The Teacher's Secret (39 page)

Tania softens her tone. ‘Don't worry,' she says, ‘I'll give you a hand.'

By six o'clock, Belinda and Tania are both hungry. Nina is starting to get peckish, too.

It's cash only at the bistro but there's an ATM near the bar. Which is just as well because Nina is almost out of cash. So she walks over to the ATM, slots in her card, hits sixty and waits for her money. Instead, the screen flashes her a warning:
You have insufficient funds to complete this transaction.

Pulling her card out, she tries once more. Again, the warning appears. It must be a problem with the machine. Her pay won't go in until Tuesday but Steve's child support will have already come through, so even with the rent and childcare fees taken out, she should still have two hundred dollars in the account. Maybe she punched in the wrong number. Maybe she pressed six hundred instead of sixty. She has a third go at it: carefully this time, so
there's no chance of a mistake. It still doesn't work. So she asks for an account balance instead of a withdrawal. This time the machine does what she asks, and gives her the balance. Only it's not what she's anticipated. According to the slip of paper, she has eighteen dollars fifty left in her account. And twenty dollars is the minimum withdrawal amount. Apart from that, she's got eight dollars eighty left in her purse.

In a brief moment of optimism, she checks the blackboard menu for something under eight dollars. There's nothing. Even the soup costs ten dollars. Which means she won't be staying for dinner after all. Her humiliation is so sharp it makes her want to cry. If it was Marina, she could tell her the truth: that she can't pay for dinner. But she can't say that to Tania and Belinda; she scarcely knows them.

‘I just got a text from Steve,' she tells them instead. ‘Emily's sick. She won't settle. So I'm going to have to go.'

Belinda makes a sad face. ‘What a bummer,' she says.

Tania is more probing. ‘You're not upset about the show, are you?'

The question surprises her. ‘It's not that.' This, at least, is truthful. ‘It's just Emily,' she says weakly, too spent to add anything more to the lie.

In the car she kicks herself for having been so stupid: for not having noticed her account was so low. But she can't work out how it could have happened, where the extra money would have gone.

When she gets home, she logs into online banking and scrolls through her statement. There aren't any extra withdrawals, just the usual: rent, childcare, groceries. The entry marked
Steve Foreman
monthly deposit
is there too: transferred, as usual, on the fourteenth of the month. But as her eyes follow the entry to the end of the row, she sees that something is different: the amount is short by two hundred dollars. Instead of nine hundred dollars, he has paid her seven hundred.

The bank must have made a mistake, she decides. She should ring Steve to let him know, so it can be sorted out quickly. She dials his number.

He answers straightaway. ‘Hello?' he says, his voice wary.

‘It's me,' she says. ‘You got a minute?'

When he doesn't answer, she clears her throat. ‘I just wanted to talk about the money.'

‘What money?'

‘My money.' The words are out before she can get them back. ‘I mean, the money for Emily. I've checked and there's only seven hundred this month.'

He stays quiet.

‘And I thought, well, I thought maybe they'd got it wrong. The bank. I thought the bank might have made a mistake. Something like that.' She's gabbling now.

Still he says nothing.

‘Did they?' she asks softly, her voice suddenly croaky. ‘Did they get it wrong?'

Finally he answers her. ‘It's gone down,' he says.

She doesn't understand what he's saying. ‘What do you mean? What's gone down?'

She hears him clear his throat. ‘The child support amount. What I'm supposed to pay.'

‘I'm sorry?' Her voice is cooling now.

‘Because of Paige. They count her now, so the amount, it's lower.'

‘Because of Paige?'

‘That's right.'

‘And that's why you're paying less? Because of
Paige
?' She can feel her cheeks start to burn. Calm down, she tells herself, calm down. This is not the child's fault. This is not Paige's fault.

‘Look, it's not like I'm ripping you off. I'm paying what I'm supposed to pay.' His voice is less certain now but more defensive.

‘I was out with friends from my new school,' she tells him. ‘They invited me out but there was no money in my account so I had to come home.' She stops to catch herself. ‘Steve,' she pleads, willing him to comfort her, ‘I couldn't even pay for a bowl of soup.'

Afterwards, she is so agitated she can't keep still.

She needs to eat, that's what she needs to do. So she gets out a couple of eggs then goes back to the fridge for the milk. Scrambled eggs. She'll make herself some scrambled eggs on toast.

But there's no milk. She can't believe it. ‘Shit!' she shouts aloud. Instead of getting milk on the way home from school, she went to the pub. And now she's back home again, cranky, tired and hungry, and there's no milk. And it's his fault. His fault she's here on her own in this house; his fault there's no milk.

Frustration consumes her, and she doesn't know what to do.

Then it dawns on her.

The neighbour.

She could ask the neighbour. She searches for her name. Jean. Yes, Jean. She could ask Jean for some milk.

Joan

The knock at the door so startles her, she almost jumps out of her armchair. When she looks at the clock on top of the television, she sees that it is almost eight o'clock. Fear makes her cautious. Someone at the door at this hour? She should ignore it. It could be a burglar—or worse.

The screen door is locked
, her mother reminds her,
so you'll be fine to open the front door
.

Still Joan hesitates. Who could it be?

When the second knock comes, curiosity decides her. Standing up, she tightens the sash of her dressing-gown and makes her way to the door.

‘Hello?' she calls out softly. When there is no answer, she opens the front door a fraction, leaving the chain latched. ‘Hello?' she says again, her eyes straining into the darkness. There is a porch light above the door but the bulb has gone and because the fitting's tricky, she hasn't replaced it. Now she wishes she'd tried a bit harder. ‘Hello?'

‘Sorry to bother you,' she hears. ‘It's Nina, from next door. I—I've got a favour to ask you.'

Nina! She hasn't spoken to her for weeks. Strange how they can live so close but never see each other. Not that Joan hasn't been keeping an eye out for her. Especially when she's in the yard. Sometimes she sees Emily, but not often. Once she'd even called over to her, from over the fence. ‘Hello, there!' she'd called out, but it can't have been loud enough because the girl didn't look up and Joan, suddenly shy, hadn't tried a second time.

‘Nina,' she says now, ‘yes, yes, of course.'

Ask her in
, her mother urges.
Ask her in right now
.

Thinking about it makes Joan's hands clammy and she swallows hard before quickly, too quickly, she blurts it out. ‘Come in, Nina, come in.'

And to Joan's amazement, she does. Without a word, she comes inside and follows Joan through to the kitchen.

There, Nina turns to her and, with tears in her eyes, tells her that she has no milk.

Taken aback by the tears, Joan is flustered. ‘Don't cry about that,' she says. ‘Please don't cry about that. I've got milk. You can have my milk.'

Nina wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘I'm sorry,' she whispers. ‘I was supposed to be going out for dinner and then I couldn't, so I started to make some scrambled eggs and realised I didn't have any milk. I'm sorry,' she says, her voice starting to crack. ‘I'm sorry to bother you like this.'

Bother?

If only she knew.

Quickly, Joan heads for the fridge. She has a little less than a litre
of milk left; she will give it all to Nina. She'll make do with black tea in the morning and later in the day she'll go to the shops.

But her mother is in her ear again now.
Make the girl some dinner, for God's sake, Joanie. Look at the poor thing. She needs looking after more than she needs your milk, that's clear as day. Sit her down and make her something to eat. She can just as easily eat scrambled eggs here as eat them there. But don't give her a choice. Be a bit assertive, Joan. Don't give her a chance to say no.

‘Sit down,' Joan says aloud, hoping she doesn't sound as nervous as she feels. ‘I'll make you some eggs.'

But Nina shakes her head. ‘No,' she says, ‘it's okay. I'm just being silly. I'll be fine.'

What now, Joan thinks, what do I do now?

Tell her, Joan: just tell her to sit down.

So she does. ‘Sit down,' she says, ‘while I make them.'

And her neighbour Nina does just that. She sits on one of the kitchen chairs and waits quietly while Joan cooks. It's only when Joan is scooping the eggs onto a plate that she remembers.

‘Where's Emily?' she asks.

Nina's face turns red. ‘She's with her father for the weekend,' she says.

And although Joan doesn't ask her anything more, still she keeps going. ‘He—we've separated,' she says, her words tripping together. ‘My husband and I are separated.'

Joan doesn't know what to say, so she says nothing at all.

‘Thank you,' Nina says softly. ‘Thank you for being so kind to me, Jean.'

Shy now, and embarrassed, Joan just nods. It's not the time, she thinks, to say that her name isn't Jean, it's Joan.

Nina

That night, Nina sleeps well. Better, in fact, than she has for weeks. And when she wakes up the next morning, she almost feels refreshed.

For the rest of the weekend, she tries to come up with ideas for the Year 6 show. A play, she thinks, but she can't find anything with enough parts for all the kids.

It's too much, she decides. She's left it too late and she won't be able to do it. It's as simple as that.

But when she gets to school on Monday, there's a book on her desk with a sticky-note stuck to its cover.

Hi Nina
, the note says.
There are some good pieces in here—see what you think. Tania.

Nina picks up the book and has a flick through it. It's a book of plays for kids. Forget it, she thinks. But when she has a closer look at it over recess, she finds herself wavering. The pieces are simple enough, and not too long. She takes the book home with her and, once Emily is in bed, rings Marina to talk about it. Within an hour, Marina has convinced her.

The Year 6 show will be going ahead. It is with some trepidation that Nina announces this to the class the next day.

If she's honest, she'd have expected some appreciation; nothing over the top, just a small show of enthusiasm.