‘I’m sorry,’ Kate says. ‘I’m just so used to defending her—’
‘I can tell’ – Spencer’s voice is gentle but it lets the hurt through – ‘but maybe you should give me a chance to behave the way that you want me to, before you shout me down for being in the wrong.’
‘I really am sorry. You can’t imagine what it’s like round here sometimes.’
‘Well, I’m not from round here,’ Spencer says with a smile, and Kate gets a glimpse of those crooked teeth again, and can’t help but smile back, especially now that his voice is moving to a warm, rich gold. ‘But I am the only male teacher in a primary school, so don’t go thinking you’ve got the monopoly on being gossiped about.’
‘I have noticed that,’ Kate says, ‘but I can assure you that the playground chat about you is all good.’
Spencer half smiles and shifts in his chair. ‘You should try the staffroom. That’s a different story.’
‘I thought you didn’t listen to gossip,’ Kate says, a little delighted to find herself teasing this – now she comes to get a really close look – undoubtedly handsome man. Not conventionally handsome, maybe – a Colonel Brandon more than a Willoughby – but good-looking nonetheless.
‘I don’t,’ he says, ‘and it’s all about me, so I know it all anyway.’ He smiles as he raises his cup to his mouth; when he puts it down again there’s a smudge of froth hanging on the corner of his upper lip. Kate’s fingers ache to wipe it away, but she thinks that what would be cute, or a little bit sexy, in a film will be pure mother hen if she attempts it.
And then Spencer laughs, a surprising growl that seems to come out of the middle of his chest rather than his mouth. ‘I’ve got coffee on my lip, haven’t I?’
‘Yes,’ Kate says, and she points to the mirrored place on her own mouth where the foam sits. He rubs it away with his fingertip.
‘Got it?’
‘Yes.’
‘You definitely shouldn’t try any kind of espionage, either,’ he says. ‘Your face is very open.’
‘No crime, no espionage,’ Kate says. ‘My career options are closing down fast here.’ She hopes Spencer can’t read everything: she doesn’t want him to know how fast her heart is beating, the way a disconnected part of her brain is mulling over the fact that this feels more like a date than any of the few official dates she’s ever been on. Spencer picks up the biscotti from his saucer. ‘Do you think anyone ever eats these?’
‘I do.’
‘Really?’ Spencer reaches over and puts his biscuit on her saucer. ‘It’s all yours.’
‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘The trick is to dunk them.’
‘I think the trick is to give them to you.’ He smiles.
She smiles back.
‘What were you doing?’ Spencer nods at Kate’s laptop. ‘Were you studying when I interrupted you?’
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I’m finishing my dissertation. It’s the last part of my degree.’
He nods. ‘What in?’
It’s another of the questions Kate doesn’t exactly dread but wishes there was a simple answer to. Spencer misreads her face as she is deciding what to say. ‘Sorry, Kate, am I getting in your way?’ he says, making as if to move. ‘I didn’t mean to stop you working—’
‘It’s fine,’ she says. ‘I was just—’
‘And can I call you Kate? Is that OK? I think of you as Kate—’
He’s blushing, Kate thinks, just a little. And then she feels her own cheeks flame. ‘Please,’ she says. ‘Stay. I’d like the company.’
Then Angie arrives to deliver Kate’s hourly coffee, and takes her plate away. When Kate and Spencer settle down again it’s with the feeling that they have used a wobbling steppingstone to cross a stream that’s just too wide to be taken in a single stride.
‘Where were we?’ asks Spencer.
‘I have no idea,’ Kate says. Wants to say: it doesn’t matter, it’s just lovely to talk to you.
‘Your degree,’ Spencer says, a sudden remembering.
Oh, yes. ‘I’m doing an open degree,’ Kate says, ‘because I was going to go and study geography at uni when I got pregnant with Daisy, and I was determined to keep on studying, but between the CF and all of the other things that were going on at the time, I couldn’t make a decision about what I wanted to do. The career choices I thought I had all changed, because everything was always going to be about Daisy from then on. So I wasn’t making decisions on my own behalf. I’ll have a BA and then I need to decide what to do next.’ She looks at her hands. It must be nerves that’s making her tell him so much. Especially as he only asked what she was studying.
Spencer nods. ‘And what are you thinking of?’
‘I’m thinking about physiotherapy, but it’s a logistical nightmare.’ There’s an MSc she could do, at Birmingham, but it would be full-time study for two years; that’s assuming that the psychology component of her open degree is enough to get her on it in the first place. She’d have to think about travel, which would mean long days away from Daisy, or moving the two of them, which is unimaginable on almost every level. But then, asks the little voice of Kate-before-she-was-a-mother, are you really going to stay in Throckton forever?
And Spencer smiles, out of all proportion to what she’s said, and says with the thigh-slapping air of someone finally remembering where they left their keys, ‘That’s what I was going to talk to you about! Wendy and I have been looking at some cystic fibrosis information, and Wendy has started following some blogs’ – Kate wants to kiss them both for even bothering to think of such a thing – ‘and we were talking about whether we could be doing anything more with Daisy, physio-wise. To support what you already have in place, I mean. If it’s not necessary—’
‘Well, it all helps,’ Kate says. She describes what she already does with Daisy to help keep her lungs clear: going to the park to blow bubbles for the ducks, blowing up a balloon every morning and night before she cleans her teeth, bouncing games, wheelbarrow racing, tickling her to make her giggle, trampolining, how any opportunity to get Daisy using her lungs to capacity should be taken. She explains that they shouldn’t be put off by the spitting and the phlegm. When she’s finished talking, Spencer nods.
‘I’d say how much I admired you if I was sure you wouldn’t bite my head off,’ he says with half a smile.
‘Thank you.’ Kate nods with the matching half of the smile. She thinks of saying his name, doesn’t quite dare. Their coffee cups are almost empty.
‘I would have asked you about this at school,’ Spencer says, not looking at her, ‘but there are always mothers around, and they never seem to be you.’
‘I’ve noticed that,’ Kate says; her turn to not look. There is another conversation going on, far below this one, as though somewhere underwater their hands are reaching out for each other. So when Spencer finishes his coffee and leaves, it seems more like a beginning than an end.
*
Kate knows that she didn’t imagine the blushing. And, when she collects Daisy or drops her off, it seems that Spencer always makes eye contact with her and smiles. He sometimes avoids the other mothers for long enough to have a quick word with her about trampolining, or to warn her that a sore throat is doing the rounds of the children. On the Wednesday after the coffee, he said how much he’d enjoyed talking with her; Kate had said that ‘Adventures in Bread’ was a great place to live next door to and only afterwards wondered whether he was hinting, or suggesting that they see each other again.
The next day, more than midway through September, Kate submits her dissertation at last, and time runs away as she emails her tutor. She’s late enough to be walking against the swelling wave of parents and children heading for the park to make the most of the last of the warm tail-end-of-summer afternoons. Through the window Kate sees Daisy, waiting with her coat on and the slightly reproachful expression that she wears on the mornings when they wake up in hospital. Wendy is at the sink, washing up brushes. Spencer comes over to o
pen the door for her.
‘Mummy’s here, Daisy,’ he says. ‘Hello, Kate.’
‘Hello.’ Kate steps inside. The shadows of the classroom after the bright light of the playground mean she can’t read the expression on Spencer’s face. But he is close enough to touch; his voice is warm.
‘Good day, Daisy?’ Kate asks, though her eyes find Spencer’s, and look for confirmation there. Not knowing the ins and outs, the coughs and meals of Daisy’s life for six hours a day is more difficult than she thought it would be. She’d longed for freedom; it’s more like emptiness.
‘Yes,’ Daisy and Spencer answer. Daisy stands against Kate’s legs, resting her head against her mother’s hip. Her fingernails are edged with purple paint. Kate thinks about how much she likes this time of day, when Daisy is tired and wants to be cuddled more than she wants to enjoy what an almost-five-year-old considers to be independence. She is about to say so when she reminds herself that Spencer sees parents learning to let their children go every day of his working life. That, in turn, reminds her of the other question she has been thinking about. She still can’t decide whether to ask or not. Which probably means that she shouldn’t. She starts to smile a goodbye.
Then Wendy, now in the reading corner where she is tidying the books, says, ‘There’s been a lot of birthday talk.’
‘Yes, a lot of birthday talk,’ Spencer confirms. He puts out a hand, as though to touch Daisy’s hair; brings it back to his side.
‘Well, it’s not every day that you turn five,’ Kate says. Daisy nods, earnest, and Kate and Spencer look at each other again. Kate is finding it harder and harder to look away from him. Maybe that’s what makes her ask the question after all.
‘Daisy’s having a party on Saturday—’ she begins.
‘Oh, we know all about the party.’ Wendy laughs. ‘With the balloons and the bouncy castle and the butterfly cake.’
Although the school day is certainly over, with the sound of a hoover from deeper within the school and the quiet air of an empty playground outside, Spencer makes no move towards leaving. His jacket is hanging on a coat hanger on the back of the door; it would be an easy thing for him to go and get it, a signal that this conversation is over. He doesn’t. Now that Kate’s eyes have grown used to the change in light, she can see that he is looking at her in the same way she imagines she is looking at him: moonstruck, wondering.
‘Well, I thought maybe you would like to come?’
‘I can’t, sorry.’ Spencer steps back, sounding anything but sorry, sounding stung. He bends to pick up a pencil from the floor, though Kate can see that really he is doing it to avoid looking at her. ‘It wouldn’t really be appropriate.’
‘Both of you, of course,’ she adds, quickly. ‘Miss Orr? Mum said to say she would love to see you.’
‘Oh, how lovely,’ Miss Orr says. ‘Could I bring Jilly?’
Kate flips through her memory, remembers that Miss Orr being gay is something that is quietly discussed amongst some parents, as though it’s a scandal or a novelty; one day she’ll tell them what she thinks of them, but for now she only has the energy to walk away. ‘Of course,’ Kate says. ‘We’d love her to come.’
Miss Orr beams. ‘I’ll have to check the diary, but if we’re free we’d love to come.’
‘That’s great,’ Kate says. ‘Isn’t it, Daisy? We’ll bring an invitation for Miss Orr tomorrow.’
Daisy bounces on her toes. ‘I won’t forget,’ she says, her face earnest. Spencer is putting his jacket on, in slow motion, his back to them.
Kate turns towards the door, the bright September afternoon, hearing how her voice sounds taut as she says, ‘Come on, Daisy, let’s go and let Miss Orr and Mr Swanson get on.’
Chapter 3
Late September
‘T
OP-UP?’ BLAKE, Kate’s stepfather, is holding out a bottle of Prosecco; she tips her glass towards him, and he pours.
‘Thanks.’
‘How are you doing?’ Blake touches her shoulder. ‘Your mother and I were saying, we miss you.’
She leans against him, just a little; they don’t usually have much contact. It’s hard to be physically affectionate with a man who didn’t come into your life until you were nineteen, traumatised and pregnant. But she loves Blake, and loves the way her mother has become happy, calm, kind, in the way she never was in the years before. ‘I think I’m OK,’ she says.
‘Good.’ He nods. ‘Just don’t forget we’re here. I know you want to be independent, but part of that is knowing when to ask for help.’
Kate laughs. ‘Which I am famous for being good at doing.’
Blake cocks an eyebrow at her and laughs back. Oh, Kate feels lucky. She never would have thought her life would be like this, five years ago, when she was lying in a hospital bed, looking at Daisy the way she would have looked at an unexploded bomb. She didn’t dare admit it, but she had been frightened – had felt wholly unequal to the task of looking after this baby through the night, let alone for the rest of their lives. It was as though a fog descended and she must fight her way through it, suffocating in dense, cold air with every breath. Richenda had spotted the postnatal depression early on, and the counselling had, in retrospect, helped, though at the time it had felt, to Kate, like just another fog to fight her way through.
And now she is laughing, and Daisy is happy and well. Kate wonders, briefly, what her life would have been if Mike had lived. Perhaps not much different. He was never going to leave his wife; and, Kate can see now, it would have been a disaster for them all if he had. There would have been a different kind of heartbreak, but she would still have been standing here, five years on, feeling the almost-queasy mix of happiness and old, hard memories that this day always brings.
The party is almost over. The afternoon has passed in a hubbub of chat and laughter. Kate found it easier to join in than she’d anticipated. Reception class has given her some common ground with the other parents, so she is easy in herself as she talks about the children’s tiredness, how strange it is to not know what they are doing all day, how their houses are full of models made from cereal boxes and string.
There are some mothers she avoids, still, but she’s not the only one. Jo refers to Serena, Sarah and Cara as ‘the unholy trinity’, and Kate, who had invited the whole class to the party, was secretly relieved that none of their children could make it.
But in general, she doesn’t often feel like the only child at a dinner party. When the conversations switch to Mr Swanson, though, she has moved to talk to a different group. The humiliation she’d experienced from him two days before still waspish under her skin. Though maybe he was just being professional, like he said. Ramona’s mother asked Kate whether she thought he was handsome; she pretended not to hear, but knew that her blush gave her away.
‘Look at her,’ Kate says. Daisy had changed out of the tasteful, beautiful silver-and-navy party dress that Kate had chosen for her as soon as she’d opened the parcel containing the fairy princess outfit from her granny. (‘Sorry,’ Richenda had said, but both she and Kate knew that she hadn’t meant it. She seems to delight in sequins and sparkles as much as Daisy does. This continually surprises Kate, who is trying to fight the rising tide of pink in her life, and remembers a childhood of navy corduroy coats and shoes chosen by her mother for durability and good sense.)
‘I know. She’s like a dog with two tails.’ Richenda and Blake have also bought Daisy a huge trampoline, installed in their garden for her to come and play on as often as she likes. Daisy is running between that and the bouncy castle that’s been the centrepiece of her party. She has always been encouraged to jump, for the sake of her health; Kate sometimes feels bad that her daughter loves it as much as she does. It’s as though she’s tricking Daisy, and the deception has worked so well that it shames her.
‘Or two dogs with two tails each.’ Hope, Blake’s greyhound, and Beatle, Kate’s beagle, who stayed behind when Kate and Daisy moved to the flat, had been sh
ut in the house while the party went on, out of the way of cake and crisps held at tempting heights, and children and parents nervous of dogs. But now, with all of the parents except Jo gone, and Amelia quite happy around dogs, they have been released and are following each other round the lawn, sniffing up crumbs and tolerating Daisy’s sticky-handed rubbing of their ears. Daisy, Richenda and Wendy are deep in conversation, pointing at the flowerbeds; Jilly approaches Kate.
‘This has been such a lovely afternoon,’ she says. ‘Thank you for inviting us.’
‘Thank you for throwing yourself in,’ Kate says. She’d worried about Jilly at first – she’d arrived in a pale dress and heels, and Kate had wondered if she had ever been to a children’s party, or indeed, ever met a child – but before long she had shucked her shoes and joined in with pass the parcel as enthusiastically as the five-year-olds.
‘It’s good to get to know the people Wendy talks about,’ Jilly says, and as she does so Wendy looks round at them, and an expression of such love passes between the two of them that Kate feels shy, and lonely, and comforted, all at once. ‘Obviously Wendy would never have favourites, but if she did, Daisy would be one of them, for sure.’
Kate smiles; she wants to blurt that she hopes it isn’t because of the CF; that she doesn’t want Daisy to be treated like some child who must be treasured because her life could be shortened by disease. This is why she doesn’t drink much: all the fears she squashes down every day will very easily rise with one glass too many. And Daisy’s birthday isn’t always easy, anyway, with the wondering of how many birthdays Daisy will see, and Kate’s memory of holding her newborn, searching for Mike’s face in the face of his squalling daughter, feeling the beginnings of the claustrophobia that her life was about to become.
‘We’re off.’ Jo approaches, saving Kate from herself – she puts her glass down, before she’s tempted to drink any more. A tired Amelia is held on Jo’s hip. ‘Say thank you for a lovely time, Amelia.’
Nobody's Perfect Page 3
