The Learning Curve

by Melissa Nathan

  Before she knew it, it was time to go home. As the children began to pack up, she wandered round the classroom to the windows where she leant on the window-sill and looked out across the playground. The reds and oranges of the last few leaves on the trees never failed to stun her. Her gaze wandered idly to the left, settling on the road which came to a gentle bend just outside the school entrance. Then her attention was arrested by movement at the gate. Nicky glanced over and involuntarily gasped. There, against the wrought-iron school gates, leant Mr Samuels, staring intently at the school.

  This was it. Her career. Over.

  She knew it had been too good to last. He must have made his complaint and was now waiting for Oscar to come out of school. Or maybe he was waiting to make the complaint with Oscar. She stared at her accuser, the man who was about to threaten her dreams of headship for ever. God, she thought, his legs were good. He wore faded denims and the same deep blue fleece jumper he’d been wearing when she’d first seen him at the fireworks display. Had he taken a whole day off work just to make this complaint? When had he fixed the appointment? Had Miss James known this morning? Yesterday morning?

  Then suddenly he stared straight up at her. She stepped back from the window and turned her attention back to her class. She watched Oscar race out and forced herself away from the window. She didn’t need to see the father-and-son reunion.

  Mark continued to stare up at the window, even after she’d gone. It was only when thirty children charged towards him from the front door that his attention was drawn elsewhere. A tentative smile came to his lips as he spotted the top of Oscar’s head. He watched as Oscar chatted animatedly to his companion – a boy he’d never seen before, but who looked like a good friend – with the intensity of an old man discussing politics over a malt whisky. Mark got a flash of the man inside the boy and felt a lunge of love. He felt an impatience for the future and longing for the past at the same time. Then Oscar spotted him, grinned and raced over. They hugged a loose-limbed boyish hug and then Oscar moved away – too soon, it was always too soon – discarded his schoolbag into his dad’s arms, and fell into step beside him down the road. Mark felt a swell of pride.

  Nicky sat in the empty classroom. She turned on her phone and checked it. No texts from Ally. She’d phone her tonight. She needed Ally’s take on Rob’s behaviour today. Was she imagining it, or had he declared a silent war? Then she slowly tidied her briefcase. She closed the door behind her and refused to glance into Rob’s room. She descended the stairs and, bracing herself, walked along to Miss James’s office.

  ‘Hi, Janet,’ she said to Miss James’s secretary. ‘Is she in?’

  Janet looked up at her over her glasses.

  ‘Who? The cat’s mother?’

  Nicky sighed. ‘Miss James.’

  ‘No. Miss James is not in. She has not been in all afternoon. She is at the latest assessment strategies meeting.’

  Nicky frowned. ‘She’s been out all afternoon?’

  ‘Yes. You will note that that is why I specifically used the phrase “all afternoon”.’

  ‘She hasn’t had any meetings – at all – this afternoon?’

  Janet gave an impatient sigh. ‘Not unless they were about the latest strategies meeting and at another school in the borough.’

  ‘Right, thanks,’ said Nicky.

  ‘Oh,’ muttered Janet, getting back to her work, ‘de nada.’

  It was only on her way home that Nicky realised two things: one, that Miss James would be presenting the hours of work she had been delegated to do on the subject of individual teacher’s assessments; and two, she wished she’d been invited to attend.

  ‘So,’ continued Oscar, beside his dad, ‘I played my king and it was checkmate.’

  ‘That’s great, Osc –’

  ‘We find out what parts we’ve got tomorrow!’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘The Celebrity X-Factor Nativity Play. Miss Hobbs said she’s decided after watching us in drama. I want to be Ali G singing “Away in da Manger”.’

  ‘Do you?’ Mark laughed. ‘Brilliant! I didn’t know you liked performing.’

  Oscar shrugged. ‘It’ll be fun. Miss Hobbs is directing.’ He turned to his dad and spoke as Ali G. ‘Is it ’cos I is de Son of God?’ he asked, in a perfect accent, and when his dad laughed, continued until they got home.

  When they got home, Mark realised he had no idea what to do now. Did Oscar eat anything before he did his homework? Did he watch television first? What time did he have supper?

  ‘How much homework have you got?’ he asked, following his son into the kitchen.

  He watched bemused as Oscar opened the fridge, took out a carton of orange juice and raised it to his lips.

  ‘About half an hour,’ replied Oscar.

  ‘What are you doing?’ cried Mark. ‘Use a glass!’

  Oscar stopped and looked over at his dad. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it’s unhygienic! That carton’s for everyone. You might as well go round kissing us all on the lips.’

  ‘Yeagh.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Whatsername always lets me.’

  ‘Well, I’m not letting you!’ Mark opened the cupboard where the tumblers were kept. It was empty. He frowned. ‘Where are the tumblers?’

  ‘Dishwasher?’ Oscar shrugged. He took one out and slammed the door shut before pouring juice into the glass.

  ‘Hey, hey, hey, big man,’ said Mark. ‘Are you going to empty the full, clean dishwasher?’

  Oscar stared at him and then slowly shook his head.

  Mark laughed. ‘I’ll do it this time. But in future, whoever finds it clean, empties it. OK?’

  Oscar sat on the stool at the kitchen island. ‘Dad, when do you think you’ll be well enough to go back to work again?’

  While Oscar was upstairs finishing his homework, Mark prepared spaghetti bolognese. While it was cooking, he phoned Lilith and invited her and Daisy over that Saturday evening. Daisy could stay overnight if she wanted. He would take them both swimming the next morning. And he’d make dinner.

  Meanwhile, Nicky was having a busy evening. She spent four hours preparing for next week, two choosing pop songs that could double as hymns for the Nativity Play and then seven lying awake in bed.

  13

  IT WAS THAT time of year when everything suddenly takes a turn for the worse. Nights are longer, days are darker, and the sky just gives up hope. Friday morning started damp and grey and the last of the autumn leaves had finally fallen in the playground, leaving a soggy carpet underfoot.

  And like the shift in season, there was a seasonal shift in the gang’s energy too. Nicky had finally got a chance to tell Ally about the humiliating row with Rob and was, for the first time, grateful for Ally’s deep-felt loyalty towards her and prejudice against him. However, it was hard to stay angry with him over the Nativity Play because she soon began to thoroughly enjoy working on it. She had known that her kids were wonderfully enthusiastic, but she’d had no idea that they were also so witty, self-ironic and keen to work as a team. She got a great buzz from telling them that these abilities would, one day, be just as important as academic achievements – if not more so – and seeing their eyes light up with excitement. Usually the Nativity Play was pure ‘aaah’ factor as the Reception children pretended to be Joseph and Mary and assorted biblical animals. This year it was going to be pure X-factor. She couldn’t wait. Yes, it had added more work on to an already heavy workload, but in fairness, Miss James had allowed her the rest of the term off timetabling duties, which were now down to Rob alone.

  She and Rob were managing to strike a balance between friendly and indifferent, even, on occasions, helping each other with their joint tasks, but there was definitely something missing now. Sometimes she wondered if their friendship had all been about that something. She still didn’t know if Rob had told Pete about their ugly row at her place, or if Pete and Ally had ever discussed it, but she did know that the easy camarade
rie between the four of them had gone, and every comment now seemed barbed. Worse still, Amanda was now always with the gang and Rob was suddenly refusing to play the I-Hate-Amanda Game. Her presence changed everything, partly because Nicky and Ally hated her, partly because she just didn’t fit in, full stop.

  ‘OK, everyone,’ announced Ally one morning. ‘I’m having my hair cut this weekend. What shall I get done?’

  ‘Number one,’ said Pete, ‘with a Mohican on top. Probably pink.’

  ‘Is there any way you can get it to go over your face?’ suggested Rob.

  ‘Blue rinse!’ added Pete.

  Nicky was about to suggest a mullet, when Amanda, with a look of mildly surprised disdain at the boys, said, ‘You really are horrid to her, aren’t you?’ Then she turned to Ally and patted her knee. ‘I think you should try layers. It would soften your . . . features.’

  At that moment, they were all interrupted by Gwen coming in and moaning to the room in general about wasting twenty minutes of her life trying to find the ‘g’ of Bulgaria.

  ‘I was joking about Ally’s hair,’ Rob told Amanda with a kind, almost secret, smile.

  Nicky stared at him in disbelief. It felt like an era was over.

  One day later, on Saturday evening, Lilith and Daisy were led into Mark’s kitchen where they stared in astonishment at the beautifully laid-up table.

  ‘I baked the potatoes!’ announced Oscar. ‘And Daddy roasted a chicken.’

  Lilith smiled, while Daisy frowned at her friend. Was she supposed to be impressed? She’d been baking potatoes for tea since she was six. And everyone knew roast chicken was easy.

  ‘Have you heard?’ asked Mark, as they sat down and he started to carve. ‘You are sharing a table with Ali G.’

  ‘And Anne Robinson,’ said Daisy. ‘I’m Anne Robinson! “You-are-the-weakest-link-goodbye!”’

  Lilith smiled at Mark. ‘Daisy only chose Anne Robinson so she could have plastic surgery to look as young as her. And, may I add,’ she went on, ‘that I’m absolutely thrilled that my wonderful daughter has let me get away with buying a Primark suit instead of having to make a costume this year.’

  Mark smiled. ‘Tuck in, everyone, before it gets cold.’ Then he stopped suddenly.

  ‘Osc,’ he said quietly, ‘who’s going to make your costume?’

  ‘You, of course,’ said Oscar, tucking in to his dinner before it got cold.

  After dinner, Lilith and Mark cleared up and poured themselves more wine while the children watched a video. Now that the children were in the other room he gave up the pretence of being on a high. His legs ached.

  ‘I’ve got something to tell you,’ he announced, as soon as the dishwasher was on.

  Lilith smiled at him from across the kitchen table. ‘I had a feeling something was up,’ she said.

  Mark sat down at the kitchen table opposite her and took a deep breath.

  ‘Go on, then,’ she said.

  ‘As soon as this year’s bonuses are announced, I’m resigning.’

  Lilith stared. Then she stared some more. Mark began to explain himself. In the week he’d been at home, he’d discovered more about his son than he’d ever known before. At the end of it, he’d asked Oscar if he’d enjoyed seeing his dad this much and Oscar had burst into tears at the thought of next week returning to normal.

  That was it, Mark told Lilith. He was decided. He was going to do whatever it took to spend more time with his son. And once he’d decided that, it felt like a massive weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He could finally breathe out. It was amazing.

  He was going to sell their five-bedroom detached house and get rid of the au pair, then downsize to a three-bed semi nearer school. Then he was going to put the substantial savings into a high-interest earning account and get an independent financial adviser to spend some more on some shares. This would give them something to live on while he looked for a local job he could fit round Oscar’s school hours.

  ‘But –’ said Lilith. ‘The pay cut! It will be absolutely vast. Enormous. Are you sure you’ve thought this through?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’ll lose a hundred a year.’

  ‘More.’

  ‘How the hell will you manage?’

  Mark gave a bitter smile. ‘I never had the time to spend the money anyway. Most of it’s been in savings since Helen died.’ He smiled. ‘That’s the one thing I have done for Oscar. I’ve been saving religiously for him since he was born. He’s – well, we’re – sitting on a small fortune.’ He shook his head. ‘Anyway, what’s the point of all that money when we haven’t got any quality of life? As you said, you only have one shot at it with kids. I realised that there are men in my office twenty years older than me spending every hour of every day at work while the wives bring up their teenage kids whom they hardly know.’ He shrugged. ‘I just realised that I don’t love my job that much.’

  Lilith stretched across the table and held his hands.

  ‘That is absolutely fantastic,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve already started looking for jobs nearer home,’ he told her. ‘And there’s already a couple of good ones I want to go for.’

  ‘Good for you.’

  ‘So . . . would you mind babysitting on Sunday while I fill out some forms?’ he begged. ‘As one last favour?’

  She unclasped his hands. ‘Oh no,’ she said, leaning back again. ‘Daisy and I are doing Wood Green all day Sunday. I have to buy a suit that my daughter likes and that costs less than a tin of cat food.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ sighed Mark. ‘When will I do these forms?’

  Lilith leant across the table and whispered to him: ‘You’ll have to do it when he’s asleep. That’s when I’ll be busy doing the laundry and ironing. And hundreds of single mums all across the country will be doing their Open University homework. Or degrees. Or applying for jobs. Or –’

  ‘Yeah, all right. I get the point.’

  14

  THE REHEARSALS FOR the Nativity Play began in earnest in early December. Children with acting parts had written their lines with the help of Miss Hobbs and now had a deadline by which they had to know them off-by-heart. And while the rest of their class had singing practice, the actors started having real, actual rehearsals.

  Nicky congratulated herself on her controversial casting. As well as the obvious performers, there had been a few surprises from some of her less confident children. She had managed to give everyone a part of some description and she was beginning to realise that for some of them – if not all of them – she was literally giving them the experience of their lives so far. And watching them blossom during the month of rehearsals made her feel wonderful. Getting them to learn their lines, however, was making her feel tetchy, to say the least.

  Except for Oscar. He had learnt his within a week. Not only that, but he seemed to know everyone else’s too, whispering to them ear-splittingly across the classroom when they dried, or jumping up and down on the spot with excited frustration when they got it wrong.

  Now, Nicky Hobbs had always known that she loved children. Not in a blanket, indiscriminate way. Children were people, and it wasn’t possible to love everyone, unless part of your brain was missing. But she loved the potential of children. Ironically, this was something she had known about herself since her own childhood. She could remember the visceral yearning of wanting to cuddle babies, of needing to give love to a warm bundle of humanity; a tiny scrap of possibly enormous potential, from as early as she could remember. She also knew that she especially grew to care for the children she taught. However unruly they might appear at first, they always seemed to become tame under her care, and anyway, there was rawness to them; a roughness around the edges of their personality, that made being in their company something akin to watching God in the act of creating. A bit like sitting in on a divine rehearsal.

  And, during her years as a teacher, she had come to recognise that she especially loved those children she taught who had that v
ague, special quality; a twinkle in the eye, a hint of depth in the soul, a lust for life. And every so often, there would be one of those who also happened to adore her back. Those children came along rarely – she’d only had one before – and she was lost to them.

  She honestly felt it was a privilege to be with children at this special time in their lives, as they tiptoed towards the precipice of adolescence. But, with Oscar, she felt more and more that he had already jumped off. She recognised the signs because she’d seen it in her own mirror when she was growing up. It was what came of losing a parent before one’s time. She knew that, eventually, his body would catch up with his spirit, but it seemed unfair that he was saddled with it so early. Sometimes she just wanted to brush the signs away, like a mother wiping a dirty mark off her son’s face with a firm but loving touch. Sometimes, when she was away from school, either at home or shopping, or even with Claire, she’d suddenly experience a fleeting burst of happiness that she’d never felt before. She’d try and picture what or who her mind had subliminally thought of. Was it Rob? Was it Mark? Then she’d picture Oscar. And the happiness would return. It was a feeling she’d never experienced before and it made her feel good to be alive.

  After a fortnight there was still no news of a complaint from Mr Samuels, and Nicky began to hope that perhaps Oscar’s fondness for her had prevented his father from making one. And as each peaceful day went by, she gradually began to allow herself the happy thought that he had merely come to pick up his son the other week.

  One night after rehearsals she was walking through the car park and spotted Oscar waiting outside the gates. She watched him for a moment, smiling irrepressibly. This was not the same boy who’d been hitting the school gates on his first day back after the summer holidays. He was practising his moves for the Nativity Play with boundless vitality. He spotted her, waved and ran towards her. They met in the middle of the playground. She bent down to his height and stretched out her hand, touching him lightly on the arm.