A Village Affair

by Julie Houston

  ‘Clare!’ Fiona frowned as she saw my face. ‘I don’t think it’s quite as simple as that. You get back to sorting your rampant stags and don’t be so damned flippant.’

  I smiled at Fiona but realised my stomach was churning and I wanted to throw up. ‘I’m sure they will bring someone in to take over as head but, according to David Henderson, it won’t be tomorrow. He said he’d be on hand in the morning to help me. Shit,’ I said, suddenly realising. ‘I’m going to have to do a new-term, new-year, new-beginning assembly and I’ll have to explain to the children that Mrs Theobold is dead. Or do I say she’s with Jesus? No, I can’t; what about the Muslim children? OK, Mrs Theobold is with Jesus or Mohammed – take your pick, kids.’

  ‘Calm down,’ Clare said as she realised panic was mounting in every fibre of my being once more. ‘Sit yourself down, pen and paper in front of you, and we’ll help you compose your very first assembly as head. How hard can it be?’

  *

  So, at one in the morning, when I was dead to the world courtesy of two of Fiona’s Nytol and – I’ll be honest here – despite Fiona and Clare’s warning to the contrary, a rather large glass of Mark’s favourite malt whisky, Mark came home.

  He must have been in the house for a while, I realised afterwards, when some instinct had me shooting upright in bed, ears on stalks, heart pounding. At first, once awake from my drug-induced sleep, I thought there was someone standing over by the bedroom window and my poor heart went into overdrive. I could actually hear its rat-a-tat beating in my ears as I clutched the duvet cover. Relief washed over me as I realised the burglar/ghost was actually my Hobbs shift dress and jacket bought specially for my new role as deputy head and which, now upgraded to outfit for acting head – as well as cuckolded wife – were hanging above my newly polished navy court shoes ready to slip into in the morning.

  A crash from somewhere below me had me out of bed and peeping over the banister. This was either a burglar or my husband. Mark’s black shoes had been abandoned and left neatly as a pair at the bottom of the stairs. This was a first. Never in eighteen years of marriage had he deigned to take off his shoes: despite my nagging about bringing dirt and germs into the house, he’d cheerfully refused to remove them, saying we lived in a house not a Buddhist temple.

  Mark was standing with his back to me over by the bureau in the sitting room, still dressed in the black trousers he’d been wearing for his role as auctioneer. His dinner jacket and tie were gone, and in their stead was a fawn sweater – obviously cashmere – that I didn’t recognise. He was seemingly intent on searching for something in the top drawer of the bureau and occasional muttered oaths and ‘Where the hell is it?’ floated over his shoulder towards me. I realised I was shivering and wrapped my dressing gown tighter around me against the early autumn night air.

  ‘What are you looking for, Mark?’

  He started and turned, looking at me but not quite meeting my eye.

  ‘Cass, I’m so sorry. I love you. I never wanted any of this to happen… never meant it to happen…’

  ‘Hmm.’ I was amazed how calm I sounded. Must have been the Nytol slowing me down. ‘Two years is a hell of a long time to not mean something to happen. A drunken one off… a one-night stand with some floozie you met in a bar while you were away on one of your trips… I could probably get my head around that. These things do happen. You’d tell me and I’d probably sort of understand; you know, why it happened. But this? This, Mark…?’

  Mark stepped towards me and I recoiled, hugging my arms around me, trying to stop my teeth chattering.

  ‘I know, Cass, I know…’

  ‘Just answer me one question, Mark. Why? Why have you done this to us? To me? With Tina, for God’s sake, my best friend?’ I stared at Mark. This was my husband but I didn’t know him. He may as well have been the burglar I mistook him for.

  ‘What do you want to do?’

  ‘What do you mean, what do I want to do? What are you doing here? Sneaking in in the middle of the night. Were you about to sneak out again?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Mark’s voice was low. ‘I don’t know. I think I’m having some sort of breakdown.’

  I laughed at that. ‘Oh, don’t give me that, you wanker. You’re as sane as I am. You’d have carried on this thing if Simon hadn’t found out, wouldn’t you?’ I took a step towards him and, when he didn’t reply, I hissed, ‘My God, you would. Of course you would.’ And then almost to myself, ‘Why wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Cass…’

  ‘So, are you in love with her? With Tina?’

  ‘Don’t…’

  ‘Don’t what?’

  ‘Cass, I don’t know what to do. It’s different with her. Oh shit, what have I done?’

  I did laugh at this. Laughed out loud, a dry, hollow sort of laugh I didn’t recognise as my own. ‘Is that a rhetorical question or do you want to know the answer?’ It suddenly dawned on me what Mark was looking for in the bureau cupboard and I strode over, pushing him to one side. I pulled out the second drawer – I knew where everything was kept in this house: a place for everything and everything in its place – and immediately found it. ‘Mine, Tom’s, Freya’s… Ah, here we are… yours.’ I threw the burgundy-coloured passport at him.

  He stooped to pick it up from where it had landed at his feet, but couldn’t meet my eyes.

  ‘Nice jumper,’ I said. ‘A gift from Tina?’

  ‘Cass…’

  ‘If you’ve got what you came for, I suggest you leave. I have an important day ahead of me tomorrow.’ I stood as tall as I could, which, my being only a hair’s breadth over five foot, has always proved slightly difficult.

  ‘Oh, of course, your new job.’

  ‘Actually, rather more than that now,’ I snapped. ‘But, of course, you weren’t around to share my promotion with me.’

  ‘Your promotion?’ Mark frowned, and for the first time that night, looked directly at me. No way was I going to admit I was shit scared of what the morning would bring. If Serpentina could climb – slither – the slippery pole of success at her law firm, so could I in my new school.

  ‘Yes, as from tomorrow I am head teacher of Little Acorns. As such, I need to get my sleep, and you, you…’ I forcibly pushed Mark towards the door, ‘… you can take your cashmere sweater, your passport and your cheating self and take yourself back to Serpentina.’

  Mark reached a hand out to me but I shrugged him off. ‘I have far too much to do to think about throwing your stuff out on to the lawn,’ I sniffed grandly. ‘I suggest you make an appointment with my secretary at school as to when you can pick up the rest of your things.’

  ‘What will you tell the kids?’ Mark was ashen-faced but made no further attempt to touch me.

  ‘I shall think of something that doesn’t put you in too bad a light. My main concern is Tom and his A levels. The last thing he needs is to know his father is shagging his godmother.’

  ‘Don’t…’

  ‘I already know.’ Tom stood at the sitting-room door and Mark and I both turned in his direction, starting guiltily.

  ‘Tom? What do you mean? What do you know?’ I hurried over to him and searched his face, taking his hand.

  ‘Bit of a relief really, Dad,’ Tom laughed shortly. ‘Now that Mum knows, I mean. I guessed she’d finally found out when all the troops were round on Saturday and Sunday… and you weren’t. I’ve known for months. I saw you and Auntie Tina together – and I mean together – in The Frozen Knacker.’

  ‘The Frozen Knacker?’ I stared at Tom. ‘Where on earth is that? Oh,’ I said, as realisation dawned, ‘you mean The Blue Ball? What were you doing in The Blue Ball?’ I was momentarily taken aback that my sixteen-year-old son should have been hanging out in the rather remote pub out on the lonely stretch of the Pennines, towards Manchester.

  Tom ignored my question. ‘It’s actually been really hard keeping this to myself, you two. I didn’t want to be a party to these adult goings-on. I’m glad you know now,
Mum, and I don’t have to pretend anymore.’ Tom spoke in a manner that belied his sixteen years, putting the two of us to shame. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, I have the first day of my A level course tomorrow so I suggest you go back to Auntie Tina, Dad, or make your mind up to stay here with Mum. And you, Mum…’ Tom glanced towards the kitchen clock, before hoisting up his crumpled boxers with such an air of vulnerability I felt I’d have done anything for him not to have found out ‘… have got exactly four hours before you need to be up for your new job.’

  ‘You heard the man,’ I said calmly to Mark, ushering Tom back upstairs. ‘Make sure you lock the door after you and post the key through the letter box. I’m assuming you won’t be needing it any more. Oh, and one more thing: tell Serpentina she is, as from now, right off my Christmas card list.’

  5

  I Don’t Want to Go to School…

  Despite my lack of sleep the previous night – as well as the Nytol and Mark’s best whisky – the four hours before dawn after Mark had left were spent in a half-sleep of strange dreams and waking moments, looking at the illuminated time beamed onto the bedroom ceiling by my persistently capable alarm clock. Around 4 a.m. I seriously considered getting up, emailing David Henderson that there had been a mistake, I couldn’t possibly come in and be deputy head, never mind be in charge of the place, and thank you but he wouldn’t be seeing me again. I must have dropped off around five and was startled awake, from what was now a pretty deep sleep, by intrusive birdsong. Not your actual birds tweeting (by September the avian chorus has usually packed up and buggered off somewhere else. Or just has nothing to sing about: I knew the feeling) but the wildly enthusiastic birdsong chirruping of my alarm clock.

  I took the deepest breath possible, told myself I could do this, and headed for the shower. My bobbed blond hair doesn’t need a daily wash but it hadn’t seen shampoo – had I actually had a shower since getting ready for the charity ball? – for a couple of days, and I went the whole hog, washing, conditioning, leg and armpit shaving, in an attempt to scrub away the last thirty-six hours.

  Tom was already downstairs, stolidly munching his way through a bowl of cornflakes, one eye on the BBC Breakfast show and the other on a maths textbook. My son had always been emotionally self-contained, even as a little boy, so his calm demeanour wasn’t unexpected.

  ‘Would you rather I’d told you?’ he asked as I sat opposite him at the kitchen table nursing a cup of black coffee. Food would have choked me but the coffee went some way to clearing my head.

  Would I? Yes, of course I would. No teenager, especially one as outwardly impassive, even phlegmatic, as Tom, should have to keep such a secret to himself. I never knew what he was thinking. Never had. ‘Oh, darling, of course you should have said something.’

  ‘But at the time you were going for your interview, excited at the idea of being deputy at Westenbury. You’d have gone to pieces if I’d told you… Why have they changed its name to Little Acorns anyway? Don’t you think it’s a daft name for a primary school? Sounds more like a nursery to me.’

  Living just a ten-minute walk away from the school itself, both Tom and Freya had been pupils there until passing the stiff entrance exam at eleven and leaving for one of the few remaining state-run grammar schools in the area.

  ‘To be honest, Tom, I’m not overly sure about it all myself. It was already a fait accompli that it should change to academy status before I’d even applied for the job.’ I frowned. ‘I didn’t even know C of E schools could actually change but apparently, as long as there is a church supplemental agreement with the Secretary of State and the diocese it’s all OK.’ I glanced across at Tom who, head back in his book, was obviously not overly interested in the status of his old primary school. ‘You’re just changing the subject, Tom. Not wanting to talk about Dad. It must have been awful for you. I’m really sorry. Oh, darling, was it all just before your GCSEs as well?’

  I thought back to last April when I was so excited about getting an interview for the deputy headship. Tom must have known about Mark and Tina then. No wonder Mark had complained over the summer that Tom was moody, refusing to enter into any conversation with him, declining all Mark’s invitations and, worst of all, adamant he wouldn’t go on our family holiday to Devon as usual, saying he’d rather stay at home alone or, if necessary, with my mother or his great-grandfather, Norman.

  ‘I’m starving.’

  I gave Tom a warning look as Freya came into the kitchen. There was a time and place for everything and seven o’clock in the morning on the first day of term, when my daughter was about to be bollocked for her school uniform – or lack of it – was most definitely not it.

  ‘Back upstairs, Freya and get that ghastly foundation off your face and that chipped black polish off your nails. And comb your hair so your fringe isn’t hiding half your face.’ I peered at my fourteen-year-old daughter through eyes that, despite a dosing of eye-drops, were still sore and scratchy from crying and lack of sleep. ‘Is your hair darker than normal. It is, isn’t it? What the hell have you done to it?’

  Freya was, to the untrained eye, nonchalantly feeding crumpets into the toaster, but I knew from by daughter’s stance she was alert and ready to backchat, if not flounce from the kitchen.

  ‘Your hair, Freya?’

  ‘Paula helped me dye it yesterday afternoon. You said I could go over and see her; you were so taken up with The Fearbold popping her clogs you didn’t mind me having my tea with her.’

  In the same way I’d been encouraged as a child to call her Paula, rather than ‘Mummy’ or ‘Mum’, my mother had refused to take on the handle of ‘Gran’ or – here Paula had visibly shuddered, declaring it to being equated to a piece of Indian bread – the dreadful title of ‘Nan’, and, as such, had always been known simply as Paula to Tom and Freya. The Fearbold was the name all the local kids, and even their parents, had dubbed Priscilla Theobold for as long as she’d ruled the roost at Westenbury C of E.

  ‘For God’s sake, Freya, school will send you home. I can really do without all this at the moment.’ I could feel my voice beginning to rise and tried to speak calmly. I would kill my mother once I saw her but, for the moment, I issued the following directive. ‘Crumpets down, makeup off, nail varnish off and your new school jumper on.’ I looked closely at the garment in question. ‘Why, in God’s name, have you got your old one on? It’s got holes in the sleeves…’

  Tom raised his eyes from his book and stood up, taking his bowl and mug to the dishwasher. He was so like me in many ways: couldn’t bear mess around him. ‘She’s an emo, Mum, you know that. She needs to have her thumbs through the holes in the sleeves.’

  ‘Emo schemo,’ I said crossly. ‘Right, I’m off. I have a meeting with David Henderson at seven thirty. You dare to go to school looking like that, Freya, and you are in big trouble. Make sure she’s dressed properly, Tom. Enjoy your first day at sixth-form college, darling… And you, Freya, make sure you’ve got your bus pass and money for lunch. And get that nail varnish off… And those ridiculous emo glasses I know you’re going to put back on your face as soon as you’re on the bus!’

  I took another deep breath, slipped my new jacket over my new dress and picked up the lovely new, and very expensive, briefcase Mark had presented me with on the Saturday evening before we left for the auction.

  Briefcase? Bollocks! This was going to be one brief case of being head teacher. I was off to resign before I’d even started.

  *

  The sun’s rays, low in a brilliantly blue sky, heralding early September mornings and new academic years, blinded me on every corner as I drove, adding to my tension. I could have easily walked to Little Acorns, and was beginning to regret my decision not to do so. I’d spent much of the six-week break, after leaving my previous post, actually in school, planning the coming term, sorting my classroom, putting up displays, determined to be the best teacher possible to my new Year 5 class, in addition to being a superb deputy head. I’d had it all mapped
out. I was up and running, everything in place, no stone unturned – until the walls came crashing down. I pulled into the school’s car park. Not yet seven thirty and there were already several cars there.

  I made my way down the corridor to my classroom, relieved to see it was looking as bright and welcoming as I remembered leaving it, took a deep breath and went to find David Henderson.

  ‘Ah, Cassandra, you’re here. Not the happiest of occasions…’ David Henderson, Midhope’s wealthiest entrepreneur, smiled and ushered me into Mrs Theobold’s office. Her name, bold and determined, a personification of the woman herself, glared up at me from the huge leather-bound desk and I looked away.

  ‘No. Look, Mr Henderson…’

  ‘David, please. Come on, sit down, I’ve made us some coffee.’

  ‘It’s just—’

  ‘It’s just you think you can’t do this? You want to run away, back home, ready to listen to Ken Bruce to see if you can beat whoever is on Pop Master this morning.’ He smiled again and a tiny part of me began to relax.

  ‘I’m a Woman’s Hour girl myself.’ I took a grateful gulp of the coffee David poured for me. ‘Shit, that’s hot.’ I flushed as the invective slipped out. ‘Sorry…’

  David laughed. ‘Don’t worry, I used to hear much worse from The Fearbold, especially if she wasn’t getting her own way with the governors. Used to terrify Ben Carey, the vicar of All Hallows, Westenbury. OK, as far as I can see, we should be getting an acting head in from the authority and you will just assume your position as deputy.’ He paused, shaking his head slightly. ‘Unfortunately, trouble-shooting primary heads, at the beginning of a brand-new school year, when Midhope Education Authority is not yet even open for business, are a bit thin on the ground. As I’m sure you’re aware, as an academy, the school is now responsible for finding its own staff rather than relying on the authority, but I’m hoping they’ll still be able to advise us on this. If the school had had its teacher-only days this week, instead of last, we’d have had a couple of days’ grace. But, talking of Grace, I hope you don’t think I’ve been presumptuous, but needs must, and I spoke to a very good friend of mine yesterday. She’s prepared to come in and cover your class for a few days until we get sorted. She does have two young children at home, but she’s been able to arrange childcare and should be in before the children here start arriving.’