Flightsend (3 page)

'But you were so pleased to get that promotion!
And you've only
been
Head of Department for two
years.'

'Doesn't mean I want to do it for ever. I've had
enough of the National Curriculum and being blamed
for everything that's wrong in the world. And of sulky
teenagers. And their tedious parents. And classrooms
and bus duties and spending hours each weekend on
marking and preparation. There are other ways to
spend my life, thank you.'

'But – what about
money
?' Charlie persisted. 'I
mean, at least teaching
pays
you – what will you do
without the money?'

Her mother gave her a scathing look. 'Do stop
going on and on about money, Charlie. It isn't the
most important thing in life, you know.'

'Perhaps not, but we still need it! What are we going
to live on?'

'I've got that money my grandfather left me, from
the house sale. Enough to get me started. It gives
me the chance, Charlie, and I'm going to take it. Can't
you understand? I need to make a change, and now's
the time. I'm not staying as I am for another twenty
years or more, working myself into the ground. If we
can't manage – well, then I can go back to teaching.
I've got to give it a try.'

Sean found himself a flat in town and moved out –
Charlie wasn't sure she could ever forgive her mother
for that – and the
For Sale
notice went up outside the
house. Kathy devoted herself to gardening: digging,
replanting, taking cuttings, tending her seedlings.
Charlie couldn't see the point of all this garden
improvement if the house was to be sold, but if
gardening kept her mother sane, then gardening was
what she'd better do.

They were on their own now, Charlie and Mum, and
that was the way it was.

'Charlie!' her mother yelled up the stairs. 'What are
you doing up there?'

'Just getting ready,' Charlie called back.

She tweaked at the black skirt that was a little
too tight, and thrust on her shoes; then frowned at
herself in the mirror, and clomped downstairs.

'Here's your coat,' her mother said. 'And take your
scarf – it'll be cold later.'

She was finishing her meal, and Caspar was gulping
casserole and mashed potato from a plate on the floor.
Charlie giggled. 'I thought you said dog food? He'll be
expecting this every day.'

'Just for now. He looked so hungry. Look, about this
job.'

Charlie looked at her warily, thinking of the little
girl at Nightingales, and Kathy's stricken face.

'Check what they're paying you, won't you? I mean,
that woman Fay seemed nice, but you need to sort
these things out. And about the hours. Don't take on
too much, with your exams coming up.'

'OK.'

'And – I think it's a really good opportunity for you.
Living in a small place like this – well, there isn't a lot
to choose from. You'll meet people there. It might be
fun.'

'As long as I don't pour soup into someone's lap. Or
serve gravy instead of coffee.'

Kathy gave a tight smile. Once, confusing two jugs,
Charlie had served gravy with cream and after-dinner
mints to Mum, Sean and Anne. She could still
remember Sean's incredulous expression when he was
the first to taste it. For weeks afterwards he'd teased
Charlie, asking for espresso gravy or one of her Bisto
cappuccino specials. But incidents involving Sean
weren't supposed to be mentioned now.

'Bye, Mum. See you later.'

Charlie pulled on her coat and scarf and let herself
out of the back door. She thought: Well, I've got a
dog and a job in one evening, and Mum doesn't mind
– things are starting to improve. The three lots of
homework in her school bag would have to wait.

Charlie watched the hand of the clock scything away
the last sixty seconds of the Maths exam. Mrs
Stapleton, the new Head of History, had been standing
like a waxwork for the last hour; abruptly coming
to life, she strode to the front of the hall.

If Charlie's mother hadn't left, she'd have been the
one supervising the exam. This off-putting idea made
Charlie glad that it was no longer a possibility. At
school, her mother had been Ms Steer, known to the
pupils, inevitably, as Ms Steerious. She'd always made
sure that Charlie was in someone else's History class,
but nonetheless Charlie had had to get used to people
making rude or disrespectful remarks about Mum in
her hearing; also to the assumption (false) that her
mother helped with her History homework. There
were certain penalties that came with having a teacher
for a parent.

One of the other History teachers, Anne Gladwin,
was Mum's best friend, and that was odd enough.
Charlie knew Anne both in her jeans-and-trainers,
dog-walking, off-duty guise and in her teacherly role.
Anne was on exam duty too; once, looking up from
her paper, Charlie had caught her eye and they'd
exchanged sympathetic smiles. Invigilating was what
teachers hated most, Mum had told her: having to
stand there doing absolutely nothing, when they had
stacks of work waiting.

'Put down your pens. The exam is now finished.'
Mrs Stapleton's voice rang out into the cavernous
silence of the hall. 'Check that you've filled in correct
details on the front of your script.'

Charlie directed a surreptitious grin at Rowan,
across the aisle. That hadn't been too bad. One more
done – three to go, with the weekend in between.
What had once seemed an endless treadmill of
revision and exams would soon be at an end; it was
June, and this year's summer holiday would be longer
than ever before.

Outside, she and Rowan compared notes.

'How'd you get on?'

'Not bad. Could you do the one about the
vectors?'

'Sort of. Are you doing anything tomorrow?'
Charlie asked, thinking Rowan might come out for a
bike ride.

'Seeing Russell,' Rowan said promptly.

'What, all day?'

'Most of it.'

'Oh. Right. See you Monday, then. Or phone if
you're not doing anything on Sunday.'

'Revising Geography.' Rowan made a gloomy face.

'Me too, I suppose. Well, have a nice time with
Russell,' Charlie said, with only the faintest hint of an
edge to her voice.

Rowan didn't notice. The mere mention of Russell's
name, these days, was enough to bring a hypnotised
look to her face. Charlie liked Russell, a tall, amiable
boy, rather modest in spite of being brilliant at sports,
but she couldn't help feeling resentful that Rowan let
him take up so much of her time, with very little left
for Charlie. Before Charlie had moved out to Lower
Radbourne, she'd lived two streets away from Rowan.
The two of them had been constantly in and out of
each other's houses, especially at weekends.

'Why don't you ask her and Russell to come over
one Sunday?' Charlie's mother had suggested,
noticing Rowan's absence. 'You could take Caspar out,
go for a long walk. A picnic.' It was the sort of thing
Mum and Anne Gladwin liked to do.

'Rowan doesn't like long walks.' Anyway, Charlie
knew how it would be: Rowan and Russell walking
hand-in-hand through fields of poppies and long
grass, gazing at each other, while Charlie was left with
the dog for company.

Now she and Rowan stood in sunshine outside the
main entrance, their eyes adjusting to sudden brightness
after the shade of the exam hall.

'I'm waiting for Russ,' Rowan explained, as Charlie
began to walk on. 'He had to see Mr Freeland about a
tennis match.'

'Oh,' Charlie said.

Mr Freeland was Sean. Russell, who was in
numerous teams, had a lot to do with Sean, for
practices and matches. Football and rugby in winter;
tennis, cricket and athletics in summer. Charlie
wished Rowan wouldn't call him
Mr Freeland
. Before,
coming round to Charlie's house, getting lifts in the
car, Rowan had called him Sean. Mr Freeland made
him sound like any other teacher.

Rowan took out a small mirror and scanned her
face anxiously, smoothing a strand of hair into place.

'Don't worry, you haven't suddenly broken out in
chicken-pox blobs or gone cross-eyed. See you, then,'
Charlie said, and went over to her waiting bus. The
sixth form had taken their customary places at
the back, while the rest of the seats filled up with
chattering kids from lower down the school. Charlie
went to an empty pair of seats and sat watching
Rowan, who had taken out a lipstick and was carefully
applying it, regardless of her position in full view of
the deputy head's office.
No make-up to be worn by pupils
other than sixth form
was a rule that hadn't the faintest
chance of being observed; all the same, Charlie, had
she bothered to wear make-up at school, wouldn't
have chosen to flout the ruling in quite such an
obvious place. Then Russell arrived from the direction
of the PE office, quickly making the application of lipstick
pointless and breaking another of the deputy's
unwritten rules:
No kissing or embracing on the school
premises
. Charlie and Rowan had a theory that Mrs
Fortune (Misfortune, as she was known) made up
these rules on the spot, to ban whatever anyone might
want to do other than sit, silent and docile, in a lesson.
Still, Rowan and Russell were a bit much, virtually
re-enacting Romeo and Juliet's parting scene whenever
they were separated for so much as one lesson.
This time they'd been apart for a whole two-hour
exam.

Angus David, a boy in Charlie's form, appeared in
the bus bay, standing by her window and performing
an energetic mime.

'
What?
' she mouthed back.

Angus signalled in more detail, something about
catching a bus but going in a different direction now.
Charlie had no idea why he should want to tell her
this. She looked over her shoulder to see if he was
gesturing at someone else.

'Hey, it's Aberdeen Angus!' yelled a cheeky year
eight from the front of the coach. Angus, diverted,
went into a new mime involving a bull and a matador.
Then, as the bus pulled out, he clasped both hands to
his forehead, pretending to fall over backwards, then
sprinted off in the direction of the Arts building.

Oh, well. Angus was always play-acting. Charlie
turned her thoughts to the two days ahead, a
Rowanless weekend with nothing particular to look
forward to. She was working at Nightingales on
Saturday night and Sunday lunchtime, and would
most likely end up helping Mum in between bouts of
Geography revision. There was always work to be
done, now that Mum had a limited range of plants on
sale; the sign-board on the village green attracted a
few customers at weekends. As the exams were nearly
over, Charlie wondered if there'd be extra work at
Nightingales. With no chance of a holiday this year,
she might as well earn some money.

As the coach left the town, having dropped off most
of its occupants in the surrounding estates, Charlie
looked out at the fields and woods and the hills rising
beyond. The countryside was in the full, unbelievable
lushness of June, the hedgerows spangled with wild
roses and elder blossom. The verges had been mown
short by the roadside, but closer to the hedges there
was a swathe of flowering grasses, ox-eye daisies and
campions. Living in the Back of Beyond, as Mum
called it, had its compensations. Later, Charlie
thought, she'd take Caspar out, roaming across the
disused airfield and down to the stream.

'Thanks,' Charlie called to the driver, jumping
down outside Lower Radbourne village hall. Two
younger pupils and one of the sixth form got off with
her and the coach pulled away, taking the last trace of
school with it. Exhaust fumes drifted away, leaving
only the scent of honeysuckle and mown grass.
Charlie breathed deeply. Friday. Weekend.

She walked slowly down the lane to Flightsend.
Caspar bounded out to meet her, skittering through
Kathy's reclaimed front garden. When Charlie had
taken the brunt of his ecstatic greeting and wiped
slobber off her hands and skirt, she found her mother
in the lean-to greenhouse, potting up seedlings.

'Nightingales phoned,' Kathy said, after making
the routine enquiries about the exam. 'Fay. She
wanted to know if you could help out this evening –
they're short-staffed. Can you phone back, she
said.'

'OK. I'm not doing anything else.'

When Charlie came back outside after making the
phone call, Kathy told her: 'I found something today,
in the garden. Come and see.'

With all the nursery stuff to tend, more now since
the polytunnel had been put up in the yard at the
side, Charlie's mother had done no more to the back
garden than pull up weeds. It was a glorious cottagey
tangle of foxgloves, poppies, columbines
and sprawling old roses, with bees foraging. In one
corner was a heap of nettles and brambles, ready for
burning. She led Charlie and Caspar down the irregular
stone path to the end, where the fence caught the
afternoon sun. There was a tall rose bush there,
splashed all over with delicate pink flowers that
perfumed the air.

'I was clearing a space underneath to plant a late-flowering
clematis to climb through it,' Kathy
explained, 'when I saw this. Careful, it's very thorny.'

Charlie stopped, smelling the rich, fragrant earth,
and looked where her mother was pointing. It
was a plant label, rather an elaborate one – not
the usual garden-centre plastic but made of dark
metal, with engraved lettering and a bevelled edge.
She turned her head sideways to see what it said.

'
Frühlingsmorgen 11th February 1988
.' She read it
aloud. 'Nice name. It means spring morning in
German.' German was one of her subjects.

'Well, I know
that
,' her mother said. 'It's a well-known
shrub rose. I was wondering why someone
had gone to the trouble of getting such a posh label.'

Charlie straightened and looked at the rose. She
wasn't a great fan of roses, apart from the exuberant
climbers her mother liked; but this one was beautiful,
its starry, open flowers as uncomplicated as the wild
roses in the hedgerows.

'It's a memorial,' she decided. 'A dog's grave, or
maybe a cat. Someone buried their pet here and
planted the rose bush in memory.'

'Caspar, what do you think?' Kathy asked. Caspar
pressed himself against her legs and smiled up at her,
wriggling. He wasn't in the least interested in the
rose-bush.

'He can't tell,' Charlie said. 'No dog-messages
coming from beyond the grave.' Oops! She was doing
it again – amazing how often references to deaths,
graves and burials came up in conversation when you
were trying to avoid them. 'Must be a cat, then. Cat,
Caspar! Can you sense cat?'

'It wasn't all that long ago,' Kathy said. '1988.
Could have been the people who lived here before
us.'

'I don't suppose we'll ever find out. Unless they
come back to check that their rose is still alive.'

Another unfortunate phrase. Still, it was Mum
who'd started on about roses, this time.

'Anyway,' she went on hastily, 'it looks great, to me.
Totally thriving. You ought to sell Frühlingsmorgens,
Mum, and people could come and look at this one to
see how they turn out. Any customers today?'

'One. A hardy geranium enthusiast. She bought
three –
macrorrhizum album
,
psilostemon
and
pratense
asphodeloides
. And said she'll come back when she's
made more space.'

'Oh, good,' Charlie said. She usually switched off
when Mum started talking in Latin, but at least the
dangerous ground had been circumnavigated.

She changed into the slightly smarter black skirt
she'd recently bought for waitressing, took three
biscuits from the jar – she would eat properly at
Nightingales later – and walked round. Now that she
was a member of staff, she used the back entrance, not
the grander front one. Friday evening was always a
busy time, with people arriving for weekend courses.

The back way led through a side gate and across the
old herb garden, then into a walled courtyard planted
with old roses. There was no one about, only Boots,
one of two black-and-white cats. Charlie loved these
glimpses of Nightingales without guests and busyness;
the house and gardens had a quiet calm that she
thought of as belonging to their Victorian origins. In
an hour or two people would start to arrive, spilling
outside. Charlie preferred Sunday afternoons, when
the courses finished and the guests left, taking their
cars and their loud voices with them, and Victorian
quiet settled over the house again. She liked to
imagine the house as it must once have been. All this
space for just one family, with no doubt several maids,
a nanny for the children, a gardener and a stable of
horses. She saw the family having tea on the lawn, the
women in white dresses, with parasols to shade their
faces; it would be one of those long, hot summers in
the years before the First World War. There would be
a dog, a large dog like Caspar but more highly bred,
lying in the shade under the table. If she'd been here
then, she'd have been Charlotte the maid, not
Charlie, bringing them tea, or cool drinks with ice
from the ice house. Envying them their leisure and
elegance, she'd bob a curtsey and go back to the
kitchen, where she worked long hours for her board
and a pittance. She'd be wearing a black dress that was
too itchy and hot in this summer weather, and
stockings, and a frilly cap and apron.

When she'd mentioned this vision to her mother,
once, Kathy was amused. 'Why see yourself as the
maid? Why not Miss Charlotte, the pampered
daughter of the house, going to dances and garden
parties and looking for a rich husband?'