Meet Me at the Pier Head

by Ruth Hamilton

  ‘Then it must be true.’

  That meant she should shut up and mind her own business. Oh, it was lovely round here, trees and bushes, big houses with gardens, cars parked outside and everything clean. Although she wasn’t one for jealousy or envy, she wondered how or when people from the Lady Streets would get out and move to a place such as this. Education was the basic need, she decided. Rosie had to win a place at grammar school, then at college, then in a decent career. ‘You’re right,’ she said.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Children and education being important.’

  ‘The young are going to become the warp and weft of future society, Maggie, so we need to strengthen that fabric. There will always be worker bees, but we need leadership, too. Unfortunately, members of my profession are very badly paid, so the foundation of a child’s learning lies in the hands of people who are prepared to accept poor pay and difficult conditions. Standards will slip.’ He pulled into his driveway.

  ‘How did you afford this house, then?’

  ‘Because I have another job, and teaching is my very important hobby.’

  ‘Oh.’

  When the car was parked and its engine silent, he looked at his companion. ‘Portia will earn just one pound per day. She has a legacy from her grandmother, and that helps. But other probationers have to pay rent, gas, electricity, water, food and clothing out of that. Until some government realizes the true value of teachers, we’ll get nowhere.’ He sighed. ‘Let’s go and see what our two children are up to.’

  They found Tia and Rosie in the back garden, both flat on their fronts, chins resting on hands, elbows deep in grass.

  ‘Mine’s winning,’ Rosie yelled. ‘Look, he’s nearly there.’

  ‘Mine has staying power,’ Tia said.

  ‘Yes, it stays where it is, Miss Bellamy.’

  Tia laughed. ‘See? I told you. Your Albert has turned left, because he has no sense of direction, so my Victoria will be victorious.’

  ‘What are they doing?’ Maggie whispered.

  ‘They’re racing snails.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘It’s a snail race.’

  ‘Isn’t that a bit daft?’

  ‘You hit the nail square on the head, Maggie. Let’s go make some tea.’

  In Theo’s kitchen, Maggie collected a couple of biscuits, an apple and a glass of milk for Rosie. ‘She’s not used to a lot of food, so I give her four small meals a day.’

  ‘Good plan. Maggie?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ll have three women chasing me tonight. Any suggestions?’

  ‘Thank your lucky stars and take some Aspros in your pocket,’ was her quick reply. ‘Or start running for the hills now. If you go fast, you might reach Yorkshire by tomorrow.’

  ‘Isn’t Yorkshire the enemy of Lancashire?’ He scratched his head.

  ‘Listen, lad. If you have to choose between three needy women and the anger of Yorkshire folk, pick Yorkshire. You’d have a better chance with a load of sheep-shearers and wool-weavers than you would with our women. Anyway, my money’s on Tia.’

  ‘So is mine,’ he replied softly.

  ‘I knew it.’ She went to give Rosie her afternoon snack.

  Theo watched her as she wandered off. Every woman in this house is always right. Therefore, because I am merely male, I am always wrong. There are several women in this building; as a result, I am guilty times five, as there are five of them. Little Rosie’s young, so she, number six, doesn’t yet qualify as a tormentor. Maggie sees straight through me, as does Izzy. No idea about Joan, since she’s quiet. Portia drives me wild with desire, as messing about ain’t enough. Where do I buy bromide?

  He went to find his suit for this evening. Juliet grilled me yesterday, probably trying to judge me as unfit for her big sister. This is my house. I feel like standing outside in the front garden screaming THIS IS MY HOUSE.

  You have never felt so alive, Theodore Quinn. You are in love, in good company and in a mess. There will be three women wanting you tonight, then tomorrow you are kidnapping a child. Somewhere out there, perhaps in Ireland, perhaps not, a raving lunatic is sharpening his wits in an effort to fight his wife, his daughters and the rest of the world.

  The grey suit looked good, as did the new shirt and dark tie. What would Madam be wearing? That stunning scarlet dress? Oh, he hoped not. Advertising wasn’t always a good thing.

  When he reached the living room, Rosie was chewing thoughtfully on her apple. She looked at him and grinned. ‘You look nice, Mr Quinn. Miss Bellamy’s wearing silver-grey, so you’ll match. When are you getting married?’

  Oh, God. He shook his head slowly. Rosie was joining the ranks. There were six of them now, four upstairs, two downstairs. Tomorrow, there would be Nancy as well. Arithmetic. He was leaving behind Izzy, Joan and Juliet; they would mind Tyger-Two and both apartments. So that was minus three and plus one, as Nancy You’re-Right Atherton would be joining the coven. Four. There would still be four. ‘Eat your apple, Rosie,’ he said.

  ‘My mam woke up,’ she told him.

  ‘Yes, your nana told me.’

  ‘When we get back from holiday, I can go and see her, Nana says.’

  ‘Good.’ Would Rosie be coming back, or would she stay where she was with Maggie after examinations of old injuries? Oh, what a mess. This adorable child with her broad accent and good intellect might be at a Kentish school. Would her way of talking provide the cabaret for several days?

  ‘You’re worried,’ the child told him.

  ‘I’m fine,’ he replied. ‘By the way, who won?’

  She gave him a quizzical look.

  ‘The snail race,’ he explained.

  ‘Miss Bellamy did. But I think she cheated when Nana came out with my milk and biscuits. I turned away, and when I looked back Victoria was at the edge of the stone. That snail would have needed to run to get all that way.’

  ‘Did Victoria have a bicycle, Rosie?’

  She shook her head and grinned.

  ‘Then Miss Bellamy cheated.’

  ‘But she’s a teacher.’

  ‘I know. We just can’t get the staff these days.’

  Tia wandered in wearing the air of somebody who owned not just him, not just the villa, but the whole street. She was not clad in silver-grey; her dress was violet, with a full skirt and a moulded top half that showed off her magnificent figure. The welfare woman and the deputy head would be defeated from the start of play.

  ‘You changed your mind,’ Rosie accused her.

  ‘This dress matches my eyes,’ was Tia’s reply.

  ‘Do you have a licence to drive those shoes?’ Theo asked. Because of the underpinning, she was easily as tall as he was. The shoes matched the dress perfectly. Her hair was in a chignon, with a small, crystal-encrusted barrette pinned at the front. An echo of this adornment sat on her left shoulder, and she looked delicious.

  He gave her a hard stare. She knew what she was doing. Miss Garner from welfare was pretty, and Miss Portia Bellamy was at war. So this was the female equivalent of a testosterone rush. Men fought and argued over partners; women simply painted and decorated themselves. But oh, she was lovely.

  Rosie wandered off to sit with Maggie and Mickle in the garden.

  ‘Portia?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Stay away from me during this party. Emily Garner could take Rosie away just like that.’ He snapped fingers and thumb.

  ‘I’ll stay here if you wish.’

  ‘No. I want you to meet your colleagues socially.’

  ‘Miss Cosgrove hates me already.’

  ‘Then court her friendship. She’s already suffering some kind of crush, and it’s directed at me. Behind the raw facade, she’s a vulnerable and lonely woman. Erotomania can be painful. As the subject of her scrutiny, I hurt, too.’

  ‘OK. I’ll get my engagement ring.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  She left.

  Theo picked up Tyger. �
��Just the two of us contra mundum, little kitty. I am dreading this evening. I can’t let her drive her car in those shoes, so I’ll have to arrive with her as my passenger. I’m going to get you neutered, because females are deadly, and you need to keep your distance.’

  Tia returned, flashing her blindingly huge diamond in its ornate Victorian setting. ‘Will I do?’ she asked innocently. She showed him her heavily layered underskirt, fold after fold of virginal white tulle. ‘You should wear a Teddy boy suit, Teddy Bear, then we’d match.’

  ‘Miss Ellis would have a heart attack, and she retired only today. Just behave yourself, Portia.’

  ‘Yes, Sir. Will you be wearing your blackbird wings?’

  ‘No, it isn’t fancy dress.’

  ‘Pity.’

  ‘You would have gone as Lady Godiva, and I couldn’t risk that. Now, Miss Adams and Miss Bailey from the infants department will be bringing boyfriends, fiancés or whatevers. Heads will turn when you walk in, so leave the men alone and concentrate on your fellow teachers.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘And those stiletto heels will damage your spine in later life.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘Stop with the Sir.’

  Tia sniffed. ‘I shan’t wear them in later life.’

  He gave up. She was determinedly naughty, unreasonable and amusing. ‘Let’s go, then.’ His tone was suddenly resigned. She would do as she pleased and when she pleased. ‘Were you ever well behaved?’ he asked.

  ‘Once, at Roedean, I gave in an essay on time. I got double bread-and-butter pudding, which I loathe, and a twenty-one gun salute at sunset.’

  ‘God help me,’ he muttered.

  ‘You don’t need God; you’ve got me.’

  They left, he in a state of worry, she in painful shoes. It was a hard life.

  Miss Lydia Cosgrove had pencilled in some eyebrows and was wearing lipstick, mascara and a yellow dress that served only to emphasize her pallor and the bright red corrugated hair with which she had been endowed. At the piano playing background music, she accidentally allowed her fingers to hit some wrong notes when Tia glided in behind the boss.

  Tia smiled at her enemy and sent her a little wave of greeting before crossing the room to join her. Standing behind the upright instrument, she curled her left hand over its top so that the engagement ring would be on display.

  ‘You’re engaged,’ said the pianist partway through a bit of Chopin.

  ‘Yes, but separated until after Christmas when he moves north. We shall probably marry during the Easter holidays, in Kent.’

  ‘What does he do for a living?’

  Lying was so easy, too easy. ‘He’s a doctor.’

  Lydia Cosgrove smiled. ‘I see. Well, welcome aboard.

  It’s a happy ship on the whole, and the children are well behaved for the most part.’

  ‘Colin Duckworth?’ Tia smiled.

  ‘There are always exceptions, Miss Bellamy. He’s very lovable and a mile ahead of most just lately. At last, he’s accepted the fact that school is compulsory.’ She finished the piece with a flourish Frédéric Chopin would never have touched with a bargepole. ‘Will you and your husband-to-be continue living in Mr Quinn’s flat after the wedding?’

  ‘I expect so, until we find somewhere to buy.’ Tia bit her lower lip. She was digging a pit out of which she might find it impossible to climb.

  The first hour was fine, people talking in small groups, eating sausage rolls, sandwiches and little homemade cakes that were more or less edible, though rather dry. There was punch containing very little alcohol, and soft drinks were provided for the dedicated teetotallers. Theo spent much of the hour with Mr Cross, teacher of Standard Four Juniors. Two satellites named Emily Garner and Lydia Cosgrove orbited them, but the pair of males, clearly not interested in the plumage of their female counterparts, seemed thoroughly engrossed in negotiations of global importance.

  Tia decided to be glad that there was to be no skiffling tonight. Had she and Theo sung together, Cosgrove and Garner might have exploded with envy. Cosgrove and Garner sounded like a building firm or an estate agency or a chambers full of lawyers . . .

  Theo kept the corner of an eye on two situations – the pair of prowling predators and men who gazed hungrily at Tia. Miss Bailey had told off her boyfriend twice, while Miss Adams was admirable, since she ignored her fiancé’s wandering gaze. I have to get used to this. Men will always covet her, and I shall follow Miss Adams’s example, I hope.

  ‘So what do you think?’ Paul Cross was asking.

  Theo’s brain clicked into gear. ‘Montessori? Nonsense. We’re supposed to let kids swing from the light fittings instead of reading and writing? We’d have a riot on our hands, and that would be organized by the parents. If our lot went home and did as they pleased, it would be our fault. Discipline matters, as long as it doesn’t involve corporal punishment.’

  Emily Garner homed in. ‘Mr Quinn? Sorry to interrupt, but how is Rosie?’

  ‘Ah, Emily. She’s very well and happy, thank you. She’ll be able to see her mother soon. I understand that she woke from her coma today, so all seems to be well. You know Mr Cross, of course.’

  ‘Oh, that’s good news about Rosie’s mother.’ The young woman glanced over her shoulder. ‘Who’s that?’ she asked. ‘The one in purple, I mean.’

  ‘Miss Bellamy,’ he replied.

  ‘Your new teacher? The one who lives in your upstairs flat?’

  ‘She’s there until she marries, yes.’

  Relief shone in Emily’s eyes. ‘So she’s spoken for?’

  ‘Yes, she is definitely off the market. Ah, Miss Cosgrove wants me. It’s quiz time.’ Women, bloody women. I suppose they constitute fifty per cent of society, so they can’t be avoided. But Portia is not for sale, I hope. And we might very well live somewhere else and let out the two apartments if or when it happens. Ah, Miss Garner seems to have taken a liking to Paul Cross. He’s a widower, but he comes with baggage in the form of three children. Emily Garner doesn’t seem the maternal type, though you can never tell . . . Thank goodness there were no skifflers available tonight. On top of all this, I couldn’t have coped with performing.

  Miss Ellis was plucking names out of a hat. When the three teams were picked, Theo found himself parked at a table with Tia, Emily Garner and Miss Bailey’s other half, whose name was Joe. Joe, almost salivating, sat opposite Tia, and Theo wondered whether to get him a knife, fork and condiments, since he looked just about ready to consume the vision of loveliness across the table.

  Things went from difficult to impossible when Tia dropped her pencil, bent to retrieve it, and lingered a moment to caress her head teacher’s shin. While the minx made love to his lower leg, he plastered a fixed smile onto the lower half of his face and promised himself that he would deal with her later.

  She knew all the answers, of course. When Joe-At-The-Other-Side-Of-The-Table heard her ‘mouthful of plums’ accent, he reddened and lowered his eyes as if in the presence of royalty. Theo’s grin was no longer false. He was proud of her. She was lively and uninhibited in company. If he could just climb over his stumbling block and get a vasectomy . . . He swallowed. The idea of surgery terrified him still. Being sewn up and dragged about after the attack by those freaks in Georgia had left scars on his mind as well as on his skin.

  Joe spoke to Theo. ‘Is there anything Miss Bellamy doesn’t know?’

  Theo shrugged. ‘Her Russian isn’t good, but she’s OK with scrambled eggs.’

  ‘Stop talking about me as if I’m not here,’ Tia snapped.

  ‘Good manners, too,’ Theo announced. ‘Roedean and Oxford, yet she chooses our little school. We are blessed. Ouch.’ She had kicked him.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ Tia asked sweetly.

  ‘It’s just an old injury from way back. Baseball.’

  ‘You must take care, Mr Quinn. These things have a tendency to catch up with us in later life, rather like stiletto heels.’ Tia awarded Joe a dazzl
ing smile. ‘I like quizzes. They usually contain the sort of nonsense I collect.’

  Theo glanced at the next table; Miss Bailey was glowering. There would be trouble for Joe and for Tia later this evening.

  Emily Garner, too, was staring at Tia. There was something about the girl’s attitude to Theo that seemed rather comfortable and almost disrespectful. It was probably because they shared a building . . . And Miss Bellamy was wearing a huge engagement ring which, according to Lydia Cosgrove, was from a fiancé in the south.

  ‘Question twenty – this is the last one.’ Miss Ellis’s voice, which had remained strangely young and clear, travelled across the hall. ‘Who killed Abraham Lincoln?’

  ‘It wasn’t me,’ Tia called out. While people laughed, she watched Theo as he wrote John Wilkes Booth on their answer sheet. ‘I knew that,’ she said.

  ‘What was Booth’s job?’ Theo asked.

  ‘Actor,’ she replied. ‘Do we get extra points?’

  ‘No.’ She would get extra marks – black ones. He wrote a short note on his pad. YOU ARE DEAD.

  ‘So is Abraham Lincoln,’ she whispered.

  Emily Garner’s lips tightened into a straight line. These two were more than just friends or neighbours. If they were dancing the light fantastic in Allerton, perhaps Rosie should be elsewhere. Miss Know-it-All in the purple dress was almost as bad as the child’s mother.

  Theo’s table won, of course. Their prize was a packet of lollipops, three yellow plastic ducks for a bathroom, a box of coloured chalks and half a pound of dolly mixtures. These spoils were divided more or less equally between team members, though there was some infantile squabbling when it came to the pretty red chalk.

  Everyone but Miss Bailey and her boyfriend stayed behind to clear up. Joe was pushed out by his girl like a man being frogmarched towards a firing squad. Theo looked through a window and watched while Anne Bailey read the Riot Act to her captive audience of one.

  Jack Peake, caretaker, noticed Theo’s tense expression. ‘Go,’ he said.

  ‘But there’s all this stuff to be moved—’

  ‘I’ve six weeks to shift it, Mr Quinn.’