The Learning Curve

by Melissa Nathan

  ‘So, go on then,’ he said suddenly. ‘How did she react?’

  ‘Funnily enough, she wasn’t that impressed, as I recall.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you recall right. She was not impressed. She was most unimpressed. Oh yes,’ he said bitterly. ‘Miss Hobbs was most unimpressed.’

  ‘As was I.’

  ‘Miss Hobbs, prim Little Miss School-ma’am, was unimpressed.’

  ‘As was I.’

  ‘But she doesn’t understand how it works in the city. You don’t get anywhere if you’re half-hearted about your career. It doesn’t –’

  ‘Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,’ cut in Lilith, holding her hands over her ears.

  Mark frowned at her.

  ‘Oh don’t be –’ he started.

  ‘Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah –’

  ‘Oh, grow up –’

  He stopped and there was a long, heavy silence before he spoke again.

  ‘Blah,’ he whispered, closing his eyes before they filled too much.

  Rob stroked Nicky’s hair out of her face and kissed her gently on her forehead.

  ‘Of course you’re not going to lose your job,’ he soothed her.

  ‘But maybe I should,’ sniffed Nicky. She moved slightly away and stared at him. ‘Then I could focus on what’s staring me in the face.’

  He stared into her face.

  Then he leant in.

  ‘If –’ started Nicky.

  He leant out.

  ‘If I ask you a really important question, will you promise to answer me truthfully?’

  ‘God, yes,’ he said firmly.

  ‘Rob?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘You know you said, when we got our promotion, that you were changing your mind about wanting kids?’

  He held his breath. He gave a brief nod.

  ‘Tell me,’ she continued, ‘do you think it’s possible for a woman to have a good career as well as a family?’

  ‘Of course.’

  She nodded. ‘OK, take it one step further. If you had a baby with a successful career woman – a theoretical successful career woman – who loved her job and was good at it, would you expect her to give up work to be with the baby?’

  He blinked at her. Fucking hell. They hadn’t discussed babies since . . . well, since . . . Shit, this was big. Keep calm. He’d completely misjudged it last time. Think. She’s changed now. She’s a successful career woman. But she still wants kids. Talk about the million-dollar question. It was tricky, but it wasn’t impossible. She probably didn’t know the right answer herself. Sweat beaded his forehead. If he got this right, they could be shagging within minutes.

  ‘No-o,’ he said finally. ‘Of course not. Unless, of course, y-she wanted to be a full-time mother, which would be absolutely fine with me . . . you know, fantastic.’

  ‘So . . . deep down you would want her to?’

  ‘N-nooo. I didn’t say that.’

  ‘So you’d want her to work?’

  ‘No-oh. I’d want her to be happy –’

  ‘More than you’d want the baby to be happy?’

  ‘No! I’d want the baby and her to be happy.’

  ‘But you’d see it as her responsibility – not yours – to change her life to keep the baby happy.’

  ‘I think,’ answered Rob slowly, ‘deep down, that she’d probably see it as her responsibility.’

  ‘Well, of course she would,’ answered Nicky, ‘she’s been socialised to think that’s her role, whether she’s naturally maternal or not.’

  ‘Right, yeah.’

  Shit, she’d changed. Think, man, think.

  ‘If she did want to be with her babies,’ she continued, ‘and wanted to keep up her career, then what?’

  ‘Um.’ Rob had lost concentration. He poured himself more wine.

  ‘Would you like her to work part-time?’ suggested Nicky.

  ‘Yes!’ he cried. ‘Brilliant! Part-time! Perfect! Absolutely perfect. Win-win! Everyone’s happy!’

  ‘Which would, of course,’ mused Nicky, ‘ruin any of her long-term career ambitions, thus preventing her from being any kind of threat to your masculinity.’

  ‘Um . . . right . . . well . . .’

  ‘It’s all so confusing, isn’t it?’

  ‘Fuck, yes.’

  ‘I mean, what is the right answer?’

  ‘Bugger me.’

  ‘Sometimes I wonder if the last generation didn’t get it right. No questions asked: father worked, mother looked after the kids.’

  ‘Yeah,’ murmured Rob, relaxing slightly. ‘Father got the best armchair, kids in bed before he got home, female teachers left if they got married. I mean – obviously, that’s appalling.’

  ‘And of course a whole generation of mothers were depressed, angry and unfulfilled and took it out on the children who’d ruined their lives.’

  ‘Shit. Yes –’

  ‘But on the other hand, at least they knew what lay ahead for them. Everything was so certain in those days.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Still. It must have been hell. A life of making sacrifices. Inevitable depression. Isolation. Bitterness. Resentment. Watching their self-esteem seep away while their men got on with their lives.’

  ‘Well . . . I wouldn’t go that far. It wasn’t a piece of cake for the men either. Same job for forty years. Mortgage, wife and kids to support.’

  Nicky looked at him. ‘Kudos, respect, money, companionship, illicit affairs.’

  ‘But it didn’t work out well for all of them. I mean – no . . .’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And life’s not a piece of cake for us now.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Well,’ pondered Rob. ‘OK, just for example, just plucking it out of the air. You and I certainly wouldn’t be sharing a job.’

  ‘No, you’re right,’ agreed Nicky. ‘I’d be stuck at home ironing your shirts.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘I mean, hypothetically.’

  ‘While I’d be providing for you.’

  She gave him a look.

  ‘Hypothetically,’ he added.

  ‘I would hate to have someone providing for me,’ she muttered.

  He spoke softly. ‘And I’ve got someone to do my shirts.’

  They stared at each other. OK. He was back on track.

  ‘I suppose,’ said Nicky thoughtfully, ‘we’re in the dark together. I mean, men and women.’ She smiled. ‘On the same learning curve together.’

  He nodded, leaning in. ‘Sometimes that’s nice,’ he murmured.

  ‘I hate it,’ said Nicky firmly. ‘I need to be in control.’

  He leant out again. ‘But you’re completely in control, Nix,’ he whispered. ‘Even when you don’t think you are.’

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘You always have been.’ His voice was low.

  ‘I feel totally out of my depth. I don’t know what’s going to happen next.’

  ‘Well, just wait and see,’ he murmured again, leaning in. ‘You might get a pleasant surprise.’ He moved his arm to turn off the lamp.

  ‘God, no,’ she said fiercely. ‘I hate surprises.’

  Rob went limp. He rested a hand on her knee and looked seriously at her. ‘Nix,’ he whispered, ‘I’m too old for this shit.’

  She returned his gaze. ‘Oh my God,’ she whispered. ‘I was just about to say that. I know exactly what you mean.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Yeah. Sometimes I feel . . .’

  ‘Yes? What?’

  ‘Old. Really old.’

  He stared at her. ‘Well, I certainly do tonight,’ he said.

  She blinked in surprise. ‘Why tonight?’

  He snorted. ‘I love you to bits, but you’re doing my head in.’

  She frowned hard. ‘I’m doing your head in?’ she repeated faintly.

  ‘Sweetheart, don’t take this the wrong way . . . but you send such mixed messages I don’t know whether to jump you
r bones or run for the hills.’

  Nicky’s eyes were saucers. He held his breath. This was the moment. Make-or-break time.

  ‘Do help me out here, Rob,’ she said softly. ‘But what’s the right way to take that?’

  Oh dear. He had a moment to put it all right again.

  ‘No!’ he said suddenly, with almost ferocious certainty. ‘I would not make a successful career woman give up work.’

  Nicky’s voice was ice. ‘Well, whoop-de-fucking-doo for her.’

  ‘Oh for fuck’s sake!’ he wailed, a sob escaping.

  ‘You told me we were friends –’

  ‘Oh don’t give me that “friends” shit . . .’ His voice trailed off. ‘You prick-tease me for three years,’ he began, ‘then finally launch yourself at me in your kitchen.’

  ‘I did not launch –’

  ‘Then, just when you’ve worked me up to a crescendo, you throw me out of your flat –’

  ‘Right.’ She stood up. ‘I think –’

  ‘Then you get me round for dinner –’

  ‘You offered to help me –’

  ‘Spray on a tracksuit –’

  ‘Wha –?’

  ‘Try to get me drunk –’

  ‘I did not try to –’

  ‘And start a poor little girl “Oh help me!” act –’

  He stopped and looked at her face. It was a picture. Unfortunately, it was a really angry picture.

  ‘Oh shit,’ he groaned as he collapsed back on the sofa.

  ‘That’s right, Rob,’ she said coolly. ‘My life is all about you getting your end away.’

  ‘Oh come on, Nix –’

  ‘Rob, answer me this. If the governors found out about us snogging, whose job would be on the line? Whose reputation would be tarnished and whose would be improved? How many governors are female and how many are male?’

  ‘What?’ cried Rob. ‘Don’t try and turn this into something political. That stuff went out with the ark.’

  ‘Bollocks!’

  ‘Haven’t you heard of post-feminism?’ He was shouting now.

  ‘Oh, is that what they’re calling it in Nuts this week?’ So was she.

  ‘I don’t read that crap, Nicky, and you know it.’

  ‘Really? Because you sounded just like a reader’s letter back then.’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘Right,’ said Rob eventually. ‘I hear you loud and clear. Let’s just never bring us up ever again.’

  ‘Right,’ Nicky took stock. It would probably not be a good idea to slap him. She still had to work with him. ‘Yep,’ she managed. ‘Let’s just try and forget any of it ever happened, and act like adults.’

  ‘Right,’ said Rob. ‘Adults.’ There was silence for a moment, before he said quietly, ‘So. It’s actually quite nice to know where we stand finally.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’re never going to have sex ever again.’

  He felt the sudden tension in the air around him and made sure not to glance up at her. Genius. Absolute fucking genius.

  ‘Bye, Rob,’ she said quietly.

  He got out, trying not to smile that she hadn’t answered his last point.

  12

  DURING HER DRIVE into school on Monday morning, Nicky wondered how on earth she had got herself into this situation. Just last week everything had been completely normal. Now she was waiting for a complaint from the parent of her favourite pupil and she and Rob had finally admitted that their years of flirting were officially over. She could barely concentrate enough to apply her make-up, let alone make right turns.

  But she kept finding that there was something more tenuous about her low mood. After much soul-seeking, she worked out that she had lost hope. Every morning since she’d seen Him at the fireworks display, she’d woken up to the sure knowledge that somewhere out there was a man who made her insides go fizz. Every single day was backlit by a golden ray of hope, and now that had vanished. That man didn’t exist. She was alone again.

  Fortunately, Rob didn’t appear in the staffroom that morning. Unfortunately, Ally and Pete did.

  ‘Did Rob manage to help you out on Friday?’ asked Ally. They hadn’t shared their usual Sunday breakfast due to Ally’s college friend staying over.

  Nicky glanced at Pete. He had an easy, open expression. She decided Rob hadn’t told him his version of Friday night. Yet.

  ‘Yeah, I think so,’ she said. She’d tell Ally what had happened later.

  She found Rob, as she had suspected, already in Miss James’s office. He was sitting at her desk humming. Behind him, at the puzzle table, Ned was sitting staring miserably at a patchy Europe. He looked considerably worse than Rob, who looked fine. Absolutely fine. What had she expected? Had she expected him to be a broken man? Because he wasn’t.

  She paused in the doorway and he glanced up. There was a fraction of a pause, then he gave her a quick raise of the eyebrows and a small but definite smile. Then he glanced away, just before saying hello. He would obviously have to work up to keeping eye contact and speaking to her at the same time. But at least he was trying.

  Right, thought Nicky. He’d done his bit, now it was her turn. She came into the room and started saying something vague about her journey in. Luckily she was interrupted before she had to come to anything approaching a full or meaningful sentence.

  ‘Nativity Plays!’ came a wild exclamation from behind them. They turned to see Miss James’s entrance. ‘Can you believe it’s that time of year again?’ she said, as she paced past them both and sat down behind her desk.

  A downhearted sigh came from behind them at the puzzle desk.

  Rob launched happily into his ideas for this year and Nicky watched, hardly noticing Ned’s increasingly loud sighs from the puzzle table punctuating Rob’s soliloquy. As Rob eagerly discussed his pupils’ contribution to the Christmas play, she found his seeming indifference to their squabble last night rather attractive.

  Which worried her greatly.

  But what worried her more was Rob’s sudden revolutionary idea that, this year, Year 6 could start a new tradition of putting on an ironic, updated nativity play with their own script, including modern references, as a treat for being the top class of the entire school. After her initial shock, Nicky attempted to include Year 5 in it, but Rob said that would complicate timetable issues and prevent it from being a specific treat for having got to the top of the school. Was this revenge for Friday night? She wanted to kill him. Maybe it would have been simpler just to shag him.

  After usual business, which included the resignation of the bursar, a row between two dinner ladies and a new timetable issue, Rob and Nicky were allowed to join Ned at the puzzle table. Half an hour later, the three of them walked down the corridor wordlessly. Nicky needed time before she broached the subject of a Year 6 ironic, newly scripted nativity play with Rob in private, otherwise the only words would be blasphemous ones, which seemed somehow inappropriate.

  At lunch-time, she completed a hundred errands, but when she had finished them all, she found herself with a full fifteen minutes to herself. She texted Ally, but Ally was working with one of her pupils. So she decided to pop into the staffroom.

  She found Rob and Amanda having a quiet tête-à-tête on the only two-seater, while Ned chatted on the phone to his wife about houmous with cream cheese. She decided to bite the bullet and join Rob and Amanda, and after flicking on the kettle, wandered over. As she arrived by them, neither of them acknowledged her presence, but continued with their animated chat. She was surprised how hard it was to be furious with someone who was ignoring you. She pretended not to notice and sat beside them, already seeking only a greeting from Rob instead of a heartfelt apology. After a while, she picked up the trade paper on the table in front of them and flicked through it. As she did so, it dawned on her that this was what Amanda must have felt like every time the gang had ignored her. She promised herself that she’d be nicer to the girl in future, however much she detested her.r />
  Then Amanda laughed loudly, told Rob that she had to get on with some photocopying, touched him lightly on the thigh, got up and walked away. Rob brazenly watched her bottom leave the room.

  ‘She’s always photocopying, that one,’ said Nicky, as soon as her bottom had left.

  Rob didn’t answer.

  ‘Do you think she ever does any actual teaching?’ she tried again.

  He looked at her as if he’d only just noticed she was sitting there.

  ‘Yes,’ he said before getting up and leaving the room.

  Nicky sat mute for a moment, motionless apart from her chest which had to work extra hard to breathe, her fingernails which bore into her palms, and the two fine lines of steam escaping from her ears.

  As the day wore on, the more she thought about Rob the more she wanted to race into his classroom and hurl a blackboard rubber at his face in front of all his kids. That was just one of the many tragic losses that had come with the introduction of new technology in the classroom. Interactive whiteboard cloths just didn’t cause as much damage to the face as good old-fashioned blackboard rubbers. Maybe she could suggest Rob reintroduce them as part of his Progressive Yet Traditional ethos.

  Such thoughts helped her get through the day.

  At a quarter to three that afternoon, she still hadn’t been called to Miss James’s office to face a livid Mr Samuels brandishing a subpoena in her face. She was so relieved by this that at the end of the afternoon, she decided to give her kids a treat and ask them to talk about their weekend. Children always loved to talk about themselves and it gave a fantastic insight into their home lives.

  She looked around the room as every single child fought to put their hands up higher than everyone else.

  ‘Matthew,’ she said to the boy sitting next to Oscar, causing all the other hands to go down. ‘What did you get up to?’

  ‘I went to Hampton Court and it was brilliant and they’ve got a maze there which I went in with my dad and my sister went with my mum and we won so I got to get a DVD on the way home and I got Shrek 2 which is really funny have you seen it at Hampton Court I got a family tree map thing of all the kings and queens and I can bring it in there was one king who was younger than me I think he was called Edward . . .’

  As Matthew continued his breathless monologue, Nicky fought the urge to interrupt him. It was, she supposed, incorrect to speak as if punctuation didn’t exist, but it added so much to the charm of his subject. If only adults talked like this, the staffroom would be a far more endearing place, she thought. When Matthew finally ran out of breath and information, she picked two more children and discovered that last weekend a new baby sister had been born and a new football had been bought, both of which were given exactly the same amount of detail.