His audience were as impressed as he’d hoped they would be. But, as Nick saw only too clearly, there was no possibility of edging across the room yet.
‘You are a dark horse,’ Catherine rebuked him, when the buzz died down. ‘You never told me that.’
‘Only came this morning,’ he said. ‘I thought it would make a good conclusion to the ceremony.’ Then he turned to his guests. ‘I give you a toast,’ he said. ‘As so many of us seem to be setting out on new careers – ’ looking at his senior partner – ‘or in a new life – ’ looking at Gemma ‘or in a new variations of the old one – ’ smiling at everyone there: ‘Here’s to new directions!’
‘New directions!’ Gemma echoed. She could certainly drink to that. It was time to take a new direction of her own.
The party was over. People were already saying goodbye and drifting away. If I’m not quick, Nick thought, she’ll up and go too. She’s a bit too good at that. He shouldered his way through the mob.
She was standing by the table looking at the remains of her cake.
‘Great cake,’ he said.
‘Well, they ate it,’ she admitted, ‘and nobody’s dropped dead.’
‘Great party.’
‘Yes.’
‘Look,’ he said, ‘I know this isn’t the time for it, but how would you like to go to the theatre?’
‘What to see?’
He took the tickets out of his pocket and showed them to her.
‘Next Friday,’ she said. ‘That’s a week today.’
He agreed that it was, adding carelessly, ‘You’ve probably seen it.’
She had, but she decided not to tell him. ‘They say it’s a very good show.’
Then you’ll come?’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘thanks.’
But the words were barely out of her mouth before Andrew loomed in upon them, booming that it had been a great party and demanding that Nick come and talk to old Campbell before he goes. ‘He’s been doing some fascinating work with duodenals.’
It wasn’t the moment for another toe-to-toe so Nick allowed himself to be led away. ‘Six o’clock?’ he said to Gemma as he turned into the throng, smiled as she nodded, and was lost to her sight.
Is it a date? she wondered. Or what? It had been offered so casually it was hard to tell. She started to clear the table, glad to have something to occupy her. Before the accident she would have teased him and found out what his feelings were; now she didn’t feel capable of that sort of teasing and wouldn’t have dared it anyway just in case he was asking her for the wrong reasons. It would have been different if she hadn’t been his patient, different if she hadn’t confessed so much to him out in the boat, different if she still had both her legs. I must get a job, she decided. Keep myself busy. All this sitting about being introspective isn’t good for me.
Chapter 19
Not being one to waste time once she’d made a decision, Gemma took the first step in her new direction the very next morning. The Quennells were sleeping late now that they’d retired, the house was quiet, and, as the flow of letters had more or less dried up, there was no work she felt compelled to do. With a copy of the telephone directory to provide addresses, and the gas fire lit to provide a pleasant heat, she sat on the sofa in her green and gold living room and wrote to the four nearest primary schools to offer her services as a disabled helper ‘should you have any pupils who might need me’, stressing that she’d been trained as a teacher as well as an actress, and adding: ‘besides losing my left lower leg which has given me the experience of knowing what newly disabled people need.’ Then, feeling she’d made as good a case for herself as she could, she took a walk to the postbox.
It was a clear, cold, breezy morning and there were only two other people in the street – a man exercising his dog and one of her neighbours returning home with the Saturday newspaper tucked under his arm. He waved and smiled as he passed. ‘Off for the papers?’ he asked.
Until that moment Gemma hadn’t thought of papers – the Quennells had theirs delivered – but the question gave her an idea. She would walk round the corner and see if the newsagent had a copy of Stage and Television or Plays and Players. It wasn’t far and if she took it gently she ought to be able to manage it.
It was actually further than she thought and, by the time she’d struggled there and back, her stump was decidedly uncomfortable, but she’d found a copy of both magazines and bought them at once. It was a good move. Simply looking at their familiar covers made her feel she was back in charge of her life again. She would take off her prosthesis as soon as she got home, check that the stump hadn’t chafed and attend to it if it had. Then she would see what was on offer in the London theatre world.
It wasn’t very much. One show was asking for singers and dancers, so that was out. A small firm needed extras for an ad, and that would be too active for her too. Another required an ASM for a Christmas pantomime on the south coast and she wasn’t sure she was up to facing digs just yet. She put the magazines down, feeling rather demoralised. Just as well I’ve got two irons in the fire, she thought. Rob Pengilly had been right.
Andrew was demoralised that Saturday too, because his first foray into journalism proved to be more of a challenge than any of them had expected. Even with a computer to count them, he couldn’t get the words right. First there were too many, then there were too few. The stories he told were either hideously stilted or rambled like weeds. Sustained by black coffee and Classic FM, he hacked and padded all through the day, thought and sweated, rewrote and rewrote and rewrote, but the harder he tried, the more abysmal the prose he produced.
‘If you’d told me before I started, I’d never have believed it could be so difficult,’ he complained to Catherine. ‘It’s only a thousand words, for Christ’s sake!’
By Monday evening he was in such a black mood that Catherine served him dinner in his study on a tray and left him to cope with frustration and indigestion on his own.
‘I’m not cut out for this,’ he admitted at dinner the next day.
Gemma was mashing potatoes and gave him a sympathetic grin but Catherine, lifting the hot-pot from the oven, said there was no reason why he should be and advised him not to worry about it.
It was wasted advice. ‘I shall miss the deadline,’ he told her, scowling with agitation. ‘My first deadline.’
She was aggravatingly calm. ‘Then phone them and tell them you can’t do it.’
‘Admit defeat?’ He was horrified at the very idea. ‘Good God, woman, I can’t do that. This is the chance of a lifetime. Look at the timing of it. Election coming, people thinking. And they give me the chance to speak out just when I’ve retired and I can say what I like. I’m one of the few people around who can actually afford to tell the truth and shame the devil. I can’t walk away from that.’
It’s a campaign, Catherine thought, looking across the table at his tempestuous face. He’ll write this article no matter what it costs him. Or us. ‘Well if that’s the case,’ she smiled at him, as she spooned hot-pot on to his plate, ‘I suppose we shall have to put up with you until you’ve finished it. I’m going to York on Friday, don’t forget.’
‘Finished!’ he sighed. ‘I can’t get the bloody thing started, never mind finished. It’s ridiculous. I was all right on television, so why not on paper?’
It was Gemma who gave him the answer as he was helping himself to potatoes. ‘Maybe you should use the dictaphone,’ she suggested. ‘Speak what you think instead of writing it.’
‘What a very good idea,’ he said, smiling at last. ‘What made you think of that?’
‘I’ve been swotting up my lesson notes,’ she explained, taking her plate from Catherine. ‘The ones I made at college. Doing a bit of revision. That’s one of the tricks to get reluctant pupils to put pen to paper. I read about it last night.’
‘It might well work. Can’t think why I didn’t think of it myself. You could type it up for me, couldn’t you?’
; ‘I could do the first article,’ she said. ‘After that, I’m not so sure. I might be at work.’ What a wonderful thing to be able to say. And she’d done it with style, casually, as though it wasn’t important. ‘I’ll show you how to use the dictaphone, if you like, and then you can do it yourself. It’s not hard.’
That seemed sensible, especially if he was going to make a career of this writing business. He couldn’t depend on her help for ever. Nor should he. She had a life of her own. ‘Are you thinking of leaving us, then?’ he asked, starting his meal. ‘Have you got a job?’
‘Not yet,’ she said, ‘and I’m not thinking of leaving yet either. Not if you can put up with me a bit longer. But I’m looking.’ And as she began her own meal, she told them about her four applications.
‘Excellent!’ Andrew applauded. ‘They’ll jump at you, if they’ve got any sense.’
Which, the next day, and to her delight, one of them did.
The letter was from the headmistress of Fairmead School who said she would be interested to meet Gemma and suggested that she might like to come in at ten o’clock on Friday morning. ‘We have three disabled children in the school,’ she wrote, ‘and all of them need help.’
‘I can see Friday’s going to be quite a day,’ Andrew said when she told him at coffee time. ‘Kate’s off to York for two days with the girls and I’m going to Cardiff for an interview on the radio. Ben Clifford’s arranged it,’ he explained to Catherine. ‘Did I tell you that? No? I thought I had. You remember Ben, don’t you? Used to be in St Thomas’s. We thought it would be an idea to go on for a meal afterwards so I’ll probably stay over till Sunday morning. Good job we’ve got you to look after the house, Gemma.’
‘Actually I shall be at the theatre on Friday,’ she told him, as casually as she could, ‘so it’ll have to look after itself for one evening. Nick’s got tickets for Cats’ Then she waited to see how they would take it.
There was an almost imperceptible pause, while husband and wife exchanged glances – his amused, hers saying ‘what did I tell you?’ – then they began to tease.
‘So we’re all going to be gadabouts,’ Catherine smiled. ‘There must be something in the stars!’
‘Let’s hope they’re on our side, if that’s the case,’ Andrew said. ‘Success to all our endeavours, that’s what I say.’ And he smiled at Gemma too.
It was a pleasant moment and a positive one. So far so good, Gemma thought, smiling back at them. If it is a date at least they approve of it. ‘Amen to that!’ she said.
Catherine was the first to leave the house that Friday morning, in a rush and scowlingly worried because she was afraid she was going to miss her train. Andrew was late too. Not that it worried him. Radio interviews were a doddle these days and he fully expected to enjoy his weekend.
Ten minutes after he’d gone, Polly arrived, out of breath and only just on time, explaining that the cat had been sick on her daughter’s bed and she’d had to clear it up before she could come out. ‘Couldn’t very well leave it, could I?’
Gemma agreed that of course she couldn’t, but with her interview so close, her mind was preoccupied, checking off half-remembered lists of teaching aids and ‘aims and objectives’, and trying to prepare herself for anything else that the head-mistress might question her about. It was worse than revising for an exam.
And all totally unnecessary. For Mrs Muldoony, the head-mistress of Fairmead School, didn’t look a bit like a headmistress and wasn’t out to test her at all. She was small and skinny, with grey eyes and greying hair, and scruffily dressed in denim and Doc Martens. All she wanted to do ‘at this stage’, as she explained at once, was to meet Gemma ‘to see if she’d suit.’
‘I think the best way to do that is for you to meet the children,’ she said. ‘There are three of them. I think I told you that, didn’t I? Kevin has cerebral palsy so he has a full-time helper because of his speech difficulties. The two I’d like you to meet are Francine and Matthew. They’re both in wheelchairs at the moment. Francine lost the use of her legs after a virus and Matt had his right leg amputated after a road accident. He’s got a prosthesis but he won’t use it. Quite a problem, our Matthew.’ They’d reached a classroom leading out of the hall. ‘Here we are.’
Matthew was a small scowling boy with black hair and enormous dark brown eyes. He was sitting in his wheelchair in a corner of the room, picking holes in a strip of coloured paper, all on his own. He looked trapped and resentful as if he were sitting in a cage. He made Gemma think of a beleaguered bush-baby she’d seen in a zoo when she was a child.
‘Hello,’ she said, limping to his side. ‘I’m Gemma.’
But he didn’t answer. He didn’t even look up.
‘What’s that you’re making?’ she tried.
The answer was little more than a grunt. ‘Nothing.’
‘Well what are you supposed to be making?’
He went on picking holes. ‘Nothing.’
‘That’s not much fun,’ she said. ‘What would you like to do instead?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Come and meet Francine,’ Mrs Muldoony suggested to Gemma. ‘Maybe Matt will feel more like talking to us later on. You’re not too happy at the moment, are you Matt?’ And she swept Gemma off to another classroom.
Francine was a different sort of child altogether, a plump West Indian with a bubbly personality. She befriended Gemma at once, showing her the project she was working on and telling her about her mum and her two brothers and how they were going to Jamaica for their Christmas holiday.
‘A lovely family,’ Mrs Muldoony said, as she and Gemma walked back to her study. ‘Yes, Svetta, that’s very good. I’ll be back in a minute to see it, tell Mr Rainer … Shouldn’t you be in your classroom, Paul?’
The more she saw of Mrs Muldoony, the more Gemma liked her. For such a small woman she had amazing presence. Nothing fazed her and she seemed to be able to give her attention to at least four things at once.
‘So what do you think of them?’ she asked when they were back in her study again.
‘Francine’s a lovely kid,’ Gemma said, starting with the child she could praise. ‘She’d be pretty easy to help. At least, I think she would. She’d take help when she needed it. She wouldn’t feel put down by needing it – if that makes sense. Of course, I could be wrong. It’s hard to judge in such a short time. She must get upset now and then. That’s only natural. But she looks like the sort of kid who would come out of it easily.’
‘And Matt?’
‘He’s mourning, isn’t he?’
The dark eyebrows raised slightly over eyes grown shrewd. ‘Go on.’
‘They told me at the rehab centre that we all have to mourn what we’ve lost,’ Gemma explained. ‘I cried a lot. Usually in the bathroom. We all mourn in different ways. Some of us get angry. I think that’s where he is. Hurt and angry.’
‘And what’s the answer?’
‘Time. Finding others in the same boat. Accepting that life goes on. That it might even get better in some ways. Finding a bit of hope. All sorts of things.’
Mrs Muldoony was looking at her thoughtfully, grey eyes narrowed. I’ve said too much, Gemma thought. I’ve gone on too long. I should have waited for her to ask me.
But the headmistress was smiling. ‘Bang to rights,’ she said. And when Gemma smiled in response, she added, ‘You’ll do.’
‘You mean I’ve got the job?’ Gemma said. It was almost too good to be true.
‘As good as,’ Mrs Muldoony said. ‘If I could offer it to you here and now, I would, but life isn’t quite so simple these days. The governors have to agree to rustle up the funding before I can make an appointment. I should warn you, though. It’s not full time – just one full day a week and four half-days – and the pay’s not good. It’ll probably work out at about £4.75 an hour.’
‘That’s all right,’ Gemma said. ‘I’ve got a mobility allowance.’
‘In that case, I’ll set the wheels in moti
on. Incidentally, you’re supposed to come to me through an agency. Don’t worry. It shouldn’t be a problem. I tell them I want you and you apply to them for work half an hour later. I’ll give you the address. I’ve got it here somewhere. Yes. Here it is. Can you get there?’ And when Gemma nodded: ‘Right. I should be able to let you know officially in a day or two. Certainly by the end of next week.’
‘Thanks!’
‘Welcome aboard,’ Mrs Muldoony said and held out a skinny hand for Gemma to shake.
The agency was easy to find but difficult to enter, being up a flight of stairs and along a corridor. Going up the stairs was tricky, coming down was painful. But it was worth the effort. She’d made her application, filled in forms, and seemed to have been accepted. By the time she got back to the empty house in Amersham Road she was weary but triumphant.
‘Guess what?’ she said to Nick as she opened the front door to him that evening. She couldn’t wait to tell him her news.
‘The place looks empty,’ he said. ‘Are they away?’
She explained where his parents were and then tumbled back into her story, telling him about the school and Mrs Muldoony and Matt and Francine and how she managed to get up and down stairs for the first time. ‘I feel on top of the world,’ she said. ‘A job. And straight away. Imagine it. Almost the first time of asking. I know I haven’t actually got it yet and I ought not to count chickens but it’s as good as mine. I can’t believe my luck. Aren’t you going to congratulate me?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Of course. Are we taking the chair?’
She ought to have said yes but she’d done so well that day she couldn’t face being reduced to a wheelchair for the evening. It would be losing face, chickening out, and she was made of sterner stuff.
‘No,’ she said airily. ‘We don’t want to cart that about all over London. We’ll leave it in the bedroom. I’m a big girl now. I can manage without it. You just watch me.’
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