the subject. ‘Lola and I are determined to get Jess onto TopChef.’
‘Oh? What’s that?’
‘Cooking competition along the lines of MasterChef . But only for those living in Yorkshire.’
‘I hear she’s a great cook.’
‘She’s better than great. She really is superb. You’ll have to come and eat with us one evening.’ Bloody hell, now what was I doing, inviting the man home for dinner?
‘Thank you. I’d really like that.’ Mason looked at his watch. ‘Better be going.’
Why? Did he have someone at home waiting for him?
We pulled on jackets and scarves, picked up our phones and bags and went to leave. At the pub exit, Mason smiled. ‘I go this way – are you OK getting back to the car park?’
But I wasn’t listening.
I’d just seen Sorrel disappearing into one of the newly refurbished apartments across from the town’s main square.
With a man I’d hoped I’d never again come across in my lifetime. A man so repulsive he’d set your teeth on edge, make your skin crawl. A man old enough to be my father and who, as far as I knew, had left for Thailand over fifteen years ago.