Chapter 15
15
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
Niamh
The following night, Niamh tries again to tell Paul of the weekend away with the girls. It feels easier this time – mostly because she had once again gone head to head with Jayden and Ella in their quest to be TikTok famous.
‘Miss! Miss! It’s a trend. If you do it with us, it will have a better chance of landing on people’s FYP s and going viral,’ Ella had said as she tried to thrust her phone under Niamh’s nose in much the same way Paul had done the night before.
Never in her entire life had Niamh felt the urge to tell a pupil to ‘fuck off’ as strongly as she did in that moment. Ella had invaded her personal space so much that the fumes from the half-bottle of Sol de Janeiro the teen had clearly doused herself in were making Niamh’s eyes water.
Jayden chimed in with, ‘C’mon, Miss! We’ll show you how to do it. You just lip sync and?—’
‘ Enough !’ Niamh had shouted, hoping it would be enough to put the fear of God into her most unruly class.
As she was greeted with a chorus of ‘Ooooooooh!’ and giggles, along with some ham acting from Jayden as if he was shaking with fear, she had felt something in her snap. This could be it. This could be the day she gets her embarrassing nickname. This could be the day she cries in front of these children. It would be the day that everyone would talk about, never mind her almost twenty-five years in the classroom before it.
She took a deep breath to try and steady herself, knowing that if she backed down she would be done for.
‘I. Said. Enough !’ she repeated, and her voice had reached a new, higher volume. ‘This is a classroom. Not a playground. Ella – I’m confiscating your phone.’
Ella had opened her mouth to protest but one look at the fire in Niamh’s eyes shut her up. She handed her phone over and slunk back to her seat.
‘Sorry, Miss,’ she muttered.
Niamh eyeballed Jayden Murray, who had already sat back down. The boy raised his hands in a mock surrender gesture. ‘Sorry, Miss,’ he’d said.
‘Right!’ she had told them, glad to have the room back in her control. ‘Let me be very clear here. You lot have exams coming up. Important exams which will count towards your final GCSE grades. It’s my job to teach you so you get through the exam and do well in life. Maybe you don’t have the gumption to realise yet that it’s a bloody hard world out there and you are privileged to have access to a free education. Let me be very clear: it is not my job to learn dance routines, or lip sync, or watch videos all day. Some of us have higher ambitions than becoming TikTok famous. If you had half a brain in your head, you’d feel that way too. If you’re not prepared to learn, then you can get your lazy, disruptive arses out of my classroom now. You can go straight to the principal’s office where you can explain your decision. Otherwise, you sit down, you shut up and bloody well behave yourself!’
Silence fell across the classroom, but it had felt like a hollow victory. She had lost her cool. She had called her pupils lazy. She had used phrases she remembered only too well from Mrs Martin’s classroom back in the day. Threats and slights. It was not who she was as a teacher.
Yes, Year 11 had listened for the remaining fifteen minutes of the lesson. They had even filed out in silence after the bell rang – not even Hannah the class lick-arse stopping to say thank you – and Niamh had gone into her prep room and cried.
By the time she got home, she had come to realise that she needed the break away from it all. She needed it in the same way a person might need medicine, or food, or air even.
This has all put her in the right frame of mind to tell Paul, and not be distracted by any other conversation or end up as a sounding board for his woes. She reminds herself she is not asking for permission. She is telling him. Out of respect. And maybe out of a need to let him just how close to the edge she finds herself skating these days.
When they’ve had their dinner and their children have gone back to their rooms, save for Ethan, who is currently grumbling about it ‘not being fair’ that he has to load the dishwasher and wipe down the surfaces, she follows Paul into their living room and sits down close to him.
As he moves to lift the TV remote, she stills his hand with her own. ‘I need to tell you something,’ she says.
Immediately she sees the colour drain from his face and he gives an exaggerated sigh. ‘What now? Any more unexpected pregnancies? The boys have been arrested for arson? Fiadh has started smoking?’ This act is getting both tired and repetitive.
‘No. No. Nothing like that,’ she says. ‘I’m going away this weekend. With the girls. Becca got offered the chance to take us on a?—’
‘Hang on. You’re going away? Just like that? This weekend? With everything that’s going on?’
Niamh bristles. ‘It’s precisely because of everything that’s going on,’ she says, tersely, trying not to slip into the same Incredible Hulk mode she did with Year 11 earlier. ‘I need a break, Paul. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m struggling at the moment. Between work and the menopause and Jodie…’
‘You don’t think I’m struggling too?’ he asks, sitting forward.
‘I didn’t say that,’ she says, willing herself to stay calm. ‘I just said I need a break. And Becca was offered the chance to bring Laura and me to a retreat this weekend. For free. I’m taking that chance.’
He gives his head a little shake and she imagines giving his entire body a little shake. A sick, heavy feeling of dread nestles in her stomach. This is Paul. Her Paul. And right now – this very second – she could gladly tell him to go and eff himself.
‘Sounds like it’s a done deal then,’ he says, in a tone so defeated Niamh would almost swear she’d dropped a major bomb on him – such as telling him she wanted a divorce, or was having an affair, or was moving to her dream Hag Cottage by the Sea with her wild garden and wilder hair.
‘It is,’ she says, realising she doesn’t even have the energy to tell him what happened today in school. That she had cried in the prep room. That she feels she is losing her mind. That menopause is kicking her square in the vagina, even though she is wearing those blasted patches. That she is angry at just about everyone in her life right now – not least him.
‘Well, I suppose there’s nothing else to say,’ he replies, petulance dripping from every word. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, I want to catch up with my programmes.’
He lifts the remote again and points it towards the TV , while Niamh tries to summon the energy to get up, go upstairs, ignore the stench from the swamp of despair and climb under the covers.