The Learning Curve (19 page)

Then there was the time-keeping aspect of the evening. With only ten minutes for each set of parents it was a night of rigorous clock-watching for every single teacher, but Nicky just assumed that they would be sensitive to the fact that those precious ten minutes felt very different to the parents than to them, and the most insensitive thing they could do would be to highlight this impersonal aspect of the evening. So, again, she was concerned to see that some teachers actually brought in large clocks from home and placed them on their desk with their backs to the parents. A few even set an alarm to go off every ten minutes. Others still took off their watches and laid them on top of their notes, leaving no one in any doubt of their priorities for the evening. Such tiny details, but so revealing.

When she popped her head round Pete’s door, she found him sitting on one of his pupil’s chairs, reading a book and biting his nails. He spotted her, pulled a funny face and waved his arms around. He looked about ten years old.

When she popped her head round Ally’s door, they shared a grimace. Ally was slumping cross-legged on a child’s desk.

‘Is that how you sit?’ asked Nicky.

‘’Course not,’ said Ally, looking up brightly. ‘As soon as they come in I spring up and do a little tap-dance before the slide show.’

‘Sorry,’ said Nicky. ‘It’s just fascinating to see how differently everyone does it.’

Ally nodded as she moved to sit on one of the pupil’s chairs. ‘Has Amanda turned on her spotlights and mirrors yet?’

‘Practically,’ said Nicky. ‘Talk about war paint. Blimey.’

‘Yeah. She’s the kind of woman who gives make-up a bad name.’

After Nicky left Ally, she popped her head round Rob’s door before nipping back into her own room. She stared. He was sitting behind his own desk, two tiny pupils’ chairs placed in front it. On his desk sat the largest alarm clock she’d seen yet, its back to the parents’ chairs, ticking so loudly she could barely hear herself judge him. He was leaning back in his chair, hands behind his head, humming.

‘Hiya,’ she called out. He started.

‘Hi.’ He grinned. ‘All set?’

‘I think so.’

‘Looking forward to seeing the lesser spotted Mr Samuels?’

‘Not really.’

‘Attagirl.’

‘Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello!’ came a voice from behind her.

She turned to Miss James.

‘I’m taking orders,’ Miss James announced, pen and pad in hand. ‘Tea or coffee, custard creams, Bourbons or digestives?’

‘Yes please,’ said Nicky.

Lilith heard her phone buzz just as she was shutting her front door behind her. She cursed loudly and dropped her bag to the floor. She was already late for Daisy’s Parents’ Evening, which meant another set of parents – or mothers, who was she kidding? – would slip in in front of her and she’d end up paying more babysitting money.

She delved into her bag, furiously grabbing its contents and dropping them out one by one, until everything but the phone was littered around her. By the time she found her phone, it had stopped ringing, as it always had, but she snapped it open anyway. As she stuffed everything back into her bag and hurried to the bus stop, she read the message. It was a text from Mark.

Call me. It’s urgent.

How utterly predictable, she thought. Damn, she should have bet him good money he wasn’t going to make tonight. It would have covered tonight’s babysitter. Well, she was damned if she was going to call him. And she was not going to be a go-between between another teacher and him again. She hadn’t minded so much with Mr Pattison, but Miss Hobbs was not her type. No. He could whistle for it. She
reached the bus stop, pulled down a seat and sat on it. She hunched in the cold and tapped her foot as she waited for the bus.

‘Sugar?’ Miss James asked Nicky.

‘She’s sweet enough already,’ answered Rob.

‘No sugar, thanks.’ Nicky smiled, feeling the first twinges of a headache coming on.

‘Now,’ said Miss James, clutching her order pad to her chest, ‘I will probably get your teas and bickies to you by about seven, as I’m starting with Year 1. Are you both all right with that?’

‘Of course!’ chanted Nicky and Rob.

‘I knew you would be,’ said Miss James. ‘I know I can always rely on you two. Well done, well done, well done, well done. Now, I’ve asked everyone how their timetables and marking are and they’ve all promised me that they are in excellent order. The key question to ask you two is . . . can I trust them all to be telling the truth?’ She turned to them, and they both nodded, Rob more energetically than Nicky. There was no way Nicky would admit that she couldn’t answer for Amanda who had refused to reveal her term’s marking. Even Gwen had been more obliging than her. Ned had practically shown her every page. Again, she’d been amazed at how different his teaching methods were from hers. Every single page had so many comments on it, it was a wonder Ned had time to go to the toilet. No wonder his wife made him his sandwiches every day. They became aware of two people standing behind them and found themselves facing a couple who had arrived early for their ten minutes with Mr Pattison. Rob leapt to his feet and
thrust his hand forward for a hearty shake. The parents approached him and Nicky and Miss James bid a hasty farewell.

Lilith looked at her watch again. The bus was now twenty minutes late. Oh sod it, she thought. The only way to get the bus to come was to phone Mark. And she might as well hear his excuse. Giving him a good old bollocking might alleviate the strain in her neck. She dialled his number and was surprised not to have to wait for him to pick up. He answered with his name immediately in a loud, efficient bellow.

‘It’s me,’ she told him through pursed lips.

‘OH
HI!
’ he yelled into her ear. ‘How
are
you? Long time no speak!’

‘What?’

‘I’m
fine
thanks,’ he continued to bellow. ‘How are you?’

Lilith frowned and moved the phone away from her ear to stare at the number she’d dialled, to check it was correct. Yes, it was. She put the phone back to her ear.

‘Are you drunk, Mark?’ she asked.

There was silence.

‘Mark?’

‘Oh. My. God,’ she heard him say in a hushed whisper.

‘
What?
’ she asked.

‘You’re . . .
joking
?’ he was still using the hushed whisper.

She stood up and started pacing.

‘Mark,’ she clipped, ‘if I was joking you’d be laughing. What the fuck’s going –’

‘I-I-I . . . I just, I can’t believe it,’ Mark talked over her.

Lilith paused. She could hear him making mmhm noises down the phone at her silence.

‘No,’ she sighed eventually. ‘Neither can I.’

‘I only saw her last week.’

‘Goodbye, Mark.’

‘Of
course
,’ she heard. ‘I’ll come immediately.’

‘So I’ve heard,’ she said tartly, and hung up.

Nicky looked up from her notes at the next parents who had just come in and pulled her face into a smile. She felt a familiar taut throb pulse from her temples down the side of her cheekbones and along the back of her jaw. She was getting one of her heads.

‘Hello!’ she greeted them softly. ‘I’m Miss –’

‘What’s all this about uniforms?’ said the woman, sitting down next to Nicky in a chair the size of her hand. Nicky raised her eyebrows, which hurt. Why were parents always obsessed with what their children wore? And who spread these false rumours anyway?

She gave them a small but kind smile.

‘Ever since I’ve been teaching here,’ she began softly, ‘there has been a consistent rumour that we are about to introduce school uniforms. Let me put your minds at rest.’ She looked at them both. ‘We are not about to introduce school uniforms.’

‘Good,’ tutted the woman, ‘because we’d take Anemone out of here in the blink of an eye. We didn’t spend £7,000 on stamp duty to have to start buying school uniform.’

Nicky nodded sympathetically, and a thudding pain shot through the base of her skull.

She looked down at Anemone’s notes on her lap. She slowly looked up again and fixed them with a grin, which hurt her gums.

‘Your Anemone is a very . . .’

She fought for a positive word to describe their daughter. Tall?

She licked her lips.

‘. . . she’s a very . . .
forceful
character –’

They beamed.

‘. . . whose presence,’ she continued, ‘is
always
felt in the classroom.’

They exchanged smiles.

‘And although this is a
wonderful
trait,’ continued Nicky, ‘in many,
many
ways, I do feel that . . . just
sometimes
. . . through no fault of her own . . . this can come across to others as . . . possibly a bit
too
forceful.’

‘HAH!’ said Anemone’s mother, forcefully. ‘No such thing in my book.’

‘Ri-ight,’ said Nicky. She looked back down at her notes.

‘How’s her maths?’ asked Anemone’s father.

Nicky smiled at him. ‘Sometimes,’ she gave a little laugh, ‘it’s more creative than her English.’

They smiled proudly again.

Nicky relaxed her jaw and felt some of the pain ease.

Mark stood at his desk, briefcase in hand, staring angrily at Caroline, his PA.

‘Tell him I’ve gone,’ he said for the first time in his life.

Caroline looked at her watch. ‘At seven in the evening? A week before deadline?’

Mark sighed. ‘All right, all right. Tell my cab I’m coming. Put the bastard on.’

Caroline nipped back to her desk and put the client through on the phone before calling down to Ray, the firm’s
favourite cabbie, who was parked outside.

Mark waited for the phone to connect him.

‘Peter!’ he cried. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘Reuters have been on to us. There’s been a whisper. We’re going to have to bring the deadline forward.’

Mark slumped in his chair. Not tonight. Any night but tonight. ‘How early?’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘Shit.’

‘Noon at the latest.’

Mark put down the phone and thought for a moment. He walked into the general office.

‘Listen up, listen up.’ Four sallow faces looked up, while the juniors knew it was more than their careers’ worth to stop working. ‘It’s going to be an all-nighter for everyone,’ announced Mark. ‘Deadline’s shifted forward to 10 a.m. tomorrow morning. Reuters know.’ The room was thick with cursing. Mark went on. ‘I want everything on my desk by midnight. If it’s not there, Matt, I’ll want to know why.’

‘When will you be back?’ asked Matt.

Mark glanced at his watch. ‘As soon as I’ve bollocked my kid’s schoolteacher. Within a couple of hours.’

As he walked through the office, he heard Matt passing the shit down behind him.

NICKY RAISED HER
head slowly at the next parent hovering in the doorway and instead saw Miss James standing stock-still, staring intently at a cup of tea in her hand, the tip of her tongue peeping out of her mouth in concentration. Then she approached rather unsteadily, crouched down slowly and placed the tea carefully on the pupil’s desk where Nicky was sitting. Then she put up a finger as if to halt applause and, with great aplomb, pulled out two crumbly pieces of broken Bourbon biscuit from her cardigan pocket, and popped them on to the saucer.

‘I know you said custard creams, my love,’ said Miss James, ‘but we’ve run out. Between you and me, I think someone in the
environs
has stolen a whole packet. And between you and me, it’s Amanda. No one’s more surprised than me. I mean, where does she put them, with legs like that? If ever there was proof that life is unfair . . . anyway,’ she perched on the desk, ‘I saw them in her drawer when she took out a coaster for her cup and saucer. I don’t know which surprised me more, her stealing an entire packet of custard creams or thinking that her desk needs a coaster for a cup. On reflection, I think it’s the custard creams. Anyway,
no matter. How are you doing, dear girl? Has the lovely Mr Samuels turned up yet?’

Nicky managed a shake of her head. She was gasping for tea. Not just because she was gasping for tea, but because she now had something to take her headache pills with. She took out three, sipped her hot tea and scalded her tongue, but the relief of knowing that pain relief was on its way more than made up for it. Miss James was about to continue talking when a mother appeared at the doorway. She leapt up off the desk, spilling Nicky’s tea, and bounded out, patting the mother on the arm as she passed, as if the mother was about to take Grade 1 piano exam. Which might have explained why the mother then entered the room looking exactly as if she was about to take Grade 1 piano exam.

Mark shut his eyes and cursed inwardly. Ray glanced at him in the rear-view mirror.

‘Sorry, Mr Samuels,’ he said. ‘There’s been a pile-up in Islington and the tailback’s right through to the City. It might actually be faster by tube.’

Mark couldn’t believe his ears.

‘Five people died, apparently,’ continued Ray. ‘Shocking business. Drunk driver. They should bring back capital punishment. That would stop the buggers.’

‘How long do you think it’s going to take?’ asked Mark.

Ray sighed long and loud. ‘Forty minutes? Possibly half an hour.’

Mark sat back. ‘That’s fine,’ he said and fell asleep.

Nicky forced herself up from her seat. Every hair on her head felt screwed in. She knew the painkillers had started to
work because her limbs were now leaden, but the headache was unchanged, which meant she’d taken them too late. She was now only waiting for Mr Samuels and had miraculously managed to get ahead of her timetable by five valuable minutes. She was going to use every single one of them with her face under cold running water, or, if possible, uncorking her head and replacing it on a looser fitting.

As she left her classroom with measured steps, she glanced over into Rob’s classroom. He was holding forth in front of two parents who looked like overawed children in their ridiculous-sized chairs. She frowned, but it hurt, so she stopped.

She pulled off her glasses. Nearly there, she thought, tiptoeing down the corridor.