The Pupil

by Dawn Goodwin

  As we reached the street, Sam took hold of my hand in both of his. The sudden physicality of the move startled me.

  ‘I’m so glad we did this and I can’t wait to get started. But the first thing I want to do is get your face seen. It’s not just about the words on the page; it’s also about creating a persona and a buzz about you. I’m attending a party thrown by my publisher next Friday and I’d like you to come. Let me introduce you around and you can see what the other side is like. I’ll text you the time and place. Please say you’ll come.’ His eyes pleaded.

  ‘Sure, I would love to,’ I said without thinking.

  ‘Excellent. Ah, here’s a cab now.’ He dropped my hand and stepped into the street to signal for the cab to stop. Leaning into the passenger window, he spoke a few words to the driver and I saw him hand over some money before holding open the door for me. ‘This has been a pleasure and I look forward to seeing you again soon.’ He kissed me lightly on the cheek.

  I settled into the back of the cab, my head spinning. As it pulled away from the kerb, I turned in my seat and looked back. Sam was watching the cab as it drove away, an unreadable expression on his face.

  *

  9 January 1992

  Dad hasn’t come back yet. Not since the argument with Mam on Boxing Day. She won’t talk about it. All she keeps saying is that it’s just me and her now. I’m the only one that matters apparently. I asked her if they’re getting a divorce, but she got all tight-lipped and just turned the sound up on the telly. Some new year this is turning out to be. One good thing from this Christmas is that I’m putting my new typewriter to good use already. I’ve written a couple of quite good short stories – well, I think they’re quite good, but I haven’t asked Mam to read them yet because she’s been in such a mood since Dad left. She would tell me if they’re rubbish. She always does.

  I wish I could show Dad though. He’s always so proud of what I write, even if we both know it’s not that good. I’m keeping all of my stories in a folder for when he gets back. Because he will. He wouldn’t just take off without saying anything to me, without saying goodbye. I hope he’s okay.

  Maybe my next story should be about a twelve-year-old girl whose dad goes missing. I can write from experience. Except mine’s not missing, just gone.

  5

  Viola Matthews looked down the long table at her husband. Global bestselling author Samuel Morton, darling of the literary world, sitting in his dressing gown and socks looking like the middle-aged man that he was.

  She put aside the puff piece she was reading about his recent National Book Award and the vague teaser copy about his upcoming release, swallowing the acidic bile that had raced into her throat. The copy was vague because they had nothing to work on yet. He’d missed deadlines before, but this time he was emitting a fine haze of unease and she wasn’t sure whether she should be worried or not that the manuscript had not come her way yet. But he was adamant he wanted to do it his way this time and Viola was more than happy to give him the rope to hang himself with, because eventually he’d come crawling back. He knew that without her help he was walking a career plank.

  ‘So where were you yesterday after your meeting?’ she said, casual as you like.

  ‘Just lunch with one of the students from the course.’ He was tapping out a text message on his phone.

  ‘Oh? Where did you eat?’

  ‘Coriander as usual. The seabass is delicious there.’ His voice was disengaged. He dropped his phone to the table and resumed reading the newspaper.

  Viola fiddled with the string of pearls at her throat, her French manicured nails tapping on the luminescent spheres in irritation. ‘So a good meal then?’

  ‘There was a vile woman and her friend at the next table who recognised me. They were off to the theatre from the looks of it and had indulged in a few too many espresso martinis by the time they saw me. I went through the necessaries, but it was an annoyance, to say the least. Quite an intrusion.’ His eyes flicked up at her above the newspaper. ‘I know what you’re going to say: they buy the books; they pay the bills. I know, but I don’t have to like them pestering me in public, vulgar as they can be sometimes.’ He gave her a pompous glare, then returned to his broadsheet with a flap of the pages.

  Viola stirred her tea and contemplated the man in front of her. After all these years, he was still opinionated with an overinflated ego, but back when she had first met him, it had been paired with a passion for the written word that had made him irresistible. Now that passion was misdirected and transparent. The arrogance was still there, but tempered with the intolerance that comes with age.

  She nibbled on a slice of melon while his plate of salmon and scrambled eggs with a side of bacon and wholewheat toast, slathered in butter, congealed in front of him. She wished she could eat like him too. ‘Well, at least the food is always good there.’

  No response except for a grunt, which may have been him acknowledging her or merely clearing his throat.

  His phone vibrated. He glanced at it and she noted the small smile that illuminated his face ever so slightly.

  ‘So, who is the student?’

  ‘She stood out during the course – not for her writing as such, which was rather contrived, but there was something about her that I liked, her drive maybe – or her lack of self-belief. Anyway, I think she would find my help the most valuable of all of them, so I’ve agreed to mentor her.’

  Viola tilted her head. ‘Is that wise right now?’

  Sam looked at her narrowly. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, considering the amount of work still to be done on your manuscript.’ She pushed her plate away and leaned on the table. ‘Andrew called again yesterday. He says you haven’t phoned him back.’ She felt something brush against her legs and reached down to scratch Milo, her greyhound, behind the ear as he nuzzled his face into her legs for attention.

  ‘Andrew is being pushy. It smacks of desperation. I’ve told him I’ll speak to him when the idea is fully formed and not before. It should be no different this time than any other.’

  ‘But it is different.’

  He remained silent, grumpiness clouding his features.

  ‘Let me remind you, Samuel, that you’ve been saying that for months and you’ve now missed the last two deadlines. He’s worried. There was mention of renegotiating your contract. I’m not sure if now is the time for you to mentor too.’

  ‘Let’s just see how this plays out, shall we? Now can we please get Milo away from the table. You know I don’t like it.’ Sam’s eyes swept over her before he raised his newspaper again.

  Viola pursed her lips, then pushed up from the table, her kitten-heeled shoes tapping the tiles and punctuating the silence.

  6

  I wasn’t sure when I would hear from him again and part of me expected not to, thinking he would’ve decided that I wasn’t worth the bother after all. I had a text ready in my head to send him thanking him for lunch though. Now that I’d decided I wanted to pursue this, I needed to make it work, not least because I wanted Paul to see that I could do it.

  I needn’t have worried. The next morning, I received a text from Sam:

  Thank you for such an enjoyable meeting. Looking forward to working with you. Sam

  My reply was equally as brief and I hoped set the right tone. Thanking your friend for a chat over coffee was one thing; thanking an award-winning novelist for lunch was another.

  Thank you for lunch and a lovely chat. Katherine

  There was nothing in his text about the party he had mentioned, but there was time. I wasn’t sure how to broach that subject with Paul just yet anyway.

  So I went about my business, mediating in childish spats, washing muddy paws and shuffling mess from room to room. But Sam played at the back of my mind the whole time, darting in and out of my thoughts and tickling my dreams like an illicit lover. It wasn’t the idea of him as such; rather, it was what he represented. I hadn’t realised I was dissatisfied with my da
ily life until I had glimpsed an opportunity to change it and now it was all I could think about.

  From the outside looking in, I had nothing to complain about. I had two beautiful, funny and smart kids, a reliable husband who cared for me and made sure I had everything I could possibly need so that all I had to do was manage my large, detached house and take care of our family; we were all healthy and active; we lived an average, middle-class life with a two-week summer holiday in a European destination and a mid-winter ski trip. I ate kale and avocado, made smoothies and avoided processed foods, wore my hair at the appropriate length and drank in moderation.

  So why did I feel so empty? Like I was full of air and no substance?

  Most days I felt like an automaton, going from one mundane task to the next, listening to the same conversations, tutting at the same misdemeanours. I needed to put Katie Hayes aside and get a bit of the old, feisty Katherine Baxter back. That woman who made a mistake years ago and was still trying to redeem herself. That’s what Sam represented.

  The idea of attending a party with Sam made me feel sick to my stomach and giddily happy in equal measures. If the invite did come through, what would I talk about? What would I wear?

  To distract myself, I opened my ageing laptop a thousand times, but couldn’t get the words to fall onto the page in the right order. Everything sounded romantically crass. Then the inevitable panic would set in. What if I didn’t have it in me to write this story after all? What if I was wasting Sam’s time and he found out that I was in fact a fraud with no discernible talent?

  But then I would remind myself that I had a choice: give up and carry on being that person who never had the guts to step out of their comfort zone and take a risk; or I could not let fear and doubt hold me back any longer, get cracking and make it happen, prove to my mother – and Paul – that I was worth more than just a glorified housekeeper, that I was actually talented and could do something for myself. It would work for an hour or so, then I’d be back to staring at the flashing cursor and wondering what the hell to write next. All of it was exhausting.

  Come the weekend, while Paul clad himself head to toe in Lycra and embarked on lengthy cycle rides and rounds of golf, I stamped my cold feet on a wet football pitch, then stamped my feet some more on a frigid hockey pitch, supporting, cajoling and praising Lily and Jack as they fell and got up again with the tenacity of youth.

  But my fingers itched to be at the keyboard. The novel wouldn’t write itself. The idea for it had planted itself in my brain and wouldn’t let go, a story desperate to be told. So why was it so difficult to get it onto the page in a way that made it readable? As soon as I sat down in front of the illuminated letters, they seemed to mock me, tell me I was being silly, echoing everyone’s thoughts.

  The weekend passed with no news from Sam and no new words in my manuscript. As the four of us sat around the dining room table on Sunday evening with full plates of roast beef, Yorkshire puddings and vegetables spilling off the side, I decided to prepare the ground and tackle Paul while he was still in a chilled Sunday haze.

  ‘We don’t have any plans for Friday evening, do we?’

  ‘None that I’m aware of. Why? Jack, elbows off the table please.’

  I now had a choice. Tell him the truth of where I was going or lie and hope Helen would cover for me. It was something I’d been mulling over all day. I hadn’t even had a chance to talk to Helen about any of it yet.

  It wasn’t that Paul didn’t approve of me doing my own thing. He had just always been dismissive of my writing ambitions, putting it down to a spare-time folly rather than something to consider as a serious career choice. It was as if he thought the time put into it didn’t justify the expected financial reward, if I even got as far as earning any money from it. He liked to think of himself as the breadwinner of our family and me as the homemaker and if I was bored, well, there were plenty of charity shops to volunteer in or the school PTA to keep me occupied.

  It was my fault. I thought back to when we first met, shame clinging to the sepia memories. After needing to put some space between myself and Newcastle, with its volatile relationships and heart-rending disappointments, I had been working as a waitress in a family-friendly tourist trap of a restaurant in Leicester Square and living in a shabby flat share in Elephant & Castle. My flatmates were monosyllabic and the smell of curry, from the takeaway below, clung to every corner of my one damp room. I still had ambitions of being a writer then, but they were fading fast with every late rent cheque.

  Paul was fifteen years older than me, from a sensible upper-class family from Surrey and already set on an established career path in finance when I served him a burger and fries in the restaurant one day. His parents had died within months of each other a year earlier, both from short, sudden illnesses, and he was still living in their house, lonely and looking for someone to build a family with. At the time, I empathised with his loneliness and it attracted me like a magpie. He wooed me like an old-fashioned lover and I quickly fell for his gentlemanly charm and sophisticated ways. I hadn’t realised until he came along just how exhausted I was of proudly surviving on my own in a strange and unforgiving city. He was my ticket out of destitution and I gladly accepted, thinking that we had similar ambitions and goals in life, even if he’d had a head start because of circumstance. He liked to think that he saved me by marrying me and sweeping me off to suburbia.

  A few years later, when I was beginning to realise that perhaps he didn’t share my ambitions after all but had an entirely different idea of what role I would play in our family, he had to save me a second time when I made one devastating mistake. Afterwards, he held my hand, kept me breathing and brought me back when I had lost my way. I owed him for that.

  In all the years I’d known and relied on him, I had never given him reason to think I could be successful at anything other than being a mother. I was very good at that, at least, and he told me so almost daily. I played the part of subservient housewife pretty well too, although he often grew frustrated at my sometimes loose approach to housework. I preferred to lose myself in a good book through the day rather than dust.

  So I told the first lie that evening over dinner. Just a small one; more of a fib really.

  ‘Helen wants to go for a drink. A sort of early birthday outing. There’s a new gin bar in town apparently and I said I would go with her. It might not happen, but if it does, would you be able to babysit the children for me?’

  Yes, I was aware of the irony of asking my husband to babysit his own children.

  He looked over at me, but I kept my eyes on my roast potatoes, feigning nonchalance, then reached over and helped Jack cut a stubborn piece of beef, all the while not meeting Paul’s gaze.

  ‘Sure, I guess. But are you sure going into town is a good idea? There are plenty of places around here and you know how you can be sometimes. I’m only thinking of you.’

  ‘I know, but Helen really wants to try it. She’s been on at me for weeks and I’ve been putting her off. If it’s not my thing, I’ll just come home.’

  ‘Okay, let’s see. Lily, please close your mouth when you’re chewing.’

  I exhaled quietly.

  *

  I met Helen at the gates to the park the next morning, Bo straining on his lead to be free to chase Helen’s matching cocker spaniel, Molly. We released the dogs and they bounded off happily, ears bouncing and Molly barking excitedly while nipping at Bo’s heels.

  We followed them at a leisurely pace, the path muddy after the weekend’s damp weather. October was gathering pace, the breeze beginning to pull the leaves from the trees.

  ‘Um, Helen, I may need to ask a favour,’ I broached gently after the usual niceties had been passed back and forth.

  Helen and I had been friends since Lily and Helen’s son, Cameron, had been at nursery together. She was a stay-at-home mum like me, married to a banker, Ed, and her younger daughter, Emily, was in the same school year as Jack. We spent a lot of time together th
rough the week usually – dog walks, runs, coffee dates – but socially we rarely mixed since Paul seemed to find Helen and Ed irritating and could only handle them in small doses. Helen and I would go out occasionally, but that didn’t happen as often as I would’ve liked as Paul often managed to talk me out of it, telling me I looked tired or would have a headache the next day, or he couldn’t get home in time for the kids and I would have to cancel at the last minute.

  Helen and I were very different, but we always found something to laugh about when we were together. I kept myself to myself since most of the people I met at the school had already made their minds up about me based on the rumours they had heard, but Helen didn’t seem to care about any of that and had been the only one in Lily’s nursery class to walk over, introduce herself and invite me for a coffee. I would always be grateful to her for that. She’d never given me reason to think she was providing the fodder for the gossipmongers.

  I hadn’t spoken to Helen much the previous week. I’d been busy writing – or staring into space thinking about Sam, my book, the future.

  ‘You’re making a habit of this asking for favours, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yeah, sorry, I still owe you for the sleepover.’ I felt the guilt gnawing at my insides. I hated asking for help, especially since Helen didn’t ask for reciprocation.

  ‘Oh, what goes around, comes around… eventually. So what do you need this time?’

  ‘Do you remember I told you that Samuel Morton was tutoring my writing course? Well, he’s offered to mentor me so that I can finish my novel and see if I can get it published.’

  ‘Are you that serious about it then? I mean, won’t that be loads of work?’ She scrunched up her perfectly made up face.

  ‘Well, yes, but it’s something I’ve always wanted to do and with the kids not needing me so much now, it seems like a good time to do it.’

  ‘But don’t you worry about what people will think of it? You know, if it is published, what if people don’t like it? You’ll have spent all that time on something and then not get much for it apart from abuse. I don’t know if I could put myself in the firing line like that.’