Her eyelids were heavy with crying and sleep. She didn’t reply. Olivia thought it best to leave her alone to drift off again. She pulled the duvet over her shoulder and said goodnight. The poor child needed so much more than a houseparent could give her.
*
It wasn’t just Alice Rutherford who had a bad night. Each time Olivia felt herself falling towards sleep, some flashback from her meeting with Martin leapt into her head and she was wide awake again, her heart tangoing in her chest. Obsessively checking the time only made it worse. Nothing ensured a bad night’s sleep like fretting about a bad night’s sleep. At six o’clock she admitted defeat, got up and started the day.
During her second cup of staffroom coffee – instant, black, two sugars for energy – Hugo Dubois walked in. Did she imagine a momentary lull in conversation, glances in her general direction? She sipped her coffee and flicked through the new school brochure: smiling children playing musical instruments, running round sports fields, relaxed and happy in their dorms.
‘Madame Parry.’
Hugo approached her, nursing his own cup of coffee. He clearly hadn’t been briefed about appropriate styles of address. In her peripheral vision, Olivia noticed Lisa Pearce watching them.
‘Morning,’ she said, not quite hitting the casual note she was aiming for.
That was when it occurred to her that Martin would want to see Hugo too. She had to warn him, make sure his account of events matched hers. Not here, though, not in front of prying eyes.
‘Have you seen the new school brochure?’ she said cheerily and a little too loudly.
Hugo made no effort to disguise his complete lack of interest.
She lowered her voice. ‘Are you free for five minutes at morning break? There’s something we need to talk about.’
He took a sip of coffee and grimaced. Presumably he was used to something rather better than Nescafé.
‘Of course.’
Lisa Pearce had sidled into earshot. Where to meet posed a dilemma for Olivia. If she suggested somewhere discreet, it would give the impression of being furtive, of having something to hide. But meeting openly would only further fuel the gossip and make it difficult to discuss the delicate topic of Ruth Rutherford. Olivia was wrestling with this when Hugo suggested the French room, which made perfect sense. She still needed to sort out some holiday work for Edward.
‘Break time,’ she said. ‘Oh, and it’s Olivia when there are no pupils present.’
With a quick smile at Lisa Pearce, Olivia took her coffee and left.
*
The French room was just a classroom with pictures of France on the walls. Hugo sat marking a pile of exercise books, but stood when Olivia walked in. He sported a pair of Harry Potter style spectacles. She wouldn’t have thought it possible, but they actually made him look more attractive. His cologne scented the air: floral and musky at the same time. She sat down on one of the child-sized chairs and crossed her legs.
‘Thank you for meeting me,’ she said. ‘I thought you should know that the headmaster spoke to me yesterday. There are rumours about you and me.’ She hated the way she blushed. ‘I think his wife is trying to get me sacked.’
‘Sacked?’
‘Lose my job.’
He frowned. ‘But you do nothing wrong.’
Olivia shrugged to confirm the point. She needed to remember that she was the innocent party here. The injured party, in fact.
‘Anyway,’ she continued. ‘I told him we bumped into each other and went to the cricket pavilion to discuss Edward’s French.’
‘It’s true.’
‘Yes, but I didn’t tell him what we saw in the cricket pavilion.’
This time it was Hugo who shrugged.
‘It would be very damaging for his marriage, his family,’ explained Olivia. ‘And for the school,’ she added, suddenly envisaging a plethora of salacious tabloid headlines if word got out. The gutter press had had no compunction about trying to destroy the school’s reputation when Freddie Burton’s prank went so disastrously wrong. It might not survive another scandal.
‘I hear these rumours too,’ said Hugo.
Olivia shifted her weight. Pressed against the hard wooden seat, her buttocks had started to go numb.
‘You have? When?’
‘Rugby. The other boys tease Edward.’ He waved the comment away. ‘It was nothing.’
‘Nothing? You think that was nothing? Oh God, poor Edward. I have to speak to him. I can’t believe it’s gone this far.’
She cupped her hands over her mouth.
‘Madame Parry,’ said Hugo softly, clearly concerned he had upset her. ‘Olivia,’ he corrected. ‘In France these things are de rigueur.’
Olivia stared at him, perplexed. He looked heavenwards, eyebrows knitted together, trying to pluck the correct word from his limited vocabulary.
‘Acceptable,’ he said.
He just didn’t get it. Despite his apparent sophistication, he was obviously too young to understand the gravity of the situation. She needed to impress upon him exactly what was at stake.
‘But we’re not in France. We’re in Somerset, and a married houseparent having an affair with an exchange student is most certainly not de rigueur. Nor is the headmaster’s wife and her toy boy.’
The bell rang for end of break. Hugo clearly didn’t understand the ‘toy boy’ reference, but in a few minutes children would file in for their lesson, Olivia would head off to Cheddar Gorge and she really didn’t have time to explain. She needed to talk to Edward too, but there was no time for that either.
‘Thank you, Madame Parry,’ he said.
For what? The whole thing was a horrible mess.
*
Olivia cringed as she knocked on Matron’s door. She didn’t want her to think she was taking advantage, but she had to see Edward. The girls were in their pyjamas, glued to Finding Nemo, and she promised she wouldn’t be long.
‘Getting to be something of a habit,’ Matron said, half joking, half not.
‘I know. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.’
‘You look tired, Olivia. Is everything all right?’
‘Long day.’
‘It’s not just the girls you have to take care of, it’s yourself too.’
The unexpected sense of being mothered caught Olivia totally off guard. It was her job to mother others; her job to be strong. Through nothing but good intentions, Matron had reminded Olivia that her mum was on the other side of the world. Falling apart felt like a very real possibility, and then where would she be? She turned to walk away.
‘Oh, and Olivia.’
‘Yes?’
‘It’s Harriet.’
*
Only thirty minutes until lights out. Olivia made her way over to the boys’ dorm in the other wing, the corridors deserted and dimly lit. Pain throbbed behind her eyes. As if she hadn’t been stressed enough, the field trip had been a nightmare. Alice Rutherford had clung to her, marsupial-like, her thumb in her mouth. Olivia should really air her concerns with Martin and Ruth but couldn’t face seeing them together. Bad enough seeing one or the other, but both at the same time was a sickening thought.
Alice had been utterly terrified when the tour guide explained that the cave they were standing in was home to the British cave spider – one of the largest spiders in the British Isles – and a colony of rare lesser horseshoe bats. If you look carefully, you can see the bats flitting around. Alice grabbed on to Olivia and screamed, convinced she could feel spiders crawling on her legs. She kept swatting at them, her little hands flailing desperately in the gloom. Alice set off Helena Hardy-Leach, who sobbed that she didn’t like bats and made a run for the exit. Peter Havant caught her but by this time mass hysteria threatened to take hold, so they cut the tour short and herded the children outside.
It took Olivia and Peter the best part of an hour to calm them all down. The weight of responsibility was daunting. One of the boys got an asthma attack as they climbe
d the steep path to the rim of the gorge. Peter waited with him, leaving Olivia to take the rest of the children – usually so well behaved, now hyper and unruly – to the top. She counted heads obsessively, fearful a child would wander off and get lost. Her requests to walk in single file on the descent were largely ignored. The boys thought it great sport to charge ahead and see how far they could get before they tumbled over. One of them cut his knees and tore the side of blazer. Olivia had never been so relieved to get back to school. She couldn’t wait to shower and collapse into bed, but first of all she had to see Edward: her own child, her first responsibility. So what if the other boys made a fuss – this was more important than a bit of harmless teasing.
The boarders were sprawled on beanbags and sofas, watching some sort of wildlife programme. When Leo Sheridan spotted her he came out into the corridor.
‘I’m glad you’ve dropped by. I was going to ask for a quick word about Edward.’
‘He’s all right, isn’t he?’
Leo glanced into the dorm before he pulled the door shut.
Olivia had resisted the idea of Edward boarding at first (selfishly, she wanted to spare herself the pain of missing him), but Geoffrey said day boys were disadvantaged as seniors – never made head boy or prefects or sports captains. Those roles always went to boarders; that’s why their numbers swelled in the final years of prep school. It prepared them for public school as well: fostered independence, self-confidence. All these points had some merit but it was Geoffrey’s final point that had settled it. And anyway, he wants to board. Edward had confided this bombshell to his father so as not to upset his mother. How could she argue?
But before Olivia relinquished term-time care of her only child, she wanted to know more about the man who would be responsible for him. As well as being the school’s senior houseparent, reluctant rugby coach – a task happily delegated to Hugo Dubois – and head of music and drama, it was rumoured that Leo had harboured ambitions to become a concert pianist but was too crippled by stage fright to pursue his dream. At school he always seemed so unflappable. Out of curiosity Olivia had googled him. Leo Bryce Sheridan, born March 1978, studied music at the Guildhall and the Birmingham Conservatoire. There was a picture of him before he lost all the hair from the crown of his head. How handsome he looked in his dinner suit and bow tie. She wondered how he felt accompanying the St Bede’s choir rather than playing to an admiring audience at the Festival Hall. If he was crushed with disappointment, he hid it well.
‘Nothing to be concerned about,’ said Leo quietly. ‘It’s just some of the other boys have been giving Edward a bit of a hard time.’
Olivia felt her scalp tighten, sharpening the pain in her head.
‘Apparently he took exception to a comment Freddie Burton made after rugby training. Some nonsense about you and Hugo Dubois. Just thought I should let you know.’
Freddie Burton? He could only have heard the rumour about her and Hugo (overheard it – surely she wouldn’t discuss it with him directly?) from his mother, Alicia. Olivia didn’t know her well, even though Edward and Freddie had been at school together since pre-prep. Alicia Burton always appeared suspiciously strategic in her friendships, and Olivia, it seemed, wasn’t important enough to warrant favour. Geoffrey had a different theory. He said the reason Alicia was cool towards her was because Olivia was younger and prettier and Toby Burton had a roving eye. Maybe Geoffrey was right and that was part of it too.
But then Olivia had rescued Freddie from his changing-room stunt and Alicia appeared after chapel one morning with a beautiful hand-tied bouquet, and asked if there was somewhere they could talk. She looked as though she hadn’t slept for a month. Over staffroom coffee she confided that Freddie had taken it badly when his father left and doing stupid things to get attention was his way of acting out. ‘If you hadn’t found him—’ She brought her hand to her mouth, unable to finish the sentence. Olivia’s heart went out to her and she felt sure a bond had been forged, that from now on, she and Alicia would be friends.
Not so. Olivia hadn’t seen or heard anything of her since that morning, although according to Lisa Pearce, she could always be found ‘sucking up’ to Ruth Rutherford whenever the opportunity arose. Alicia brought cakes and flowers to the Alpha meeting Olivia hadn’t gone to, and stayed afterwards to help Ruth clear up. And now Freddie was baiting Edward with comments about her and Hugo. It appeared that Olivia had been right about Alicia Burton all along.
‘I appreciate it,’ said Olivia. ‘That’s why I wanted to see him – make sure he’s OK.’
‘He’s been a bit quiet this evening,’ said Leo. ‘I’m sure it will all be forgotten tomorrow.’
‘Can I see him?’
‘Of course. Wait here and I’ll get him for you.’
Despite the trouble it had caused, Olivia felt proud that Edward had leaped to her defence. He certainly hadn’t learned by example. Thirteen years of marriage and Olivia was still waiting for Geoffrey to do the same. His excuse was that Rowena attacked by stealth, never open confrontation, making defence difficult to pull off. They had hashed over the same argument so many times Olivia accepted that in this regard, her husband was destined to disappoint.
‘Mum?’
Edward wore his old grey tracksuit, the one he mooched around the house in when he was under the weather. It looked a bit too small. She went to hug him but he took a step back.
‘Mum,’ he said again, a whine of disapproval now in his voice.
No public displays of affection. Got it.
‘Sorry,’ she said, putting her hands by her sides. ‘I forgot. Look, I know you had a bit of an upset today and I just wanted to make sure you were all right.’
He looked her in the eye, unblinking. It was a moment before he nodded.
‘Good,’ she said, pushing her hands into her trouser pockets so she wouldn’t weaken and try to hug him. ‘I’m sorry you’re having a hard time.’
A peal of laughter rang out from the dorm.
‘I should go,’ said Edward. He made a move towards the door.
‘Of course. Night, darling. Sleep well.’
He hesitated for a second before he came back and squeezed his arms round her. A surge of love erupted in Olivia’s chest and she had to turn away quickly so he wouldn’t see the hot rush of tears.
Six
Geoffrey’s long brisk strides ate up the path to Crook Peak, his breath white smoke in the frigid air. He had wrapped up warm but was too warm now. Rollo and Dice panted alongside, their coats slick and wet from playing in the stream. Geoffrey reached the brow of the hill and stopped, heart pounding, chest heaving. In the distance was the sprawl of the industrial estate. Closer was the village, a neat patchwork of fields and houses clustered round the church. On the outskirts lay Manor Farm.
The SOLD sign had floored him, made it all true. Even as their possessions were being loaded on to the removal lorry, he had told himself this was just a big mistake and once it was sorted out, they would be back home where they belonged. A sharp wind made his eyes water. He rubbed them hard with clenched fists. Word in the pub was that Manor Farm was now the second home of a city banker. Fucking bastard banker. Geoffrey couldn’t hold it all inside: the rage, the regret, the lacerating sense of failure. He threw back his head and roared.
*
Today was his mother’s day for hospital visiting, which meant Geoffrey would have the Rectory to himself. Daytime television beckoned: polished and preened presenters going on about fashion, holidays and reality shows. His favourite bit was when they interviewed ordinary people who, by dint of good luck or bad, were catapulted into their fifteen minutes of fame. Yesterday they had talked to a woman whose husband took his own life after being out of work for two years. She cried and hung her head, long greasy hair falling forwards over her face, as she described what a wonderful husband he had been; what a wonderful father. When she spoke of the hundreds of job applications that had yielded nothing but rejection, Geoffrey found himself
nodding in agreement. That, he could relate to.
Geoffrey had lost count of the number of jobs he’d applied for; the number of hours he had spent trying to make his experience fit the vacancy; the number of times he had explained, in not more than five hundred words, why he was the best person to fill this position and what qualities he would bring to the role. Those companies that bothered to reply at all – if you haven’t heard from us within four weeks, it means your application has been unsuccessful – were vague about why he was unsuitable. Was he over-qualified, under-qualified, too young, too old? Apparently those used to running their own businesses made terrible employees – difficult to manage, a threat to their peers. And manufacturing had been decimated by the economic downturn: redundancies and cutbacks, factories like Downings shutting up shop after years of hard work and sacrifice. A horrible truth had begun to dawn. At thirty-five years of age, Geoffrey had been tossed on to the scrap-heap of broke and broken umemployables.
This morning’s sobbing TV interviewee was a mother of four whose husband was addicted to online pornography. The presenters nodded sympathetically and invited the expert on the opposite sofa to explain exactly how this growing problem ruined lives. Geoffrey didn’t want to hear it. He turned off the television and went to the kitchen to make a sandwich.
The electrical problem that had plunged them into the darkness cost three hundred and fifty pounds to fix and came with a warning that it would happen again if the whole house wasn’t soon rewired. Geoffrey hadn’t argued. It was obvious to everyone but his mother that the Rectory needed bringing into the twenty-first century. He had never questioned his parents’ life of genteel poverty – asset rich, cash poor – but no longer had that luxury.
A discreet call from the estate agent who had sold Manor Farm – rugby teammate, Lamb and Lion regular – revealed it had gone for fifty thousand less than Geoffrey paid in 2008, when the market was at its peak. The bubble had burst two years later and prices had fallen ever since. The agent said Geoffrey was lucky to get as much as he did, then must have remembered it was the bank that had sold Manor Farm because he mumbled an apology and made an excuse to hang up. There would be nothing left once the loan was settled. Nothing to show for all the years Geoffrey had put work before family. He cringed, thinking how he used to swagger around the village like some captain of industry. Big fish, small pond. No wonder he was ostracised.
An Unsuitable Marriage Page 9
