Chapter 2
2
The full staff meeting, followed by departmental meetings, seemed to go on for ever. I found myself having to straddle both the English department meeting, run by Dave Mallinson, an old-timer whom I liked enormously, as well as the girls’ PE department under whose directive my role as dance teacher unfortunately sat. Unfortunately, because Colleen McCartney, Head of PE, and I didn’t always see eye to eye. Colleen’s ideas for teaching dance were at odds with my own: she appeared to actually teach as little of it as possible, wanting instead to get the kids out cross-country running or on the netball courts. The cross-country running invariably ended up with the older girls hunkered down behind the hedge at the boundary of the school premises, reaching for their phones and vapes to get them through the sixty-minute session. I was convinced Colleen was totally aware of what was going on, but at least they were out of Colleen’s hair – and her gym – and she wasn’t being confronted with bolshie adolescents refusing to shin up ropes or go in goal on the hockey pitch.
I spent the compulsory twenty minutes with Colleen and the two ECT PE teachers, outlining my plans for the spring term before escaping down to the drama studio in the very bowels of the school. Expecting it to be as freezing down there as it usually was – and especially after the two weeks’ Christmas break – I was pleasantly surprised to find it warm and actually fairly inviting. I’d spent a lot of time at the end of last term ensuring the studio was as welcoming as possible. Not only for the kids in my dance and drama classes, but also for the mums who’d asked if they could come along to the contemporary dance, as well as the Zumba and Sh’bam sessions I’d started running at their request.
‘You responsible for this?’ I asked as Mason appeared at my side.
‘For what?’
‘Putting the heat on. You usually say your budget won’t stretch to it.’ I raised an eye in his direction thinking, as I always did, that, had Fabian not reappeared in my life and Mason’s wife not returned to his, there would probably still be something ongoing between us.
‘Yep.’
‘Good of you.’
‘I don’t want to lose you.’
‘Lose me?’
‘Now that your barrister bloke has come to reclaim you I’m half expecting you to hand in your notice and be heading back to your old life in London with him.’
‘Possibly on the cards.’ I nodded, recalling the conversation with Fabian that morning. ‘And,’ I added, ‘if you remember I’m here at St Mede’s on a supply basis. I don’t have to give you any notice.’
Mason looked worried. ‘I’d forgotten that. Right, we need to get you onto contract.’
‘No, we don’t,’ I warned. ‘I like the freedom supply work gives me. Means I can be up and off at the drop of a hat.’
‘I’ll have a word with Melanie Potter re an actual contract,’ Mason said, ignoring what I was saying. ‘And are you? Thinking of going? You wouldn’t leave us when we’re in the middle of rehearsals for Grease ?’ Mason put a hand on my arm, stroking it gently, and I gave it, and then its owner, a warning glance.
‘No, of course not. I wouldn’t do that to the kids when they’ve been working so hard.’ I looked pointedly at Mason’s hand where it continued to rest on my arm, and eventually he sighed, removing it. ‘The thing is, Robyn, what you and I had…’
‘What you and I had?’ I actually laughed at that. ‘Mason, we had a bit of a fling.’
‘Oh, surely it was more than a bit of a fling?’
‘A bit of a fling,’ I repeated firmly. ‘And both of us always worried that Petra and the rest of the staff would cotton on to what was going on. Does your wife know what went on?’
‘Does your barrister?’ Mason came right back at me.
‘No. Although, to be honest, it really is nothing to do with him who I was with when we weren’t together.’
‘Exactly.’ Mason nodded. ‘Nothing to do with my wife either. She and I were separated at the time.’
We stood our ground, both of us slightly embarrassed where this conversation appeared to be taking us, and it was something of a relief when Petra appeared at the door.
‘You two OK?’ Always suspicious that something was going on between the pair of us, Petra narrowed her eyes slightly. ‘Police are here, Mason. Want to talk to you about Joel.’
Joel. Goodness, in all this skirting round each other, I realised Mason and I hadn’t discussed Joel Sinclair.
‘Does your Sorrel know anything?’ Petra asked, folding her arms and leaning against the doorframe. ‘She and Joel are pretty close, aren’t they?’
I nodded. ‘He’s her best mate although, to be honest, Mum’s none too happy that they’re friends. His family has one hell of a reputation. And my dad, who deigned to call in on Boxing Day, actually tried coming the heavy father with her. Which is a bit of a laugh, seeing he was never really there for any of us when we were growing up.’
‘He’s getting quite a name for himself, your dad.’ Mason, always a fan of Jayden’s reggae-based music, waxed lyrical about the man as he always did. ‘Heard him being interviewed on Radio 4 the other morning.’
‘Let’s hope Sorrel gets the place at Susan Yates Theatre School,’ Petra said, ignoring Mason’s fanboying of my dad. ‘Get her out of Joel’s way.’
‘I like Joel.’ I frowned. ‘He’s a good kid. Bright. He just wants to dance, but he’s in too deep with his dad’s lot.’
‘I think it’s got bigger now than simply his dad’s mates,’ Mason said.
Petra shook her head. ‘Surely the Youth Justice Service and his defence team will make sure he’s afforded some protection? You know, now that he’s in hospital? Isn’t that what being on a court order means? To rehabilitate?’
‘Look, the pair of you—’ Mason turned back to us ‘—keep this to yourself. I don’t want the world and his wife knowing – these people that Joel’s got himself involved with are, apparently, highly organised. It’s not a two-bit village affair, you know. There’s a network that’s spread across Yorkshire, into Manchester and down to Birmingham and London, factions within this network fighting for their position as top dog. They have kids like Joel starting “work” in the morning after being handed a backpack of drugs, a burner phone, a bike and a knife, all of which are handed back at the end of the “shift”.’
We both stared at Mason, and Petra put a hand to her growing bump as if to protect her unborn child from what was going on in a world it would be introduced to in just a few months’ time.
‘Joel rarely opens up to me,’ Mason went on, ‘but I had a chat with him on the last day of term and he said, “Mr Donoghue, what’s the alternative? My dad’s in prison and is being coerced in there just as much as I am out here. I have to think about my dad, and my mum and my little sister.”’
‘Oh, poor Joel,’ I said. ‘And all he wants to do is sit his GCSEs and then get into dance as a career. Fat chance of that while he’s being controlled like this.’
‘My biggest concern,’ Mason went on, ‘is that it’s actually easier for kids like Joel to ultimately accept their lot rather than get themselves out of it. To become hardened to it all and end up simply working their way up the career-criminal ladder. Joel’s very bright; it could easily become his profession. And, if it does, he’ll probably end up very rich: the bosses of these types of criminal gangs are millionaires,’ he added.
‘Or very dead,’ I said bleakly. ‘I need to get Sorrel away from him, don’t I?’
* * *
‘How was your first day back?’ Jess, head in a recipe book, didn’t look up as I walked into her kitchen. She was back from a shift at Hudson House and, as per usual, up to her ears creating fabulous food.
‘A bit disconcerting, to be honest.’
‘Oh?’ Jess was obviously too intent on scanning the page in front of her to take in what I was saying.
When she didn’t respond further, I said, ‘Didn’t think you needed cookery books?’
‘I don’t really. Just checking whether Delia adds vinegar to her meringues. Never convinced it’s the best thing to do.’
‘Where’s Lola?’
‘In bed.’
‘Oh?’
‘She’s been with Dean all day,’ Jess went on. ‘Had a McDonald’s and been to the cinema with him; probably eaten too much junk food.’
‘You OK with that?’
‘What, her knocking back burgers and chocolate milkshake? No, not really…’ She stopped. ‘Oh, you mean her spending time with Dean? Of course; he’s her dad.’ Jess glanced across at me. ‘She says she wants him to come back home. That he wants to come back home.’
‘Forget that.’ I almost laughed. ‘When you’ve got the lovely consultant in your bed and your life?’
‘I know, I know… it’s just…’
‘Just what?’ I moved over to the kitchen unit where Jess was working, pinching a couple of blueberries intended for the so far non-existent meringues. ‘Don’t tell me you’re even thinking of having that tosser back.’
‘Dean’s Lola’s dad.’
‘Now you’re behaving like Mum always did with Jayden. Letting him back in when he’d tired of wherever he’d been. And with whoever he’d been with.’
Ignoring the criticism, Jess finally gave me her full attention. ‘Disconcerting?’
‘Sorry?’
‘You said the day had been disconcerting. I thought it was teachers-only day today? It was at Lola’s school. Hence Lola being with Dean.’
‘It was.’
‘So, how come disconcerting?’ she asked once again. ‘You suddenly realised you’ve still got the hots for Mason Donoghue?’ Jess, only half listening, carried on perusing recipes. Mason’s granny, Denise, was in Jess’s care up at Hudson House and Jess, along with Mum, thought Mason quite marvellous. I knew the pair of them still weren’t convinced that Fabian, after our big fallout in London four months earlier, was the right man for me.
‘No!’ I tutted crossly. ‘For heaven’s sake, Jess. No, two things announced in the staff meeting this morning: Joel Sinclair’s been attacked?—’
‘Joel Sinclair? That friend of Sorrel’s? Her boyfriend? If he is her boyfriend? What do you mean attacked ?’ That news finally had Jess relegating Delia into second place.
‘Rival drug gang probably. It’ll be on TV on tonight’s Focus North . Where is Sorrel? She was in bed when I left this morning and wasn’t next door when I got home.’
‘ I don’t know,’ Jess said somewhat irritably. ‘She’s almost sixteen, about to leave home if she wins the place at the Susan Yates place in London. She’ll be out and about with her mates somewhere.’
‘She doesn’t have that many friends,’ I reminded Jess. ‘Spends most of her time with Joel.’
‘Maybe she’s up at the hospital visiting.’
‘Don’t think that’d be allowed, do you? You know, with all the police stuff going on. Sorrel won’t be able to just swan onto the ward with a bunch of grapes. Joel’s already got a conviction and on a pretty tough youth court order…’
‘A court order?’ Jess frowned, but continued separating eggs, carefully weighing the whites in a bowl.
‘For possession with intent to supply,’ I said.
‘You seem to know a lot about it.’ Jess gave me her full attention again.
‘Well, yes, I do. With Joel being friendly with Sorrel, Mason keeps me in the loop with what’s going on.’
‘Best thing for Sorrel is to make sure she gets this place in London. Get her away from someone involved in all this. Especially if now he’s been attacked.’ Jess reached for a bag of sugar but suddenly stared in my direction. ‘And, at least Sorrel wasn’t with him last night when he was hurt.’
‘She was round here with you, wasn’t she? Another maths session with you and Matt?’ We were all helping to get Sorrel’s maths grades up: the Susan Yates Theatre School was as intent on academic strength as on their demand for exceptional talent in the creative arts.
‘You said there were two disconcerting things?’ Jess looked up again. ‘Mum’s OK, isn’t she?’
‘Hasn’t she been with you up at Hudson House? She said she was going to.’
Jess nodded. ‘She’s been with me most of the afternoon. I actually left her there, chatting away to the old men. They took one look at her and were like bees round a honeypot. We forget – or at least I do sometimes when I just see her as our mum – what a stunning-looking woman she is. You know, with her gardening gloves on, or when she’s not been too well and having to rest on the sofa, I forget how gorgeous she is. She was having a great time; says she wants to come up on a regular basis. Give her some confidence about applying for some part-time work.’
‘Really? Oh, well, that’s good. She was so much happier when she had that little job in the gift shop and café in the village. I’ve never understood why she hasn’t done the degree course she’s always wanted to do. She did get her A levels, although she never told us she had until recently. For some reason she’s always liked us to believe she’d run off with Jayden at sixteen or seventeen rather than waiting until the minute she’d done her A levels.’
‘You know why,’ Jess said mildly. ‘Didn’t want us delving into that posh public school she went to. Didn’t want us to find out more about those adoptive parents of hers. And she was never able to enrol on any degree course as a mature student for the same reason she couldn’t commit to other things she wanted to do. She’s always been so aware of the bloody awful condition she inherited.’
‘Suppose.’ I looked round for the tin that was always full of Jess’s home-made biscuits.
‘So?’ Jess stopped what she was doing, turning her full attention on me.
‘So?’
‘The disconcerting thing, apart from this friend of Sorrel’s being set upon?’
‘St Mede’s is in danger of being closed down.’
‘It’s always had a stay of execution over its head, has that place. It was on the point of either falling down, or being closed down, when we were kids at Beddingfield Comp. You know, when the St Mede’s lot would ambush us on the school bus?’
I nodded, remembering. We’d always been up for a tussle with the rival school in the next village.
‘And, anyway, why’s that of concern to you ?’ Jess asked, giving me one of her looks. ‘You hated the place when you started there in September. I thought you’d be out of there as soon as you could? Heading back to London with Fabian?’
I was beginning to realise that although she’d now met Fabian and said she approved of him, Jess seemed unable to talk about him without some little derogatory dig, without an air of slight disparagement. I knew it was probably only Jess in full-on protective mode, but also knew it had been a major coup when Jess had beaten him into third place just before Christmas, when they’d both got into the finals of the Yorkshire Christmas TopChef competition.
‘Possibly.’ I nodded. ‘You’re right. If Fabian heads back south, I’ll be going with him.’
‘So, you’re thinking of packing up and leaving us all again, are you?’ Despite Jess’s apparent flippant comments re my returning to London, I knew she’d hate me leaving Beddingfield again. Especially as Sorrel would possibly be on the point of leaving too.
‘I hate only seeing Fabian for snatched weekends,’ I said. I was already missing him, felt depressed at the thought of my lonely single bed next door at Mum’s place. On the couple of occasions he’d stayed over with me at Mum’s cottage, we’d had to bunk down together in the single bed. We’d both been uneasy, embarrassed even, at finding ourselves having to revert to the status of teenagers, knowing Mum was in her room across the landing and Sorrel able to hear any cries of passion through the thin wall separating her bedroom from the tiny box room we were in. To be fair, Mum had offered up her bed, but I’d no intention of turfing her out. As a result, as soon as Christmas was over (both Fabian and his sister, Jemima, had dutifully returned to the bosom of the Carrington family for the festive season) I’d gone to stay with Fabian in Harrogate but, with a new term about to start, that was no longer possible.
It really was time to move on.
‘Actually,’ Jess was now saying, ‘you’re not the only one to have had some disconcerting news today.’
‘Oh? What’s up? You pregnant?’ I laughed in Jess’s direction at the very idea.
‘Yes.’
‘What?’ My head shot up in shock. ‘You and Dr Matt are having a baby?’ A little part of me felt a flicker of envy. Why, I’d no idea. I wasn’t yet thirty and the last thing I wanted was a baby.
‘No, of course not, you moron.’ Jess was grinning. ‘There’s a rumour going round the staff that the Richardsons, who own Hudson House, are ready to sell up.’
‘Oh?’ I stared. ‘What do you mean?’
‘What d’you think I mean? John and Ruth Richardson have had enough and want out. Mind you, they’ve not said a word to me about it so probably just a rumour. You know, tittle tattle and gossip are rife in care homes.’
‘As in any institution,’ I said. ‘So as a going concern?’
‘Well, yes, I suppose so. I hope so anyway. Otherwise, that’s my job and everyone else’s at Hudson House up the swanny. I heard Bex, one of the staff, talking. She clammed up when she knew I was behind her so I had a word with Brenda in the kitchen – she’s always my grass – who tells me everything that’s going on. Someone called Kamran Sattar apparently.’
‘One of the Sattar brothers?’
‘Never heard of the Sattar brothers. Should I have? Are they famous?’ Jess asked.
‘Frozen? The Sattar brothers who own the frozen-food factory on Willow Lane where you worked at one point? Of course you’ve heard of them!’
‘Oh, them ?’ Jess, about to turn on her Kenwood to whisk egg whites, stopped in her tracks. ‘Blimey, are they taking over the whole village?’
‘Well, apparently, they’re after St Mede’s,’ I said. ‘Want the place pulled down so they can buy the land from the council and expand Frozen. The council will think all their Christmases have come at once. A good price for the site, a surfeit of new jobs for those who want them and, best of all, the closing down of the local education authority’s biggest headache.’
‘They can’t want the Hudson House site as well, then, surely?’ Jess stared. ‘I really assumed it was being sold as a going concern. All the guests able to stay and not have to be found places for. Well, that really has ruined my day. Thank you very much, Robyn.’