The Secretary

by Zoe Lea

  I put my spoon down.

  ‘I wasn’t going to say anything,’ she went on, her voice hushed. ‘I know she’s dropped the complaint against you but then, then I heard her telling someone about your cakes. About how your cakes weren’t safe because of health and safety issues, and I knew she was at it again and I thought it was only fair to warn you.’

  ‘Warn me?’

  ‘She’s done it to me,’ Eve said. ‘Well, not to me but to Zara. To both of us.’

  ‘Eve,’ I said carefully, ‘can you start from the beginning and tell me everything?’

  She took a slow sip of her drink.

  ‘We used to be good friends,’ Eve began. ‘We met like everyone does, first day of reception welcome meeting. You see them there, don’t you? All the other mothers, and you figure out pretty quick who you can get on with and who you can’t. Well I got on with Janine – our girls were friends, which kind of pushed us together and Janine, well, you know her. She’s charming.’

  Eve gave a shrug as if Janine’s charm were common knowledge. ‘We’ve met up in the holidays, taken the girls out on day trips. Been to all the parties and school productions together. I’ve had Sally, her daughter, over to mine countless times and Zara, my girl, has been over to hers, sleepovers, all that. I helped her set up her tutoring business, a group of us delivering leaflets door to door for a month … ’ She shook her head. ‘Janine makes it her business to be friends with everyone, she’s the life and soul. Anyway –’ she took a deep breath ‘– last year, I saw Rob.’ She looked up at me. ‘I was in Manchester, Christmas markets with my mother, and I saw Rob with –’ she faltered ‘– someone else.’

  I stayed silent, waiting for her to go on.

  ‘They were definitely together, no mistake. He was kissing her. I saw him, saw him with his arms round her neck. I didn’t do anything at the time, didn’t know what to do, and when I got back I spoke with Shaun, my husband, about it, and we decided the best thing to do was to tell Janine. That if I was a good friend, which I like to think I am, I would tell her. So I did. As a friend would.’ She took another small sip of her drink. ‘You know that thing they say, “Don’t shoot the messenger”? Well, Janine shot me. She didn’t believe me, of course she didn’t. And then she accused me of fancying Rob, as if I’d be after him. So –’ she shrugged again ‘– I left it. None of my business and all that. I just thought she deserved to know. But then, Zara came home the next day and says that Sally, Janine’s daughter, has fallen out with her and she doesn’t know why.’ Eve’s mouth twitched, became a hard line. ‘Girls fall out all the time, of course they do, but then, suddenly, all the other girls in Zara’s class fall out with her as well. She isn’t invited to parties any more, misses out on sleepovers. And suddenly, she’s not eating.’

  Eve took hold of my hand. ‘She’s not eating any more because they’re all calling her fat. She leaves ballet and gym class because she says no one is talking to her in those groups, that everyone hates her, and I watched my beautiful little girl fall to pieces.’

  I sat for a moment, stunned at what I was hearing. Eve had tears in her eyes. ‘This all happened over the course of last year,’ she said. ‘It’s been going on for months.’

  ‘But that’s bullying,’ I said after a while. ‘Did you speak to—’

  ‘We spoke to everyone in that school,’ she cut in quickly. ‘Everyone. But her class teacher, she was always off on sick leave, and those teaching assistants were next to useless. Mr Cartwright would have a word with the class, but what can he do? What can you do when it’s the whole class? When Janine’s girl, Sally, is the leader, telling everyone to hate my little girl.’

  ‘But,’ I began, ‘would Janine’s daughter really do that? I mean, I know Janine can be spiteful but—’

  ‘No one would sit with her at lunch, or play with her in the playground. There would be parties and meetups and sleepovers that she wasn’t invited to, but Sally made sure she knew all about them. Janine made sure I knew exactly what Zara wasn’t being invited to. No one talked to her any more, they called her names, put her PE kit down the toilet.’ Eve shook her head.

  ‘And John, Mr Cartwright, he didn’t … ?’

  ‘He did what he could. He talked to the class, got pupils out, but it never stopped. It was as if everyone had just decided to make my little girl’s life hell all of a sudden.’

  We were both quiet.

  ‘And Janine ostracised me, repeated what Sally was doing to Zara. I used to think I had friends in that school, that we weren’t just thrown together because our children happened to be in the same class. I considered those women friends, so it hurt when they all suddenly stopped including me.’ She shook her head. ‘But that I could handle; what I couldn’t accept was what was happening to my daughter.’

  I stayed silent. Unsure what to say. My situation with Toby bullying Sam wasn’t that dissimilar, but I knew it was only Toby and a few others. I knew Sam still had boys he thought were OK in his class. Ryan, Eve’s son, being one of them.

  ‘He doesn’t work, you know,’ Eve said after a while. ‘Rob. Janine’s husband. He doesn’t work.’

  An image of him at the school gates flashed in my mind, his suit, his large white Land Rover.

  ‘He pretends,’ Eve said. ‘If you ask him or Janine, he’s doing something in stocks and shares – wearing flash suits, driving about in that big car. But the truth of it is, he hasn’t had a proper job in over three years. Used to be a director at some place that went out of business and hasn’t worked since. Shaun, that’s my husband, he knows people who used to work with Rob. And he sees him, over at Costa, reading the paper in his suit, whiling away the hours. Pretending like he’s got a job.’

  I remembered him at the Valentine’s dinner, the way he told me he was a sales rep working in Edinburgh. The way he blamed his job for never getting a chance to meet anyone new since his break-up.

  ‘Then at weekends,’ Eve went on, ‘he’s at the rugby club. He’s there two, three evenings in the week. He doesn’t have to be there, but he doesn’t want to stay home with her, but because he hasn’t got a job, he can’t leave. So he busies himself at the rugby club, uses it as an excuse to go out all weekend, meets his other women, and Janine gets to boast that her husband is this big man in business and head of the rugby club, when in fact, it’s something very different.’

  I paused for a moment, suddenly feeling something close to sympathy for Janine. I checked myself, as it was so at odds with how I’d been feeling all night with the kitchen knife under my pillow.

  ‘You see,’ Eve went on, ‘I think Janine is aware I know this about Rob. She knows that Shaun works with people who know Rob, knows people at the rugby club. That was all right so long as I pretended I didn’t know, didn’t say that her husband is a right prick. But once I came out with it, like you did the other day, once I told her that I’d seen him playing away with someone in Manchester, she didn’t like that at all.’ Eve gave a small smile. ‘And I could handle that. It would’ve been OK if it was just me she ignored, that she stopped being nice to me. Just me that none of the other mothers would talk to at the school gates, who lost a whole group of friends I’d had since my daughter was five. I wouldn’t have been bothered about any of that if it had just been me.

  ‘I sent her a message, when it all started, begging her not to get the girls involved. When Sally had a party and Zara wasn’t invited, I asked Janine not to do that. Not to take it out on Zara and that was my mistake.’

  I looked expectantly at Eve.

  ‘I’d shown her my weak spot,’ she explained, ‘my daughter. From then on, it was all about Zara.’

  My heart thrummed as I thought of Will, his threats to go to social services. The ‘solicitor’ that was helping him.

  ‘And now,’ Eve was finishing her drink, ‘we’re moving. Zara can’t wait to leave and, to be honest, neither can I. I’m sick to death of Janine and the rest of them. So, when I saw what they were doing to you, wh
at rumours she was starting, and I saw that a crowd of them had gathered at the car park, well –’ she shook her head ‘– I thought you should know what you’re dealing with.’

  I sat for a moment in stunned silence.

  ‘Is she dangerous?’ I asked. ‘Because I think she’s been sending me weird things and someone was outside my house last night.’

  ‘She wouldn’t do anything like that,’ Eve said, and then paused. ‘I’ve known Janine for a long time,’ she said, ‘and she can be really nice. There was a time when she was the one I’d phone if I needed help with anything. But … ’ she trailed off and was quiet for a while. ‘And there’s this.’

  She brought up her handbag and took out a piece of A4 paper. It was a photocopy of a newspaper. The Cheltenham Standard.

  ‘Teacher arrested for affair with fifteen-year-old boy’ the headline declared.

  I looked back up to Eve in confusion.

  ‘Janine’s employing her,’ she said, pointing to the picture, ‘this woman. She had an affair with one of her students while she was teaching. Well, an alleged affair. She didn’t actually go to prison in the end, but she was struck off. Couldn’t get a job. So she moved here, to Carlisle, and is now one of the most prominent teachers for Top Marks.’

  I picked up the photocopy and looked at it.

  ‘I was going to use it,’ Eve said, and a flush went to her cheeks, ‘when things were really bad with Zara, when she wasn’t eating. I knew that this teacher was working for Janine and I was going to –’ she shook her head ‘– I don’t know, blackmail Janine or something but –’ she shrugged, sat upright ‘– Zara wanted to change schools. To start afresh and so –’ she slid the paper over to me. ‘So, I thought you might find it useful.’

  I took the paper.

  ‘Why?’ I said. ‘Why does Janine do it? Why stay with him, if she knows he’s being unfaithful? Why do all this to us?’

  Eve gave a long sigh. ‘You know when you’re a kid, and you have this image of the adult you’ll become? I don’t think Janine has ever let her image go. I think it’s that simple. She’s just being who she thinks she should be, and –’ Eve shook her head, a look of pity crossing over her features ‘– her image doesn’t involve being a single parent to those girls.’

  EIGHTEEN

  Lisa wasn’t waiting for me. I’d done as she asked and made an appointment outside of school hours like all the other parents, but when I went I found her classroom locked. It had been a slow week, most of which I’d spent hiding in my office. There had been no announcement of Janine’s investigation by HMRC, no journalists or headlines in the local paper and, to be honest, I was a little disappointed. I knew things didn’t move at lightning speed, but I expected something. A rumour in the staffroom about Janine’s tutoring company at least. But Becca reported nothing.

  Since the cupcake incident in the house, I’d taken to sleeping how we did that night, the bedroom door barricaded and the kitchen knife under my pillow. Sam in bed beside me. This was no time to be pedantic about him sleeping alone. I’d had no more texts, no more special deliveries of vile cupcakes, but it didn’t stop me from feeling unsafe. I hadn’t heard anything more from the police, but after learning what Janine did to Eve, how relentless she was, I found I was jumpy at everything. Everywhere had become a frightening place. I was waiting for her to do something next and it was driving me mad.

  It was a good five minutes before Lisa arrived.

  ‘Right,’ she said, finally appearing along the corridor, ‘let’s get inside. I’ve had a terrible week, someone messed up the board so I’m all mixed up with my planning and, to make matters worse, I’ve been put down to volunteer with the residential trip.’ She fiddled with the keys. ‘I tried to tell John that it’s impossible for me to go that week, I have a friend’s wedding, but he insists my name is on the list.’ I suppressed a smile as she opened the door. ‘And now I have to lock up the classroom because we have a thief. Has Sam told you?’ She nodded. ‘Stickers were moved and my marking pen, my special red pen with a feather on top, has been stolen.’

  ‘Stolen?’ I asked, and glanced towards the children’s drawers at the back of the classroom. Toby was still off school, which meant the pen was still in his drawer, as yet unfound.

  ‘I know it’s only a little thing –’ she went to her desk ‘– but my mum bought it for me when I passed my teacher training so it’s quite sentimental. It wouldn’t be important to anyone else, which makes me think it’s a child.’

  She stared at me, waiting for a response.

  ‘I’m taking it very seriously,’ she said, when I didn’t say anything. ‘I’ve asked them all but, so far, no one’s admitted it, so I’m not giving out any stickers until the thief comes forward.’

  ‘No stickers for any of them?’ I asked, and Lisa sat down, smoothing her skirt along her knees.

  ‘They all love the gold stickers,’ she said, ‘so I’m confident that the culprit will come forward soon. Until then, everyone suffers because of their selfish actions.’

  I had, up to this point, still wanted to make amends with Lisa. She was Sam’s class teacher after all, and I needed her onside. Despite her wanting to fire me, and how she treated me in the staffroom, I’d reasoned she was still the best person to help Sam. If I made a friend of her, she would stop the bullying, so that’s what I’d fully intended to do.

  She’d got the wrong impression of me and I was going to take the opportunity of meeting her after school to try and change her mind. But as she sat there, showing me the pad of gold stars hidden in her drawer, knowing that they were coveted by a class full of eight-year-old children, I decided that being her friend was going to be impossible. I hated her.

  Who does that? I found myself thinking, as she locked the stars away with a smug smile, and showed me the reward chart, which had a big red cross over the top of it. Who abuses their power over a group of children? Punishing everyone for a stupid pen going missing? She was a class teacher, not the chief of police. And it was a daft pen, not the crown jewels.

  ‘No chaperone?’ I asked, noting that we were alone, and Lisa flushed a little.

  ‘Well, I trust you aren’t going to attack me?’ She gave a small laugh. ‘I overreacted a bit,’ she said, ‘last week, when Janine told me what happened. I might have … ’ She shook her head. ‘But you need to realise that Janine is a really good friend to me. She’s a really good friend to the school. Everyone loves her and, to be honest, I’m still shocked by it all, Ruth.’ An alarming expression came over her face. ‘What you did with her husband. And how you told her, in front of her children like that. And with your employment history I just think … ’ She trailed off, shaking her head, and I could tell she’d discussed this many times before. Her words were well practised, too quick to come out. ‘I know you’re expecting forgiveness,’ she went on, ‘those cakes of yours in the staffroom … ’

  ‘I’m here to talk about Sam,’ I said forcefully, ‘not gossip. And those cakes weren’t left for forgiveness.’ It sounded petty but I couldn’t stop myself. ‘I left them there for Sue. For her fiftieth. So, can we crack on?’

  She raised an eyebrow and crossed her legs. I noticed she was wearing heels and a shorter skirt than she should have; it didn’t suit her. Her legs were bare, even though it was September, and they were gooseflesh. She signalled for me to take a seat. The chairs were small, made for the children and I looked at them, then perched on the edge of the desk so I was at eye level with her.

  ‘Sam Clarkson,’ she said, taking out a folder. ‘Sam, Sam, Sam,’ she repeated his name, as if trying to remember who he was, and I gritted my teeth.

  ‘Here we are,’ she said, pulling out a sheet of paper. ‘So, he’s up to speed on his literacy, although he’s still writing certain letters backwards, that’s one of his targets, and in regards to numeracy—’

  ‘Bullying,’ I interrupted, and she looked up. ‘My son is eight years old,’ I went on. ‘I’m not really concerned with
his academic levels at this point, but what I am concerned about, extremely concerned about, is Toby Morley-Fenn. He’s making Sam’s life a misery and I want to know what you’re going to do about it.’

  She blinked a few times, as if taken aback by my words, and it felt good. A flicker of something close to enjoyment passed through me.

  ‘I’m aware of the situation between Toby and Sam,’ she said carefully. ‘We’ve had several little chats about it, the three of us, and I think we’ve come to an understanding of sorts … ’

  ‘Little chats won’t cut it,’ I said, and her eyes went wide at my words. ‘Do you know what they’re doing now? They’re spitting in his food, Lisa. Spitting. In my son’s sandwiches at lunchtime.’

  She had the decency to look shocked. ‘This is the first I’ve heard of it.’ She looked down at her files as if an answer was there. ‘And you’re sure? Because I can’t imagine that this is going on in my classroom.’

  ‘Sam told me about it.’

  Lisa shook her head. ‘No other children have mentioned this to me at all.’ She closed her file and shifted on her chair. ‘I’ll talk to Sam in the morning.’

  ‘It’s not Sam, it’s Toby!’

  My outburst surprised us both. In previous conversations I’d always gone for a soft approach.

  ‘Sam is really suffering,’ I said again. ‘His anxiety is top pitch. He’s worried about coming into school because of Toby. Worried about how he’ll be with him, what he’ll do, and as his class teacher isn’t it your responsibility to make sure he doesn’t feel that way?’

  ‘I’ve spoken to Toby,’ Lisa said, ‘and have explained how his behaviour affects others. The problem is, Toby, in his own way, is trying to be friends with Sam.’

  This threw me. ‘Friends?’

  ‘He thinks what he’s doing to Sam is just gentle teasing, that he’s just poking fun, although I agree that spitting is … ’ She shook her head. ‘When I’ve spoken to Toby about his actions he genuinely can’t understand why Sam gets so upset about it. He feels Sam may be rather sensitive.’