by Sanjida Kay
‘Where are his parents?’ asked Laura, looking around the yard.
‘I don’t know. I’ve only seen him walking to school by himself,’ mumbled Autumn, stepping away from her.
Laura felt the sudden chill where Autumn’s warm body had been. Unable to help herself, she glanced over at Levi again. To her surprise he was staring directly at her, as if he were calmly appraising her. She ducked her head and hurried after Autumn.
She took a deep breath, walked into the school and knocked on the open door of the Year 4 classroom. Autumn trailed unhappily behind her.
Autumn’s class teacher, Mrs Ellen Sibson, was tall, in her late fifties, with an angry rash across her chin and severely parted hair streaked with grey and dotted with a few flakes of dandruff. She wore an ankle-length pale-blue cord skirt and a long-sleeved top and cardigan in a matching colour. A necklace made of round green plastic beads hung across her bosom and rested on her stomach. Laura thought she was intimidating, not like the jovial George Wu, who’d taken Autumn’s class last year in London.
Laura found any kind of confrontation difficult and had been rehearsing what to say to Mrs Sibson all the way to school, so that their walk had been in near silence. She realized, with a fretful pang, that she hadn’t even tried to reassure Autumn.
‘Could I just have a quick word?’ she asked Mrs Sibson, who frowned and then attempted a smile.
Laura immediately felt at a disadvantage. Mrs Sibson was readying herself for her class and would hardly want to have an extended chat right now. But it was for Autumn’s sake; she had to do it. She pushed the door shut and clenched her fists, her nails digging into her palms.
‘What can I do for you?’ Mrs Sibson asked.
‘It’s about Autumn. I’m not sure she’s settling in that well.’ She gave Mrs Sibson a small smile, trying to look friendly.
‘I think she’s doing remarkably well, considering how difficult it must have been for her, moving here and transferring to a new school.’
‘Well, it’s more than that. More than simply starting at a new school.’
‘She is quiet,’ said Mrs Sibson, glancing at Autumn, ‘but she’s been working hard, and she’s very gifted artistically. Our PE teacher is particularly impressed with her gymnastic ability.’
‘I’m not worried about her school work,’ said Laura.
‘We all think Autumn has been doing better than we’d anticipated by this stage in the term. But if you have any concerns, by all means come in when we have more time and we can discuss it further.’
‘I am concerned, Mrs Sibson, that’s why I’m here. Autumn is being bullied.’
‘Bullied?’
‘A boy – his name is Levi – is bullying Autumn. I’d like you to speak to him and make sure it stops. Yesterday—’
‘The slugs,’ interrupted Mrs Sibson. ‘I’m sorry Autumn found it distressing but it was just a prank.’
A prank? Laura looked at her in disbelief.
Mrs Sibson glanced down at Autumn as she leant against one of the desks and scuffed the linoleum with her toe, staring intently at the floor. Her cheeks flushed scarlet and she closed her eyes, an old childhood trait she’d developed when she was a year old if anyone apart from Laura or Matt spoke to her. Mrs Sibson looked rather pointedly at the clock on the wall.
‘I wouldn’t call stuffing a child’s drawer full of slugs a prank,’ said Laura.
‘I think it was a one-off,’ said Mrs Sibson. ‘I haven’t noticed any of the children in this class teasing Autumn or playing tricks on her before this occurred. And I cancelled the children’s Halloween treat because no one owned up.’
So as well as being bullied, her whole class would be annoyed with her, thought Laura.
‘Autumn says Levi was responsible,’ said Laura. ‘He’s been bullying her virtually since the start of term. She’s only just told me now or I would have come to see you earlier.’
Ignoring the charge of bullying, Mrs Sibson said, ‘Levi is in the year above.’ She turned to Autumn for the first time and asked, ‘How could he have done it?’
Autumn screwed her eyes closed even tighter and said nothing. Laura wanted to shout at Mrs Sibson to stop this child, this Levi, whoever he was, from speaking to Autumn ever again.
‘It’s not up to Autumn to work out how Levi could have got into the classroom!’
Both she and Autumn still had on their winter coats and the room was hot. She felt uncomfortable, a minor tremor running through her torso because of the heat, the awkwardness of the situation.
Mrs Sibson said, ‘I appreciate you coming to me about this matter. We don’t tolerate bullying in this school. Every child here is taught a respectful attitude to others.’ She added, ‘We adhere to our stringent, anti-bullying policy, Mrs Baron-Cohen, so we do take your concerns seriously. I can’t say I’ve noticed Levi speaking to her. But I will take it up with Mr Bradley, Levi’s class teacher. The teachers are generally not outside during the lunch break, so I will also talk to the dinner staff who monitor the playground. I do wish I had more time to discuss this with you, but I have a class to teach. I’ll let you know what Mr Bradley says and we’ll keep an eye on Levi, particularly at break-times. Perhaps you could make an appointment for next week,’ she said, looking at the clock again.
She’s saying she doesn’t believe Autumn, Laura thought.
Autumn opened her eyes and looked over at her, her face set in a hurt expression. She moved towards her daughter but, at that moment, the bell rang and Autumn’s classmates, who’d been pressed against the door, flooded noisily into the room. Autumn moved away so that Laura couldn’t kiss her goodbye in public and shrugged off her coat with her back to her. Laura forced herself not to help her. She stood in the doorway, jostled by the incoming children, and then made her way slowly out of the school.
As she walked across the playground, she saw Rebecca standing near the gate with a small group of parents. Rebecca, as usual, looked like a mother in a catalogue. She had long, wavy chestnut hair and was wearing white jeans and knee-length dark-brown boots, a grey cashmere coat and had an elegant scarf wrapped around her neck.
How can she wear white jeans in winter? Laura wondered.
She was talking to Amy, a petite woman who was half Vietnamese and was also always immaculate. She wore retro-chic dresses with cinched-in waists, emphasizing her tiny frame and her flat stomach, in spite of having had three children. Laura didn’t recognize the other two mothers or the man they were with.
Rebecca waved her over. ‘Now here’s someone you really must meet. He’s an absolute genius at sorting out computers – he does the IT at Ashley Grove and doesn’t charge us a penny.’ She flapped her hand between the two of them. ‘Aaron Jablonski. Laura Baron-Cohen.’
If Laura had been asked, she might have come up with some nebulous image of what a man who worked in IT might look like: pot-bellied, pale, sandy-haired with poor dress sense, perhaps. Nothing like this man. He was tall, handsome, with a straight jaw and chiselled features. He exuded masculinity in an understated kind of way, like a woodsman, a log-cutter, someone from the forests of North America. Beneath his coat he was wearing a white shirt and black waistcoat with jeans. A messenger bag was slung over his chest and the hand that held the strap had a silver charm on a woven leather strap around the wrist; no wedding ring.
‘Aaron,’ he said and held out his hand. His voice was deep.
Laura felt as if she was reaching out to grasp his hand in slow motion. He squeezed her hand firmly. She realized she’d been staring and blushed and stepped back.
‘Are you new to the area?’
She nodded. ‘We’ve just moved here. My daughter started school this term.’
‘I’ve just dropped my son off. I hardly ever have the chance. It’s my one small pleasure in life. But he’s at that age where he’s embarrassed to be seen with his dad so when we get withi
n a few hundred metres of the school, he hares off so I won’t – God forbid – try and hug him in front of his mates.’ He smiled and Laura could see the other mothers leaning in, imperceptibly drawing nearer, hanging on his every word.
‘Oh, my daughter’s the same. She’s already told me I’m not allowed to hold her hand or kiss her in front of any of her school friends.’
‘A bit different from when we were growing up,’ he said, looking at her as if the two of them existed in some private universe that no one else had access to. ‘Our parents never bothered walking us and to and from school. Am I right?’
Laura nodded, feeling her cheeks begin to glow again.
He straightened and looked around at the small group breathlessly waiting for his attention. There were so few fathers at the school gates it was no wonder Aaron was attracting so much attention, she thought, and then, of course, he was ridiculously handsome…
‘Ladies, I must dash. Laura, if I may…?’ He took a small leather wallet from his pocket. ‘My card. Just in case. I do home visits.’
‘Oh, he’s a godsend,’ said Rebecca, ‘the amount of times Aaron has come over at a moment’s notice to fix my Mac.’
Laura took the card, still faintly warm from where it had been pressed against his thigh. The mothers watched Aaron stride away, his long, dark coat flaring behind him.
‘Is everything okay?’ asked Rebecca, turning to her. ‘I saw you talking to Mrs Sibson.’
Laura hesitated. She was still angry at being dismissed so summarily by the teacher, but she forced herself not to rant about it. She didn’t want to upset the fragile balance of her relationship with Rebecca.
‘Autumn is finding it a little difficult to settle in,’ she said.
Rebecca pursed her lips sympathetically and said, ‘That’s such a shame. The girls in her class are so sweet, though, I’m sure it won’t take long for her to make friends. Why don’t you come over for afternoon tea tomorrow? Poppy and Tilly would love a play date with Autumn, and we can have a gossip.’
Laura nodded gratefully and felt a surge of pleasure in spite of the circumstances. She’d gone for coffee with Rebecca and her coteries of mothers, but she’d never been to her house. She knew that Rebecca and the other women sometimes met for drinks, or for an afternoon in the park at the weekend, the one with a café that apparently sold amazing coffee, hand-roasted in Bristol, and gluten- and sugar-free cakes and cookies. Laura had not been invited so far and was not certain enough of Rebecca to ask if she could join them. Tilly had invited several girls, including Autumn, for a sleepover, but it wasn’t for another week and she knew Autumn would love the chance to have Tilly to herself for a short while.
‘That would be wonderful, thank you.’
She glanced down at herself. Next to Rebecca and Amy she looked dowdy and badly dressed. She was wearing her work clothes: mud-stained army trousers, cracked hiking boots, an ill-fitting fleece and a flannel shirt. Her hair was scraped back from her unmade-up face.
Rebecca smiled and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Three? At my house? I’m sure I’ll see you both before then.’ She gave a little wave as if dismissing her, and then bent to speak to Amy.
Laura crossed the road and headed down Briar Lane. That had gone badly, she thought. Autumn was upset and embarrassed, Mrs Sibson hadn’t taken her seriously and she hadn’t managed to put a stop to the bullying. She didn’t even know who Levi’s parents were – perhaps if Mrs Sibson did nothing about it, she could speak to them? She shivered at the thought of confronting them; she knew they’d be horribly defensive and angry. And, on top of that, she was going to be late for work. She half jogged, annoyed with herself for becoming so unfit.
The lane, which ran directly opposite the school behind the terrace of houses that lined the main road, led to a miniature nature reserve created between the intersection of three railway tracks. You reached Narroways nature reserve by crossing a thin bridge suspended over the lines. It had high corrugated metal barriers on either side that were scrawled with neon-bright graffiti, and it was encased by wire bars, so that the whole bridge was like a cage, preventing anyone from accidentally falling onto the train line.
The path from the bridge skirted a scrubby meadow that had been carpeted with wild flowers when she’d put the offer in on the new house in May; the sight had lifted her spirits, but it was now pock-marked with the burnt embers of fires and scattered with beer cans and crisp packets. It led to a peak, the highest point in the area with a startling view over the red-brick terraces of Easton and St Werburghs, and beyond to green fields and hedgerows in the distance. In spite of the upheaval coming here, Laura loved the fact that from her neighbourhood you could see the edge of the city. It was unfeasible to be near the centre of London and see where that vast metropolis neatly, clearly and sharply, ended. It was one of the reasons why, after she and Matt had split up, she’d wanted to move to Bristol. Now Autumn could grow up somewhere with fresh air and countryside nearby, but still have all the benefits a city could offer.
On one side of the meadow was a cliff of exposed red earth and gritty stone with stunted ash trees clinging to it that led down to a railway track. The path divided and you could either walk up and over the peak or around it and then down through a small wood. Laura, because she was in a hurry, chose the shorter route.
Her mobile rang. She looked at the screen and saw it was Matt.
‘Hello,’ she said, in the new, chirpy voice she’d taken to using when he called.
‘Laura. Just checking you haven’t forgotten about Nepal.’
Nepal? For a moment she was confused and then she remembered.
‘No, no, of course not, it’s today, isn’t it?’
There was a pause. She could tell he knew she’d forgotten and was weighing up whether to use it as an opportunity to have another dig at her.
‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘I’m at the airport now. I still want to speak to Autumn tomorrow night. I’ll Skype at the usual time, okay?’
‘Yes, that’s fine,’ she said.
‘I’ve emailed you a copy of my schedule. I’ll try and Skype the following Saturday as normal too – we should be back in a village that has Internet access by then. The satellite number is on the schedule if there’s an emergency. With Autumn,’ he added, in case she was not absolutely clear that any emergencies concerning her were no longer his responsibility.
Like her parents, Matt had trained as an anthropologist and originally specialized in making films about tribal peoples for the BBC and National Geographic. As audiences had grown accustomed to more light-weight entertainment, he’d turned his skills towards the reality-TV market. He was currently making a series featuring athletes competing against tribes in a traditional rite, such as a wrestling match or canoe race. This was his first trip for the series and he was heading to the flanks of the Himalayas to film an endurance race between a Buddhist tribe and a team of five female athletes.
Typical of Matt, she thought, to surround himself with toned, beautiful and sporty women in the guise of work. She wondered what Leah, his new girlfriend, felt about the trip and then realized that, since Leah was his researcher, she’d probably be with him.
Nothing to do with me, she reminded herself, taking a deep breath to steady herself. That was the trouble with being divorced and having a child – you could never truly get away from it all. Moving to Bristol had been her way of putting as much distance as possible between her, Matt and Leah. And even though Bristol wasn’t that far from London, Matt was still annoyed with her, as if she had done it deliberately so that he couldn’t see Autumn as much as he’d like to.
She wondered whether to tell Matt about Autumn being bullied and then decided not to. She could handle it by herself.
‘Talk to you on Saturday,’ she said breezily and hung up.
The wood was really an orchard that had gone wild, and Laura had bee
n delighted to find apple, pear and plum trees. The plums had all been picked, but there were a few apples left, tight and shiny in the ragged branches. From the wood there was a path that led into the allotments, which bordered the lane at the bottom of their house. It meant that their day started off with an almost rural feel.
Fortunately, Bronze Beech, the landscaping company Laura was working for, was currently redesigning a garden in Montpelier, on the other side of the nature reserve, so Laura could walk to it after dropping Autumn off without being too late for work. Her boss, Barney McLoughlin, was a rugged, burly man with wind-burnt cheeks and an Oxbridge accent. He wore a singular combination of tweed jackets with elbow patches and combat trousers for work.
As well as Laura, Barney employed Ted, who had dreadlocks so bleached they were white – he even bleached his eyebrows. Throughout the early weeks of autumn Ted had taken his T-shirt off most days, exposing badly drawn Maori tattoos from an old trip to New Zealand, and beer-blurred muscles. Laura thought he was a particularly toxic combination of misogyny and sycophancy. Her agreed hours were 9.30 a.m. to 3 p.m. but Barney and, more often, Ted, frequently made comments about her arriving late and leaving early; today Barney would be furious because she actually was going to be late. She sighed. She was going to have to put Autumn in an after-school club so she could work for longer.
AUTUMN
It was why she hadn’t told her mum about Levi before. She didn’t want her mum to feel worried or upset. Because then she’d try to help and she wouldn’t be able to.
She squeezed her eyes shut and felt again the excruciating embarrassment as her mother had blurted out, Levi is bullying Autumn.
It had sounded… belligerent. She’d learnt it in Literacy. Her mum wasn’t normally belligerent, but she did get upset easily. It was her reaction – like a frightened mouse might bite because it doesn’t know what else to do. Or else she became quieter and quieter. Autumn knew the feeling – sometimes when Mr Wu, her old teacher, had called her out in front of the whole class, she literally couldn’t say a word, couldn’t even open her mouth or make a sound. As if she’d never known how to speak.
