by Georgia Hill
And failed.
But I couldn’t go without mentioning my behaviour at the flat. I just couldn’t. I took another very deep breath.
“And I’m really sorry for how I behaved back at the flat. I’d like to thank you for looking after me and being a perfect gentleman.” I crossed my fingers behind my back at the lie, “I hope you’ll disregard anything I might have said under the influence of alcohol. And thank you for my Christmas present. I’ll treasure it.” I finished in a rush.
He gave a twisted smile and rubbed the back of his neck in a weary gesture.
“So I’ll just go then,” I muttered. “If there’s nothing more to be said.” I turned to the door, frustrated by his silence.
“Nicky?”
“Yes?” I turned back to him hopefully.
Jack gave an enormous sigh. “I’ve been thinking,” he said with obvious difficulty. “After some reflection, I think it would be best if we kept our relationship on a strictly professional basis, don’t you?”
No!
I nodded. “Yes Jack.” I turned to go before he could see the tears which threatened.
“And Nicky?”
I looked around cautiously but he was looking down at the print out again.
“You made a very sweet drunk.” He glanced swiftly up at me and his eyes crinkled in a vague semblance of a smile.
With tears in my eyes I left with a bitter smile of my own dancing around my lips.
If I thought I’d worked hard before it was as nothing to the hours I was putting in now. As Easter was early, the half term was short and we didn’t have a lot of time to prepare for the inspection. To my disappointment the twice weekly staff meetings resumed, as we had so much to discuss and update everyone on.
My workload was heavy. I had responsibility for the curriculum and there was a lot which needed to be done. Policies needed to be drafted, agreed and shared, lesson planning needed to be tightened up and a hundred other details needed to be finalised. But I wasn’t alone in working long hours. Jack and Mona often worked well into the night as well. The other teachers too were pulling together to make the inspection a success. And, although everyone was working extremely hard, there was a new atmosphere of working towards a shared goal, which hadn’t been evident during much of last term.
The amount of paperwork was overwhelming. Over the next few weeks I worked with the subject co-ordinators, making sure they had their policies and resource lists up to date and that they had done lesson observations to monitor the quality of teaching in their subject.
I had planned on meeting each co-ordinator in turn and was gradually getting through them. When I met Helen however, to discuss science, our meeting flowed over into a Saturday afternoon. I was seriously worried about how she was going to cope with an inspection. She had been teaching for nearly twenty-five years and inspections were sometimes hard on more experienced teachers. Confident in the classroom she went to pieces when her practice was challenged and when she was observed in a formal way. And yet I knew her teaching was good. She was a worrier but the end results were fantastic. Her pupils loved her and she put huge effort into planning exciting lessons. Despite Helen’s vow never to have live creatures in the classroom ever again, they currently had some chicken eggs which they were trying to hatch.
One Friday evening a few of us collapsed in the staff room after a particularly busy week. We were consoling ourselves with some Kit-Kats that I’d brought in. I really needed the chocolate fix. I’d had an unpleasant encounter with Spencer’s father who had been extremely abusive about a pair of lost football boots and it was still preying on my mind. On top of everything else several members of staff had gone down with a nasty virus which was spreading like wildfire through school. I’d been without Carol, my irrepressible teaching assistant all week and I’d really missed her. I coughed painfully and hoped I wasn’t catching the same bug.
A screech from the corridor outside had us rushing to see what was going on.
Irene was pressed comically against the wall as Rupert could be seen manhandling a life sized skeleton through the main door of the school entrance.
Mona came out of her office and peered over her half moon spectacles. “Good Heavens Rupert what have you got there?”
“It’s Charlie from the Resources Library,” panted Rupert and flipped his long hair out of his eyes. He grinned. “I’ve just been to get him. I thought he might be useful for the Year Six SATs revision.” Then he saw me and beamed, “Hi Nicky!” He struggled to right Charlie against the wall as the skeleton threatened to escape his hold. It grimaced evilly as the skull flopped forward.
Irene flinched away. “Is it real?” she gasped.
“No, it’s just a model,” Rupert answered scornfully. He wiped a hand across his brow. “I had one Hell of a game getting him here in the Mini. I had to take his frame off and sit him in the passenger seat. Got some funny looks I can tell you!” We all laughed, except for Irene who was still looking horrified.
“Try Charlotte rather than Charlie” Helen said caustically, as she peered at the pelvis. “It’s a female skeleton. And what’s happened to her mandible?”
“His what?” Rupert looked blank.
“Her jaw-bone, Rupert,” Helen explained, as if to someone hard of understanding. “Charlotte’s missing her jaw-bone.”
“Oh God,” he looked frantically about him. “I must have dropped it in the car!” He looked so bewildered that I took pity on him and offered to help carry Charlotte to her final destination.
I helped Rupert carry our new team member into his classroom and we set her up in the corner, hooking her back onto her frame. Charlotte looked horrifyingly realistic in the half-light so, laughing like the children we taught, we tried to cover her up with a cloth. With one skeletal hand dangling beneath she looked even more nightmare-ish so we uncovered her again.
“The look on Irene’s face when you brought her in!” I giggled as I tried to pose the skeleton in a less sinister manner. “Do you really think she thought Charlotte was a real skeleton?”
Rupert grinned. “Don’t know but the bloke I pulled up next to at the traffic lights in Farley Road thought so. I thought he was going to have a heart attack!”
I laughed again. “Thanks Rupert,” I sighed and looked at him with affection. “I really needed some light relief after a day like today!”
We were still laughing as we retraced our steps back to the school entrance, calling goodnight as we went. Some of the staff had got into the habit of meeting every Friday for a quick drink in the local pub and the others were coming along later. I’d been pleased when they’d included me in the invitation and tonight I really needed a drink. It had been one of those weeks and my throat was dry and tickly with what I fervently hoped was just dehydration. I couldn’t afford to be ill now.
As we passed Mona’s office she and Jack came out. He gave me a frozen stare as we passed and didn’t reply to our cheery goodnight. Well, he can’t have it both ways I thought crossly. I’m keeping the relationship ‘on a professional basis’ or whatever he’d
said so pompously back at the beginning of term. Since then I’d had as little to do with Jack as I could manage. I’d tried desperately hard to maintain as professional a stance as possible. But I had to admit to myself that, while on one level this was easier on the heart, I missed the softer side of Jack that I’d been given a glimpse of so briefly. And I regretted the look in his eyes as Rupert steered me possessively through the school doors.
A sick feeling rolled around my stomach.
“Care for a lift?” Rupert drawled. He was really quite posh. He spoke with perfect Received Pronunciation which matched his languid good looks. I nodded absentmindedly, my thoughts full of a difficult man whose short vowels and brusque northern accent did far more unspeakable things to my insides.
When we parked up at the pub Rupert switched off the car’s engine and turned to me.
“Nicky, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”
&n
bsp; Oh no, here it comes I thought, panicking slightly.
“Aah, would you like to go out one night? For a film or a meal? There’s a half decent Thai in town. It’s just opened. Got rave reviews in the local rag at the weekend.” Rupert flashed a hopeful grin at me. He had very white teeth.
“Rupert, I really like you but -”
“But? No go?”
I thought rapidly. I genuinely liked Rupert and didn’t want to hurt his feelings. But I suspected I could only ever feel friendship for him. How could I let him down gently?
“I don’t think it would be a good idea to mix work and a personal life, especially at the moment.” I spoke slowly, thinking about my choice of words carefully. “And I am your line manager after all. I think it might be best if we kept our relationship on a purely professional basis, don’t you?” I couldn’t believe I was parroting the very same words Jack had used on me. I just hoped I didn’t sound quite as pompous. I softened mine with a sympathetic smile as Rupert was looking crest-fallen.
A thought occurred to me. Desperate measures. “I know Ann is really keen on Thai food. Think she went there on holiday last Summer,” I began wildly. “She’s so lovely.” I trailed off. Rupert now looked horrified. I bit my lip at my tactlessness.
“God no! I couldn’t get rid of her at the Christmas do. All she kept doing was bang on about how her dress was a wedding dress and didn’t I think she looked like a bride? Hardly subtle, Nicky!”
No I thought, hardly subtle but resolved to get these two together if it killed me. I could do with a project to take my mind off my own heartbreak.
As I reached for my bag my hand met with something cold and smooth. I gave a shriek.
“Rupert I may not be able to accept your kind offer of a meal but I think I may just have found Charlotte’s jaw-bone!”
I held up the gruesome, bone coloured object. It looked horrifyingly realistic in the faint light given out by the pub’s windows.
“Nicky please!” Rupert said, in a wickedly accurate impersonation of Helen’s hectoring tones. “Don’t you know anything? It’s a mandible!”
I laughed and then breathed a sigh of relief as I climbed out of his Mini. I knew it was going to be all right between us.
Chapter Thirteen
We were so geared up and mentally prepared that the inspection itself, during the penultimate week of the spring term, was actually not too bad. It’s never pleasant to have every aspect of your working life scrutinised and challenged but the inspectors were surprisingly approachable. I even managed to bond with one, a charming man called Huw Davidson, when I discovered we had a mutual interest in the poetry of Tennyson. It Helped, of course, that Jack had worked with Huw before and knew the rest of the inspection team as well. They in turn obviously had huge respect for Jack’s ability and while I can’t say it was the most pleasant
week at school, I was amazed at how everyone worked together to make the best impression possible.
Janice, Ann and Rupert worried their way through the lessons in which they were observed teaching but thankfully passed muster. As predicted, Helen was very nervous when Huw observed her. He had some concerns over the quality of her teaching but our long discussion afterwards seemed to sway his opinion. He eventually deemed her lesson ‘Satisfactory.’ I winced, on Helen’s behalf. Satisfactory is such a damning judgement.
The children had picked up on the strained atmosphere and
even the youngest were aware that something important was afoot but they were a credit to the school. Even Spencer managed to behave himself for once. My heart swelled with pride at what Jack and the rest of us had achieved.
On the last day of the inspection Jack and I were treated to a gruelling question and answer session by the team leader; a sharp-eyed woman called Annabel Haytor. She had fiercely cropped silver hair and an impressive pair of earrings that caught the early spring sun in a distracting fashion, hurting my eyes. Throughout the day we were questioned on every aspect of how we managed the school. We were challenged on the minutest detail of the school’s weaknesses and had to draft the school’s development plan for its future. By the time the afternoon session began, after a quick break for a late lunch that I couldn’t eat, I was exhausted with a pounding head and a silly tickly cough that refused to go away no matter how much water I drank. As I tried to talk my way through yet another coughing fit Jack excused us and led me out of the office.
“Nicky, I think we’re nearly finished here,” he said in a gentle voice. He put a hand on my arm. It was the warmest he’d been towards me for ages.
“You look exhausted. Why don’t you go home and I’ll take it from here. Annabel will understand.”
When I hesitated he repeated, “Go home. You’ve done enough – more than enough. It wouldn’t have been the success it is without you. But you’ve done enough now. Go home.”
His sudden kindness affected me far more than the abrupt treatment I’d been receiving from him so far this term. He was so much more like the man I remembered from before Christmas. Quick tears constricted my already sore throat. I’d cried over this man far more than over anybody or anything else for as long as I could remember. And there seemed no hope that there was any resolution in sight.
I mumbled my thanks and turned to go.
As the door was closing behind him I heard Annabel say, “I’m so pleased they’ve finally persuaded you to take the London job, Jack.
”After croaking a miserable goodbye to Mona, I made my way home. If Jack was going onto another job perhaps it was just as well. I couldn’t take much more of working so closely with him and being treated as a stranger.
I spent most of the weekend sleeping. I still felt completely exhausted and didn’t know whether to put it down to the inspection, a virus or to heartbreak.
On Sunday I made a supreme effort and called Mum. She and Dad, along with Joyce, were flying out to Spain that evening. We had, between us, made it a mission to persuade Mum that she could do it but I could tell she was still deeply reluctant to go. I was afraid that if she suspected I was unwell she would refuse to leave. After forcing myself to chat bracingly to Mum, convincing her that she really would have a lovely time with Andy and Inez, I collapsed coughing back into bed.
The following morning I dragged myself into school. My limbs felt like leaden weights and it took ages to do even the simplest of early morning routine tasks. I knew from the brief look I’d braved in the mirror that morning that I looked awful. Limp haired, red-eyed and white-faced I steeled myself to croak through the morning’s lessons. If I could just get to Wednesday, the last day of term, then I could spend the two-week Easter holiday recuperating.
Memories of the rest of that day are hazy. At lunchtime I couldn’t face eating but suddenly felt in need of fresh air and, as I was passing Jack’s office on the way out of school, I collapsed in a boneless heap right outside his door.
I came to in my own bed in my own bedroom. The door to the sitting room was open and I could see the TV flickering silently. I heard the gentle tap of someone using a computer and frowned. Leaning out of bed I could see Jack’s legs stretched out in front of the sofa and his hands moving rapidly over his laptop. The movement made me cough violently and as I took a long draught of water Jack looked round and, seeing I was awake, came into the bedroom.
“You’re awake,” he said, a little awkwardly. “How do you feel?”
I thought about it. My limbs still felt feeble and my head was muzzy as if stuffed with cotton wool but I didn’t feel the complete exhaustion I had been suffering from over the last few days.
“Better. I think,” I tried out my voice. It came out several octaves lower with a huskiness that, if I had been feeling better, I would have said was quite sexy.
Jack raised his eyebrows and smiled a fraction.
“Where’s Mona?” I rasped out. I vaguely remembered her business-like hands as she had tucked me in. But when was that? I’d lost any sense of time and didn’t even know what d
ay it was. It seemed a lifetime ago that I was at school.
“She had to go home,” Jack pursed his lips thoughtfully. He didn’t seem to particularly relishing his role of nurse. “She’s got cats to feed and a rehearsal tonight.”
I tried to raise enough enthusiasm to reply that I’d remembered she was in The Players but had only enough energy for another coughing fit.
“I’ll get you some more water,” Jack murmured more kindly, as my body was racked with unattractive spasms. “Is there anything else you’d like?”
I managed a shake of my head.
As I sipped the cool water that he’d brought back, I couldn’t help wondering why he was there.
“What time is it?” I struggled to look at my bedside clock and gave up. The curtains were closed so I couldn’t tell if it was light or dark outside.
“It’s about seven,” he replied, looking swiftly at his wristwatch. Then, when he saw my questioning look, added: “In the evening. Tuesday evening. You’ve been asleep off and on ever since we brought you back from school yesterday.”
He gave me a look which I couldn’t read. “Mona looked after you today and she’s coming back tomorrow. You were so ill we didn’t like to leave you on your own so I’m doing the night shift.” He thrust his hands violently into his jeans pockets and added, “When I rang your parents there was no reply. Are they away?”
“Spain – with Andy,” I whispered hoarsely.
“Right,” he nodded. “Well, the doctor said it was a combination of the virus that’s doing the rounds and sheer exhaustion. You should have told me how you were feeling Nicky.”
I looked at him from underneath my eyelashes and he had the grace to look uncomfortable, as well he might.
“Yes well, I’ll let you get back to sleep. I’m just in there.” He jerked his head in the direction of the sitting room. “If there’s anything else you want just shout.”
I looked at him with humour.
“Well – just croak then.”
I struggled to turn over the pillows which had become hot and uncomfortable and found I hadn’t the strength. Ridiculous.
