Nine Uses For An Ex-Boyfriend (18 page)

‘Miss! Miss!’ said Sorcha urgently as Hope turned to look at the tiniest member of Blue Class in horror. How much had she heard? ‘Miss!’

‘What’s the matter, Sorcha?’ Hope asked, trying to modulate her voice from screechy to calm and in control.

‘It’s Stuart,’ Sorcha said indignantly, hands on hips. ‘He’s all up in my business, Miss.’

The storm had passed and, miracle of miracles, Wilson was actually smiling indulgently because Sorcha was flaxen-haired and blue-eyed and looked like she’d been booked
from
Central Casting in response to a plea for a whey-faced moppet. Hope was made of stronger stuff. ‘I don’t know what that means,’ she lied, though Wilson had been all up in her business not two minutes ago. ‘You need to use your words.’

Sorcha’s eyes crossed as she tried to come up with another explanation. ‘He was shouting right in my face,’ she revealed. As far as Blue Class were concerned, hurting puppies and kittens, being up yourself and shouting right in someone’s face were crimes of pure evil. ‘He grabbed the worksheet even though Andy said it was my turn to hold it, and he wouldn’t give it back, and then he said he was going to push me in the pond. He was totally disrespecting me, Miss.’

‘Right, let’s go and sort this out,’ Hope said briskly, as she got to her feet. Sorcha grabbed hold of her cardigan sleeve again so she could tug Hope in the direction of horrible Stuart. Hope turned her head to fling a goodbye at Wilson but he was standing up too.

She could feel his eyes on her back as she let herself be dragged over to the little group of children who were watching Andy tell Stuart off.

‘Everything all right here?’ Hope asked because she didn’t want to step on Andy’s toes, even if she did feel that sometimes his approach to discipline was a bit too touchy-feely to be truly effective.

‘I think some of us are finding the concept of working together a bit challenging,’ was the woolly answer Hope got. Andy was an idealistic Philosophy graduate who’d just returned from three years’ volunteer work in Cambodia. Now he was trying to make a difference in Islington. There were times when Hope wished he’d go and make a difference somewhere else but at least he wasn’t Gurinder, who was bearing down on them with a grim look on her face.

Hope chose Timothy, quiet studious Timothy who’d
already
written the Latin names for five different plants on the disputed worksheet, to get an impartial take on what had happened. What had happened was a lot of shoving and shouting and ‘then Stuart threw the worksheet on the ground in a fit of pick …’

‘Pique,’ Hope corrected gently.

‘And it’s all muddy. It was very hard to make my handwriting especially neat without a desk to rest on and now it’s ruined,’ Timothy finished on an anguished wail. ‘Will I still get a sticker for correctly identifying a marsh warbler when Andy thought it was a reed warbler?’

‘I think this is a good time to remind everyone’ – Hope glared pointedly at Stuart who stared back at her defiantly – ‘that as well as giving out stickers, I can also take them away.’

From the shock that greeted her words, it was apparent that Blue Class hadn’t been aware of this. ‘And I also want to remind you that we’re supposed to be coming back to Camley Street throughout the year so we can learn how the different seasons affect the world around us.’ Hope paused, because all of Blue Class was now assembled in a semi-circle around her and she could do a quick sweep of their anxious faces. ‘I’m not sure they’ll let us come back if you can’t behave like big boys and girls instead of a pack of savages.’

There was nothing more to be said. Hope wasn’t going to haul Stuart up in front of everyone, but they would definitely be having words once they were back at school. She contented herself with pulling a pack of tissues from her handbag and thrusting one at him. ‘You need to blow your nose, Stuart,’ she told him crisply. ‘Now, has anyone got any questions?’

Hope was anticipating questions about nature that hopefully she’d be able to answer because she’d swotted up the night before, or that someone would want clarification on her sticker position, but instead there was a giggle from the back and Javan’s hand shot up.

Inwardly Hope groaned because although she spent a lot of time telling Javan to stop mucking about, his gap-toothed grin and twinkling eyes always made her melt a little. Give it another ten years and he’d be leaving a string of broken hearts all along Upper Street and the Essex Road.

‘Miss! Miss! Is that your boyfriend, Miss?’ Javan demanded, nudging Sirhan and Luca, his co-conspirators, who were giggling wildly.

Completely blind-sided, Hope suddenly realised that Wilson was still there, standing behind her, and a source of much interest to Blue Class. ‘No … no, he’s not,’ she gasped, and this was no way to maintain authority.

Javan’s eyes widened dramatically. ‘Is he a stranger, Miss? ’Cause it’s wrong to talk to strangers.’

Hope nodded. ‘Yes it is, very wrong.’ There was nothing else for it but to usher Wilson forward. It was like trying to move concrete, but served him right for sticking around when he wasn’t wanted. ‘This is my friend, Wilson. What do we say when we meet a new person?’

‘Good morning, Wilson,’ Blue Class parroted back.

Wilson grunted something and stared down at his black brogues.

‘Miss! Miss! What’s that around his neck?’ Luca asked, and to Hope’s surprise, Wilson stepped forward.

‘It’s a camera,’ he said, his voice strained. ‘I take pictures for my job.’

‘But you can take pictures on your phone,’ someone pointed out, and Wilson agreed that you could and just as Hope expected him to launch into some long-winded monologue about double exposures and auto-focus, he squatted down so he was on the children’s level, rather than looming over them, and gave them a brief and concise description of what his camera did, although he did wince when lots of grubby fingers thrust forward when he removed the lens cap.

Then he herded them together for several class photos,
with
Hope smiling stiffly at the centre, and even took some action shots of Javan, Sirhan and Luca pretending to fall into the lake.

‘Can we take some photos with Coco and Merlin?’ Sorcha begged, but they had half an hour left to get back to school before lunch, so Hope shook her head and began to corral her charges.

‘Everyone find a partner and line up in twos,’ she ordered. ‘Do you want to miss lunch?’

‘Can’t we go Burger King, Miss?’ Javan asked, and winked at Hope when she clonked him on the head with the worksheets.

Then, clutching hold of Sorcha and Timothy (getting to hold Hope’s hand was serious social real estate), Hope brought up the rear of the straggly crocodile that marched through the park.

Wilson fell into step beside them and for once the smile that Hope shot him was entirely genuine. ‘Don’t suppose you fancy a job as a classroom assistant, do you?’ she asked.

Wilson grinned back, looking ten years younger and about a million times more approachable. ‘I have lots of nieces and nephews,’ he explained. ‘In fact, my oldest nephew, Alfie, is currently my assistant’s assistant. It’s why I ducked out of the studio before I could kill him.’

Sorcha and Timothy were having a heated debate about why they always had fish and chips for lunch on Friday, so Hope felt as if she could talk freely. ‘My fifteen-year-old brother’s coming up for half-term,’ she said with a shudder. ‘It’s going to be tough. He only talks in fluent grunt.’

‘Ah, Alfie’s moved on from grunting to fluent sneering.’ Wilson shook his head. ‘Left school with one GCSE but thinks he knows everything.’

‘Jeremy doesn’t know anything. Seriously, he thought the Crimea War happened between the Great War and the Second World War and he got really narked when I told him it didn’t.’ Hope pulled a face. ‘Maybe I should take
him
to the Imperial War Museum while he’s in London.’

It was time to cross a road, which usually took at least ten minutes. Luckily, Gurinder, clad in a fluoro-yellow safety vest, was taking no nonsense from any heavy-goods vehicles that thought they had right of way.

Wilson touched Hope lightly on the arm. ‘I’ll stick the photos in the post once I get them developed,’ he said, then checked to make sure that Sorcha and Timothy were engrossed in their Green Cross Code. ‘About the other stuff … well, you need to have a serious talk with your boy.’

All she’d been doing was having serious talks with her boy, and they never ended well. ‘It’s all good, I trust Jack,’ Hope protested. ‘If you believe everything Susie says, then you’re an idiot, and don’t call Jack a boy, it’s so patronising.’ She wished that she’d never bumped into Wilson because he was dragging up everything that she’d been trying not to think about.

‘Hey, don’t shoot the messenger.’

‘You were the one who said that I always jump to conclusions and overreact,’ Hope reminded him. ‘And now when everything is almost back to normal, you’re stirring things up.’

‘I’m not stirring, I’m giving you a bit of friendly advice because this Pollyanna routine doesn’t suit you,’ Wilson said, and it was so typical of him to end on a sarcastic note. ‘But, fine, if you want to bury your head in the sand, go ahead.’

‘Look, I’m sorry if you and
her
are having problems but that’s between the two of you. It has nothing to do with Jack and me. I trust Jack and if he says that it’s …’

‘This whole conversation is getting old. If you don’t want to listen when someone is trying to help, then more fool you.’ Every word was another constricting band around Hope’s chest. ‘Look, I’ll see you around.’

‘Yeah, well, I’ve really got to go.’ Hope summoned up a smile that was so weak it needed its own life-support system. ‘Thanks for being so great with the kids.’

Then Gurinder was barking that it was time to cross the road without any dawdling and with a firm grip on Sorcha and Timothy, Hope was able to scurry across without a backward glance.

HOPE SPENT MOST
of her lunch-hour rehearsing what she’d say to Jack when she got home that evening. Or when he got home, after yet another stint of working late or whatever the hell it was that he was doing. Despite all her good intentions to employ a stealthy, softly-softly approach, Hope was sure she’d start screaming, ‘Are you still seeing that skank?’ within thirty seconds of Jack walking through the door.

And Hope wasn’t sure she wanted to know if Jack was still seeing that skank. People always said that the truth hurt, but this particular truth would destroy her. It would mean that not only was Jack having sex with someone who wasn’t her, but he was doing it behind her back, and that meant that he wasn’t just cheating, he was lying and betraying everything that he and Hope had. She couldn’t even fathom why Jack could behave like that, and the reason she kept coming back to, again and again, was that it had to have started
after
the kiss and she’d driven Jack to it with all her ranting and raving. Maybe Jack had figured that if he was getting so much aggro for something he hadn’t done, then he might just as well go ahead and do it.

Of course, there was another option. That Jack was steadfast and true and when he said that there was nothing going on, it was because there wasn’t. Just because Susie claimed to be in love with Jack, didn’t mean that Jack was in love with her. Instead of wasting all this time and effort on
suspicions
that were entirely unfounded, Hope should be focusing on the unassailable fact that Jack loved her and her love for him was without limit. Maybe she should lead with that before any other kind of discussion on their current relationship issues.

Hope was still pondering how best to approach the subject when she was cornered by Dorothy at the end of the day and asked if she’d take charge of the infant school’s contribution to the Winter Pageant. Though it was less of a question and more of a direct order.

‘Can’t Elaine do it?’ Hope blurted out. ‘Or Marta?’

‘Elaine’s done it for the last five years and strictly
entre nous
, I think her ideas are getting a little stale. Time for some fresh blood,’ Dorothy insisted stoutly, her iron-grey bob swinging in agitation. ‘Marta can just about handle a very basic lesson plan right now. Extra-curricular duties will send her over the edge.’

‘But it’s only two months away and I’m knee-deep in Harvest Festival stuff as it is,’ Hope countered, with a giddy thrill as she realised that she was actually standing up to Dorothy for once and hey, the world hadn’t ended and Dorothy wasn’t threatening her with disciplinary action.