10. Romy
TEN
Romy
I stood at the gates of the school waiting for Heidi and Mia to come out of the doors and then we could choose a cake to take home. The last Friday of every month was cake day, a payday treat and a tradition that I was more passionate about than my daughter was. I was hoping Mia would have the same sweet tooth for cake instead of candy so I had an excuse to indulge myself.
Before having Heidi, I’d been a keen runner. I’d managed to complete four half marathons and countless 10ks, running most mornings up until the later stages of my pregnancy. I liked the freedom of being outside, only restricted by how I was feeling that day, and enjoying the power I found in my body and the places I could take myself, seeing parts of the island that I would’ve missed otherwise.
Being a single mum meant that rarely happened now. Those toned muscles weren’t quite what they were, although yoga and pilates had helped in some ways, but they didn’t burn anywhere near as many calories as running did, so the cake had to be a one-off else I’d be looking like a cake. Probably an orange and cardamon one, which was Amelie’s new favourite flavour to make, and far too delicious to be legal.
All the other children had run out of the school doors to their parents or older siblings apart from Heidi, which wasn’t that unusual. Mia was with me already, never really leaving my sight unless she was upstairs in the house that now felt too small. At some point, when things were calmer, we’d have to work on that. I’d spoken to school about a recommendation for a therapist that social care had offered to fund, so that was in the process of being sorted, and in the meantime I was spending time with her drawing and playing side by side, half expecting her to disclose something else about the mysterious man called Logan.
Last week, before Cara had disappeared, Heidi had been hidden with a book in part of the library, completely lost in another world that the pictures had created. Her teacher had eventually brought her out, the two of them having some in depth conversation about the story. Heidi was obsessed with books to the extent Cassian had spoken to me last night about her being one of the pupils to attend an event in Chester with a children’s author. I’d become flustered, giving a million apologies about my daughter’s book obsession because whenever I saw him now, I ended up a garbling mess.
I was embarrassed about Wednesday when I’d asked him out. Liv told me I’d phrased it right, because it hadn’t been as clear cut as ‘do you want to go on a date’, which would’ve ended me if he’d turned me down after that. He turned me down kindly and I got why, but I’d kind of asked – which was the first step to getting back on the horse.
He was still a real hot spot of eye candy.
Heidi walked out with Mr Caddick, who was wearing his usual slacks and shirt, no tie, the top button always undone. His dark hair was slightly unkempt, as if he’d been playing football with the kids and forgotten to straighten it, which was probably exactly what had happened. The parents and kids were loving him, which was good, as him taking over from the previous head, who’d been there for multiple decades, must’ve been tricky.
“Mummy!” She set off at high speed and launched herself towards me. “Mr Caddick had a box of books delivered and he said I could help Mrs Taylor unpack it in the library.”
His grin was deliciously boyish when he got to us. “Sorry, they lost track of time. The excitement over new books is real.”
“Tell me about it.” I felt my faculties reduce to simpering, shy teenager mode who had no idea what to say. He was way too cute, too charming and too available for me to engage in more than a minute’s worth of conversation with. The speculation about his love life had been rife the last few days with the parents at the school gates. Everyone was taken with him, trying to work out why he was still single, even though it was only a hot minute since he’d split from his wife.
Puffin Bay was a community I loved – I’d chosen to stay there after Joel died because of the support it offered – but it loved its gossip. Mr Caddick needed to adjust a little more before he became even more of the centre of speculation.
His smile was far too charming.
“How are things? Found any more locked-out children recently?” He raised his brows and amplified that smile even more.
My stomach flip-flopped.
It had been a long time since I’d been interested in a man and now it felt like I was being reborn a thirteen-year-old again who was noticing boys for the first time. For three years after Joel died, I’d thought I was beyond ever wanting a relationship again, even a fleeting one with a gorgeous visitor to town. Then Amelie had loaned me a romance book, something I’d never read before, and I’d been hooked.
I ploughed through book boyfriends like I was seeking salvation. Slowly my libido was resuscitated, and now she was definitely fully formed and swooning over Cas Caddick. That dream had only fuelled the daytime fantasies which I’d been happy to indulge in, even though my offer of a non-date had been rejected.
I guessed that made him safe. The heartache of losing Joel would never be forgotten. If I loved someone else, I risked being vulnerable to losing them and feeling that sort of pain again and I wasn’t sure I could do that. Maybe Cas Caddick had been put here for me to explore the idea of a relationship, realise I wasn’t dead from the waist down and maybe contemplate a relationship with someone else in the distant future.
“No more locked-out children. I’m just Heidi-wrangling at the moment. Mia’s a dream – maybe too much of one.” My delightful daughter was completely engrossed in whatever book she’d pilfered from the school library and had wandered over to the bench near the playground entrance. “Although Heidi spends most of her time buried in a book.”
“Her reading’s really coming on. That’s definitely a good thing.” He unfastened the buttons on his shirt cuffs, pushing up the sleeves to expose his forearms.
Forearm porn was a thing, and these forearms were a perfect example of it. Corded, the right dusting of dark hair, hands that looked like they knew what manual work looked like as well as marking schoolwork. He was living next door already, but I hadn’t actually seen much of him yet, I figured that would change when the summer holidays started.
“I’m proud of her. She’s coped well with everything the last week’s thrown at her.” It was an easy thing to say because I was. My little girl was all that was good in the world and I adored the person she was becoming. “How are you settling in next door?”
He shrugged, a dimple showing that I hadn’t seen before. “Okay. Beryl’s taste in furnishings is eclectic, but it’s more comfortable than the schoolhouse. That’s pretty much a disaster. I started to look round it properly last night and I don’t think some of those rooms have even been used in the last couple of decades.” His smile was wry. “It’s the summer project, making at least a few of the rooms habitable so I can move back in before Beryl returns. I also lost too much money to Roe Holland at cards last night, so I’m sore right now. My manly pride is dented.”
“I’ve heard that a few times about Roe.” My heart was thumping in my chest, the tiniest thought circling round my head, something stupid, I shouldn’t say it because I’d been knocked back, kind of, once already. “If you want a change of scenery, I was going to barbecue tonight – do you want to come round? I’m not sure what the protocol is on you socialising with parents, but the offer’s there.” The words were out there, and that somehow stabilised my pulse to a just about not needing medical intervention rate. If he said no, I’d put him back in the neat and tidy book boyfriend box once and for all.
If he said yes – I’d continue to panic, but he probably just wanted a friendship anyway.
“Are you asking because you feel sorry for me or because you have too much food?” He looked boyishly shy.
“A bit of both. I love barbecuing, but Miss Fussy Eater over there will only have sausages, so I end up with too much waste and well, too much waist .” I patted my stomach.
His dimple appeared again. “I think you can afford to eat what you want. But if you’re offering food which doesn’t come out of the microwave and I’m not ordering it off a menu, I’m in. I can’t go to the Puffin Inn again – it’s starting to look problematic so feel sorry for me all you like.”
Feeling sorry wasn’t what I was actually wanting to feel right now. Those forearms were screaming at me still.
“Barbecue it is then. Say six o’clock?” That would give me time to tidy the house, shower and marinate the meat I’d bought, and maybe google how to not have a heart-attack when your daughter’s hot head teacher came round for dinner.
“Six is great. What shall I bring?” His eyes were intense, his smile entertained.
I wondered if he’d read my penchant for his forearms – I did keep looking at them.
“Dessert. And beer if you want a beer. I only have standard stuff in and I don’t know how good it is.” Although I would be pouring myself a glass of wine as soon as I got in. “I’m not a beer fan. Not sweet enough.” I was starting to ramble, glancing to check where Mia was. She’d gotten tired of waiting for Heidi and was standing with another of their friends.
Thankfully, Heidi ran over, book in hand. “Mummy, can I read you my story when we get home? Or can we go for ice cream at Amelie’s?” She looked almost rabid at the prospect of ice cream.
I ruffled her hair, wondering how she was going to take this nugget of information that her head teacher was having dinner with us. Probably like she did most things; in her stride.
“Mr Caddick is sharing our barbecue tonight, so let’s have ice cream after tea. Is that okay?”
Heidi looked at Mr Caddick and nodded. “Can we ask Mrs MacGreggor as well?” That was Heidi’s teacher from reception, an old battle-axe who had a soft centre that she let kids see once every blue moon. For some reason, Heidi really liked her.
“I think Mrs MacGreggor has gone to see her daughter this weekend.” He looked over at mine and mouthed the next word. “ Thankfully.”
I stifled a laugh. “I’d suggest coming to Beryl’s garden but Roe would say it lacks security. She does have a decent barbecue though.”
Heidi suddenly looked very serious. “Have you seen mad Annie’s house, the lady with all the cats?”
“Mad Annie?” He looked really amused now. “Who’s this mad Annie?”
“Heidi.” I managed to make my voice stern. “We talked about calling her that.”
Heidi looked cross, which meant she felt embarrassed. Still, she shouldn’t be naming people that in front of anyone.
“She’s a mad cat lady and she lives behind Beryl. But she’s very nice. Mummy, can we buy some ice cream to take home from Amelie’s?”
This was diversion at its best.
“As long as it’s chocolate.”
Heidi did a little jump. “Do you like chocolate ice cream, Mr Caddick?”
There was a quick conversation between them, where he managed to get Heidi to describe ice cream and extend her sentences, which made me smile at how teachery he was being.
“Let’s let Mr Caddick go and do what he needs to do, and we’ll see him later.” I put my hand on Heidi’s shoulder, wondering if I’d done the right thing in inviting him, wondering if he’d said yes because it wasn’t just me and him, so I couldn’t construe it as a date like he’d said on Tuesday.
His smile told me I had, even if it was just about barbecue tonight and I only ever saw him again afterwards at the school gates.
Cassian knocked on my front door at two minutes to six, a bottle of prosecco in one hand and a carrier bag full of something in the other. He looked freshly scrubbed and clean shaven, like he’d made an effort, so maybe that was just the kind of man he was.
My heart rate hadn’t found a steady beat since before I’d arrived at Heidi’s school to pick her up, and it definitely wasn’t going to now.
“The wine’s for you; the stuff in the bag is a contribution. Plus a cake for dessert – I know you bought one already from the cakery, but I figured it wouldn’t go to waste.”
He gave me the wine and followed me through to the kitchen and straight out of the kitchen door where Heidi, Mia and I had set the garden up to make it look like a music festival. She had a tent that she’d been begging to sleep in, I had a picnic bench painted in a bright yellow with flowers dotted across it. The borders were filled with deliberately planted wildflowers and I’d made a sort of bar from pallets that I’d picked up at Thane’s boatyard.
“This is something.” He grinned at the sight. “It’s like a mini-Glastonbury.”
“Have you ever been? To Glastonbury?”
“Three times. Before I became a teacher, because it isn’t in school holidays and they kind of restrict some stuff. You?”
I nodded. “Three times too. All before Heidi was born. A small child kind of restricts a lot of stuff.”
We laughed at the same time, a tad of awkwardness sprinkled in. “What do I call you? Mr Caddick seems awfully formal for a Friday night.”
“Cas. Just so you know, I let the chair of governors know that I was coming here. There was no way someone wouldn’t find out and if it got back to Mavis, the whole town would already know.” He started to unpack the bag, pulling out a few beers and then chocolate, popcorn and crisps. Everything but the beer looked like it had been bought with the small children in mind, who were now gusting through to us.
“Mr Caddick!”
Heidi came to an emergency stop, clearly not knowing how exactly you greeted your headteacher when you saw him outside of school, even though we’d been through this before.
He offered her a fist bump and my daughter’s smile grew tenfold. He did the same with Mia, already she was more cautious, wary. I hoped one day she wouldn’t feel she needed to be so chary.
“So, Romy says you’re the chef.”
Mia looked at me wide-eyed and shook her head.
Heidi stepped forward. “I want to be the chef but mummy says I’m not allowed near hot things.”
He tipped his head to one side. “You sure about that?”
Heidi nodded vigorously. “I’m sure. I can pour my own drinks though as long as I do it outside and over the flowers. I planted all the flowers.”
I let her chew his ear off for the next ten minutes, Mia chirping in the odd word, giving him a tour of the garden while I started to barbecue the ribs and steaks I’d marinated and the obligatory sausages and tried to talk my heart rate into a semi-acceptable speed that wouldn’t require paramedic intervention in the next three hours.
I had no idea what I was doing. Cas Caddick was my daughter’s headteacher, a professional in the town who was highly regarded, and while I wasn’t exactly a pariah, I was the mother of the daughter of one of the town’s forever heroes.
He’d made it clear he wasn’t interested. I didn’t want a real life love interest. The fictional ones would suffice for now.
And I was massively over thinking everything.
Heidi distracted herself with her books after reading one to Mr Caddick, who listened patiently before he headed over to the barbecue.
“I wish I had her energy.”
I looked up into dark brown eyes that reminded me of cocoa. “You and me both. Can I get you a beer?”
“No, I’ll get it. What can I get you? Wine? Beer? A pint of rum?” Those eyes danced.
“The rum is tempting, but the idea of a hangover and the Saturday morning version of Heidi is a better deterrent than my father catching me coming in drunk when I was seventeen, so a glass of wine would be great. There are the random beers in the fridge in the kitchen as well as the ones you brought – you didn’t need to do that, by the way.”
His grin was far too boyish. “You’re right, I didn’t, but I did anyway. I didn’t trust the ones you had in after that description.”
He returned with drinks for both of us and proved better than me at keeping conversation flowing. Before the food was ready, we’d talked about Glastonbury and music, finding we had some obscure bands in common, and then went down the topic of sports.
We both liked to run; he played football which I knew because parent gossip at the school gates had informed me that he had footballer’s legs. I liked to watch football and I’d taken Heidi to watch some of the local team’s games last season, and we were both a fan of tennis, although neither of us claimed to be any good, although I figured he was being modest.
“What are your plans for the schoolhouse?” I asked when we were sat down, Mia and Heidi having their own picnic on the lawn. “I suppose it depends on how long you want to stay there.”
He started on a rib and thought as he chewed. “There’s a limit to how long I can stay there, because the board of governors want to sell it in the next three years. My agreement was that I could reside there for two years for a peppercorn rent, but after that I would have a three month notice period. Not many houses come up for sale round here, so they wanted to make it easy for someone to take the job, but they were transparent with the plans.”
“Are you having to pay for the renovation though?” What he’d just told me wasn’t common knowledge, and I wasn’t sure how the sale would go down with the local community. The schoolhouse had a decent amount of land, and if the house was demolished, I suspected a developer could put three or four new houses there.
“No, there’s a budget to modernise it, which also gets it ready for sale. There’s a covenant on the land which restricts what it can be used for, so I think it would have to be sold as a house as it is. My predecessor didn't keep it up, though there was money then too. That means the budget’s quite healthy as the board will want a decent price for it.” He sat back, wiping his hands on a napkin, one from a pack I’d found in the cupboard.
They had fairies and unicorns on them, but Cas hadn’t mentioned it.
“Would you consider buying it?” I supposed this was a way of finding out whether he was planning to stick around, although it didn’t really matter.
I was going to just enjoy having a harmless crush, knowing it wasn’t going to end in disaster.
“Maybe. It’s a big house for one person though, but I’ve no idea what my circumstances will be then. There’s time to decide though.” He picked up another rib. “These are really good.”
“Thank you. It was a marinade Joel invented, or he said he invented. I think he secretly followed a recipe and tried to impress me.” This was something I needed to work on – not talking about Joel.
“Cheers to Joel then. He sounds like he was a good bloke.”
Smoothly handled.
“He was. I wish a lot of things, but I wish most that Heidi could’ve known him. He’ll always be a hero to her, but he was so much more than that.” Not learning from my previous realisation here.
“I guess what’s important is what she does know of him. She’s a really good kid.” He turned around and watched her and Mia. “She’s looked after Mia at school this week, her teacher told me. I know they’re friends anyway, but Leonie said Heidi was really aware of where Mia was and if she was okay.”
“I’m proud of her and I do make sure she knows that.” I watched my daughter smear tomato ketchup all over her face. Being a parent meant a tidal wave of different feeling. Pride was one. Irritation another. “So what are your plans for the schoolhouse?”
He laughed. “Back to the original question. New kitchen and new bathrooms. There’s a room that can be kitted out as a utility room as well. The whole place needs new flooring and decorating – I’m going to do the decorating over summer.” He pinched another rib. “Don’t ask me about colours; I’ve no idea. I’m aware there’re multiple shades of white but I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.” He glanced down at his polo shirt. “I don’t know if this is red or green.”
“You’re colourblind?” I didn’t think I’d ever met anyone who was colourblind before.
“I am. I think I was about nine when my mum figured it out. Most of what I wear’s blue, because I know what blue is so it’s a safe choice.”
We carried on chatting about inane things, nothing to do with Mia which gave my brain a break, mainly about music and films and football.
By the time we’d cleared most of the food, with just a few sausages left that would be good for morning, my pulse had found a beat that probably wasn’t going to see me in the emergency department but still had me hyper aware of pretty much everything about Cas.
The novelty of having their head teacher in their garden wore off the girls fairly quickly. By the time I was finishing my second beer, she and Mia were gathering the toys they’d brought outside and saying good night to the fairies Heidi was certain lived in the garden.
“Are you going to bed?” I frowned at my daughter. This was earlier than I’d expected for a Friday night. Especially with a visitor.
She nodded seriously. “Can we take a torch and read under the covers? I have a new book.”
I frowned, wondering what book this was. “Wash your feet and face first. I’ll come up and check on you in half an hour.” She was a good kid the vast majority of the time and we’d made a good team.
“Can we take some milkshake up too?”
I gave her another nod. “Try not to spill it.” I got up to go inside and pour it for them.
“Thank you. Night-night, Mr Caddick.” She gave him another fist bump, this one without the same levels of enthusiasm, looking a little more than tired. Maybe the book wasn’t the real reason. Mia was more alert, doing a hand clap with Cas, where she snatched her hand away and found it the funniest thing ever.
I wasn’t worried about Heidi. She burned bright and fast; when she got tired, it was like a candle being extinguished rapidly. Without a doubt, when I went upstairs to check on her, she’d be asleep with the torch on the floor alongside a pile of books, the will there, but the energy not. I suspected Mia would stay awake reading, fighting sleep.
“Sleep tight, Heidi and Mia.” He gave them a smile that was half headteacher, half friendly, one that made me curious.
“So why is a Friday night here more enticing that a pool tournament at the Puffin Inn?” I sat back, enjoying the remnants of the evening sunshine, the beer having definitely had a relaxing effect.
His laugh was soft. “They weren’t having a barbecue.”
I nodded, finding the confidence to look at him. “They are tomorrow afternoon. You could’ve waited until then.”
Cas shrugged. “I wanted a change. And I was curious.” He swallowed, then took a sip of his beer.
“Curious about what?” That thing was happening to my heart again.
“Curious about you.”