She longed to sit down with her mum and have one of their heart-to-hearts over a pot of tea and a packet of Hobnobs. One of the reasons Olivia could so readily empathise with Alice Rutherford was because she missed her mum too. At Manor Farm, their night-time routine had been that Geoffrey would take Rollo and Dice for a walk before bed and Olivia would give her mum a quick ring that usually lasted half an hour. It wasn’t the same on Skype. With the eleven-hour time difference between the UK and Sydney, and unpredictable Wi-Fi in her flat, conversation felt a bit like dancing out of sync to music. Olivia always pretended to be chattier, happier, more positive than she was because if her mum suspected how she really felt she would have been on the next plane home.
Her parents hadn’t been sure about leaving in the first place, what with the factory closing down and then Ronald dying so suddenly. It took a lot for Olivia to persuade them it was too good an opportunity to miss. They had worked hard all their lives and six months visiting Sam in Sydney would be a terrific adventure. Olivia said she was worried about her little brother, all alone on the other side of the world. She wasn’t. Whenever she managed to log on to Facebook it was clear Sam was having a blast, but Olivia didn’t want her troubles to rob her parents of a once-in-a-lifetime trip.
She checked her watch: eight thirty in the morning in Sydney. As she opened her laptop, she pushed her hair behind her ears and practised her happy smile. When the Wi-Fi kicked in and Skype connected, it lasted just long enough for Olivia to see her mum’s suntanned face, before it was gone again. Two more attempts and Olivia gave up. Even if she did manage to get a good connection, she wasn’t sure she could have kept faking her happy smile.
*
Olivia had jumped at the chance to escape to St Bede’s. Rowena was helping pack up Manor Farm when she mentioned that a houseparent had been asked to leave quite out of the blue and the new headmaster was in a bit of a bind. Claire Heather said it was a clash of personalities with the head’s wife, but that’s just between you and me. Goodness knows how they’ll find someone now term has started.
Claire Heather: the font of all school gossip. Not only the headmaster’s secretary and close friend of Rowena, but her husband had been a bookkeeper at Downings. The interconnecting tendrils of life in a rural community. Olivia had stopped packing books into a cardboard box and gave Rowena her full attention. The houseparent looked after the girls’ dorm; only twelve boarders. That was all she had gleaned before Rowena set about wrapping a stack of dinner plates, noting that one or two were chipped.
Olivia had phoned the school the following morning, went in for a chat that afternoon and had the job by the time she got home. Martin’s email had been waiting in her in-box. As she read it, heart pumping uncomfortably hard, she began to understand the enormity of what she would be committing to. Not just taking responsibility for the pastoral care of a dozen young girls, but living apart from Geoffrey. Shards of resentment stabbed at her when she thought about the mess he had made of everything. They were all condemned to live with the consequences of his decisions – decisions she was never consulted about. If taking the job at St Bede’s upset him, then too bad. She had trusted him with their future and nowhere in that future did she imagine living with her mother-in-law. At least she would be spared that at St Bede’s. Olivia wrote a two-line acceptance and pressed Send. So her grandmother had been right. Life really can turn on a sixpence.
*
Olivia shivered in the few square feet of quad where you could get a phone signal. Two bars, three if the wind blew in the right direction. She wanted to catch Geoffrey before the staff meeting, ostensibly to remind him about Edward’s rugby game, but really just to talk to him – be normal, whatever the heck that was these days. With each unanswered ring she felt her muscles tighten. The easy rapport she and Geoffrey once shared was already frayed round the edges, but the strain of half-term had pulled at all manner of loose threads. Olivia felt a flicker of relief when the call went to voicemail and signed off her bright and breezy message with a quick ‘love you’. She slipped the phone in her coat pocket and hurried back inside.
*
Mornings and evenings were her busiest times, when the girls were in the dorm, vying for her attention. They were so different from boys: inclined to talk rather than play, form cliques and alliances, easily crushed by any perceived slight. Edward and his friends were refreshingly straightforward. Give them a bit of space to run around, a ball to kick, a tree to climb, and they amused themselves for hours.
Olivia was the only houseparent who didn’t have teaching duties as well, so was called upon in a variety of ways: to listen to the younger children read, stand in for absent teachers, help out with plays and concerts. She found it made the day go faster, all this extra-curricular activity. And if her willingness to muck in improved Edward’s chance of a scholarship, then it was well worth the effort. As an existing pupil he had been awarded a bursary for reasons of ‘financial distress’, but he would lose that at the end of the year when he went up to the senior school. If he went up to the senior school – without a full scholarship, they had no hope of paying the fees. That thought was all the motivation Olivia needed to be as helpful as she possibly could.
*
Martin had called a staff meeting and would have looked quite smart if the trousers of his dark grey suit had been just a tad longer, and the diamond-patterned socks just a tad less colourful. Brown lace-ups weren’t the best choice either, but eight out of ten for effort. Olivia got the impression he tried a bit too hard, that if he relaxed and was more himself, he might emerge from the long shadow cast by Teddy Clarke-Bowen.
The main piece of news was that the French student from the Sorbonne would be leaving at the end of term but a replacement would follow in January. I’d like to thank Monsieur Dubois for all his hard work and wish him the very best in his future endeavours. Hugo Dubois ran a hand through his well-groomed hair and offered a quick nod in Martin’s direction.
Olivia hoped his replacement would take an interest in Edward the way Hugo had. French was Edward’s worst subject – lack of interest the probable cause – but he’d been doing better under Hugo’s tutelage. It helped that Hugo coached rugby too, so he and Edward had something in common. Olivia would ask him to set extra French for Edward over the holidays – something to do with rugby perhaps, so he wouldn’t get too bored.
Lisa Pearce tapped Olivia on the shoulder as they filed out of the staffroom.
‘Well that’s a blow,’ she said under her breath. ‘Do you think the next one will have Hugo’s dashing good looks?’
Olivia smiled. ‘You’re old enough to be his mother.’
Lisa affected grievous hurt. ‘I most certainly am not.’
She stood a little taller and pulled her shoulders back, which only accentuated her fulsome bosom and apple-shaped figure. ‘Age shall not wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety.’
Lisa’s fondness for quoting Shakespeare rather baffled Olivia. She taught history, not English. Edward complained that she dished out too much homework but he said that about all his teachers.
Lisa had made a big fuss of Olivia when she started at St Bede’s, always seeking her out in the staffroom and sitting down next to her during lunch. Olivia, desperate to make a friend, suppressed the suspicion that Lisa’s interest had a prurient quality and decided to take it on face value. Drawn in by Lisa’s natural exuberance, she confided the occasional snippet about her and Geoffrey’s situation. Where was the harm? Then three weeks into the term, Olivia overheard Lisa telling one of the other teachers something she had told her in confidence, and realised how gullible she had been. She didn’t let on she knew – she might not have made an ally but she certainly didn’t want to make an enemy – and was still friendly towards Lisa, but now knew better than to trust her. If Lisa sensed that Olivia was less forthcoming than before, she never mentioned it. And she was certainly right about Hugo – the place would seem a little duller without him.
/>
He appeared to have usurped young Tom as the school heart-throb, the onset of winter necessitating Tom hide his light under the proverbial bushel, or rather an oversized hoody and grubby wax jacket.
Hugo exuded Parisian style: hair just long enough to suggest youth and virility, athletic build hugged by well-tailored jackets and slim-legged trousers. Waistcoats made the occasional appearance, as did a mocha turtleneck that Olivia felt sure must be cashmere. A casually draped scarf added the final touch of panache. It’s Somerset, not bloody Paris, commented Rudd Lender, the testy maths teacher Edward often moaned about. He had a point, though. Compared to the young Frenchman, the other teachers looked a shabby old bunch.
During morning break Olivia tried to call Geoffrey again. Hard enough living apart without the added strain of not being able to talk to each other. She got her coat and headed towards the cricket pitch, eyes fixed on her phone, willing those elusive bars to appear. She almost fell over Hugo, sneaking a cigarette by the cluster of horse-chestnut trees between the school and the pitch. His phone was in his hand too.
‘Have you got a signal?’ asked Olivia hopefully.
He shook his head and showed Olivia the dark-haired beauty that filled the screen. ‘My girlfriend.’
‘You must miss her.’
He threw his cigarette on the ground and mashed it with the sole of his highly polished shoe. ‘Désolé,’ he said, pushing his hands deep into his trouser pockets. ‘I try to give up.’
He looked frozen, his tweed jacket clearly more for fashion than for the British winter. A flaying wind hit Olivia face on. She pulled her collar up as high as it would go and turned her back to it.
‘Actually, I wanted to talk to you about setting some holiday work for Edward.’ She pointed to the shelter of the cricket pavilion. ‘Do you have a minute?’
They jogged across the spongy grass, the far-off smell of burning wood stirring memories of log fires and Christmas.
A wooden veranda bordered the pavilion, five shallow steps leading up to the door. Olivia followed Hugo inside but he stopped so abruptly she almost fell into him again. He smelled of damp wool, cigarettes, musky cologne. It took a second for her to see what he had seen: what had, quite literally, stopped him in his tracks. Young Tom was on his back, jeans around his ankles, a half-naked Ruth Rutherford astride him, skirt bunched up, breasts free and ample. For the second time in her short St Bede’s career, Olivia could not believe her eyes. Nobody moved – the scene immortalised in freeze-frame. It was Hugo who took the initiative and excused himself with another curt ‘Désolé’. Tom was on his elbows now, looking rather pleased with himself. Ruth turned towards Olivia, her face flushed and shiny.
‘Can I help you?’ she asked.
Olivia stumbled down the steps and bolted towards Hugo, who stood quite calmly on the grass, holding a pack of Gauloises. He fished a lighter from his trouser pocket, lit a cigarette and then offered one to Olivia. Despite her hatred of the habit, if she had thought it would relieve the mortifying embarrassment that consumed her, she would have taken one.
‘We shouldn’t say anything,’ she managed when she caught her breath. ‘It’s a private matter – nothing to do with us.’
Hugo shrugged. ‘Of course.’
Olivia realised how provincial she must have sounded. Hugo was clearly far too sophisticated to be troubled by the adulterous inclinations of consenting adults. He took one last long drag before discarding his cigarette into the hedge. Olivia watched him walk away, apparently unfazed. She, on the other hand, was gut-wrenchingly fazed. And shaking. She forced herself to take long, slow breaths that pulled winter deep inside of her.
The sound of the bell made her stomach flip. How could she go back and face everyone? How could she face Martin? She had promised to help him with the Christmas newsletter. He would be waiting for her in his office. She was already carrying one ugly secret and now she was burdened with another. The weight of silence didn’t ease with time; it became heavier and harder to bear. She felt it already, with each step she took back towards the school.
Four
The thud of mail hitting the flagstones sent a bolt of dread through Geoffrey.
He didn’t rush to fetch it. If his mother saw he was anxious she would ask questions he didn’t want to answer. The novelty of being the sole recipient of her attention was wearing gossamer thin.
‘Is that the postman?’ she called from the kitchen.
The absence of a reply brought her into the hallway. Geoffrey popped his head round the study door, his mother’s back to him. She scooped up the scatter of letters, leaflets and a large glossy catalogue, and set about sorting them out.
‘Anything for me?’ he enquired with as much nonchalance as he could muster.
She handed him two official-looking envelopes and the catalogue – a sleek new Mercedes on the front cover – and held on to the rest.
‘I keep telling him not to push junk mail through the letterbox—’ She waved a handful of flyers before disappearing back into the kitchen. ‘And yet.’
Geoffrey went to the study, dropped the letters on the desk and paced: desk to window, window to door, door to desk. He had to brace himself for the contents of those letters; prepare for the inevitable bad news. Too early for a drink. Pity.
The first letter was from the administrator who had been appointed to deal with the liquidation of assets. Creditors would be paid with the proceeds and the shortfall covered, in theory, by Geoffrey’s personal guarantees, which the bank had called in. That was the second letter. The bank had assigned him a ‘relationship manager’, a misnomer if ever there was one. A weaselly little man called Fredericks, with lank hair and waxy skin, had set out in writing what they had already discussed in person the afternoon Geoffrey had dropped Edward off at St Bede’s. He had intended to tell Olivia about the meeting when they snatched a few minutes together in the car, but lost his nerve. She was already doing so much – he couldn’t burden her with more. And how could he tell her that the bank had drawn up a draconian schedule of repayments and that if he didn’t make those repayments, they would file for bankruptcy.
It was hard for Geoffrey to make the connection between that one word and his ruined life. The punishment seemed so much harsher than the crime. Was it his fault that the economy had bombed, that competitors in the Far East could undercut his prices, that manufacturing depended on investment in the latest equipment and technologies and it was all so fucking expensive?
It sickened him to think what Bob Downing would have said. Geoffrey hadn’t only let down his own family, but Bob’s family as well. Three generations of Downings had built the factory into a thriving business – not Sunday Times Rich List, but one of the largest employers in the area. It had taken Geoffrey just five years at the helm to destroy all of that.
He had joined the ranks of Downings reluctantly. After university he’d planned to backpack through the rugged and exotic landscapes of South America, not take a job in an industrial park four miles outside of Compton Cross. Edward’s conception meant Geoffrey had to forgo his youthful dreams: be a grown-up, get married, go to work, fall asleep at night fantasising about all the adventures he had missed out on. Sometimes when he woke, it took a moment to remember why he was lying on a lumpy mattress and not basking on a white-sand beach, a cold beer in his hand, bikini-clad beauties splashing playfully in the surf.
What had made it bearable – apart from Olivia, whom he grew to love, and Edward, whom he loved instantly – was Bob Downing. It was as if Bob understood that Geoffrey was living the wrong life – the price he paid for having done the decent thing. Bob made it his mission to teach Geoffrey everything about the business; not just all the technical stuff, but how to find satisfaction in doing a job well. It took a few years, but it happened. No ‘eureka’ moment when it all came together, but gradually Geoffrey found himself looking forward to work.
Sales were his forte. He was good at negotiating – putting deals together. Signing up
a new client excited him. He likened it to pursing a woman: the flirtation stage (friendly but casual, coffee, drinks maybe); the courtship stage (attentive, supportive, eager to please); and, finally, sealing the deal. Truth be told, he had more experience in business than he had with women, but he liked the analogy – found it raised a chuckle when he delivered it in his legendary sales masterclasses. It had been Bob’s idea to call their monthly meetings over tea and biscuits ‘masterclasses’. Geoffrey was flattered. Masterclasses. Who would have thought?
From his glass-fronted office on the mezzanine that overlooked the factory floor, he would watch people going about their business, proud that his ability to secure new orders kept them all in a job. In those early years, when Downings held little interest for Geoffrey, he never imagined he would come to enjoy working there.
Every Friday evening Bob would take him to the Lamb and Lion for a few pints and a chat. Work featured heavily but they talked about other things too, personal things. Bob was Geoffrey’s only real confidant. He had friends, of course, mostly to do with sport – the guys he played rugby with, the village cricket team, a few old university friends he skied with for a week in January – but their relationships hummed along at a superficial level. He had been close to Alex, his best friend from school and best man at his wedding, but he bought a vineyard in France and since he’d moved out there full time they spoke infrequently and kept it light, chatty – more of an update than anything else. Nothing too heavy, nothing too personal; that was the unspoken rule. But with Bob, Geoffrey could get to the heart of things.
An Unsuitable Marriage Page 6
