by Jemma Wayne
Her nerves were, however, unnecessary, as far as the children went at least, turning out to be a delightful balance between respectful and precocious.
“Mrs Reddington?” one girl interrupted at least three times during the first lesson. “Mrs Reddington, my mummy says I should ask you lots of questions so you remember me. Can I ask you a question please?”
“Mrs Reddington, you’re so pretty,” blushed another, a dark-haired, caramel-skinned boy already possessing a cheeky charm.
“Mrs Greenington,” dared a third, easily coerced into apology by the slightest lift of Veronica’s left eyebrow.
There was only one child who unsettled her. Sheathed in a halo of wilful, auburn curls, and freckled in glorious splashes across her cheeks, Amelia Beckham stood well under four foot, quiet unless spoken to, at which point a smile would spread infectiously into her speech so that even the most exacting of her peers would listen. From the first minute, Veronica could not take her eyes off her. The girl was seated near the front of the class and paid keen attention, raising her hand every time a question was asked, or wrinkling her brow earnestly if she didn’t have an answer. She was lovely, exactly the kind of child Veronica could imagine having herself. But she didn’t know why she felt such a magnetic pull towards her.
At break time, Veronica skimmed through some of the children’s books and noted that Amelia was neither at the top nor the bottom of the class. She was not one of the children that the PE teacher had told her was especially athletic, nor one that the singing teacher had said would soon enough be on the radio. Peeking through the classroom window, she saw that she was not the best or worst at cartwheels in the playground, nor the funniest, nor naughtiest, nor the most or least popular. But there was something about her. She was one of only three children in Year 2 to have already moved on to Year 3 reading books, but Veronica didn’t think that was it. And it was only at the end of the day when the parents lined up at the door – she had decided on hellos and handshakes – that Veronica finally put two and two together and realised why Amelia had affected her so strangely.
“Sarah?”
Sarah Beckham, née Johnson, stood, clearly stunned, just outside the classroom door. Aside from the elegantly cut suit, and the hair that was a few shades lighter and far more manicured than when they’d last met, Veronica could have been looking at the exact same girl she’d known twenty-two years earlier. Her jaw was a little sharper than it had been, she was, as age dictated, significantly taller, a few faint lines dotted her complexion, and she had finally got the hang of make-up, but her essence was unchanged. There was no mistaking it.
“Sarah Johnson?”
“Beckham, now,” Sarah replied, finding her voice through the surprise. “Veronica.”
“I can’t believe you’re here.” Despite first-day protocol, Veronica pulled Sarah into a fierce hug, ignoring the slight awkwardness in Sarah’s returning arms, and the curious eyes of the onlooking parents. “We were best friends when we were twelve,” Veronica told them. Then to Sarah, “It’s been what, more than twenty years?”
Sarah nodded. “I can’t believe you’re Amelia’s teacher. You teach now?”
“I do.”
“Wow.” Sarah shook her head as she took this in, her blonde-brown bob flapping endearingly against her chin.
“And you?” probed Veronica. “You have a child.”
“Two actually. My son’s at home.”
“Typical.”
“Typical?”
“Leaving the boy at home. You always were a feminist.”
“He’s eighteen months,” said Sarah quickly. But already one of the other parents in the queue had laughed. Another smiled, impatiently, and at least three more strained their necks forward in an effort to hear the conversation and not be left out of any potential judging of, or bonding with, the new teacher.
Veronica wanted to bond. Talking to Sarah was all at once like rediscovering a forgotten but favourite taste, teasing her tongue with familiar and delectable flavour. And the confident girl Veronica had once been, oblivious to things like life and miscarriages, the child who had once basked in Sarah’s friendship, was bubbling gleefully to the surface. Veronica heard her in the slightly impudent words tripping out of her mouth. She felt her resurgence, just out of grasp. Within her grasp, she placed her hand on Sarah’s, and leaned out of the classroom to the queue of parents. “Apologies, everyone.” Then keeping hold of her friend’s hand, she called Amelia to come to her mother. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said. “It’s so lovely to find you here.”
“Actually, my husband will be picking up tomorrow,” Sarah replied as she enveloped Amelia in a comfortable hug. “David usually does the pick-up, but Mondays are my day.”
“Oh? What do you do then?” Veronica queried, feeling herself inexplicably prickling, her unease returning, as though Sarah’s failure to show up on the school run was somehow a rejection of her.
“I’m a lawyer.”
“Oh. Right. Unsurprising.”
“Really? Why?”
“Well you always liked rules, didn’t you?”
The same mother who had laughed earlier, laughed again, and Veronica smiled at her, enjoying the fleeting sense of command, wondering where the slight barbs in her speech were coming from. Sarah furrowed her brow. She did this the same way Amelia did, the same way, Veronica now remembered, she always used to. Sarah began to usher Amelia away from the door to make room for the next parent, but Veronica touched her arm again. “Dinner then. This week. I’ll get your number from the office.”
Sarah smiled and nodded agreeably, though, Veronica noticed, it was with not quite total enthusiasm, as she shepherded her daughter away.
Veronica didn’t leave the school campus until well after five o’clock. Ordinarily, she supposed, she could be gone by four, but she’d had a short meeting with the headmaster to debrief about her first day, and besides, wanted some time to explore the classroom alone. On the wall hung photographs of each of her new Year 2s, and she tried to put names to faces. Managing sixteen out of twenty, she lingered for a moment on Amelia’s, and then spent a few minutes memorising the four that had eluded her. Names learned, she walked slowly around the room, looking at each of the pieces of work on the wall, noting which children had exceptionally neat handwriting, and which seemed in need of development. She stood for an especially long time in front of the collage of self-portraits, attempting to see past the precision of paint, or lack of it, and through to the more important clues of self-perception. On the cycle home she pondered further the enigma of one very pale-skinned boy painting himself a deep brown, the oddity of one face that had been fashioned as almost entirely mouth, and Amelia’s creation, which included every freckle, every red curl, and a meticulously accurate depiction of both shape and colour of the eyes and mouth, revealing that the girl saw herself almost exactly as she was, and suggested she was just as straight-shooting as her mother.
Veronica was still thinking about this when she saw him – the boy from next door. She was mid locking up her bike, carefully threading the cord through both railing and wheel, when something in her periphery caught her attention and she looked up to see him standing on the other side of the street, looking at her. He had not yet crossed over, and she watched as he pretended to notice something of interest on the pavement. Veronica lingered. Even in the day’s flurry of new pupils, and new parents, and then the surprise of Sarah, the noises of the previous night had not stopped echoing in her mind, scratching just below the surface, like the itch beneath her skin. More than once that day she had thought about the uneasiness of this boy. More than once she had thought about the baby crying. More than once she had wondered whether the woman was okay. Just once, her father’s friend in Oman had intruded again into her mind…
She’d wanted to kiss him that night, she had. Only when he had pushed her backwards onto the bed and tugged at her dress, it was more abrupt and with greater force than seemed necessar
y. And never before had a man pressed his hand over her mouth as he reached greedily into her knickers. When he entered her, he had knelt hard with one knee onto her thigh, and kept her face pinned fast against the pillow, and even if she had wanted to scream out, she would have been unable. So she’d pretended that she had not wanted to scream, and that yes, she’d enjoyed it, and even allowed him to kiss her goodbye, then left herself the following day with her parents without telling anyone.
Veronica shook her head. She had barely thought about that night since, other than to laud her affair with an older man over her teenage schoolmates. Of course, with hindsight, it was easy to see why. If she had allowed herself to think about it, then she would have had to acknowledge that she had not actually intended to sleep with the older, influential friend of her father’s. And if she’d admitted how powerless she had in that moment been, then she would have had to acknowledge all the other areas in her life where she felt powerless too, and it was much better to feel strong and brazen, and to be in charge of herself and everything and everybody. Besides, she’d told herself then, and again now, she wasn’t underage, she hadn’t resisted, he hadn’t even been her first.
Yet the night was pushing its way back into her head, and there was a new thought too: had she been the first girl he’d taken that way? Had others followed after she said nothing?
Slowly, Veronica pulled a plastic bag from her blazer pocket and, in case of rain, tied it around the saddle of her bike. Then she spent a long time gathering her various bags and rummaging through them for her house key. At last, the boy crossed over.
Up close, his face didn’t look anything like his mother’s. Though hers had been pale and a little gaunt, the complexion disturbed by patches of red, her eyes had been strikingly large and blue, her lips full. The boy’s upper lip barely existed. His eyes were beady and too close together. His skin was darker than his mother’s, but instead of the luxurious olive or velvet tones she often admired, his had come out a dull fawn that gave a sense of poor health. He was the kind of child to whom, if he’d turned up in her class, she would probably have taken an early and irrational dislike. Though she would of course have tried not to.
“Hello,” she smiled genially as he reached his doorstep. “I’m your new neighbour, Veronica.”
The boy didn’t look at her. “Hi,” he muttered in a show of haste, but despite having key in hand, he waited a moment in front of his door.
Veronica took this as a sign to continue. “I met your mother yesterday,” she said, glancing up to his flat. “Is she in now?”
“I dunno,” said the boy. “Sometimes she’s not.”
“Oh, does she work?”
The boy shrugged his shoulders. Still he didn’t make to go inside.
“Is your dad home? I haven’t met him yet.”
“He’s not my dad,” the boy declared, quickly, before, as though correcting his openness, shrugging again.
“What’s your name?” Veronica asked. She was watching him closely, the frail hunch of his skinny shoulders, the sharp darting of his eyes. He gave the impression of one of those meerkats you see in zoos – small and furry, but deeply alert, likely to bite.
“Dom. Dominic, but Dom.” The boy was finally looking at her, and now that he was, there was an unnerving focus to his stare. Though she was used to talking to children, Veronica felt an odd wariness.
“And how old are you, Dom?”
“Eleven. It’s my last year in primaries.”
“I teach in a primary school,” said Veronica. “What subject do you like?”
At this, Dominic returned his eyes to his door. Again, he shrugged. “Dunno.”
“Well I like English,” Veronica continued hastily. “I love books. Don’t tell my students, but I’m awful at maths.”
Dominic looked at her again, the focus still intense. “I won’t tell,” he assured her.
She smiled at him with exaggerated gratitude.
He didn’t move. His eyes held hers.
“Well, it’s lovely to meet you, Dom.” Veronica said this with forced breeziness. Part of her wanted to keep talking, to keep the boy outside with her, to find out what was going on in that flat, to make sure the boy’s mum was alright, and the baby; but another part of her was suddenly compelled to get away. “I’ll see you later,” she said. “Please send your mum my best.”
She trod the single step up to her own door, and he nodded. Simultaneously, they turned their keys. From inside Dominic’s house came the sound of a TV blaring. From inside Veronica’s, the beeping of the alarm.
By the time George arrived home, Veronica had already made her signature Thai green curry – one of a handful of dishes that she had learned the recipe to, didn’t require too much cooking nous, and she produced in rotation; she had enjoyed a first bath in their new freestanding tub, the water thankfully dulling the leg itch; and she had texted Sarah. It was a carefully crafted text, offering three dates over the next two weeks for dinner, and alluding gently to their friendship of old. It had only lasted a short time, during their first year at secondary school, before the move to Oman and the start of her boarding, but it had been an intense affair, all endless love and drama, and Veronica often thought of that year as one of her happiest. Perhaps it was because she’d been living at home with her parents, or because she’d liked her school, or any number of other factors, but in her mind it had always been because of Sarah. Veronica conjured her as somebody who made her feel strong, stronger than she was, and over the years there had been more than one occasion when Sarah had sprung into Veronica’s mind: her sincerity and gravity; or the ease with which she’d argued with and adored her sister and parents; or the taste of her mother’s Bolognese. So it was a genuine joy for Veronica to see her again. There was something about it that lifted her. Strengthened her. It seemed serendipitous that she had reappeared at this particular juncture.
George seemed largely unfazed by the coincidence. “I suppose it’s not that surprising. Most people tend to stick around the areas they grow up in.”
Veronica took a sip of her wine – still three days clear of ovulation. “Yes, but out of all the people I could have seen – her, my absolute best friend.”
They were sitting in the living room, drinking wine while they indulged in a Netflix box set. It was almost midnight and George would be up again in less than six hours, she in seven, but on nights when he came home as late as this, if they didn’t stretch the hours of evening, they would barely see each other. Wine helped to mask the cracks in this joint gesture of sacrifice. There was a time when their legs would have been intertwined on the sofa, a time when their hands and lips would have been light with small caresses, a time when the depth of their conversation had felt endless.
“Your best friend for a year.”
“A year is a long time in the life of an eleven-year-old.”
“When I was eleven, I was best boys with Richard Darfus. Do you know what he does now? He’s a brain surgeon. An actual brain surgeon.”
“Did you just say, ‘best boys’?” Veronica smiled at him teasingly.
“Best boys. Sure.”
Veronica laughed. “Cute.”
“Not cute. Very, very manly.”
George grinned, with an old warmth. The open balcony door adjoining the living room let in a soft summer breeze. Through the speakers, the gentle music accompanying the programme credits sounded softly. The cracks seemed almost invisible. Bolstered by her encounter with Sarah, Veronica felt a rare, whispering hopefulness. Even the noise from next door had subsided. Perhaps the neighbours were not going to be as bad as they’d feared. Not that either she or George had so much as mentioned this fear. George had rushed out of the house that morning without a word, and Veronica had understood from this that the potential disaster of the new home they’d ploughed their savings into was too much for him to acknowledge in the daylight. She wanted to talk about it, about whether they should have called the police, or still should, she wan
ted to dissect her encounter with Dom, but all evening she had tucked this conversation away. Without consultation, both of them had decided to play at paradise.
“Five episodes down, five to go,” George declared, switching off the TV and draining the last of his wine. “Bed?”
She nodded, carrying their glasses to the sink while he repaired the remote control to its charger and plumped their dented pillows. They still moved in effortless congruence. She had hoped many times over the preceding months, that these ingrained habits would be enough to buoy them, and in a way they were. While their bodies failed them, and words faltered, they clung to the fluency of their routines. In the bathroom, they brushed their teeth in unison and, playfully, George made a face at her in the mirror. She laughed, and aped his expression, hopefulness giving way to exuberance. She barely dared to believe it, but something felt different between them that evening – lighter, easy, like they used to be. Perhaps, now that it was quiet, the house, with its freshness, was working its magic after all. In the flat, by the end, all she had been able to see were proofs of disaster. When she walked into the kitchen – there lay the morning she’d pounced on George at the counter, thrusting the pregnancy test beneath his nose. In the spare room – there lived the Sunday they’d spent plotting out where to put the cot. And their bedroom was never safe, always the site of her collapse. Briefly, Veronica wondered whether the woman next door also cried into her husband’s chest as she had done that night, soaking sodden the cotton of his shirt. Or if instead, she cried away from him, because of him. There was, however, still no noise, and she pushed this thought from her mind.
Together they spat. George reached for his moisturiser, she for hers, branded in the same packaging. In the cupboard on her side of the double sink were the ovulation sticks, but she managed to ignore the sight of them on the shelf. Instead, Veronica dared a purposeful, lingering smile at George in the mirror. He grinned back at her, and as he manoeuvred around her out of the bathroom, again hopefulness flickered inside her chest. Until she realised that as he passed her, he hadn’t attempted to squeeze her bottom, or slip his hand around her waist, or kiss her cheek. And as she watched him climb into bed, she saw that he turned immediately towards the wall.
