The History Room (17 page)

‘I haven’t met the aunt. She doesn’t often come to the school. The one time she did make an appearance at a parent–teacher evening was the night I was caught up with
parents who were disappointed that we hadn’t yet discovered their son’s genius.’ He looked briefly amused. ‘It’s unusual to have so little contact with home, though.
She did actually ring me this morning to check up on Olivia but the child is so much better now that I couldn’t really insist that she came and took her home. So Olivia will stay here for
half-term.’ He examined his watch. ‘I should go over and check up on her in a moment.’

‘Let me.’

Doubt covered my father’s face.

‘I’m not going to give her a hard time, Dad.’

‘You shouldn’t say anything to her at all unless you’ve got someone else with you.’ He’d switched back into headmaster mode. ‘If it’s a disciplinary
matter we need to do everything in the correct manner. Especially if she is self-harming as well. This is a job for Cathy, Meredith. You need to be careful not to over-involve yourself.’ It
was the accusation I myself had mentally made of Emily: getting too close to a pupil.

‘I’m not going to bring up the subject. And I won’t mention the cut on her arm.’

As I left the office my father was still sitting at his desk, staring at the computer screen as though there might be something written on it which would change the facts. But I couldn’t
see that there was anything doubtful about what had happened. Olivia was implicated.

But when I reached the house, Olivia’s housemistress told me that she’d insisted on going to play rehearsals. ‘I found this on the table while I was organizing the
laundry.’

‘Gone to rehearsal,’ the note said. ‘Just for my scene.’ The housemistress looked anxious. ‘What should we do?’

‘She’s under supervision there,’ I said. ‘If there’s a problem there are people on hand. But I’ll go over and bring her back when she’s finished her
scene.’

The sixth-former playing Judge Hathorne in
The Crucible
was so stern I found myself clenching my fists as I watched them in the scene. Jenny nodded approvingly. ‘I’m getting
more of a sense of the passion behind this play,’ she told the cast when they stopped for a break. ‘But some of you still need to work your way into it. Have a think about it. The
terror, the hysteria. The sheer insanity breaking out. Then remember that events similar to Salem were happening all across Europe and in Russia too, well within living memory. They could arrest
you on phoney charges and try you without any need to prove your guilt. And then punish you severely. And of course in Miller’s America there was this fear of Communism spreading, of reds
under the bed.’

Olivia Fenton listened with serious eyes, her face set and expressionless. She looked completely recovered now. Only the arm in a sling and a mark on her head told of her accident.

‘Another thing to consider is this,’ Jenny went on. ‘It only takes one or two people to refuse to play the game, to refuse to implicate their neighbours, and the whole thing
collapses. Judge Hathorne knows this: it’s the one weakness in his strategy. I’d like to see more of a reaction from those of you watching the trial. As though you’re changing
your mind as you hear the different characters. Let’s see emotion: doubt, anger, fear.’

Olivia walked off the stage. She saw me and flushed. ‘I just wanted to do my scene.’

‘You were supposed to be resting. You’ve had a serious head injury. Go back over to the house now.’

‘I’ll keep an eye on Olivia.’ I hadn’t noticed Emily before. Now she was standing beside Olivia.

‘As soon as it’s over you go back.’ I ignored Emily. ‘And Olivia . . .’

She nodded. ‘I know. I should have asked first before I came over here. I’m sorry, Mrs Cordingley.’

Emily was watching our interaction intently. She’d continued to attend rehearsals, though her role was that of wardrobe mistress. Apparently she was working late on the costumes each
night.

Half-term was in a few days’ time. I wondered if Emily would take the opportunity to go off to London or somewhere else with more diversions than Letchford. I asked what her plans were for
the coming week.

‘I haven’t planned anything yet.’ Her hands knotted together in her lap. ‘I thought I’d just stay here. Perhaps go up to London for a day or two.’

‘You should. There’s plenty to see. Shame for you to spend all your time in the country.’

‘But it’s so beautiful.’

‘London’s worth spending time in. Or you could visit Bath. Or even Edinburgh.’

‘Perhaps.’

I had to admit that the prospect of a few days without Emily hanging around Letchford was inviting. I couldn’t understand why I disliked her so much.
Disliked
. I was able to admit
to that word now. But why? She was efficient and helpful around the school. The younger children seemed to like her and she was good at getting on with the older pupils. She took on tasks teachers
were glad to hand over: tidying classrooms, hunting for lost memory sticks and exercise books, stepping in to take over breaktime duties. The objection to putting out the hockey cones had been the
only one of its kind. And then there were the costumes. Apparently she’d been meticulously researching and designing and sewing them, with the help of a group of sixth-formers.

‘I’d say she’d make a good teacher,’ Deidre had said in the White Oak that evening while Emily was in the Ladies. ‘There’s something very intense about the
way she works. And she has real maturity. Some of the gappies we get need almost as much attention as the children.’

‘Perhaps.’ Simon had poured himself another glass of wine.

‘She said her father’d worked in a school,’ Deidre went on.

‘The teaching gene can run in families. My dad was a teacher, so was his father.’ Simon had nodded at me. ‘And look at Mrs Meredith Cordingley here. When she’s standing
at the front of the classroom you can see her father in her, can’t you?’

Deidre had smiled. ‘I’ve noticed that, too. It’s that gleam in the eye when they talk about their favourite subjects.’

Me, like my father? I’d always thought that Clara was the one of us who’d inherited Dad’s force and drive. I’d imagined myself more like my mother, happy to drift along
in life. But perhaps they were right, perhaps there was something of Dad in me. I felt like a bit of a child, suddenly pleased that they thought I resembled my father.

But now my mind went back to Emily. Something about her made me nervous. She seemed to be watching us carefully, looking out for something. But I was being silly: Emily was young, away from
home, a long way from home, for the first time. She was bound to be feeling uncertain among strangers and it would be this that would be making her seem awkward. I should be more tolerant.

I looked again at Emily now. For all the warmth of the gym the girl shivered in her expensive-looking petrol-blue jumper and the long, very casual but equally costly hooded grey cardigan that
had replaced the silk one she’d worn earlier in the term. She must have saved up for this trip to England. Or come from a well-off family. I wondered whether she’d thought some more
about studying for A levels. Strange situation for her, helping the teachers, being on their side, but really not being any more qualified than some of the sixth-formers here in this rehearsal.

Jenny clapped her hands to hush everyone and the rehearsal resumed. Olivia was in the next scene and stood ready to take to the stage, script in hand, moving her lips as she memorized her lines.
She still wore her school pullover, sleeves dangling over her wrists. I wondered whether she’d harmed herself again and hoped that Cathy Jordan’s interventions would be enough to stop
the girl from taking another knife to herself. The thought of her deliberately cutting her pale skin made my stomach turn cold. All the blood flowing in Helmand Province and yet people could still
choose to inflict wounds on themselves. I reminded myself what it was like to be a teenage girl: the academic and social pressures, the insecurities, and told myself not to be so judgemental.
Olivia was pretty: I noticed the boys watching her as she stood on the stage. Beneath her shapeless jumper a slim but slightly curved figure could be made out. Her hair was thick and brown and
although her face was pale its features were delicate and perfectly proportioned, with high cheekbones and those grey eyes. Emily was watching her, too, brow slightly furrowed.

I found myself wishing it was already half-term. Whatever was unfolding in this gymnasium was winding itself around me. I didn’t understand it but I didn’t like it. The remaining
forty-eight hours could not go quickly enough for me.

First morning of half-term. I lay back in bed and let the shadows from the curtains blow backwards and forwards over my face. Peace. Samson snoozed beside me in his basket.
Soon he’d want to be let out; it was nearly eight. But I could enjoy just another five minutes before . . .

My mobile made a sound I hadn’t heard for a long time. I reached out and grabbed it from the bedside table, almost uncertain what the two-tone ring meant. Incoming text. I didn’t
have much call to send or receive them here, as everyone I needed to speak to was on hand. I opened the message and the sender’s name made me sit bolt upright in bed. Hugh.
Just wondering
how you were. Sorry, really none of my biz. now.

I switched off the mobile with a shaking hand. This was not how I had imagined starting the first day of half-term. I’d promised myself tranquillity: a long walk with the dog without the
need to keep peering at my watch in case we were running short of time. Lunch in the pub with Simon and then sorting out Mum’s clothes. With a possible early evening cinema outing afterwards,
if the previous exertions hadn’t worn me out. Communication with my husband hadn’t been on my list. I got up and carried out my morning tasks, the mood spoiled even though I forced
myself to have a long, hot shower instead of the usual working-day quick one. I needed to respond to the text message. I needed to untangle the twisted emotions that stopped this from being a
straightforward task. But first I’d check on Dad, see if he needed help with arrangements for the entrance examinations.

Today I’d expected to feel the relief I’d felt as a child when term had ended, the pupils had gone home and we’d had Letchford to ourselves again. For a week or four or eight
Clara and I could slide down banisters and make a noise at any time of the day anywhere we wanted. But as I approached the lawns in front of the house they seemed lonely and abandoned. I took the
dog home and then walked over to the big house. The quietness pressed itself into my head. As I entered through the oak doors I almost longed to hear the roar of an approaching classful of pupils
returning from a games lesson out on the fields, the low laughter of sixth-form girls gliding along the terrace on the way to the art studio.

The pupils’ absence had dissolved the protective membrane between us and the memories layered in the house. I realized how much I’d let myself be distracted away from the reality of
my mother’s death. I’m sorry, I told her silently. Instead of going into Oxford perhaps I’d spend the afternoon in her garden, doing all the things the school gardener
wouldn’t have had time to do: deadheading the remaining roses and sweeping leaves. I’d pick the last of the asters and put them on her grave.

Her grave. It seemed bizarre that she lay in the churchyard. Surely she must really be upstairs in the apartment, helping with preparations for the entrance exams?

A footstep behind me made me jump. I turned to see Olivia Fenton standing by the door.

‘Sorry, Mrs Cordingley, I just wanted to get some bread from the kitchen. There isn’t any over at the house.’

I wondered whether her aunt had told her about my visit to her workplace yet. The workplace that had been given as Olivia’s home.

‘Help yourself.’ I hoped I looked relaxed, teacher-out-of-term-ish. ‘What have you got planned for today, Olivia?’

‘Emily’s going to take me shopping later.’

‘That’s nice.’ I wished I meant it. Olivia gave a half-shrug, looking unsure. I wondered if she had much money to spend on clothes and accessories. That aunt worked hard, no
doubt about it, but she must be living on air if she was paying all the fees by herself. ‘Have you heard from . . . home?’ I went on. ‘Presumably they know you’re better
now?’

She concentrated on an invisible spot on the marble floor. ‘Yes.’

‘Olivia . . .’

She looked up at me, her shoulders tense again.

‘Did your aunt tell you I’d spoken to her? That I’d been out to the house where she . . . lives a few days ago?’

Her eyes widened. ‘She hasn’t said anything,’ she mumbled. Without another word she spun round on her heel and headed towards the kitchen.

‘Olivia!’ I called after her. She stopped. ‘I haven’t finished talking to you.’

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Cordingley.’ She hung her head.

‘Oh, off you go.’

I’d handled that well, hadn’t I? I found myself walking upstairs to my father’s apartment. I couldn’t get used to the change in terminology. Not my parents’ home
any longer; just my father’s. I knocked on the door and he called for me to come in. He was in his office, the files open in front of him. Beside him was a scrap of paper. He’d been
drawing on it: a figure emerging from or vanishing into trees. I tried not to show my surprise. I thought he’d push it aside or hide it under one of the files, but he didn’t.

‘I find myself doing it more and more in the last few days,’ he said. ‘At first I felt almost ashamed of it, as though it were a bad habit. What you said to me about teaching
art made me think. I don’t want to teach it. But I want to let myself sketch.’

Let
himself. An interesting way of putting it.

‘As a boy I sketched all the time.’

‘Were you still out in the country then?’ In the wooden-shuttered house in the Bohemian forest. I was trying to look at the sketch more closely but its small size and the fact that
the pad was upside down made it hard to make out whose likeness it was.