The Teacher's Secret (37 page)

She'd gone quiet when he let her know about the job.

‘As much work as I want,' he'd told her, ‘part time, full time, it's up to me.'

‘Good,' she'd answered without a smile, her voice indistinct. ‘That's good.'

‘Decent of Jim, really, to put me on.' He'd said this in his jolly voice, his upbeat voice, a voice he hadn't had much call for of late. Not after all the—what would you call it?—the furore.

He saw her struggle to match his cheeriness; watched her mouth turn up in what could have been a smile but came out more as a grimace; saw the rise of her shoulders as she took a breath in and let a breath out.

‘Don't you think so?' he said, a desperate edge creeping into his voice.

Maybe it was this that did it.

‘No,' she blurted out, her voice muffled. ‘I don't think so.'

Her answer confused him. ‘Sorry, love?'

‘I don't want to be pitied, Terry. And I don't feel like being grateful for a job like that.'

She stopped then, and he thought she might cry, but she didn't; she kept going.

‘Every time I go to the shops, there's someone who asks about you. Some that think you're still there at the school and tell me about Jess or Joe, who were in your class once, or maybe they weren't—it doesn't seem to matter—they tell me anyway. And I just nod and say,
Well done
, or,
Terry'll be pleased to hear it
, or,
Isn't that great?
Trying not to get into a conversation, trying not to say that you've left, that you aren't there anymore. Because I don't want to talk about it. I don't want them to ask why.'

She'd pulled her lips in then, like she was trying to gather herself up. ‘Then there's the ones who do know, but want to find out a bit more. And I'm never sure how much they really know, how much they've been told. So I say nothing, because I'm scared I'll say too much, that I'll give them more than they've already got. Feeling like a bloody idiot when I say,
Yes, that's right, he's retired
. It kills me, Terry; it kills me what happened. So then when you say,
Jim's given me a job and isn't that great?
, what do you expect me to say? Yes, it's great? When I think of all the kids you saw through that place. Kids you taught to read, kids you taught to write—kids who'd have had no chance of any bloody job if you hadn't got them sorted in the first place. Kids doing all sorts of things now, and I'm supposed to be turning handstands because someone's got you a job stacking shelves. What am I supposed to say to that, Terry? Yep, Jim Williams sure is a good guy for taking you on?'

He'd nodded then and kept nodding until he was able to speak. ‘Love, you wanted me to be working. And I am. I'm working. And the thing is,' he said, ‘I'd be hard pressed to find anyone else who would take me on now.'

She'd stared at him then. Really stared at him, so hard, so unflinchingly it seemed she was trying to peer into him.

Watching her, his heart had started to pound. ‘What, Chelle? What is it?'

Finally she'd dropped her eyes and turned away from him. ‘Nothing,' she said softly. ‘Nothing.'

It's almost closing time when he hears her voice.

‘Dad?' she's calling. And when there's no answer, she calls again, louder this time, so loud her voice booms through the shop. ‘Dad?' If Len's in the shop at all, he's got to have heard her this time.

What are they doing here? Terry wonders. Len can't use a screwdriver let alone find his way around a hardware shop.

‘Dad?' he hears her call out once more. This time Len answers her.

‘Elsie,' he calls back, ‘where did you get to?'

‘I just lost you, Dad,' she says. ‘I just lost you in the shop.'

Terry is in aisle four, restocking paints. When, from the corner of his eye, he sees the two of them at the end of his aisle, he doesn't know why, but he starts to panic. As they come closer, ambling slowly up the aisle, Terry bends close into the shelf so that his face is shielded and he won't be recognised.

As he stays there, statue-like, he hears their loud voices right beside him.

‘Letterboxes,' Len is saying to her, ‘the row for letterboxes, that's what we need. Have you seen it, Elsie, the row where they've got letterboxes?'

Elsie hasn't seen the letterboxes, she tells her father; she hasn't even seen one letterbox. Then she reconsiders. Yes, she corrects herself, she did see one, but that was on the way in and it was the shop one. And you couldn't buy that, could you, because then where would they put the shop letters?

‘We need to find the letterboxes, Else,' Len says loudly. ‘We need to keep looking until we find them.'

Aisle nine
, Terry directs them silently.
You need to look in aisle nine
.

But instead of saying it out loud, he buries his head further into the shelf, in so far he'll risk bumping his head if he doesn't watch himself. That's when he realises that he's holding his breath. Holding it in so hard that when he finally lets go, he finds himself gasping for air.

You blithering fool, he scolds himself. What the hell are you doing hiding from poor old Len and Elsie?

But still he keeps himself out of sight until their voices fade away. Only then does he pull his head out of the shelf, and only once he's double-checked they're really gone does he stand up to rub the stiffness out of his legs.

He's shaking, he discovers. He's shaking so much he has to reach out to hold on to the shelving to steady himself.

Hearing her voice behind him makes him jump.

‘Mr P!' she shouts, her voice so excited it sounds like she's about to burst. ‘Mr P, Mr P, it's me, Elsie.'

His first impulse is to run, to just take off, but he turns around and forces a smile to his lips. ‘So it is, Elsie, so it is.'

She gives him a delighted smile. ‘How come you're here, Mr P?' she asks. ‘Is this your job now, because we've got Mrs Foreman?'

So her name is Foreman. He didn't know that. Tania had spoken of a Tina or a Nina but hadn't mentioned her last name. And he hadn't asked. Probably because it made his lungs contract to think about it; to think about someone in his class, with his kids, in his school.

‘Is that why you left, Mr P? Because you work here now instead?' He gives her the smallest of smiles. ‘Tell you what, I'd rather hear about you. What brings you here today, Elsie?'

‘Dad and me,' she says, ‘we're buying another letterbox because the old one got blown right up.'

That's a surprise. ‘It got blown up?'

‘Yes, Mr P, yes it did. It got blown up in the night when I was asleep but my dad wasn't, he was still awake. And he went out to see what was going on. And that's what was going on, the letterbox was blown up, so we need to get another one, otherwise we'll never get any more letters because there won't be a letterbox to put them in.'

He gives her a nod. ‘You want me to show you where they are, the letterboxes?'

That's exactly what she wants. And as he walks her over, he feels her hand—her warm little hand—slip into his and squeeze. He should drop it. He should say,
No, Elsie, you can't do that. Not here. Not now.
But how can he? How can he do anything but squeeze her hand back as he leads her over to aisle nine?

Nina

And so now they've moved in together, Steve and Sue. Finally, he has admitted it to her. Through the phone, his voice cuts Nina to pieces.
Oh
, she hears herself say, her mind on autopilot and, strangely, the word
congratulations
sitting on her tongue.

She imagines telling Marina.
I almost congratulated him
, she'd say with a laugh.
Can you imagine? I had to stop myself.

But when she thinks about it, when she thinks about the two of them in the house that's now theirs, her mouth turns dry. The thought of dropping Emily over to them makes her feel physically sick.

Not Emily. Emily is thrilled about it. So thrilled she spends the hour-long car trip singing in the back seat. Nina makes herself smile. ‘I like your song, sweetheart,' she says. It's a song she hasn't heard before. ‘Where did you learn it?'

Emily keeps singing. Only when she gets to the end of the song does she answer. ‘From Paige,' she says.

Nina stiffens.

‘And you know what, Mummy?' she continues. ‘Paige says I'm her
stepsister
.' She pronounces the word carefully, almost reverently.

Nina feels the back of her neck become even tighter. ‘Is that what Daddy says, too?' She tries not to spit the words out. Her eyes on the rear-view mirror, she watches for her daughter's reaction.

Emily looks pensive. ‘I haven't asked him,' she says and then, as an afterthought, ‘Do you want me to?'

‘No.' This Nina says too quickly, too loudly. ‘No,' she says again, more quietly. ‘No, that's fine.' Already she can feel the prickling of tears behind her eyes. It's going to take all her focus, all her willpower not to lose it now. And she can't lose it. Not yet.

As a test to herself, she parks in front of the house. Right in front of the house. But once she's stopped, she finds she can't move. She actually can't move. Behind her, Emily starts to fidget. ‘Mummy,' she says, ‘I want to get out.'

When Nina doesn't answer her, she gets louder. ‘Out, Mummy!' she shouts. ‘I want to get out!'

And when Nina still doesn't answer, the little girl starts to cry. ‘Let me out,' she sobs. ‘Let me out.'

Nina forces her hands from the steering wheel, unbuckles her seatbelt, gets out of the car and walks around to Emily's side. When she opens the door, her daughter's breath is ragged and her face is wet with tears. ‘I was waiting, Mummy,' she reproaches her. ‘I was waiting for you.'

Nina doesn't have the energy to answer. All she can do is bundle her up and, holding her tight, carry her up to the house.

Closing her eyes, she presses the bell. When Steve answers the door, her stomach churns as she tries for a smile. Not that it matters—he doesn't meet her eye anyway. And because she can't think of
anything to say, she says nothing at all. Instead, she squeezes Emily hard before she hands her over to him. ‘See you soon, my darling,' she says, trying her best not to cry. ‘See you soon.'

Cheery now in her father's arms, Emily waves. ‘Guess what, Mummy?' she says. ‘Tonight I'm going to sleep with Paige in her room.'

On Sunday afternoon, Emily is back again, silently transferred from Steve's arms into her own. Once he has gone—as quickly as he can—Nina burrows her face into the little girl's hair, breathing in the smell of her, breathing her daughter right back into her.

‘How was your weekend, sweetie?' she asks. It's a dangerous question—there are so many things she doesn't want to know—but still she asks it. Every single time she asks it.

‘It was Poppy's birthday,' Emily tells her, ‘and we had a party.'

Nina gives her a wide, beaming, fake smile. ‘At Poppy's place?'

Emily nods. ‘Yes, at Poppy's place.'

Nina's stomach lurches but she presses on. ‘And who else came to the party, sweetheart?'

‘Yvette and Auntie Jen and Uncle Brett.'

‘Is that all?'

Emily laughs. ‘And Daddy, of course, and Sue and Paige. And Paige got to put some of the candles on the cake and I got to put some on and Yvette got to put some on.'

Nina's smile fades.

‘Then we all had to sing “Happy Birthday” but Paige didn't sing the real “Happy Birthday” song, she sang another one. Do you want me to sing it?'

Nina doesn't want to hear the song but Emily starts up before
she can answer. ‘Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, you act like a monkey and you smell like one too.' She sings it loudly and gleefully before collapsing into exaggerated shrieks of laughter. ‘That's a funny one, Mummy, isn't it?'