Head Start

by Judith Cutler

  The kids heading home, I was about to embark on my post-school prowl when Helen called me into her classroom. ‘You asked me to check on any pupils with problems,’ she said, ‘so I’ve spoken to the parents of the two littles with toilet issues – you remember?’

  ‘I do. Have you got time for a coffee?’

  ‘I need to get off after this, thanks. Physio appointment.’ The gist of her report was that some of the children had said they’d seen an eye watching them in the loos. Just a twinkly eye. Unblinking. Nothing more. ‘I checked. Nothing. I even held their hands and tried to make them go in with me, but Tammy in particular got very distressed.’

  ‘So you didn’t go ahead with the experiment – very wise. No toilet problems at home? Nightmares?’

  ‘Just those loos. My guess is that one of the other kids hid in there and jumped them, but they just talked about a gleaming eye.’

  ‘Both of them? Tammy and—?’

  ‘Marmaduke. Where do parents find these names, eh? Yes, both of them. Separately. And no, I couldn’t see anything in the boys’ loo either. Or maybe someone didn’t flush the loo properly and they were upset by … by faecal matter?’

  ‘That’s a possibility. Any other children I should be alerted to?’

  ‘Prudence apart?’

  ‘Prudence especially. What’s she been up to this time?’

  My carefully neutral tone didn’t fool a fellow-pro for a second. ‘You don’t like her, do you? Well, it’s all right – no one does.’

  ‘Actually, Helen, it’s not all right. Teachers can’t have playground responses to the pupils. We need to suss out what drives her. What are her parents like?’

  ‘I think she arrived late in their lives. They treat her like glass. Actually, they wanted to send her to Ewen House, the private school in town, but she refused to wear the uniform – screamed herself sick, held her breath till she passed out.’

  ‘Charming. Does she still do that?’

  ‘Not here. It doesn’t work here. Mrs Gough saw to that. She couldn’t organise a booze-up in a brewery but she was a good teacher.’

  ‘Were any of the children particularly fond of her? Prudence, for example?’

  ‘Adored her. In a strange tale-telling way.’

  ‘About her or to her?’

  ‘As far as I know, just the latter.’

  ‘I’d best watch out, then – she keeps telling tales to me.’

  ‘About staff or pupils? Oh, both, of course. She’s a prize snitch. But she’s up to something else, now – I know she is. I just don’t know what.’

  I looked at my watch. ‘Let me know the instant you do! Off you go, now. And thanks, Helen – this has been useful.’

  ‘There are a few more names in here.’ She passed me a folder.

  ‘Just one thing,’ I added, as we left the room. ‘I’m a bit of a Girl Guide at heart – I like to be prepared. Where do you keep the balls for tomorrow afternoon’s after-school club?’

  She turned back and opened one of the big cupboards running the width of the back wall. ‘Bottom shelf here – now where on earth might they be? I never put them in the stockroom for obvious reasons. I’d best look.’

  ‘Not till after your physio appointment. Like the man says, tomorrow is another day.’

  One on which, I reflected, as I waved her off, I could have been left with egg all over my face. I needed to get some balls now. In the literal, not the metaphorical sense. Texting Davies’s nephew that I was running late and couldn’t be home till seven-thirty, I set off in search of a sports shop. Just because I was paranoid didn’t mean that anyone was going to beat me.

  No one was going to beat me. And yet it seemed that someone – something – had.

  I had no electricity, and water was cascading down the stairs. It was a good job Davies’s nephew Sam, tall, straight and stolid, was beside me, or I might have thrown up.

  ‘Looks like I was too late,’ Sam said succinctly. ‘Any idea where your stopcock is?’

  ‘I only arrived a week ago.’ Which, come to think of it, was hardly an answer.

  Perhaps it was. Without so much as a sigh, he went hunting, and came back triumphant. The cascade slowed to a trickle, and finally stopped. ‘You’d better contact your insurance,’ he said. ‘Property and contents.’

  If he could be calm, I’d better be calm too. ‘The property cover would be the landlord’s problem, wouldn’t it? Or the letting agent’s?’

  ‘If you phone him, I’ll explain what happened. Got a torch? You might want to see what clothes and stuff you can salvage. And book yourself a hotel for the night.’

  ‘Can’t I stay—?’

  His look shut me up as I passed him my phone. He could hear for himself. The letting agent was closed for the day. The emergency number was well-nigh inaudible. Between us we worked it out. I dialled again. Voicemail. Sam grabbed the phone and left a message, his plumbing experience giving him an authority that belied his youth.

  I packed an overnight bag, intending to head out to a hotel; there was a very good one, complete with spa and swimming pool, a couple of miles away. But Sam, grabbing the bag in a sweet old-fashioned gesture, stopped abruptly, pointing to my car. ‘Won’t be going far in that tonight,’ he said dryly. ‘One puncture I could deal with for you: not two.’ He walked round the car. ‘Correction – four.’

  Fortunately my emergency camping kit was still dry, so I could decamp to the school. Chuntering, Sam helped me reluctantly with other essentials, one of which, I insisted, was the microwave – after all, there were plenty of ready meals busily defrosting in my freezer. I flourished one, and an indulgent dessert. I pressed a selection of other meals into his hands, pointing out that the only place I could keep them cold was in the snow. By the time I remembered I could have stowed them in the freezer in the school kitchen it was too late: there was no way I could change my mind.

  ‘Now, it’s high time you headed home. You’ve been more than kind. I won’t starve and I won’t freeze,’ I said bracingly. As I waved him towards his car, I added, ‘And don’t forget an invoice for your time.’

  ‘I’d have done that for anyone.’

  ‘I believe you. But you don’t have to do it free for my landlord who caused the problem in the first place.’

  He grinned. ‘I wonder what sort of place they’ll find for you. There can’t be that many rentals going begging round here.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  The problem with being a teacher is that if there’s any part of your job you can’t do, you let someone down. This morning I should have been watching the Open the Book team again, but as I explained to Tamsin, as she signed in, collected visitor passes and picked up key B, I really needed a roof over my head, and to get that I needed to stir the letting agent into action as soon as someone at his office deigned to pick up the phone.

  She put her hand on my arm. ‘Don’t worry, Jane. We’ve been doing it unsupervised for a term or more with no disasters – we can manage another session. No, don’t think of apologising. Go and do what you have to do.’

  Unsupervised? Not in my school. I had detailed a startled Tom to take my place, lending him my iPod, on to which I’d downloaded some quiet music to settle the children as they sat down and a stirring march to go out to. The docking station wasn’t really up to the job, but it would have to do.

  Helen’s report on the snow? That was due today, wasn’t it? And there it was in my in-box. Good for her. I’d better forward it to all the governors. On the other hand, I’d rather know what she’d said first. I scanned it quickly: she’d done a good job, evaluating all the activities in relation to the teaching aims they fulfilled, and generally finding them highly satisfactory. A survey of the children showed, as you’d expect, a great deal of satisfaction, though she carefully noted one anonymous child’s complaint that her hair had got wet (Prudence, I guessed). Parents? She’d even done a straw poll to find that about seventy-five per cent understood and approved of all the outdoor exercis
e. Twenty per cent objected to the risks to which their children had been exposed: what if one had fallen? What about their poor offspring getting cold hands and feet?

  I could live with the ratio, particularly as a blessed five per cent declared that we were the professionals and should be allowed to do our job as we saw fit. I sent the report on its way to the governors, with a note saying how much I appreciated my young colleague doing such thorough work despite all the other calls on her time. I copied it to Helen.

  Now to my own concerns. I believe I actually rolled up my sleeves as I started making phone calls.

  ‘I thought landlords or their agents would have a pool of alternative accommodation to draw on. And my contract says that in the event of the house becoming uninhabitable, then it is your responsibility to rehouse me.’ I confronted James Ford, the agent, in the majesty of my office.

  The poor man, not long out of uni, I suspected, wrung his beautifully manicured hands. He might have been Uriah Heep. The upshot was that he had no properties within a twenty-mile radius, let alone ten.

  ‘I find that hard to believe,’ I said coolly.

  ‘It’s the London influence, you see. People can sell their London properties at enormous profit and move down here – there are a number of villages with a mainline railway station so they can commute. That’s why there’s an absolute dearth of properties to rent.’

  ‘So my contract is worth?’ I snapped my fingers.

  ‘Sadly … Perhaps you could stay with a friend? Someone in the village?’

  I was fairly certain that even now dear Melanie would be on the phone badgering her friends to find me a place. ‘When I have been here only ten days, am I really likely to have a friend with whom I could sofa-surf? Not good enough, Mr Ford. Get on to your insurance company and come back here with a sensible suggestion by five-thirty. I will talk to my insurance about the damage to my property, meanwhile. Till five-thirty, then.’ I stood up, and offered him my hand. ‘Of course, if you have no ideas I’ll have to make a call to my solicitor.’

  His was shaking. His palms were wet. He was genuinely scared – but not of me, surely?

  Certainly I didn’t present a very dignified figure when I returned to my office at the end of school. I don’t know who had enjoyed themselves more in the ball skills club, the pupils or me. So, still sweating and panting in my tracksuit and trainers, I had collapsed at my desk with no prospect of a shower when, to my surprise, PC Davies appeared.

  ‘Sam called me,’ he said, moving the tubes of tennis balls to one side and sitting down. ‘We’re just on our way back from an RTA and thought we might cadge a cup of tea.’ As he spoke, Taylor came in, looking very young and very wan. I sat her down in my chair and fetched another. Melanie might have had her coat on ready to leave, but she produced three mugs, milk, sugar and a plate of biscuits without being asked.

  ‘That fluff,’ Davies said slowly, eschewing sugar and biscuits. ‘The stuff you found on your stairs the other night. Have you still got it?’

  ‘Funnily enough I have. You looked interested, Ms Taylor. And when police officers look interested, they usually have a reason.’ I unlocked my desk drawers, felt behind a box of assorted rubber bands, and produced the little bag.

  Davies nodded. ‘We wouldn’t have been interested if Sam hadn’t phoned to tell me about your flood – and about your car. He’s bright, that kid.’

  ‘He is, isn’t he – and nice with it,’ I added with a smile. ‘Do I gather that Sam’s got your investigative genes?’

  ‘He’s no fool, let’s say. He can’t understand why anyone should leave a house unlagged in an area known for its cold winds. He couldn’t understand four punctures. Then I recalled the shirts and the fluff and I started thinking. I suppose you didn’t strip the insulation and puncture your tyres yourself?’

  ‘Why should I? This is my dream job.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re finding it too hard and are looking for an excuse to get out?’

  ‘After only a week, Penny? Look, I’ve been on the run, changing addresses, changing jobs, for years. Now that my ex-husband, Simon Wilshere, is in jail for persistent stalking, criminal damage, actual bodily harm and a couple of other things, I wanted to find stability. The governors here know I had to change my name, though I spared them all the grimmest details. But you can check him out on Holmes or whatever your database is called these days.’ I gulped some tea. It was too hot and scalded as it went down. ‘I also received some flowers I certainly didn’t send myself.’ I told them about Melanie’s find.

  ‘If you didn’t do all these things – and assuming your story hangs together, I’m tempted to believe you – then who did? And why?’ Penny asked.

  ‘As to the first, I haven’t a clue. Why? I’ve even less of a theory. I do know that I’m not very popular round here, and again I don’t know why. Genuinely. All I want to do is turn the school around, but ever since I chased off an intruder at the end of my first day—’

  ‘The day before the football shirts got nicked?’

  ‘Right.’ What had I said? I’ve never been one to betray my feelings. I straightened my back. ‘Would you mind if I checked the whole of my car over? Just in case?’

  ‘In case of what? I’ll do it. Got your keys handy?’ Davies was on his feet.

  ‘That was a weird change of subject,’ Penny said as he closed the door behind him. Her colour was back and she looked as bright and alert as one could wish. ‘There’s something you’re not telling us, isn’t there?’

  ‘It’s just that – some places I’ve lived, and believe me I’ve been to a lot of places in my efforts to escape Simon, I’ve been made really welcome. But not here. Even the pub landlady, whom you’d have expected to be professionally friendly, was stand-offish. I don’t like whingeing. That’s why I changed the subject.’

  Davies was with us again. ‘Apart from the flat tyres, I can’t open the doors, but that might be just because they’ve frozen shut. Or because they’ve been superglued, of course. Can you get me a kettle of hot water and I’ll find out?’

  Sheltering from the wind, Penny and I watched his experiment. ‘Looks more like criminal damage than an act of God,’ she observed as in turn we tried and failed to breach the car’s defences. From time to time the alarm showed how our efforts were resented.

  ‘OK,’ Lloyd said. ‘Have it towed away, but make sure you get a detailed list of the damage – and not just for your insurance company. This sort of thing annoys me. Sometimes I can understand people being little urban warriors. There’s a commuter village or two round here so beset with appalling car parking – even on complete strangers’ drives, would you believe? – that they sometimes get overenthusiastic with the superglue deterrent. You can understand, sort of. But yours wasn’t doing any harm to anyone. God, it’s cold. Look, you’d best get in; we’ll be on our way.’

  I walked them to their car. ‘There’s just one more thing you ought to know. I had an oil delivery the other night, and the driver ended flat on his face. He had an idea he was pushed. I was worried enough to phone the company. Seems he’s all right – but it might have been serious.’

  Penny jotted, but her blue fingers would hardly hold her biro. Lloyd’s advice was good. I waved them off from the shelter of the school and headed indoors like a rabbit dodging a ferret.

  ‘I am authorised by my client’s insurance company to offer you a night’s stay at a hotel on their approved list so that the property can be assessed. Without prejudice.’ James Ford looked even less happy than on his previous visit to the school.

  Without speaking, I held out my hand for the list. Nodding him to a chair, I raised an eyebrow the way I did for particularly bright pupils pretending to be obtuse. ‘And which of these outposts of civilisation could you recommend? No? Let’s see what TripAdvisor has to say, shall we?’ Obligingly, I turned the monitor so that he could see each in turn. ‘What an interesting collection of two- and one-star reviews from the TripAdvisor reviewers. Tell me, Mr
Ford, to which of these would you send your mother or older sister?’

  He gobbled like a turkey celebrating the passing of Christmas.

  ‘Very well, then tell me where you would send them, and I’ll go there. Ah! Excuse me – that sounds like the pickup truck for my car. I’d better see to it.’

  ‘I have to admit that James Ford’s female relatives have very good taste in hotels,’ I told Pat on the phone much later that evening. I was in a warm chic double room, booked, to my amazement, by Ford himself while my car was being winched onto the flatbed truck. He’d even insisted on giving me a lift, on the grounds that at this time of the evening most local taxis would be collecting people from the commuter stations. I continued, ‘A Hotel Mondiale, no less. Complete with spa, gym and swimming pool. Pity I’ve not brought my leggings and leotard or my swimmies.’ And a pity I hadn’t moved here last night. I really had got noble self-sacrifice to an art.

  ‘Buy them from the hotel. Claim on your insurance. How long do you reckon you’re going to be homeless?’

  ‘Until they find me a new rental property. Pat, this is so frustrating. There aren’t enough hours in the day already, and here I am two miles away from the school without a car – until my insurance sorts out a temporary replacement. Which may well get the same treatment, of course.’ I managed a laugh. ‘I may have to tweak the angle of our new security lights to protect it. When we get them.’

  ‘Have you eaten yet?’

  ‘Not hungry.’

  ‘Well, stuff the marking and all the other things you’re going to fob me off with, get yourself into that pool—’

  ‘But—’

  ‘I know you’ve got scars. No one’ll notice. And if they do they’ll just think you’ve been in a car crash – which pretty well describes your relationship with that shit anyway. Not so much a crash as a prolonged pile-up, actually. Now go and swim twenty lengths and work up an appetite. I know you and your not eating when you’re stressed. OK? And have a glass or two of wine with your food, too. Just do it. Oh, and by the way, I’m coming down this weekend – it sounds as if you need a spare pair of hands whatever happens.’