She threw the question open. No great surprise that Maisie Rutherford jumped in with the answer. ‘Katy Perry, miss.’
Ah yes, the girl who kissed a girl and liked it. Had Edward kissed a boy and liked it? Maybe he had punched the boy instead, or maybe Geoffrey had got himself all fired up over nothing.
Three days, two missed calls, no messages.
Olivia couldn’t believe he had blamed her for the other boys picking on Edward. Yes, she had gone over to his dorm to say goodnight, but just the once. OK, twice. It wasn’t as if she made a habit of it.
Geoffrey’s reaction to Freddie’s name-calling was completely over the top and it had clearly hit a nerve. If she didn’t know better she would think him homophobic, but he had always been so fond of her brother, Sam; made harmless jokes about his camp manner, the hours he spent on his appearance, the well-muscled boyfriends he mooned over. Edward reminded her a bit of Sam – the way they were both kind and sensitive. Olivia thought of Edward’s bedroom at Manor Farm, the walls bright with posters, games and gadgets everywhere, bunk beds for when he had sleepovers. Not once had he complained or said how much he missed it in case he made her and Geoffrey feel even worse than they already did.
Still, Olivia had taken Geoffrey’s advice – if it could be called advice when it was delivered as a bad-tempered tirade – and not said anything to Leo. She and Geoffrey may have different ideas as to what constitutes bullying, but perhaps he had been right and it was best to let Edward fight his own battles.
If she and Geoffrey had gone home together after they had argued, Olivia would have seen the regretful droop of his shoulders, heard his weary sighs, and known that he was sorry. Her doleful eyes, her hand brushing his, would have said that she was sorry too. A glass of wine, a kiss, an embrace – the wrong righted.
But they hadn’t gone home together – hadn’t even spoken – and the wrong most certainly had not been righted.
When Olivia accepted the job at St Bede’s, a determination to avoid living with Rowena had been her primary consideration. She hadn’t understood how detrimental it would be to live apart from Geoffrey; how it would tip and tilt their marriage – unbalance its natural equilibrium.
That was why she had asked Lorna to meet her at Millfield – so she could explain that living apart was an unnatural state for a married couple. If Lorna knew what to expect, maybe she and Johnny would think twice about it; or at least handle it better than she and Geoffrey had.
Lorna had got there nearly an hour later than arranged. Olivia had begun to wonder if she would come at all. They hadn’t spoken since the brief phone call after Olivia’s meeting with Toby Burton in Axbridge. Johnny’s leaving; that’s all Lorna had said. Olivia had visions of him throwing his things in a holdall, a mystified and heartbroken Lorna begging him to tell her what was wrong – why he was being like this.
Not ideal talking by the side of a netball pitch, trussed up against the cold, but better than not talking at all. It was the first real chance Olivia had got to see Lorna and find out what had happened. Turned out Johnny hadn’t been driven away by the intolerable burden of shame, but had left for a job in London. Lorna seemed perturbed by Olivia’s efforts to put a positive spin on it. ‘It’s good that he’s working – earning again,’ she had said sunnily. Lorna looked gaunt, her long legs thinner than Olivia had ever seen them. You have to lose a lot of weight for it to show in your legs. ‘So I don’t have to clean other people’s houses, you mean.’ No, that wasn’t what she meant. It didn’t matter anyway. Lorna had her own theory about what was going on with her and Johnny. ‘I think he’s seeing someone. He hasn’t touched me in months.’
What sort of person allowed their dearest friend to believe her husband didn’t want her any more, that he found what he wanted in another woman’s bed? Olivia had been sorely tempted to tell her the truth and to hell with Johnny’s oath of silence, but the referee blew her whistle and the moment passed. All she could do was try to make Lorna feel better, or at least, not quite so bad. ‘It’s hard for men like Geoffrey and Johnny to have nothing to do all day. And the bedroom thing? – Geoffrey hasn’t been exactly Don Juan lately, I can assure you.’ She arched an eyebrow for emphasis. ‘On the outside they’re all brawn and bravado but on the inside, well, they’re the weaker sex in my opinion. Men brood, women talk. It’s a Mars, Venus thing.’ Lorna had stared blankly into the middle distance. ‘Maybe.’
Olivia had wanted to talk for longer but duty called. She had to commiserate with the St Bede’s girls, congratulate the Millfield girls, help usher them towards the changing rooms and muck in with match tea. She noticed Maisie and her little gang sniggering at a girl with a pink plastic patch over one eye. Maisie whispered something in the girl’s ear that made her turn and stomp away.
‘You’d better go,’ Lorna said. ‘I should get back too.’ Olivia had watched her head towards the car park, her walk less brisk and bouncy than usual, as though weighed down by an invisible force.
*
All the way back to school, Olivia fretted about Lorna and the rights and wrongs of keeping Johnny’s secret. She had the power to put Lorna out of her misery, explain what was really going on, but was it her place? Wasn’t Johnny entitled to his privacy? Surely it was his secret to tell? But then shouldn’t Olivia’s loyalties rest with Lorna, irrespective of what she had promised?
‘Alice is feeling sick, Mrs Parry.’
Helena had walked the length of the minibus to report this. Olivia suspected Alice just wanted some attention but dutifully went to her. She looked like a waif huddled in the far corner, her skin’s fragile translucence magnifying the greyish sweep beneath her eyes, the faint blue vein down the centre of her forehead.
At match tea Maisie had pushed her hard and deliberately. Alice slammed to the floor, arms splayed, orange squash spilling everywhere. Olivia rushed over and helped her to her feet, Alice’s bottom lip trembling with the effort of being brave. Maisie had watched, unmoved. This wasn’t high spirits or a prank gone awry – this was bullying. It made Olivia think again about her argument with Geoffrey and see that he was right. There was a big difference between Freddie Burton calling Edward a fag and Maisie Rutherford deliberately hurting her sister. Sticks and stones . . .
When Olivia had chastised Maisie, told her in her sternest voice it was wrong to push people, she shrugged in that little-madam way she had and said Mummy did it to Daddy.
‘Helena told me you weren’t feeling well,’ Olivia said to Alice.
She opened the minibus window an inch, allowing a blast of cold air to rush in. Six thirty but dark as midnight. She sat down in the empty seat next to Alice. There always seemed to be an empty seat next to Alice.
‘We’re almost there.’
This didn’t cheer her up. The school gates came into view, a car waiting to pull out on to the road. The minibus slowed down to let it pass: GP 007. Geoffrey’s Mercedes. So he hadn’t waited for her to get back.
*
Olivia counted the girls off the bus – she had started to count heads in her sleep. Alice got off last and bolted towards her mother, who was talking on her mobile by the main entrance. She ended the call and visibly braced as Alice launched herself at her, wrapping her arms tightly round her waist. Maisie skipped past with a cheery ‘Hello, Mummy’. Olivia ushered the stragglers into the building before she asked Ruth if they could have a quick word.
‘Can I come home with you?’ pleaded Alice.
Ruth patted her daughter’s hair. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said, and then to Olivia, ‘I’ll pop up now if you like.’
Ruth untangled herself from a whimpering Alice and led the way.
‘Hope the netball team fared better than the rugby team,’ said Ruth. ‘They lost to Colstons. Geoffrey wasn’t happy about it but I think I managed to cheer him up.’
Olivia flashed back to supper, to the uncomfortable spectacle of the two of them flirting, and then her silly argument with Geoffrey on the way back to the car. She regretted no
t having had sex like he wanted. She regretted the argument about Edward too. Was that why he hadn’t waited for her to get back from Millfield: to avoid the possibility of another argument? It wasn’t as if he had anything to rush home for, other than an evening with his mother – captive audience to her reminiscences and opinions.
Olivia wished she hadn’t suggested talking to Ruth. She wasn’t in the mood for it, but couldn’t really back out now. In half an hour or so the boarders would have finished supper and be on their way up to the dorm. Olivia could really have done with the time to herself: a mug of hot chocolate and a sit down – maybe try to Skype her mum, although it was six in the morning in Sydney so that might not have been too welcome.
She unlocked the door to her flat, took off her coat and put it in the bedroom. When she came back Ruth was on the sofa, scrutinising her phone.
‘I can never get a signal up here,’ said Olivia.
‘Orange,’ said Ruth.
‘Pardon?’
‘Orange. It’s the only network with coverage.’
‘Good to know. Can I take your coat?’
Ruth dropped her bag on the table. ‘No, you can’t. It’s bloody freezing.’
‘Sorry. The boiler has a mind of its own.’
Ruth looked around in the manner of a prospective purchaser viewing a wholly unsuitable property. ‘So what did you want to talk about?’
Olivia sat on the chair opposite. ‘I’m concerned about Alice.’
‘We’ve discussed this already.’
‘Yes, I know, but things have cranked up a gear, I’m afraid. This afternoon, Maisie deliberately pushed her to the ground. Alice was very upset.’
Olivia could have been describing some mundane domestic matter for all the concern Ruth showed.
‘I see. Well, it sounds like normal sibling stuff. Alice has always been more clingy, but if she doesn’t learn to stand up for herself people will walk all over her.’
Olivia couldn’t fault Ruth’s logic. If an animal sensed fear, it knew it had the upper hand. Alice exuded fear. She cast herself in the role of victim and Maisie responded accordingly.
‘I agree Alice is too timid. I wonder if perhaps she’s not quite ready for boarding?’
The dismissive shrug of Ruth’s shoulders was pure Maisie. Olivia remembered a book that posed the nature versus nurture debate. It had been Lorna’s turn to host book club, generous pourings of wine fuelling a variety of family anecdotes, revealed in the spirit of the confessional. Leslie Winter, the quietest, newest member of the group, disclosed that her parents had lived separate lives under the same roof and that mealtimes were conducted in a cold and choking silence. Anorexia was the inevitable corollary – not because of size-zero models or the prevailing cult of thinness, but because as far back as she could remember, it was hard to swallow food past a tight, tense knot of incomprehension. When the two people you loved most in the world were the two people who hated each other most in the world, it was difficult to make sense of the world. No one knew what to say. Lorna had opened another bottle of wine and moved the subject on to Josh and Lily, how in some ways they were so alike and in others, so very different.
Maisie and Alice were different too and that was fine, but there was an unhealthy imbalance at the core of their relationship: an emerging malice that went far beyond the good-natured, short-lived disagreements Josh and Lily had.
‘If a lack of confidence is the problem,’ said Ruth, ‘I would have thought boarding was the perfect solution. They just have to muck in and get on with it, don’t they? Exactly what Alice needs. When she’s at home she follows me round all day – wants my undivided attention. Maisie is much less demanding.’
Again, Olivia found it difficult to argue. She regretted broaching this without Martin. His natural empathy might have counterbalanced Ruth’s insistence that nothing was amiss.
A photograph on the sideboard caught Ruth’s attention – Geoffrey and Edward running out of the sea at Lyme Regis. Easter holidays, just a month before the factory closed down. Olivia had dared them to swim but the water was so cold they only made it in a few yards before racing back to the shore. Olivia could barely keep the camera still, she was laughing so much.
Ruth went over to have a closer look. ‘You think I’m a bad mother, don’t you?’ Her tone was matter-of-fact rather than accusatory, but the directness of the question shocked Olivia.
‘That’s not what I’m saying.’
‘It’s implied.’
Ruth picked up the photograph and examined it. ‘Tell me, does Edward lashing out at Freddie Burton make you a bad mother?’ If Ruth’s intention was to offend, she had succeeded.
‘That was an isolated incident.’
Ruth put down the photograph and picked up another – a headshot of Geoffrey.
‘And wife?’
‘Pardon?’
‘Are you critical of me as a wife?’
Olivia had promised never to speak of the incident with young Tom and didn’t understand Ruth’s motives for bringing it up.
‘I’m not prepared to discuss—’
‘I’m a terrible wife,’ interrupted Ruth. ‘But you already know that. Just out of interest, why didn’t you tell Martin what really happened in the pavilion? Certainly would have made your life easier with all those nasty rumours flying around.’
Olivia took a slow breath to try to flatten the sharp spike of rancour. She thought of Rowena, opposite in terms of approach: Ruth searingly direct, Rowena artfully oblique – but with remarkably similar intent. Olivia often reflected on what it was about her that piqued dislike in a certain type of woman. Jealousy, her mother always said, although it was difficult to imagine that was the case with Ruth. Her towering confidence, her ‘couldn’t give a toss’ arrogance suggested jealousy was an alien emotion. How satisfying it would be to tell Ruth exactly what she thought of her. You’re a selfish slut who doesn’t deserve Martin or the girls. The words tasted bitter on Olivia’s tongue. It took heroic willpower not to spit them like venom in Ruth’s smug face. Olivia took another slow breath and reminded herself she needed this job.
‘I didn’t want to destroy your family.’
Ruth made a ‘huh’ sound, as if mildly amused. ‘How noble.’
‘Not entirely. I didn’t want to fall foul of that whole shoot-the-messenger thing either.’
Ruth seemed to have lost interest in the topic anyway. She studied the photograph of Geoffrey a few moments more before placing it back on the sideboard. ‘It’s not all it seems, is it? Marriage. Family.’
Olivia assumed the question was rhetorical.
‘And what about you, Olivia? Are you a good wife? It can’t be easy for you and Geoffrey, being apart for weeks on end. All that enforced celibacy.’
Boundary issues. That was Ruth’s problem – she had no respect for boundaries. The only person Olivia discussed her marriage with was Lorna. She would certainly never discuss it with Ruth Rutherford.
‘That’s none of your business,’ said Olivia curtly.
Ruth raised an eyebrow, a hint of a smirk suggesting she enjoyed getting a rise out of Olivia.
‘The girls will be back soon,’ Olivia said, getting to her feet. ‘I should really—’
Ruth pulled a tissue from her coat pocket and blew her nose. ‘Can I use your loo?’
Olivia wanted her gone but could hardly refuse. She pointed at the bedroom door. ‘Through there.’
A hissing sound signalled the boiler had sprung into action. Olivia needed a long, hot shower and for this day to end. Another sound – a phone ringing – emanated from Ruth’s open bag. Her mobile lay on top, its screen lit up. GP 007. It took a few rings before Olivia made the connection. Geoffrey?
Ruth swept in, buttoning up her coat. ‘Was that my phone?’
She glanced at it without comment and threw her bag over her shoulder.
‘I’ll have a word with Maisie, tell her to be kinder to her sister. Don’t want to raise a little tyrant now, do
I?’
With that she breezed out, leaving Olivia to try and fathom why Geoffrey’s number was saved in Ruth’s phone, and why he was calling her.
Harriet popped her head round the door. ‘I saw Mrs Rutherford go. Everything all right?’
Olivia wasn’t sure how to answer that.
*
Pinned to the corkboard over the fridge was a copy of Olivia’s job description: two pages of duties and responsibilities under the headings ‘Nurturing and Educating Students (60%)’, ‘House Management (20%)’, ‘Programme and Professional Development (20%)’.
When Martin had first gone through it with her, he had noted her bewildered expression and played it down. Don’t look so worried, Olivia. It’s much less onerous than it seems.
Not true. Most evenings she stayed up late sorting the girls’ laundry and mending their uniforms. There were reports and Christmas cards to write for the end of term; travel arrangements to be made for those girls whose parents couldn’t collect them. This evening she was too tired for any of it. She climbed into bed shortly after ten and opened the book that had sat, neglected, on her bedside table all week. Dense historical tomes weren’t her favourite reading but she needed something to take her mind off Geoffrey.
She had braved the elements in the quad to phone him after Ruth left, but got his voicemail. He would have been back at the Rectory by then so why hadn’t he taken her call? Was it some sort of payback for her not having taken his? He knew what her timetable was like and how difficult she found it to get any service on her mobile. She had been tempted to phone him on the landline, but Rowena might have answered and Olivia wasn’t in the mood for strained small talk. Rain had found its way inside her collar and she shivered. Again she had tried Geoffrey’s mobile and again it went to voicemail. That time she left a message. Thought you might have waited for me after rugby – would have been nice to see you. Actually, I did see you, driving away. She shut her eyes and counted to three. Why did you call Ruth Rutherford?
*
Some of the Alpha group had volunteered to meet at the Rutherfords’ house and help sew costumes for the Nativity play. Naturally Olivia had been roped in too. General dogsbody, unable to say ‘No, I’d rather not if you don’t mind’, because she had to make up for Edward’s fall from grace, for Geoffrey’s poor performance with the rugby team, for Maisie Rutherford bullying Alice Rutherford, and for anything else that might possibly go wrong despite none of it being her fault in the first place.
An Unsuitable Marriage Page 17
