The Country Lovers

by Walker, Fiona

  As such, it had been a thrilling start to spring term to receive a call from a bass-voiced, noble-sounding mother who said she was considering Maggers for her son on the advice of Helen Beadle. Auriol’s spies – AKA dinner lady Mrs Rogers and cleaner Janine – told her the family was village royalty, which meant that this mummy was either a leftie, broke or that the son had special needs – quite possibly all three – causes which Auriol joyfully championed for her inclusive little learning ark.

  Spotting a figure on the path at last, she straightened her hair and glanced up at the clock. She rarely forgave poor punctuality, but she was making an exception for this much-delayed appointment, and craned eagerly round the smeary glass panel to admire an expensively cut suit in fur-collared tweed, racily matched with geek glasses, air-brushed matte make-up, a spectacular trout pout, and the defiant jewellery punkery of the modern aristo.

  Beaming, she buzzed the visitor through the door, greeting her with a vigorous hand shake. Oh bother, she’d forgotten the woman’s name and her notes were in her office. ‘Welcome! I’m Mrs Bullock. No time to lose, let’s sign the book and go straight round, shall we?’

  She peered beadily over the tweed shoulder as the visitor wrote her name in a small, neat hand, but without her glasses it was impossible to decipher.

  ‘We’ll do a quick tour first!’ She ushered her through the inner security door. ‘Let me take you straight to the newly refurbished IT suite. Feel free to ask questions as we go.’ A soliloquist of guided tours, she then kept up a non-stop patter which brokered no interruptions, spoken in her best matriarchal stage voice, warm and anecdotal with just a smattering of hard-sell statistics, fingers trailing along the more impressive equipment bought by the PTA, from sensory wall to digital boards.

  Auriol’s well-rehearsed, whistle-stop route around the school was faster than ever by necessity. Not only was she conducting a job interview imminently – the wretched Governors insisted that her ‘it’s-all-in-my-head’ approach to admin needed outside help – but there were very few windows of opportunity in which the school’s four classrooms were anything less than chaotic bedlam. By luck, today’s delayed circuit timed out between the messy miscreants from Reception starting art and the Year Five thugs heading outside for sport, its finale coinciding with Class Two’s music lesson in which Barnaby Nairsmith – who had been hothoused through his trumpet grades by ambitious parents – was treating them all to his Grade Three pieces.

  Her visitor looked impressed, even though Harry Unwin, sporting noise-cancelling earphones, wouldn’t stop banging the cymbals in close proximity.

  ‘He’s on the spectrum,’ Auriol explained in hushed tones, sweeping her hurriedly away before Harry could start on the bongos. ‘We love our special children here. Now tell me all about your son!’ She ushered her into her office and then did a U-turn as she heard the door buzzer going. ‘Sorry – there’s nobody in the front office, so I’ll have to go down let them in. Job interviewee. A friendly little school like this is nothing without its multi-tasking Head!’

  As soon as Auriol saw the woman waiting behind the sliding glass screen, she knew she wouldn’t be offering her the position of office administrator. Thin and scruffy with dreadful dreadlocky red hair, she’d made no great effort. She looked half-asleep. She was totally the wrong type, but one must go through due procedure.

  ‘Take a seat,’ she ordered snippily, cranking open an inch-wide gap. ‘I’m just meeting a prospective parent. I’ll be with you shortly.’ She snapped it shut again, almost taking the woman’s freckled nose off.

  Upstairs, the classy fur-collared mother – whose name Auriol still couldn’t remember – was gazing out of the window, no doubt admiring her family’s extensive acreage. Standing beside her, Auriol wondered whether to casually mention the need for a forest school.

  ‘So there’s more than one applicant here today, is there?’ the mother asked jealously. Her pronounced lower lip – it had to be cosmetically enhanced – was affecting her speech, the drawling vowels sounding almost foreign.

  Auriol was thrilled that the mother might imagine places at this school were as hotly contested as her son’s alma mater (the name of which she’d also forgotten, but she knew it was one of the Cotswold preps parents put their children’s names down for at birth).

  ‘Oh lots!’ she lied gushily. ‘Everyone wants to be a part of Maggers. I’m practically turning parents away. Remind me, Mrs – um…’ She groped for her glasses to look at her computer screen, but the school logo had long since kicked in over her calendar meaning she’d have to look up the password in her diary again. ‘Your son is how old?’

  ‘Just over a year.’

  ‘Nothing like getting the name down early! But I thought you said…’ She copied MYP455W0RD laboriously from diary to keyboard. Aha! ‘Kester is five?’

  ‘Kester Forsyth probably is five.’ The woman turned back from the window, eyebrows raised, the pierced one glinting. ‘His mother’s just leaving the building.’

  Auriol looked from Mrs P. Forsyth’s details on her screen to the plump-lipped usurper. The pendant on her necklace bore a big sparkly B.

  ‘Is this what they call a Specsavers’ moment?’ she asked in a small voice.

  ‘It’s what they call your lucky day that I’m here, Mrs Bullock.’

  For the first time, Auriol realised that what she’d taken as a Chelsea drawl was an Irish accent. ‘And who are you?’

  ‘Bridget Mazur, your job applicant.’ She offered her hand and shook the Head’s firmly. ‘Hire me now and you won’t muddle up your appointments again. My synchronised diaries are things of beauty.’

  ‘Get her back in here, Mrs Mazur, and the job’s yours.’

  ‘I’m not authorised to do that.’

  ‘You are now.’

  The phone on her desk rang with perfect theatricality. Auriol plucked it up, using her sing-song receptionist voice. ‘Compton Magna Primary School, how may I help?’

  ‘Auriol Bullock,’ droned the caller. Bound to be a sales rep.

  ‘One moment, please.’ She covered the receiver and mouthed very important call, waving the usurper outside to catch her runaway mother then, settling back and reaching for the biscuit drawer, she switched her tone to dragon. ‘Mrs Bullock speaking.’

  Moments later, a packet of M&S shortbreads went flying. Ofsted would be inspecting Maggers the following morning. All thoughts of social influencers and forest school forgotten, she rang Mrs Beadle. ‘It’s a Code Red, repeat Code Red! We need to get the PTA booze out of the kitchen and COSHH to assess the barbecue gas.’

  Unlike most head teachers, Auriol thrived on drama, always relishing the buzz of an inspection, like discovering a few minutes before curtain-up that a critic is in the theatre. Clicking her knuckles, she started making a list, top of which was Hire Mrs Thing as Secretary and Get Hair Done.

  *

  Pax hadn’t appreciated how spaced-out on plum gin and lack of sleep she was until gripped by an overwhelming desire to throw the guitar tuition flyers on the reception desk at Auriol Bullock and tell her to fuck off for being so offhand. Lester, old school when it came to competitive hip flasks, clearly dosed his mix with pure ethanol. The dressage measure had ridden roughshod over her straight thinking.

  Now safely outside, gulping cool air, she regretted not taking Luca’s advice to eat something, or at least drink coffee. Her mouth tasted of toothpaste, still undercut with a burn of bile from making herself throw up before she’d come out. But he didn’t know about that.

  Pax could hear him speaking Italian on his phone in the Noddy car. Her stomach squirmed and churned all the more. Reluctant to share confined space with the multi-lingual Puritan again so soon, she was now battling an urge to run away across the village green. Half a mile of his driving had already made her car sick. She was mortified by his hairy humanity in close proximity.

  Take charge, she told herself furiously. You’re not the child here. Your son is.

 
When she wrenched open the passenger door, he looked up from his phone in surprise mid-call, finger sliding across the mic hole. ‘That was quick.’

  ‘I’m not sending my son here.’

  She threw her bag inside, looking back as a voice shouted from the pathway, ‘Wait!’

  A silver-and-pink-haired woman in glasses was running towards her.

  ‘I’m so, so sorry, Mrs Forsyth,’ she swung through the gate, ‘Mrs Bollock – I mean Bullock – is snowed under with appointments today.’

  ‘She was incredibly offhand.’

  ‘Entirely my fault! I mistook you for the – um – the nit lady. Total jobsworth; evil with a comb. But the kids love her!’ she added, flustered, hurrying across the car park, wincing as she turned a high heel.

  ‘I’ve changed my mind. I’m not coming in. Sorry.’

  ‘You are so going to regret this.’ The pink-tipped woman wasn’t giving up. ‘Sure, it’s a great little school. At least have a look round. I make a cracking cup of coffee – and we give away free pens. I’m Bridge…’ She gazed imploringly across the car roof. Inside, Luca was talking on the phone in Italian again.

  Pax eyed the pink-haired woman, who looked endearingly bonkers, like a dark-hearted Alice from Vicar of Dibley, with a huge, fuchsia-painted lower lip.

  ‘Bring your husband in this time, why doncha?’ She’d leant down to wave at Luca through the window where he was still jabbering in Italian. She resurfaced, pink-faced. ‘Only that’s not your husband, that’s the Horsemaker.’

  ‘How d’you know Luca?’

  ‘Long story, so it is!’ Brash and direct, her accent was shot through with Belfast good humour that was comfortingly familiar, a reminder of a friend Pax had known years ago, a teenage bond in extremis. ‘Are you coming back or what?’

  ‘What did you say your name was again?’ Pax asked her.

  ‘I’m Ms Mazur.’ She held out her hand to shake over the car roof. ‘Shit, that sounds like one of He-Man’s enemies, doesn’t it? Mesmerising Mezmasur. I didn’t just say shit, did I?’

  ‘It’s fine, Mezmasur.’ Pax shook it, finding a smile creeping through her scowl. ‘I’m too mesmerised to notice.’

  And the strangest thing was, she did feel pleasantly hypnotised by Bridge Mazur, by this warm glow of déjà vu. Pax could taste the memory of that old friendship in her mouth like lime and salt, feel the rush of her blood pumping faster. Seventeen again, rebellious and courageous. The first friend she’d made after she’d run away to London had been a girl from Belfast, with the same grey almond eyes as this woman. Over cheap weed and tequila, she’d restored Pax’s sense of humour.

  ‘Truth is, I don’t actually work here yet,’ Bridge confessed in a whisper. ‘This is my job interview and if you come back in with me, I’ll get it.’

  ‘Do you really want that woman as a boss?’

  ‘I really do. Please help me out. You don’t have to send your wee lad here, just humour Mrs Bollock for five minutes.’

  ‘Bullock.’

  ‘That’s her name now.’ Noi she pronounced it, a once-familiar riff. ‘She’s a livewire; original Minerva McGonagall, so she is. Devoted to this place.’

  Pax looked up at the Victorian school’s red-brick face, the two inverted V gables glowing like chunks of Toblerone, its gingerbread too sweet to be soured by the fierce headmistress. Kes was extremely fond of sharp-tongued women if his affection for both grandmothers was anything to go by, and at least it spared her being trapped in a car with Luca again. She could pay it lip service then leave.

  Luca was still yabbering on the phone.

  ‘Okay, I’ll take a quick look,’ she said, joining Bridge who hurried her back up the path, signalling to a first-floor window, then pointing towards the classrooms. Pax spotted Mrs Bullock with a phone receiver pressed to one side of her glossy blonde bob making frantic hand gestures and miming a throat being cut.

  ‘The Head is preparing to teach Class Four about the French Revolution,’ Bridge said smoothly. ‘She’ll catch us up.’

  *

  As soon as Bridge began guiding Pax Forsyth round the same lap of the school that she’d recently taken, she could hazard a guess why Mrs Bullock had made throat-cutting gestures from her window. The classrooms, a bastion of calm discipline minutes earlier, had descended into pandemonium, rulers, exercise books and Sharpies flying, the wall of sound painful. The small boy in headphones from Class Three, now in possession of bongos, was lost in a Hendrix-like trance. In another classroom a cookery lesson was taking place beneath a fog of flour and icing sugar. Outside, a herd of ten-year-olds in red sweatshirts appeared to be trying to bury each other in mud.

  ‘Lovely age to be!’ Bridge shouted over the din, guessing it was a far cry from the hushed, cloistered seats of learning the family was accustomed to.

  She stole another look at Pax, quietly relieved to find that she wasn’t nearly so hot at close quarters – the pale marble skin, dotted with freckles, was waxy, there was a spot on her chin, hair was unwashed, eyes bloodshot – although her voice was pure honey. ‘Do your children come here?’

  ‘Not yet, but friends’ kids do. One has a little boy who started here last year and she reckons it’s given him bags of confidence, stopped him being so aggressive. He was a right thug, apparently.’

  ‘I blame the fathers,’ Pax muttered.

  ‘Me too usually, but this one’s dad’s pretty cool,’ she sighed. The bare-fist fighter with the bare-faced cheek, and hands of a surgeon. ‘So’s his mum, come to that.’ She pulled herself together. ‘Total angel. Terrific with horses. A natural, everyone says.’

  Pax was looking at her curiously. She really stared, Bridge noticed, her big, fawn eyes not looking through her as Carly described, but instead seeming to see into her thoughts, that shameful medley of sex toys, skin glue, Ash’s finger in her mouth and lust leaping to her groin. Her sore lip throbbed.

  ‘So this is a lovely learning environment as you can see!’ She tried to think educationally worthy thoughts, but instead found herself imagining Fantasy Ash was taking the PE class outside, all steamy clouds of breath and muscly football legs. ‘You can just see how much fun all the little ones have, whilst still benefitting from first-class teaching.’ She marched Pax across a covered courtyard so she could look in on the deserted school hall set with lunch tables. ‘And we feed them too!’ she improvised badly. ‘Nutritionally balanced superfood, not any old shi – sh – she— shish kebab, you know?’

  Pax was staring at her intently again. ‘Have we met before?’

  ‘Sure, I don’t think so.’ Bridge hoped she couldn’t pick her out of a line-up of riders in bobble-topped helmets who might have gawped at her weeping in her car a week earlier. She recrossed the courtyard at a wobbly high-heeled jog, starting to feel out of her depth. ‘It’s Reception your wee man’s going to be in, is it not?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Pax paused to admiring a sensory wall. ‘Kes never stops; he’s got no off button.’

  ‘I’ll bet there’s plenty here like that.’ Bridge led the way back along a corridor lined with small, brightly coloured coats on pegs, abandoned backpacks and wellies, pausing as she tried to remember which classroom Reception was.

  ‘His current school tries to run his batteries flat with rugby,’ Pax was saying, ‘French vocabulary and choir practice. He’s five.’ She picked up a brace of fallen Mini Rodini coats to hang on neighbouring empty pegs labelled Ignatius MacMaster and Inigo MacMaster.

  ‘Pair of iMacs,’ Bridge registered breathlessly.

  Pax tilted her head, eyes lingering on the labels. Then she looked away with a low, amused hiccup Bridge caught like a sneeze.

  Without warning, infectious laughter seized them both, a silent, rib-pinching intimacy they didn’t know what to do with. They turned in opposite directions to bring it under control.

  ‘Ssstop,’ the honeyed voice whispered, a slight slur to it that made Bridge think of those drawling voices from Made in Chelsea. Too pos
h to talk proper, her mum would say.

  A small boy hurtled past on the way to the loo, breaking into a walk as he drew level with them, nodding a polite head, then pelting on.

  ‘This place,’ Bridge confessed in an urgent whisper, ‘it makes you believe that not all’s wrong in the world, you know? Even though this is like the weirdest interview ever, and the Head’s barking mad – and don’t worry, I know you’re never going to send your kid here – I still want this job. It matters. That gut thing’s going on, you know?’ She tapped her belly. It was busy, butterflies galore, although in fairness most had been airborne since Ash had told her he couldn’t be trusted around her. ‘Crazy, is it not?’

  ‘I know exactly that gut thing.’ The eyes intensified, curious.

  Bridge had heard so much about Pax Forsyth from the Bags and Carly, it had never occurred to her that she might like her. There was something about her which made her an instant confidante, that dangerous edge women recognise in one another, the ballet dance along blades.

  ‘Intuition and indigestion feel different, don’t they?’ Bridge whispered.

  ‘I can never work it out.’

  ‘You’re a horsewoman. Stand up in your stirrups and gallop; you never want it to end, do you? It’s just the same thing standing in your heels, knowing exactly what you want.’

  ‘I’m not that person.’

  ‘Sure, you are,’ Bridge insisted, infused with such certainty she rocked back on her own heels. ‘We all are. The only thing that stops any of us is not believing it.’