What could I do? Go and prop the damn thing up? But she was right to worry. I would, in her situation. ‘Listen, Joy: pack a bag quickly and come over here for the night. Just in case. I’ll air the spare bed. No, don’t argue.’
To my amazement she didn’t.
I was even more surprised when she brought in her own towel, pillow and duvet. ‘I don’t want to put you to any trouble …’ In fact, she didn’t. We had a companionable glass of single malt and headed to bed. The wind seemed to ease. I slept like a log.
To my relief, Joy declined my invitation to stay for breakfast. I might have been working on the computer since before six, but that didn’t mean I could afford half an hour to be sociable over toast. We left the house together, tutting at the debris all over the road, and thanking goodness that neither car had been damaged. Waving cheerfully, we set off in opposite directions.
I’d barely switched off the Wrayford School alarm when my phone rang.
Joy again.
‘You’d better come over,’ she said. ‘Straight over.’
CHAPTER TWO
Her tree. Her responsibility. Joy said it over and over again.
Damage to my house.
Actually, not to very much of my house. Some of the roof had been swiped by the branches as the great tree descended, but the harm seemed to my untutored eyes to be fairly superficial. The media were gathering already, of course. And departing. It seemed they wanted footage of damaged homes to add to footage of other damaged property, which would be shown on the lunchtime news. One to miss, then. At least, as one of the reporters pointed out, I was lucky – there had been at least one death and several injuries as the wind had beaten up other innocent premises.
I had to agree to the interviewer’s suggestion that I was more than lucky, especially as two of the builders working on the place hove into view. Paula and Caffy: PACT – Paula and Caffy’s team – was their all-woman business. I knew they always made early starts but this seemed above and beyond the call of duty.
‘He’s right. You’re not just lucky but very lucky indeed,’ Paula said briskly, donning her hard hat. She wasn’t officially the boss but always behaved like one. ‘We can see what’s what as soon as someone’s dealt with the branches, but I’d say that though you won’t be able to move in at Easter it should be possible early in the summer.’ She seemed to have lost interest, and was pacing back the length of the tree to where it lay on the garden fence – which had fetched up several metres into my patch. Stepping carefully over the detritus she came to a halt by the great crown of roots, inspecting them arms akimbo.
‘Why your neighbour didn’t put the poor tree out of its misery years ago, goodness knows,’ Caffy said.
‘I’ve an idea it was protected,’ I ventured.
‘By someone who didn’t know his acorn from his elbow. OK, I’ll draw up some estimates so we can have a happy haggle with your neighbour’s insurance company. And then we’ll be off – we’ve got a church roof, two cottages and three garden rooms to assess,’ she said.
‘Sounds like part of a Christmas song, doesn’t it?’
‘I’ll let you know if we come across any calling birds. Hello, what’s Paula found?’ Caffy donned her hard hat too, holding up an authoritative hand when I attempted to follow her. Almost at once she was back, darting into their van and returning with two more hard hats, one of which she threw to me by way of an invitation.
The other was for Joy, who was arguing with Paula – generally a futile exercise, as I knew to my cost.
‘I can’t possibly move out. Possibly. Whatever would Ken say?’
‘That you should.’
‘I have to say, Miss—’
‘Paula. I have to say this, that this property is unsafe. You can’t stay in it. I shouldn’t even let you go in to collect a suitcase, but I can’t stop you if you insist. Put this on first. Jane – look at that!’
I looked. There was a huge hole – the depth and circumference of the roots. Bigger. It started well under the foundations, which already had one big crack spreading up into the front wall of the house. It had reached a window, dodged round it, and was continuing upwards. As we watched, the frame moved, shattering the glass.
‘Talk some sense into her, Jane. I’m getting some plant moved here in the hope we can underpin it and stop the whole place collapsing.’ As she tapped her phone, she said, ‘Caffy – will you try Herbert’s? After Big Sid they’re our best hope. Jane – make sure she stays the far side of the house. OK? You’ve got ten minutes absolute max. And put that hard hat on straight, Joy – this isn’t the time for looking cute. Ah, Sid—’ She made little shooing gestures at me.
I obeyed her instructions: ‘There’s no point in arguing, Joy. We do as she says and scarper. Thank goodness your bedroom’s the other side.’
‘But my cases – they’re in the attic.’
‘Then we’ll bundle everything into sheets or towels. No marks for being neat and tidy. No time, more to the point.’ We were upstairs by now. ‘You grab what you need: jewellery and any other precious items first – your insurance will cover clothes and such, if necessary. Throw me some towels and sheets and I’ll stow the stuff you pass me.’ Did I hear creaking as the house settled? I told myself I was imagining it. But maybe I wasn’t.
I’d never have expected Joy could act so quickly and deftly. Soon we had three good bundles which I dropped gently out of the window. Then some smaller ones.
‘Address book? Insurance contact details?’ I prompted.
‘Ken has those in his den. At the back. Downstairs.’
We ran down. Definitely there was creaking. The den was the same side as the crack. ‘Two minutes – what you can’t find you leave,’ I said, channelling Paula. ‘I’ll be outside, loading the cars.’
‘What we do now is this,’ I said firmly, taking her arm as if she was an old duck rather than a Mercedes-driving woman whose chic Brian had noted. ‘We go back to my place and have a cup of tea and a biscuit. You phone Ken and tell him what’s happened. Then he can come and look after you.’ The words stuck in my craw.
She stared at me in apparent disbelief, shaking her head. ‘He can’t. Didn’t you listen to the news? The Severn Bridges are both closed because of the wind. Even if he drove north to come south, there’s been a pile-up on the M40. Two overturned lorries are blocking the M4. God knows what’ll be happening on the M25. He’s stuck, Jane. And not just him: the storm has wreaked absolute havoc. All over the country.’
I promise I didn’t sigh. I didn’t even think of consigning her to a hotel. ‘It’s a good job you’ll be safe and sound at mine, then.’ On the other hand, she was now shaking with either cold or, more probably, shock. ‘You’re sure you’re OK to drive? OK. Let’s go. Follow me.’
Joy looked around bleakly as I set the heating to override.
Putting on the kettle, I confessed, ‘There’s nothing much in the way of food.’
‘No problem,’ she said briskly, though I suspected a lot of effort was going into her can-do demeanour. ‘I’ll do a supermarket run.’
‘That’d be wonderful. But—’
I’m sure she didn’t catch me checking my watch, but she said quickly, ‘Jane, you have a school to run. Two schools. You know what those posters say: Keep calm and carry on. That’s what we both have to do. Oh, a key!’ She pocketed the one I threw to her. ‘Now, off you go.’ She actually spun me round and gave me a gentle push.
I couldn’t have argued anyway. Come hell or high water I needed to be in Wray Episcopi School to take assembly before a day of wall-to-wall meetings. Not to mention checking on both schools’ fabric.
Then, after a full day’s work plus some, I’d come home to find a visitor in situ. I was shuddering already. But not visibly, I hoped.
I checked the building, which looked in one piece; thank goodness I’d authorised expensive repairs last term. Now I could safely leave Tom, more head than deputy since the school seemed to run quite well without
me, to take the Wrayford assembly. Because it was Open the Book day, he had nothing to do except look on appreciatively. Every week a team from the village church came along to enact a Bible story. Homespun and amateur they might be but the kids – and, yes, the staff – loved their presentations. Sadly, there weren’t yet enough of them to extend their activities to Wray Episcopi School, but they assured me they were working on the problem: it was one thing, they assured me with kind firmness, that I didn’t have to worry about.
At last I bustled, with more haste than dignity, into the Wray Episcopi school hall, firing glances at any child with the temerity to fidget, saving a particularly hard stare for a girl looking ostentatiously at her watch. Then I recalled it was her birthday the day before.
‘Was that a present, Cecily? Can we all see?’
Clearly it wasn’t. Cecily subsided.
In front of a somewhat diminished gathering – no doubt some of the lanes the kids would use to get to school were blocked by trees and other debris – Medway class were doing a presentation about courage. Since they’d soon be going out into the big wide world of secondary education, I thought they’d need some. They talked about the pictures they’d drawn; Hettie read a poem; Jason talked about how he felt every time he faced an opponent when he was a goalie. We bowed our heads and closed our eyes while Hannah read a prayer she’d written about children being forced from their homes. My amen was especially fervent. I was so proud of them all. If only I could spend time in the classroom with them – but I was already late for the first meeting of the day, which Hannah might have cued in: planning for the integration of refugee children in mainstream schools. With luck, debris on the local roads would have thrown up enough problems to make my colleagues late too.
I was just starting my car when a text came through. The roads were so bad the meeting had had to be postponed. Good news, bad news: I didn’t think we needed a meeting to agree that we all wanted to help, that we all wanted to welcome kids who’d seen more suffering in their short lives than anyone deserved – but we needed the finances to support language specialists, classroom assistants and counsellors. But my frown soon evaporated. Young Zunaid, an unaccompanied refugee child who’d simply turned up in school one day five months ago, came swiftly up to me as I strode back to my office: ‘How can I help, Ms Cowan? You look so sad.’
That’s what teaching is all about. That and hiding your face when your tears are battling it out with your smile. And being amazed that despite all the trauma that had afflicted him he was already leading his class in maths and speaking English fluently with a hint of a Kent accent. Currently he was living with trained foster parents, but we all hoped he’d soon be able to move in with Pam, one of our dinner ladies, who loved him almost as much as he adored her.
‘You know what, Zunaid, you’ve made me feel better – just by asking.’
What had I said? His eyes narrowed, as if he was looking into the distance; he said wonderingly, ‘My dad used to say that. Back home. Not home here. Home there.’ He gestured at some invisible horizon. ‘“All I can do to make them better is ask how they are,” he said.’ Then he focused on me again, and I knew he was going to ask the question we’d all dreaded. ‘Do you think I will see my dad again before we meet in Paradise?’
‘What do you think?’ It seemed a supine response, but was one we’d been advised to give.
‘I think you would tell me the truth.’
I folded myself down to his level, so I could look him in the eye. ‘I know that your dad is looking for you. People here in England are looking for your dad. We are all doing everything we can to get you back together. I promise.’ Should I leave the rest to the experts who from time to time would question him delicately about his past? I didn’t want to ask anything that might upset him.
‘When they blew my mum up, Dad said we’d meet her again in Paradise,’ he said matter-of-factly.
‘Dads never lie about things like that,’ I said as if I believed it absolutely.
‘That’s what he said.’ He smiled and suddenly reached up and kissed my cheek. ‘You’re like my auntie,’ he added radiantly.
An auntie: this was the first time he’d mentioned any relatives. I risked a gentle question. ‘How am I like your auntie?’
‘You frown like her. And you can be fierce and frightening, like that dragon we read about.’ He snarled and made claws.
Me, an old dragon! That was encouraging. But we were laughing together.
‘And you both smile with much love.’
‘Is your auntie a teacher?’
He shook his head. ‘She works in a hospital, which makes her very tired. She is a doctor and tries to make people better. Like my dad.’ He stared into my eyes with sudden urgency. ‘Ms Jane, what if my auntie is in Paradise too?’
I had to sidestep that. ‘Can you remember her name?’
‘Auntie Noor. She has another name, but I can’t remember it.’
‘The moment you do, come straight to me, and we’ll start looking for her as hard as we’re looking for your dad.’ I cupped his face gently: it would have been lovely to give him a proper hug, but I’d been told to leave that to Pam. ‘Off you go.’
He started with a carefree skip, but suddenly recalled the school walk-don’t-run rule and switched to a proud march instead.
Ms Jane. I liked that name.
Yes, we needed that postponed meeting. We must make things happen, whatever difficulties we had to overcome.
Meanwhile I had an urgent if less fundamental problem. All our gutters had slipped their moorings and were littering the furthest reaches of the playground. There were a couple of cracked tiles. I left a few messages on what were probably overfull answering machines and moved the debris into a tidy heap, which I weighed down with some sacks of compost I’d set aside for the kids’ new garden: I dared not risk any rubbish coming loose and hurting a child – or a colleague, for that matter. Oh, for the dear dead days of on-site caretakers …
It was lunchtime before I could text Brian. He might prefer to hear real speech but he wasn’t going to get that luxury when I was scrounging a few leftovers from the school canteen. Zunaid’s best friend Pam was on duty. She knew my tendency to forget breakfast and lack of time to prepare a packed lunch. She also knew that I regarded salad with an enthusiasm still lacking in too many of the kids.
‘Numbers are a bit down,’ she said cheerfully, adding a little pasta to a plate of mixed greenery. ‘So there’s even a slice or two of garlic bread.’
‘Yes, please. I promise I’ll clean my teeth before the next meeting!’
She grinned. ‘Shall I get Zunaid to bring some fruit salad along in a few minutes?’
Who could resist? Bad manners though technically it might be, I could text and eat simultaneously. And think about the after-school meeting about one or two problems amongst Stour class’s older pupils.
Brian didn’t respond immediately, which gave me a niggle of worry, since he was usually very prompt. But I told myself he was probably having a nice business lunch, and I applied myself to the fruit salad – with crème fraiche, no less – that Zunaid placed carefully on my desk.
I checked my phone between meetings, but there was still no reply. At last, as I waved the last child off home, I tried a phone call. Straight to voicemail.
Now I was concerned. No, I wasn’t. That’s the word everyone uses as a euphemism for worried. I was worried. Very worried indeed.
CHAPTER THREE
Was my relationship with Brian one that meant I could simply pop round to his house and ask how he’d fared at the hospital? On the whole, I thought not. For all sorts of reasons, mostly involving my violent ex, Simon, currently safely in Durham jail for his savage assaults on our dog and indeed on me, I found it very hard to trust alpha males on a personal level. It was one thing to exercise authority over them when I umpired village cricket matches, quite another to put myself in a personal situation with them. I might eat with Brian occasionally in
public at the Jolly Cricketers, but knocking on his door with nothing except a possibly intimate enquiry was—no, I couldn’t do it. I reasoned (spuriously, as I knew quite well) that staying at my house I had a guest to whom I ought to return: she’d had a terrible shock and might not be as resilient as I’d been in tough situations. Though she was incredibly chic and used the gym, she was older than Brian, and might have health problems I knew nothing about. I often stayed at school till eight or nine, especially on Tuesdays like this one when I nipped back to Wrayford to teach the after-school ball-skills club. Tonight, I must make an effort to get back at an hour Joy would no doubt call civilised.
But I had to pass Brian’s house on the way home. I ought to call in. Perhaps all I needed was an excuse, such as some paperwork he needed to see. But in a country battered by Storm Emlyn, as the gales were now officially called, very few people had troubled themselves with high-level policy meetings generating controversial outcomes. No crazy government edicts either – apparently all the ministers who might have made our job even more tricky were either commiserating with their constituents’ housing damage or plotting knavery so foul that they didn’t dare risk a public announcement for fear of middle-class revolution.
Tom hadn’t flagged up any problems for me to worry about. So I was left with my conscience. Even as I turned the car for home I was still undecided. What if Brian took my concern as a sign that I was developing a personal interest in him? Once or twice he’d hinted that he found me attractive. I didn’t reciprocate, not one smidgen, especially as I had first-hand experience of his capacity to bully, and didn’t want to do anything that might be construed, in the sort of words Joy might use, as leading him on.
Head Wound Page 2
