Chapter Remy
Remy
Remy shifted on the uncomfortable plastic chair as she stared at the closed office door in front of her, nervously looking from left to right, not wanting Bertie or Harper to spy her while she waited outside the head teacher’s office.
It had been unusual for Ashleigh to call, and even more strange that she had been crying, babbling.
She was usually so in control. Yet nice, nice that her sister knew that when she needed her, Remy would be there on the end of the phone.
You need to look after each other, always. You are, after all, miracles, two babies from one egg, rare and special!
Not that she’d entirely got to the bottom of her sister’s distress.
Something to do with a dog called Ben, her accountant, and worrying that she didn’t spend enough time with Evie.
It sounded like a typical case of overload and Mum guilt, which she understood.
For her a hot bath and an early night usually did the trick.
She’d no doubt get the full story when they went for lunch at The Plough.
Guilt tingled in her veins at the fact that she’d been a bit less than enthused about her sister coming down.
It was difficult to explain. She would always love her, but it was hard, watching Ashleigh arrive like a well-groomed hurricane and upset the balance of everything.
Her voice, opinions, manner, it was all a little forced, and if Ashleigh didn’t relax, no one did.
No one could. As if she filled the room with an energy that crackled and kept them all on their toes.
A message arrived on her phone from Jamie.
What times kick off tnight?
His lack of etiquette and inattention to grammar and spelling bothered her more than it should.
She chose to ignore the fact that had this exact same message been sent by Midge or anyone else, she would scarcely have noticed, but any contact from him .
. . It was as if she were predisposed to feel this intense level of irritation.
The Jamie Aller effect. When they’d parted, she had spent a year, maybe more, riven with intense frustration that verged on dislike, sobbing herself to sleep with the grip of failure in her gut.
Hindsight had taught her that Jamie wasn’t a bad person, just a selfish and unreliable one.
Someone who was not and never was meant for her.
It was a salient lesson not to confuse lust with love that she wished she had learned earlier.
Not that she would change a thing, because they had made Sophie.
Her heart flexed at the thought of seeing her later.
The fact she and Jamie shared a child meant they were bound forever, whether they liked it or not, and that was just the way it was.
Seven O’clock
She replied without any pleasantry that she was sure he would neither notice nor care about.
‘Remy! Hi! Sorry to have kept you waiting. Come in!’ called the jovial woman, who had had a hand in educating all three of Remy’s kids, as she blustered along the corridor.
‘Not at all. I’m just glad you could squish me in, Jane.’
She followed the headteacher into her small office that smelled of dust and disinfectant.
‘Sit! Sit! Sit!’ Jane pointed to the chair in front of her desk.
Remy sat.
‘Right, what’s up?’
She exhaled, trying to recall all the words and phrases she had practised on the way here, suddenly aware that it all sounded a bit meh, a bit is that it? She wished she’d phoned instead. Far easier to cringe and end the call unseen.
‘It’s Harper. She’s having a bit of a tough time.’
‘No! I’m sorry to hear that. In what way?’
She swallowed. ‘I don’t want to sound like one of those parents who wade in and whinge and try to fight their kid’s corner or make them seem oversensitive or like they can’t cope or . . .’
‘Remy, it’s fine. Just take your time and tell me what the problem is. And when I say take your time, you have precisely six minutes before I have to go and help the nursery with forest school.’
‘Right, sorry, yes.’ She took a beat. ‘Harper doesn’t make friends easily, as I’m sure you know, and she tends to cling to the ones she’s got, desperate to be liked, worried they might drop her. She frets over it. Which means I fret over it, fearful of what would happen if they did all fall out.’
‘Poor little lamb.’
‘Oh, it’s not like I obsess over it, more that—’
‘I meant Harper.’
‘Course you did!’ She blushed. Remy liked the woman enormously.
‘Yes, anyway, yesterday there was a bit of a, don’t even know what to call it, but a couple of her friends were mean to her, and I just wondered if you could keep an eye.
I’d have spoken to Miss Hutchinson directly.
She’s great’ – Remy didn’t want Jane to think she found the teacher unapproachable – ‘but I didn’t want Harper to see me coming in and out of the class or get wind of it, don’t want her to know that I’ve interfered.
She made me promise not to.’ This didn’t exactly sit well with her.
‘It’s not interfering, it’s raising a concern, and that’s your job.’
‘That’s kind of what I said to her.’ She breathed out, happy to hear confirmation she was doing the right thing.
‘Right. Who was mean to her and what did it entail?’ Jane leaned back in her chair, her expression serious, her stance legitimising Remy’s concerns, which in turn helped the words flow.
‘It was Casey and Ella, who I know are sweet girls, but they called her names and wouldn’t let her sit with them, stuff like that. She was upset.’
‘Of course she was. I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘I’d rather anything wasn’t said directly. You know how these things can blow over, enemies to besties in no more than a heartbeat, but . . .’
‘But what?’
‘Harper didn’t tell me about the name calling, she told Bertie, and I got the feeling it wasn’t the first time.’
‘I’ll do a general mention in assembly about kindness and looking after each other, all the usual reminders, and let’s see how it goes.
But come in any time, email, call with any concerns.
Try not to worry. You’re right, these things tend to blow over, but it’s my absolute mission to ensure every child here feels safe and protected while they’re in my care.
And if Harper is distressed then something’s not working. ’
‘Thanks, Jane.’
‘Right, that’s it! Your time’s up. I’m off to forest school!’
‘And I’m off to work. And then off to Sophie’s end-of-year fashion show!’
‘Stop it! It feels like five minutes ago she was running around here in her tutu.’
‘I’d forgotten the tutu stage!’ Picturing her chubby-faced darling in her pink net skirt was enough for Remy to feel a surge of emotion. It happened this way sometimes.
‘She wouldn’t take it off!’ Jane laughed. ‘Oh! Oh, look, you’re crying!’
Remy couldn’t help it. Just the thought of how quickly the time had flown and tears misted her eyes.
Sophie had had a similar attachment to her bridesmaid’s dress and would wear it to the supermarket, school disco, wherever and whenever she felt like it, paired with chunky boots; she had always run her own race when it came to fashion.
‘It goes so quickly,’ she sniffed.
Her mother’s words still stuck in her thoughts, how she had blinked and decades had been erased.
Sophie was twenty; a blink, and her daughter would be forty!
The forties, according to Ruthie, seemed to have lasted the longest, a fact Remy was thankful for now, as she had the whole wide world and, apart from restoring the closeness she had once shared with Ashleigh, didn’t want a thing to change.
‘That’s why I love my job. I get to live in this wondrous stage, year in, year out.’ The woman put her hand on Remy’s arm. ‘Give Sophie my love and don’t worry about Harper. We’re on it.’
The car park was full as she pulled into the business park.
As if on cue, her mum called. Remy felt the familiar flare of irritation. It was of course always nice to hear from her mother, but ye gods, her timing!
‘Mum, listen, you’ll have to be quick, just pulled up at work.’
Jumping out of the car, she shoved her bag on her shoulder, wincing as the electric current ran over the top of her arm and along between her shoulder blades.
It happened this way sometimes, one awkward move, an unfamiliar twist, and a pain that felt like a wire inside her arm and shoulder, a twinge, a shock that took her breath away.
A reminder of that night when her body had become damaged, and her heart and spirit were so badly bruised.
It was no longer a surprise that two decades after the attack, she still felt the physical after-effects.
How she hated that those men, boys really, still had the power to cause her discomfort.
‘Oh, don’t let me keep you, love. Just wanted to check you’ve booked The Plough and that you told them Ashleigh was coming.’
‘Yes, I emailed, and no, I didn’t specifically name Ashleigh’ – she’s not as famous outside of our house as she is in it; this she kept to herself – ‘but yes, all taken care of.’
‘Smashing. I was wondering’ – Remy rushed to the front of the building and felt her pulse increase as her mother continued – ‘do you think if we asked, they would give us that lovely table near the window, the one we had year before last at Easter, do you remember? It was nice, quite private, and if we get that one then no one is going to disturb Ashleigh.’
Remy pulled the phone from her ear and stared at it, trying and failing to think of a single reason that someone might want to disturb Ashleigh mid beef and Yorkshire pud, as if she were Madonna, who most likely would court attention in the pub on a rainy Saturday.
‘I could ask.’
‘You’re a love. And you’re picking us up, is that right? Only your dad was asking earlier about the plan for his birthday. You know he likes to know the details.’