Chapter 15
15
‘ C ongratulations, Kay!’
‘You can go to the toilet whenever you like now. Don’t have to wait for the bell.’
‘You know what happened to me? I got my coffee table back. No more piles of exercise books. Ever.’
Everyone wanted to talk to her, and she wanted to talk to everyone, of course she did. But her face was beginning to feel tight from smiling.
‘At least you won’t have to deal with a husband. You know what mine did? First day of his retirement he came into the kitchen and told me I was loading the washing machine wrong.’
‘Mine started re-arranging the kitchen cupboards. I couldn’t reach anything. He didn’t think of that of course.’
‘So, what will you do? I heard Cyprus was on the cards?’
With every new conversation Kay found herself repeating the same lines: ‘Well I have a friend there. I’m going out in a few weeks; it’s just a reconnaissance.’ And every time the words sounded less real, as if she was reading a part in a play. If only she had kept them in her head, secret and safe from this universal enthusiasm she didn’t quite share. It made her feel like a fraud. It was making her face ache even more.
‘I’m just going to get a quick top-up,’ she said to a tall man with flushed cheeks and a single tuft of surprisingly long grey hair. Patrick, a retired history teacher who she’d always liked, but who she suspected was on the verge of launching into a long and extremely detailed explanation of the history of Cyprus.
‘I’ll get it.’ Patrick stretched his hand out for her paper cup. ‘Can’t have you serving yourself. It’s your party.’
‘It’s OK.’ In an awkward but swift movement, Kay drew her arm tight to her chest. ‘I have to check up on my dad,’ she said, turning way before Partick could insist.
But making her way across the room, was to battle through an onslaught of congratulations and hugs, so by the time she reached the drinks table, she really did need a top-up.
‘Over here,’ Craig mouthed, waving from where he stood at the far end of the table.
Kay smiled. He was pouring wine for a couple of the canteen ladies, chatting away as if he’d known them all his life. At the other end of the table, seated next to each other were her father and Lizzie, chatting away – Kay smiled – as if they too, were old friends.
‘So,’ she said as she reached Craig, and handed him her cup. ‘What do you think of the staffroom?’
‘Noisy, aren’t they?’ Craig said. ‘Teachers, I mean.’
Kay picked up a sausage roll, cupping her hand at her chin as she looked the nodding heads and waving arms of what, she had to agree, was an increasingly rowdy bunch of teachers.
‘I’ve been talking to your old headmistress. Lizzie.’ Craig handed her a full cup of wine. ‘She’s hilarious. She was telling me how she used to end parents’ evening.’
‘By getting the janitor to turn out the lights?’ Kay laughed. ‘That was last century, Craig.’
‘Can you imagine that nowadays?’
‘No.’ She took a sip of lukewarm wine. ‘Unfortunately, I can’t.’
‘And I heard about how you used to celebrate the end of term.’
‘Well teachers like to party too, Craig.’ Kay smiled.
‘I even showed her how to use this.’ He held his phone up. It was open at Spotify. ‘She was really interested. She likes Queen .’
Kay nodded. ‘I remember, and I must go over and chat. I haven’t seen her in years.’
‘Quite a mark of respect,’ her father said, as she approached. He nodded at the table. ‘I hope you’re proud.’
‘Oh, Dad.’ But as Kay turned to look, she had to admit it was a good spread. A lot more than the Pringles and warm white wine she had been expecting. Nick hadn’t just pushed the boat out; he’d launched a whole flotilla for her party. And, if it was possible to count respect in sausage rolls and mini quiches (in her world it was), then yes, she was brimming over with pride.
‘Your father’s right,’ Lizzie said. ‘You’re very well thought of, and rightly so.’
Kay smiled. The noise level in the room was loud so she bent to lower herself to speak nearer Lizzie’s ears. As she did, her knee clicked louder than a castanet and she had to jerk upright again.
‘Get a chair,’ her father said.
‘That,’ Kay muttered as she pulled a chair into place, ‘is the first thing I’m going to do. Yoga lessons.’
Lizzie chuckled. ‘That’s what I said.’
‘And did you?’
‘Noooo.’ Holding her cup at her lips, Lizzie shook her head. ‘I did lots of other things, but I never did get round to yoga.’
‘That’s what I wanted to ask you.’ She didn’t pause. ‘What’s it been like, Lizzie? I don’t think I ever met anyone as dedicated to their career as you. What did you do? How did you fill your time? Did you miss it?’ Question after question tumbled out, her voice rising with each one. The quizzical look in Lizzie’s face, made the colour rise in her own. Kay stopped talking and looked down. She felt silly, like a child scared of a trip to the dentist, Will it be all right? Tell me I’ll be all right.
‘Kay?’
‘I’m OK,’ she managed, as she lifted her chin to look at her father. ’I’m OK.’ But he wasn’t fooled, and neither she could see, was Lizzie. And why would they be? She watched as without a word Lizzie stretched her cup towards her father, and he leaned forward to take it.
‘I’m OK,’ she said, uselessly.
But Lizzie had her hands now, grasping them with the strength of feathers. ‘There will always be things you’ll miss,’ she said, her head wobbling. ‘Those moments when you saw the spark in their eyes and you realised, you’d got it right. I never stopped missing that, Kay and neither will you. Working with children is special. We’ve been lucky to have had that.’
‘I’m scared,’ she whispered. ‘I didn’t think I would be, but I really am.’
‘And that’s natural, Kay.’ As Lizzie spoke, Kay felt the feeble squeeze of her hands. ‘Will you take a little advice from someone who’s been there?’
Kay nodded.
‘Start saying yes. No matter how scared you are – say, yes. You can’t spend all your life in this school.’
As the heavy truth of Lizzie’s words pressed down, Kay’s head dipped. It didn’t matter how much time was left, how much was still in the bank. What mattered, what she needed to concentrate on, was how much had been spent. How much it had cost her. Enough, that’s how much. When she’d started this job, she’d been twenty- two years old, she could do a full day in the classroom, go out in the evening, come back and mark books until midnight. She could wake up, leave the house in half an hour, be at her desk within the hour, and not forget a single thing along the way. She could still fit into size twelve jeans. Lizzie was right. She had to stop being scared.
‘You always knew me as a spinster,’ Lizzie said as she released Kay’s hands.
Surprised, Kay looked up. ‘I’ve never liked that word.’
‘Neither do I.’ Lizzie agreed. ‘But it’s the label I was given. I didn’t intend it that way. I was engaged once.’
‘You were?’
Lizzie nodded. ‘We had the church booked. I had ordered my bouquet and chosen my dress.’
‘What happened?’
‘He got kidney disease.’ The arrow of memory was blinding. It had Lizzie blinking and her eyes so bright before, misted over. ‘This,’ she said, ‘was 1957.’ ‘There was no dialysis back then, no transplants. It was only a month from being diagnosed that he died.’
From the corner of her eye, Kay saw her father lower his chin. ‘I never knew,’ she whispered.
‘I still have his letters. The last one he wrote was just two days before.’
She didn’t speak. A decade of working alongside this formidable woman, and she had never known.
‘ Please go and live your life.’ Lizzie smiled. ‘That’s what he wrote, Kay. That’s what he ended the letter with. So, I did. I decided I needed to try as many things as possible, visit places, do things, have all the experiences he didn’t.’
‘I see.’ Her throat was sore as she tried to swallow.
‘And you know something, Kay?’
Kay shook her head. What did she know? Compared to Lizzie, what did she know?
‘I’ve been retired nearly thirty years now. That’s almost as long as I was working for. How about that?’
‘How about that,’ she echoed.
‘So go, Kay. Go and live your life. I haven’t been far in the last few years, but I’ve travelled the world since I retired. So, I haven’t just lived one life, I’ve lived two. One for me and one for Gerry. That was his name.’
And as Lizzie finished speaking, her father leaned forward and silently handed the cup of wine back to her, and she silently received it. Like telepathy, Kay thought as she watched. She sat back in her chair, fenced off from the noise and the movement by her own thoughts. Thirty years? Did she also have that long? Because if she did, Lizzie was right. It was another lifetime.
‘If I may … If I may just have a moment’s silence!’ Nick’s voice boomed across the room like a sonic wave, loud and strong. But not loud and not strong enough, to cut through the chatter of what was now a crowd of very merry teachers.
‘They’re not very good at listening,’ Craig mouthed from the other end of the table
Kay laughed.
‘If I may just have a moment’s silence!’ He was standing on a chair now. ‘If I may just say a few words.’
The reluctance was tangible, but eventually the chatter receded.
‘Everyone in this room,’ Nick began, ‘knows the dedication that Kay has shown to her work over the last thirty years.’
Murmured approval rippled through.
‘Never more so,’ Nick continued, ‘than when she faced the difficulties of last year.’
As Kay’s smile stuck, the ache in her jaw came back. She didn’t want any public acknowledgement of her cancer. She didn’t want to hear words like battle or overcome. It wasn’t that she thought by not mentioning it, it ceased to exist. It was more that like a wound healed, the best course of action she had intuitively felt, was to leave well alone. It was better for everyone. She didn’t mention it, they didn’t ask. Her presence was enough. Back in the classroom, still here, still alive. Not much need, if any, for more. She wrapped both hands around her paper cup and looked down at her feet, deeply uncomfortable that after so many months of getting on quietly and privately, her health should now be made such a public thing.
Next to her, Lizzie reached across and patted her hand. Kay smiled. Lizzie understood. Lizzie who had also kept her heartache private.
‘We’ve watched her battling through,’ Nick boomed on.
‘Can you get me over to that young man?’ Lizzie said.
‘What young man?’ Confused Kay looked up. But Lizzie, she realised, wasn’t talking to her. She was talking to Kay’s father.
‘Her cheerful determination …’
Distracted, Kay drew her feet in to let the wheels of Lizzie’s chair pass.
‘Her absolute determination to continue …’
She shifted her weight, smiling back at every eye she met. No matter that these were her friends and colleagues, the speech was making an object of her. She wished he would stop, she really wanted him to just …
‘And cue the music!’ Someone called.
‘…personal journey …’ Nick’s voice tailed off.
Kay turned; it was Lizzie who had cued the music. She’d been wheeled across to Craig, who stood winking back at Kay as she stared. He lifted his phone, still winking, still grinning and pointing to a speaker on the table.
‘…personal journey …’ As Nick tried again, he was drowned out by a chorus of voices rising in tight harmony, with soaring energy.
It was cue that everyone seemed to recognise and bemused, Kay watched as Wendy and the other canteen ladies pushed chairs back, as Patrick piled them into stacks, as Daniel threw open windows … So, by the time the drum and base of Queen’s Fat Bottomed Girls began, the room had been cleared.
Standing up, she laughed. There was no doubt who was behind this interruption. Lizzie. When she had been headmistress, this was how she had ended every term: with an impromptu party in the staffroom. With Abba and Queen on the stereo and a couple of bottles of warm Lambrusco. Lizzie, grabbing every opportunity for a bit of fun, every chance to dance, living her life for herself and her lost love.
Patrick emerged from the throng, his lone lock of grey hair flying like a victory flag.
‘Care to dance?’ he said.
‘Of course!’ she answered, twirling under his arm until she was in the middle of the room with Lizzie, in her wheelchair, on one side, a bent and tiny arm raised as she fist-pumped to the music, and her father on the other, elbows wide, bobbing along.