So not only would there be a new Reception class teacher to welcome to Heatheringdown this term, but there would be a bit of politics to add a touch of excitement to the proceedings. Nicky wondered if the teacher might be male. They could do with some more men in the staffroom.
By the time she had returned there after playing with her interactive whiteboard, the entire staff of Heatheringdown Primary had arrived. Which meant seven teachers and five assistants were fighting over the kettle, folding themselves into chairs, and, with their knees now somewhere near their eyes, describing their holidays and making the same jokes about how glad they were to be back at school. And one new – female – Reception teacher was pretending it was fun.
Nicky looked round the room. Her older sister, Claire, had once told her that ninety per cent of marriages started as office romances. Whenever she thought of this statistic, Nicky wondered where the other ten per cent met their match. Wherever it was, she would have to start going there soon. Out of the seven full-time teachers here, only three were men. One was Ned and the other two were Pete and Rob.
Pete was great, of course, but he was not what you could call boyfriend material. His frame was slight, bordering on petite, at little over five foot six, and in some trousers it looked as if he had no bottom at all. Ally and Nicky often wondered if it hurt him to sit down. His features seemed to have been painted on with the thinnest of paintbrushes. Delicate eyelashes framed soft blue eyes, the finest of lips curved around small, even teeth. Were he a woman, every man he ever met would have wanted to protect him. As a man he was invisible. He was Rob’s best mate, right-hand man and all-round good laugh.
Rob, though, was something else altogether. Everyone knew that Rob Pattison, teacher of Year 5, the nine- and ten-year-olds, was the best-looking guy in the whole school. It was one of those things that just went without saying. It mostly went without saying because the other thing that went without saying was that Rob Pattison knew he was the best-looking guy in the school. In fairness to him, it would have been hard for him not to know. Apart from the way women reacted to him, there were always mirrors. Rob was tall, dark, broad and handsome.
To anyone who did not know Rob and Nicky’s history, which meant everyone except Ally and Pete, it appeared that Nicky was the only woman in the school who had been given a Rob Pattison vaccine. (‘One short sharp prick and then it was all over’ had been a favourite staffroom joke during their first year at the school.) And she was also the only attractive woman who escaped the Rob Radar; that is, he refused to treat her as a potential notch on his bedpost, but rather as a close and respected friend and confidante.
To anyone who did know their history, such as Ally and Pete, it sometimes appeared that Nicky and Rob were simply taking a sabbatical from a relationship that had begun – and ended all too precipitously – seven years ago, and they would one day slip back into it as comfortably as if they were slipping on an old sock.
‘You’d better be careful,’ Ally warned Nicky once, after an entire lunch-break of raucous flirting. ‘People will talk.’
‘Oh don’t be ridiculous!’ laughed Nicky lightly. ‘It’s just friendly banter. He’s like a brother.’
‘If I looked at my brother like that,’ muttered Ally, eyeing her gravely, ‘my parents would call social services.’
The plain, and sometimes uncomfortable, truth was that Nicky and Rob did have a colourful history – and not an ancient Greek sort of history; more a post-Blair-to-present-day sort of history – which gave their friendship that special glow. Unfortunately, the other plain fact was that it had been Rob who had ended it.
And the problem with that was (as Nicky often reminded Ally) that when you weren’t the one to finish a relationship, the general assumption made by everyone was always that, given the choice, you would still be in it. But plain facts don’t always tell the whole story. Yes, technically, Rob had been the one to finish their six-month-long affair, just two weeks after Nicky’s twenty-third birthday, all those years ago. Yes, at the time she had thought her life might as well end. Yes, at the time she had thought she would never find love again and might as well give up her dreams of ever getting married and having a family.
But that was a long, long time ago. Seven years! A lifetime! And she was a very different person now. In fact, as a happy thirty-year-old career woman, she now sometimes wondered gratefully if she had subconsciously, all those years ago, pushed him into finishing what she knew, deep down, was fundamentally a terminally flawed relationship.
After all, at only twenty-three, there she’d been, telling the college Romeo whom she adored (and who had fallen so dramatically in love with her that he’d chased her for a whole year and then stayed faithful for the longest period of his entire life) that if he couldn’t promise to marry her this side of twenty-five and provide her with the babies she so desperately yearned for, there was frankly no future for them. How could she have known that instead of dropping to his knees and proposing, he would spend a week ignoring her calls and then chuck her? Fickle, fickle boy! After all those wonderfully worded declarations of adoration! After such exquisite nights and mornings of love-making! After swapping favourite books (with his grave assurances not to break the spine) and pencilling secret notes in the margins! What girl could possibly have predicted such an outcome?
Yet here again, the facts do not reveal the whole story, because he ended their relationship so beautifully that she almost believed that his heart was breaking more than hers. Almost. He broke down and wept. He told her that she deserved more. He confessed that he wasn’t the man for her because he never, ever wanted to marry or have children. His own parents’ doomed relationship had put paid to that. He told her that it was because he loved her so much that he couldn’t let her waste the best years of her life with a man who ultimately could not give her what she wanted. He told her that he had loved her more than any other woman in his life. (And he’d had a gap year, so was talking from experience.) He told her he would never forget her. And he made her promise that they must always remain friends. It was a chucking that left her shell-shocked and traumatised, but not ashamed. She lost no respect in its recounting.
Even more amazingly, they did manage to remain friends. So successfully, in fact, that when four years later, both of them fully trained teachers with some experience behind them, Rob heard about two jobs coming available at the same school, he gave Nicky all the details, they both applied, and were thrilled to start work together at the same time. And so, three years ago, they joined Heatheringdown as bosom buddies, and soon her friendship with Ally and his with Pete formed a tight-knit foursome.
Over the years since their relationship had ended, Nicky couldn’t help noticing that while Rob had had many flings and one-night stands, he had never started another relationship. She herself had made a couple of attempts, but they didn’t last long. During these, Rob had always maintained a keen interest in their outcome, but he never seemed too alarmed. However, it was always during these relationships that his gentle teasing began. He would drop into conversation how his mind was slowly changing over the issue of children; did she catch that programme last night about adoption? Wasn’t that little girl cute – she almost made him want to be a dad! He wondered what kind of children she’d have – adorable ones with ringlets and dimples, etc. etc.
In fact, due to unhelpful comments like these and the easy, good-natured fun of their post-relationship friendship, if Nicky was really deeply honest with herself – and it usually took the imbibing of a certain amount of wine for that to happen – she could not answer one simple question. A simple, yet worrying question: If Rob asked her out again, would she say ‘No’ or ‘Yes’?
On the side of ‘No’ there were many solid, stout arguments. Seven years on she had far more reservations about him as partner material than she had had in her inexperienced early twenties. Back then his relentless sexual conquests made him appear lusty and passionate, now they just made him seem cynical and jad
ed. She also found his choice of lifestyle deeply unattractive. He had chosen almost a decade of empty one-night stands instead of a purposeful, loving life with a woman he’d loved (if indeed he’d been telling the truth) and who had loved him. From the string of affairs he’d gone on to enjoy after her, and still energetically pursued, it was abundantly clear that their priorities in life were directly opposed to each other. She wondered now, looking back at the 23-year-old Rob, how he had even managed to stay faithful to her for six long months – if, in fact, he had.
But it wasn’t only that. She’d noticed over the years that what masqueraded as laddish behaviour was actually more akin to a cruel streak. He broke hearts with as little regret as other people broke eggs. He could tease someone till they cried. And he could freeze anyone out with a single look. He was perceptive, sharp-witted and clever, but sometimes he used these attractive qualities as weapons. Just because he hadn’t done it to Nicky (recently) didn’t make it less forgivable, just easier to defend.
Then there were his looks. She genuinely didn’t find him as devastatingly handsome as she used to. Yes, he was still good-looking, but somehow his looks had moved away from what had first drawn her to him. She had fallen for the skinny lope of a little-boy-lost and the uneven shoulders of his self-conscious, Jimmy Dean stance. Now that he had broadened out and held himself squarely towards the world he’d lost that boyish uncertainty that used to reduce her to tingling mush with a single glance.
So while the facts were that he had been the chucker and she the chuckee, the truth was that she genuinely sometimes thought that she had made a lucky escape. In fact, it was terrifying to contemplate what might have happened had they settled down together so young.
In her most lucid moments, she felt indebted to him for making such a mature and prescient decision about their lives at a time when she’d been blinded by the promise of a happy-ever-after cloud-cuckoo-land ending. And thanks to the sharp focus of hindsight, after spending half a decade watching the post-happy-ever-after ending of friends – and of course, her sister, who had married young and started sprogging almost immediately – she knew that many were now unhappy with their lot. Yes, she may sometimes envy them their beautiful children, but she could never say that she envied them their lives. So thanks to his decision, here she was, a happy, fulfilled thirty-year-old who hadn’t wasted the best years of her life on the wrong man, who had a career that fulfilled her and promised her a future of satisfaction, and who had all the excitement of love and marriage still to come, instead of firmly behind her.
What, then, could be the arguments for her saying ‘Yes’ to him? She had two theories: One was that it just so happened that with all her other relationships, pre- and post-Rob, she had always been the one to end things. But because Rob had got in there first with her, she’d been robbed of ever really knowing what would have happened if he hadn’t. Would she have been the one to finish it, albeit three years later, or would they have four beautiful children, a golden retriever and two guinea pigs by now? She was stuck in the perennially inconclusive limbo of the chuckee, living for evermore with an emotional scar that would never be allowed to fully heal because someone else had done the stitches with half an eye on the exit.
And so, when she and Ally had sometimes shared more wine than was wise on a school night, she had been known to explain her wickedly wild revenge plan of manipulating Rob to ask her out again, just to prove that she could say a final ‘No’ and was therefore Completely Over Him.
Ally always vehemently disagreed with this crackpot theory.
‘No!’ she would shout, shaking her head firmly and, depending on how much wine had been drunk, thumping her fist on the table. ‘You’d be proving exactly the opposite if you did that!’
‘How come?’
‘Because if you spend your life trying to get him interested just so you can reject him then you’re proving that you’re not over him, aren’t you?’
‘I’m not spending my life doing it!’ Nicky would shriek.
‘Seven years!’ Ally would explode.
‘I just want to know!’ Nicky would explode back.
‘But that’s the whole point! If you were completely over him, you wouldn’t need to, would you? You wouldn’t care!’
‘Yes I would!’ Nicky would shout. ‘I’m just like that.’
‘Like what? A glutton for punishment?’
‘No! An organised person. I need everything neat and orderly. I need to close the book. I need to shut the drawer. I need nothing unanswered. I need closure.’
‘You need help,’ was Ally’s usual response. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I love Rob, but he is not The One. You’d have children with him and then wonder why they look like every other child in North London. He’s probably sired fifty children already. He just doesn’t know about it.’
‘Bleagh,’ was Nicky’s only response to that. ‘What a lucky escape.’
‘Exactly,’ Ally would usually conclude. ‘Where’s the corkscrew?’
Nicky’s other theory as to why she might say ‘Yes’ (and this was one she never admitted to anyone, not even Ally) was far more worrying, and tended to strike late at night when she was on her own. This theory was that all her stout, solid answers explaining why she’d say ‘No’ were mere subterfuge. She protested too much. She was a one-man woman and the man for her was Rob. And the only real reason she was happy being friends with him was because friendship was all he was offering. Should he ever ask her out, she’d drop like a fly; his easiest conquest yet. Whenever these terrifying thoughts occurred, spiralling her into doubt and confusion, she would force herself to imagine Ally’s response and slowly talk herself back to sanity.
Thank goodness for Ally. Ally kept Nicky sane – and that was saying something. Ally had the soul of an angel, the wit of a US sitcom writer and the patience of a saint. She was, after Nicky, the favourite teacher in the school. All the kids loved her. Unfortunately, all her wonderful qualities were packaged in a body a bull terrier would be proud of. Ally had shoulders Pete would die for. To say that her body was barrel-shaped would be to slight a barrel. It was only on closer inspection that one noticed the warmth in her eyes and the dimple in her smiling cheek, or heard her contagious laugh.
When Nicky had returned to the staffroom, the others were in the usual corner by the lockers. Rob was leaning against them, looking everything like the school stud. Pete and Ally were studying the new Reception teacher, Martha.
‘I’d say seven out of ten,’ commented Pete.
‘Hmm,’ replied Rob. ‘More a four.’
‘Yeah, well,’ tutted Pete, ‘not all of us can afford your standards.’
Ally frowned and gave them both a look. ‘Do you have any idea how offensive you’re being?’ she asked. ‘Reducing a woman to a number, based on your narrow little Western aesthetic ideal?’
‘Of course!’ replied Pete, without taking his eyes off the girl. ‘How else am I supposed to feel superior?’
Ally looked at him and shrugged. ‘Your Xbox score?’
He looked at her. ‘Hey. Don’t knock my second-favourite hobby.’
They continued to watch Martha for a while. This was Martha’s first full-time job. She was a bit nervous, very smiley and very young. She drank her instant coffee and listened to everyone’s jokes with a smiling sadness, as if all the fun in her life had ended. Meanwhile, everyone showed her the full extent of their dullness by being genuinely excited to have her there.
‘You’ll get used to us all soon,’ Ned, Year 3’s teacher, kept telling her, like a proud elder owl.
‘Oh yes,’ said Gwen, Year 2’s teacher, nodding firmly. ‘And all our silly little quirks. I suppose it’s a bit like your first day at school.’
They all laughed uproariously at this because, they explained, it was her first day at school, and then, when Gwen realised what she’d said, they all laughed again.
Nicky tried looking at them through Martha’s eyes and realised that the staff, as a whol
e, were very depressing. When had she stopped noticing this? She decided it was probably as long as a year ago, and felt suddenly despondent. Then she remembered ER was on tonight and cheered up. She caught Rob’s eye and they shared a small, private grin. As she flicked her eyes away, she caught Amanda’s eye, on the other side of the staffroom. She chose to smile widely at her. It was a mistake because Amanda saw this as a green light and came to join them.
As she crossed the staffroom to approach the gang, Nicky tried to look away from Amanda’s glossy black mane but couldn’t. Long, straight, thick hair the colour of ebony framed Amanda’s face. As if that wasn’t enough, she was tall and willowy with a year-round tan and legs up to her armpits. All the men pretended they didn’t fancy Amanda because that would make them look obvious. But they did. And all the women pretended not to hate her because that would make them look pathetic. But they did.
For some reason unknown to anyone, Rob, while thoroughly enjoying everything about Amanda’s charms and their happy effect on him, always stopped just short of doing anything about it. He would play the Rob game with her, flirting, teasing, working her up into a crescendo of expectation and then, nothing. Maybe it was because he was getting older. Maybe it was because he was saving that conquest for a special day. Maybe it was because she had the sense of humour of a stick. Or because she rarely opened her mouth without saying something unpleasant about someone. Or because the gang ripped the piss out of her so mercilessly that the peer pressure was too much, even for him. Amanda had tried gamely to penetrate the gang, but had always failed. Possibly because most of the gang knew that she was only after one thing.
The Learning Curve Page 2
