The Learning Curve

by Melissa Nathan

  Then, just as suddenly as she’d leapt out of her seat, she returned to it, grinning from ear to ear. ‘Now!’ she said, rubbing her hands together. ‘Where were we before that charming little interlude? Ah yes! Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! Did we all have a lovely time meeting our lovely parents?’

  Maybe, thought Nicky, just maybe, Mr Samuels hadn’t had time to complain yet. Too busy at work, probably. She might even have an opportunity to right the wrong before it was too late. Hmm. When would be a good time to confess to bollocking a parent who had come to his first Parents’ Evening in six years? Before, during or after puzzle time?

  To the tinny sound of two hundred pupils singing an unrecognisable hymn, Nicky wished with a childish longing that she could watch Ned stumble over his lines instead of having to stumble over her own. This made her question for the umpteenth time that morning whether she was up to this job. When a sudden explosion of laughter came from the assembly hall, she had to forcibly stop herself from running out to see what had happened.

  Even Miss James looked startled. ‘Ooh!’ she said. ‘It all sounds very exciting in there, doesn’t it?’

  ‘I’m sure Ned’s doing a wonderful job,’ agreed Rob. Nicky nodded with them both, trying hard not to picture something more like the truth, such as his trousers having fallen down.

  ‘Now!’ began Miss James. ‘Have you both managed to squeeze in a little tête-à-tête with your allotted teachers yet?’

  They nodded.

  How did she do it? thought Nicky with grim awe. How did Miss James always manage to make the jobs she gave them sound so inconsequential? ‘Squeezing’ in a ‘little’ chat with their allotted teachers had meant them coming in an hour and a half early, and everyone else coming in at least an hour early, which invariably meant great festering mounds of resentment from those teachers who had been doing Parents’ Evenings since before Nicky and Rob had been out of school themselves. Even Ally had resented it and had turned up late.

  And of course, as usual, there was nothing much to relay, except the usual frustration at the volume of SATS preparation and a perennial, unfounded paranoia that the school was about to instigate a uniform.

  And a parent who was bollocked to within an inch of his life. She waited for Rob to finish his patter while pondering what career she’d have a stab at next. Pottery teacher? Traffic warden? Lollipop lady? She’d be a good lollipop lady. If she played her cards right, she might even get an OBE.

  ‘Nicky? Where are you, my dear? You look miles away!’ Miss James was smiling graciously at her. She wondered what the woman would look like angry. It came as somewhat of a shock to realise that she’d prefer it.

  ‘And what of the notorious Mr Samuels?’ asked Miss James. ‘Did he make an appearance after your charming letter?’

  Nicky decided this was as good a time as any to start a discussion on what had happened the night before.

  ‘Ye-es –’ she started.

  ‘And?’ asked Miss James, agog. ‘And, and, and, and, and?’

  ‘Nothing much to tell, really,’ she said, her voice hollow. ‘But at least he turned up.’

  ‘Well done, my love!’ sang Miss James. ‘Consider yourself congratulated!’ She thrust the biscuit tin under her nose and Nicky took a digestive without any sense of the usual pleasure.

  She sat in silence for the rest of the meeting.

  By noon Mark had opened the bubbly and the office was a mess. After his second glass, he poured himself a cup of water and walked shakily back into his office, shutting the door behind him. Champagne didn’t usually have this effect on him, but then he wasn’t getting any younger. He sat behind his desk and laid his head gently on it. He’d just stay here until bedtime.

  ‘Mark?’ Caroline was standing in the doorway to his office.

  ‘Hm?’ he gazed across the room at his personal assistant.

  She stared pointedly back at him.

  ‘Yes?’ he croaked.

  ‘Mark,’ she whispered, ‘you look absolutely dreadful.’

  ‘I don’t feel that great, actually,’ he whispered. Caroline was seriously alarmed. In Mark Samuels speak that meant he needed hospitalisation.

  ‘Right,’ she said firmly. ‘I’m calling you a taxi.’

  He didn’t have the energy to nod, let alone thank her.

  Nicky couldn’t shake off the feeling that something very bad was going to come out of her argument with Mr Samuels. She wanted to talk to Ally. She needed advice from a teacher who was also a friend. She needed someone else’s take on whether she should confess to Miss James before the inevitable complaint came through. Or should she just act dumb when it did and say that he was overreacting?

  But there was something even more disconcerting about the row than its possible negative repercussions. Mr Samuels’s harsh accusation that she was overcompensating for not having her own children had set her off on a chain of depressing internal questioning. Was she going to end up being like that? After all, what was she actually doing to meet men? How often did she go out? Never. How many new people was she meeting? None. She spent all of her spare time working. And for what? For a job that she might have just thrown away.

  And so she continued in ever-decreasing circles.

  As soon as the gang reconvened at lunch, she asked Ally to come over for dinner that evening. Unfortunately, Ally was busy all week.

  ‘I’ve got a college friend staying,’ she said sadly. ‘Otherwise I’d have loved to. Sorry.’

  ‘What’s up?’ asked Pete.

  ‘I need help,’ admitted Nicky. ‘From a friend who’s also a teacher,’ she said.

  ‘Damn,’ Pete replied. ‘I’ve got football tonight.’

  There was an uncomfortable pause.

  ‘I’ll come,’ said Rob.

  ‘Mm,’ she said, ‘I’m not sure that’s . . . I’m probably not up to it tonight. I’m going to go straight to bed. I’ve still got my headache.’

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll come tomorrow.’

  ‘It’s a three-dayer. A migraine.’

  ‘Right. Friday it is.’

  She gave him a weak smile. He gave her a friendly one back. ‘After all,’ he said, ‘we’re still mates, aren’t we?’

  Nicky nodded and realised the feeling she was experiencing was gratitude. Yes, they were mates. And maybe what she needed was a bloke’s take on it all.

  Three days after Oscar’s Parents’ Evening, Mark had still not been back at work, but at least he felt well enough to phone Lilith.

  ‘You what?’ she cried into the phone. ‘You mean . . . you went? To Parents’ Evening?’

  ‘Yes,’ murmured Mark from the sofa. ‘And I haven’t been able to walk since.’

  ‘You went?’ she repeated. ‘You went? You didn’t send some lackey from your office? You? Went? How did you know where to go?’

  He let out an exasperated sigh. ‘And,’ he repeated, ‘I haven’t been able to walk since.’

  ‘Hold on a minute. How come you’ve got time to phone me from work?’

  ‘I’m not at work. I’m ill. That’s what I’ve been trying to –’

  ‘Jumping Jehovah!’ she cried, which was her latest favourite saying from Daisy. ‘This is Mark Samuels I’m talking to, isn’t it?’

  ‘I had to come home the morning after and I haven’t been in since.’

  There was a lengthy pause.

  ‘I can’t pick up Oscar today,’ she said, her voice suddenly flat. ‘I’m doing a double shift, to help pay for this week’s babysitter. Mum’s picking Daisy up on her bike. Next question?’

  ‘I wasn’t going to ask that – Jesus, you make me sound like I’m always asking favours.’

  ‘You are.’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘Right,’ said Mark. ‘Well then, here’s the last one. Please come over for dinner tomorrow night.’

  ‘That’s the favour?’

  ‘Well, not exactly . . .’

  ‘Oh no! Mark! It hasn’t
come to that, has it?’

  ‘Come to what?’

  ‘Mercy sex?’

  ‘Please. Please,’ he begged her. ‘Shut. Up. The truth is I would very much like to pick your brains.’

  ‘Thank God for that,’ said Lilith, intrigued. ‘You are so not my type.’

  ‘Halle-fucking-lujah,’ he breathed.

  ‘It just so happens that Mum’s not line dancing tomorrow night, so I can manage it.’

  ‘Thanks, Lil.’

  ‘Don’t ever call me that again. It makes me sound like a washerwoman.’ And she hung up.

  It was Friday evening and Nicky was sitting in her lounge, waiting for Rob to arrive.

  ‘Grateful,’ she said aloud to the room. ‘I’m grateful. This is really good of him. He doesn’t have to come in his own time to help me out when I need it. He’s a good mate. After everything, he’s still a good mate. Yes, we’ve kissed in the past, but that’s over. Yes, he’s good-looking, but I’m totally over him. Yes, he was my first love, but . . .’ She stopped. This wasn’t working. She heard the kettle boil in the kitchen and went to put the pasta on.

  Mark switched off the phone and lay back on the sofa. Lilith was getting bitter in her old age. Maybe he should tell her. After all, they were friends and it was a particularly unattractive trait in a woman. Maybe that was why she hadn’t had a boyfriend for years. I mean, he thought, she’s actually trying to imply that I only ever phone her if I need help. He proceeded to mentally argue the case with her, beginning with a list of all the times he’d phoned for a chat, or to see how she was. After a few moments, he turned into a foetal position on the sofa and made a low groaning noise.

  Rob stood outside Nicky’s door waiting to be let in. He had never, in all his life, been in this position before. He genuinely had absolutely no idea where tonight would lead. Would they end up in the kitchen again? If so, would he be thrown out again? Or were they really just going to talk? Wow, he thought, as he waited for her to open the front door. This must be how the other half lives. When Nicky opened the front door, he used his tightly honed skills to appraise the situation within seconds.

  Mixed signals. Didn’t have a clue.

  He followed her up the stairs. She was wearing a faded tracksuit and her hair was in a loose plait down her back. There were dark shadows under her eyes and her lips were pale. Two bowls of pasta lay on the coffee table in the lounge.

  He flung some flowers on to the empty two-seater.

  ‘Saw these on the way,’ he said. ‘Thought you needed cheering up.’

  ‘Oh, thanks! That’s so sweet!’ She picked up the flowers.

  ‘Sweet,’ he thought. ‘Sweet.’ Shit.

  She smiled up at him, gave him a peck on the cheek, and squeezed past him out of the room. She smelt of rose petals. He watched her bottom as she walked into the kitchen. He reconsidered. She must know how good she looks in that tracksuit, he decided. Those were unnecessarily tight tracksuit bottoms.

  Oh yes, he thought. The tracksuit was a double bluff.

  ‘I’ll just put these in water!’ she called out from the kitchen. He stood for a moment and then suddenly followed her, only to be met by her at the kitchen door. They both jumped, him higher because she was pointing a corkscrew at him.

  OK. It wasn’t going to be the kitchen this time. Maybe she felt more comfortable in the lounge . . .

  ‘Oh!’ she said. ‘Did you want a cold drink? I thought a nice bottle of wine would be a good idea. I know I need it.’

  ‘Perfect,’ he said as they wandered back into the lounge.

  Oh yeah, baby, he heard that one loud and clear. Dutch courage for the little lady.

  She sat close to him on the two-seater. Bring it on, he thought.

  Then she crossed her legs in front of him, hunched over them and let out a long sigh.

  Hmm, he thought. Certainly not textbook. And very defensive body language. He couldn’t get past those legs if he tried.

  ‘Do you mind doing the honours?’ she asked, passing him the corkscrew and fluttering her eyelashes faux-coyly at him, traces of a soft blush creeping up her neck.

  ‘My pleasure.’ He smiled.

  He heard her sigh and felt her eyes bore into his back as he opened the wine beside her. He tried to imagine what he looked like to her – his hands were large and agile and he opened the wine with no trouble, on just the second attempt. He poured it slowly and carefully into the wine glasses, then turned to her with a practised smile and found her daydreaming out of the window.

  She turned and gave him a faint smile. Their fingers touched. She sighed again, louder this time, and stretched her head back, exposing a smooth, almost luminous neck.

  He gulped down the wine.

  ‘Help yourself to whatever you want,’ she murmured.

  ‘Thanks,’ he murmured back, trying to put the wine glass back on the table without taking his eyes off her.

  She looked back up. ‘Sorry it’s only pasta.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘I’m just so exhausted I didn’t have the energy to do anything more fussy. I feel like I’m about seventy. I feel . . . spent. Totally and utterly spent.’

  OK, he heard that one loud and clear. Not tonight, Josephine. He was almost relieved. He was beginning to feel a bit tired himself.

  So he was rather surprised when she then slowly shuffled sideways, moved up, and leant towards him, resting her head on his shoulder.

  Mark stared at Lilith across the kitchen table in disbelief. He must have misheard her. There was no way she’d have said that. Especially after the meal he’d just made. He asked her, in a calm, steady voice, to repeat herself.

  ‘You heard,’ she replied, just as calmly and steadily.

  ‘What the hell do you mean by that?’ he asked.

  ‘I mean exactly what I said,’ she said. ‘It was about bloody time someone told you the truth. It should have been a friend, but it happened to be her.’

  ‘I don’t think you could have heard me right. That uptight little bitch accused me of – she . . . she said “poppycock”, for Christ’s sake.’

  ‘I know, Mark. I heard every single word. And she’s right.’

  ‘I thought we were friends,’ he whispered.

  ‘No.’ She shook her head sadly. ‘I haven’t been much of a friend to you. I’ve been helping you disguise your problem instead of helping you get out of it.’

  ‘What problem?’

  ‘If I was a real friend, I’d have said all that years ago.’

  ‘You have!’ cried Mark. ‘You threatened to put him out on the street the other day.’

  ‘Yeah, but I always got angry on behalf of me or Daisy. But the real one who’s been suffering was Oscar. And he has been for years. And I’ve never actually said it.’

  ‘Oh Jesus,’ he muttered. ‘Not you too.’

  ‘You only have one chance with kids, Mark. And that’s it. Then they’re gone.’

  He shivered suddenly.

  ‘I also think,’ Lilith was now speaking in a gentle whisper, ‘that you know – deep down – that she’s hit the nail on the head. You have fucked up big time. You’ve completely failed Oscar as a father. And that is massive.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Which is why,’ she continued, ‘your body is purging out all the shit that you’ve been in denial about since Helen died. ’Cos you hate to get things wrong, ’cos you’re a perfectionist. But you’ve been doing the wrong thing perfectly.’

  Mark closed his eyes and hung his head down.

  His mouth formed the word ‘Poppycock’, but no sound came out.

  ‘There, there,’ Rob comforted Nicky, shifting so that he could put his arm round her without giving himself a hernia. ‘What’s all this, eh?’

  She moved away stiffly. ‘God, I’m really sorry,’ she sniffed. ‘I can’t stop crying.’

  ‘That’s all right by me. Here,’ he poured some more wine in her glass. She drank it down.

  ‘I – I . . .’ Sh
e drank some more wine.

  He waited.

  ‘I feel,’ she said with some difficulty, ‘like I’m waiting for something . . . monumental . . . to happen in my life.’

  Rob stared at the two freckles on her upper lip and slowly leant in towards her.

  ‘Something awful,’ she continued. ‘Something terrible. Something catastrophically bad.’

  He leant back.

  ‘And I just felt,’ she said, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand, ‘that I needed to get it off my chest or I’d end up vomiting it up or something.’

  He let out a long sigh and poured himself another wine.

  ‘Shoot,’ he said.

  Mark and Lilith moved slowly into the living room, so that Mark could lie down. He needed to be horizontal.

  ‘So, let me get this right,’ he said slowly, from the day-bed. ‘On Hallowe’en, Miss Hobbs made you hot chocolate because you happened to be in her flat when I texted Osc to say I wasn’t coming?’

  ‘Yep,’ sighed Lilith. ‘And toast with jam and butter. And that was when she asked me, quietly and out of the kids’ earshot, where you were.’

  He grimaced. ‘And what did you say?’

  Lilith shrugged. ‘What was I supposed to say? I told her you were still at work. Again.’

  Mark stared at her. ‘You didn’t think,’ he said slowly, ‘to tell Oscar’s form teacher that I was helping starving kids in Africa –’

  ‘Why the fuck should I lie for you, Mark?’ She sat up on the sofa indignantly.

  ‘Yeah, you’re right. Sorry.’

  ‘And the fact that you said that shows that you know damn well that being at work is a shitty excuse not to go to your child’s Parents’ Evening.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he murmured, shaking his head. ‘Fuck,’ he whispered to himself.

  There was a pause. Lilith looked at her watch before downing her glass of wine.