Chapter 19
Cassie pulled into the school car park before eight o’clock to get a jump on the morning, which was not normally something she did willingly. She’d uncovered a flair for Irish and her head was buzzing with plans around the little role-plays she’d worked out involving new words they’d learned last week.
As she approached the classroom, she could see from the transom window above the door that the light was already on, and she was taken aback by the racket of chairs being slammed impatiently onto the floor. She peered round the door to see a tall, slim woman in an expensive-looking midi dress and boots, her hair in an elaborate updo, organising fiercely. There was no doubt she’d been up at six to get that outfit in place. The woman swung round to face the door, causing Cassie’s heart to lurch.
‘Can I help you?’
‘Oh, er .?.?. Hi, I’m Cassandra Kearney, I’m the substitute teacher and I’ve been taking—’
‘Thank you, I appreciate your help, but as you can see, I’m back and there’s no further need for you in this class. I suggest you go back and speak to the principal, who’s in his office. He can reallocate you for the day.’
With that, she turned on her heel, leaving Cassie speechless, mortified and furious. Technically, Miss Upton was right but there was something about the dismissive tone in her voice that stung Cassie like a late-summer wasp.
Right now, she’d no option but to head back up the echoey corridor to the office where Helen, the school secretary, was hanging up her limp blue anorak.
‘Hi, is Roger— Mr Newcombe here?’
‘There’s been a leak in the back toilets over the weekend, so he’s trying to fix it with Mr Daly.’
Just then, the flap, flap, flap of Roger Newcombe’s all-leather shoes could be heard approaching along the tiled floor.
‘Mr Newcombe, there seems to be a small bit of doubling up here,’ announced Helen.
‘Yes, yes, Marie’s back and, as fate would have it, nobody’s phoned in sick. Pure fluke. You couldn’t make it up.’
He appeared, as usual, to be mainly addressing himself. ‘Still, if I let you go, someone else will get you.’ He paused. ‘Are you qualified as an SNA? Special needs assistant: reading, writing, dyslexia, autism, ADHD?’
For a split second she contemplated spoofing, but she gave it up as a truly terrible idea.
‘I won’t lie to you, I’m not trained.’
‘We can sort that out later. Come with me.’
Cassie baulked. The last thing she wanted was to go back within a mile of that intimidating woman. It turned out she couldn’t have been more wrong.
‘Good morning, Roger, how can I help?’ Miss Upton’s tone was warm and engaging, as though she were working the room at an embassy cocktail party. The headmaster’s manner had softened correspondingly.
‘Cassie will be your assistant just while we’re sorting a few things out. Any problems, you know where to find me,’ he said, making himself scarce and leaving Cassie to face Miss Upton, who reverted to her previous tone as soon as the door closed.
‘If you wouldn’t mind setting out the tables, I have an Irish project planned.’
Without thinking it through, Cassie blurted out, ‘That’s so interesting, Miss Upton. I’ve some ideas myself I’d been working on for the class. Perhaps we could compare notes.’
A flash of irritation crossed Miss Upton’s face but then, unexpectedly, she broke into a smile like the sun coming out from behind a cloud.
‘Oh, call me Marie. Well, it sounds like you have some experience. Tell me all about yourself.’
She had to acknowledge that Marie was charismatic and had a quality that made you really want her to like you, even if a secret part of you felt uneasy. As she laid out the equipment, Cassie found herself chatting away about London and her acting career, and what a rollercoaster it was proving to start all over again at thirty-seven. Marie was a fabulous listener, you had to hand her that; her laser-like gaze softened to close attentiveness, which gave you the impression she’d heard and understood every word like nobody else, and invited you to confide in her further.
‘Gosh, that’s fascinating, Cassie. To have that sort of talent. That’d be a great help for teaching too, I’m sure.’
‘Funny you should mention it .?.?.’ Cassie poured out her ideas, delighted to have such a receptive audience.
‘Sounds wonderful. Unfortunately, I find myself constrained by the curriculum.’
‘Constrained’ was such a Marie word.
‘Cassie, I’m going out to collect the class, say hi to the parents, all of that. Would you mind taking two kids down to the small classroom when we get back? They’re excused Irish, so you can do some extra reading practice with them.’
Cassie agreed readily. She was a little crestfallen at her loss of autonomy with the class but, hey – reality check – she was the rookie and Marie was turning out to be much nicer than she’d feared. Perhaps this wasn’t going to be so bad after all.
For most of the next hour, she worked patiently with each child, then headed back to classroom 4B, only to hear eager voices coming from inside. She pushed open the door and saw a group of children enthusiastically doing a role-play that was exactly the same as she’d described to Marie. Cassie felt sick, not just at the deliberate plagiarism of her idea but also the sense of betrayal from somebody she’d chosen to trust in spite of her misgivings.
‘Hi, Cassie, Miss Upton did plays with us too, even better than last week,’ volunteered someone.
‘Really, they seem so familiar.’ She stared at Marie, who met her gaze without a flicker. For a second Cassie wondered if she’d imagined the whole thing. Did she spot the ghost of a smile? But what could she do? Just then the bell went for break, and they headed out to the yard.
‘Er .?.?. Marie, can I just check something with you? You used my material .?.?. I mean, the role-plays I told you about, but I thought you said .?.?.’
Marie turned to her with an almost amused expression. ‘It’s all about being flexible in this work .?.?. all about collaboration. That’s just how it works.’
She sounded so reasonable that, in the moment, Cassie felt guilty for even mentioning it and found herself agreeing hastily. It was only afterwards that she began to ask herself when something shifted from collaboration to plain old ripping off of someone’s ideas.
At lunchtime, in the staffroom, a small group of teachers seemed to crowd around Marie to welcome her back and protest that the place hadn’t been the same without her. Well, that was for bloody sure. This was all too familiar from her own school days. It still was with her old gang, if she were being honest. Marie was the popular girl in the class, and popular girls existed in staffrooms just as they did in schoolyards. But was she the person everyone wanted to be friends with or just the person they least wanted to dislike them? A bit of both, possibly. Even Maggie seemed less available, so Cassie ate her lunch quietly at the end of a table and tried to stay inconspicuous.
*?*?*
Driving home that afternoon, she scanned her contacts at the traffic lights for someone to buzz for a bit of reassurance. Josie – no, she was deep in baby-land; Mam? No. The person she really wanted to text was Finn, but he’d be at work. So, that left Philip. Would phoning him be overstepping professional boundaries? At the same time, he’d sent her for the job, so presumably she could check in with him. She found herself hitting call, her heart pounding a little.
‘Cassie, how are you? It’s great to hear from you.’
She sighed with relief. There might have been times in her life when she’d have thought of someone like Philip as ‘uncool’, but right now his warmth and enthusiasm felt like balm to her jangled nerves. She burst out about Marie and how she’d confided in her, only to find she’d shamelessly nicked her idea and then behaved as though nothing had happened.
‘She gaslighted me, Phil.’
‘Don’t talk to me, you wouldn’t believe how common that is. Boardrooms, presentations, pulpits even .?.?. I’m hearing about it every day.’
‘But what can I do? I can’t stop her, I haven’t even any qualifications. I’m a nobody in there. I’m powerless.’
‘Ah now, go away out of that. You’ve just had a bad day,’ he said kindly. ‘You’ve learned the hard way to keep your ideas to yourself. But now you come to mention it, an SNA qualification wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world. You could do it online in your own time.’
‘Really, do you think so?’
‘Sure, Google it. You could start any time and do it from home. It’d push your pay up too.’
Philip had an uncanny way of making everything a bit more manageable. As Mam said, he was a lovely guy. What was it about Phil? He felt like the sort of person you could confess your darkest fears to without being judged. He was handsome, in an almost old-fashioned, genteel sort of way. He was kind and interesting, and what was more, he seemed very interested in her. What was not to like if you’d half a brain?
*?*?*
That evening Cassie was curled up on the sofa in the sitting-room-slash-pole-dance-studio, munching her way through a black bean burrito bowl she’d treated herself to from the local deli, when Ramona trailed into the room. At first Cassie thought she was on the phone to a particularly exuberant friend. After a few moments of earwigging, she determined that her flatmate was recording a post and was preparing her fans for a big treat.
‘Instagram?’
‘Insta, TikTok, YouTube, everything .?.?.’ Ramona was dressed in what was, for her, a casual outfit: red tracksuit bottoms and a matching crop top with a tatty dressing gown thrown over it.
‘Are you working tonight?’
‘Sister, you have got to be shitting me. It’s Monday night, not even the cats work on a Monday night. No, I’ve got a date.’
‘Savage, where did you meet him?’
‘Tinder.’ So that’s what all the build-up was about. It struck Cassie that Monday was an ideal night for thousands of followers in their PJs to watch Ramona hauling herself into high-octane glam and heading out to meet a complete randomer for the first time.
‘You going out dressed like that?’
‘Babe, are you kidding? This lot? I have to start from here so my story has a dramatic arc and the guys can travel with me.’
It sounded exhausting. Fun, but exhausting. Ramona was going to bring her fifty thousand followers through the whole getting-ready process.
‘Do you seriously feel like going out on a chilly Monday night when it’s starting to rain?’
‘Babe, I have responsibilities. I do it so they don’t have to.’
She waved her phone in Cassie’s direction. When did we all pull back on our own lives and end up watching other people live? she wondered. Ramona was doing reality TV for the tiny screen.
‘Where are you meeting him? Or .?.?. Is it a him?’
‘It’s a them, but all right, them’s a him. The Blind Pig at ten. I’ll give them two drinks and after that I’ll put it to the vote with my crew. That is, unless I really like them or really hate them, in which case I decide and everybody else can fuck off.’
‘So, if you’re “ish” the viewers can decide.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Sounds fair.’ If a bit baffling, Cassie thought. She couldn’t imagine her life witnessed by fifty thousand people, who all felt they owned a piece of you. Trying to live just for herself was stressful enough.
‘Anyway, you keep watching tits and abs on Ex on the Beach , and I’ll go get ready.’
‘Don’t dare leave without showing me your outfit. Do they get to vote on that too?’
‘Are you kidding me, there’d be chaos. I’m an influencer not a dress-up doll.’
Half an hour later Ramona sashayed in, wearing loose flowy trousers and a skimpy crop top that revealed an enviably defined midriff over which she’d thrown an aviator jacket. The effect, along with her white-blonde hair, was stunning. Cassie could imagine an army of women on sofas round the country frantically doing searches for her gear.
‘Opinion: shades or no shades?’ She stuck on a pair of round John Lennon sunglasses.
‘It’s dark out.’
‘So?’
Cassie shrugged. ‘Go for it .?.?. Wait, you’re meeting this person for the first time, late night, in a bar? Are you sure it’s safe?’
‘That’s kind of sweet that you care about my safety, but you actually sound like a public service announcement. Get out of your comfy pumps and live a little, because being good all the time’s not going to earn you shit, trust me.’
With that, she swung out the door, which slammed behind her, all the while talking confidentially to her phone. Cassie wondered if she too wasn’t a character in Ramona’s world by now. Hardly. She wasn’t nearly cool enough to feature in Ramona’s story.