The Learning Curve (32 page)

‘I’ve thrown my life away,’ whispered Claire.

Nicky blanched. ‘How can you say that?’ she murmured. ‘You’ve got three amazing daughters.’

‘But what about
me
?’ Claire thumped her chest with her fist. The tears were coming in pairs now. ‘What about me?’ She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. Nicky forced herself not to respond and, after a while, Claire spoke again.

‘I genuinely thought I was helping,’ she sniffed.

Nicky sighed. ‘Yes,’ she replied firmly. ‘I accept that.’

‘Good.’

‘But,’ continued Nicky, ‘that just proves that you genuinely believe I need your help, even though I’ve never ever asked you for it.’

‘You moan about your life –’

‘That’s completely different from saying “Please fix me up with someone. Anyone. Just as long as he likes the beautiful bleakness of Ken Loach.”’

Claire let out a snort of laughter.

‘I just think sometimes,’ sighed Nicky, ‘that your emotions for me are founded on pity.’

‘Well,’ said Claire, ‘you were only a kid when Mum died.’

‘I know. I know. And you were fantastic. But I’m not a kid any more. And unlike you, I had a big sister to help me through that time. And no one to look after. So you could say that I had it far easier than you, not harder.’

Claire stared at her. ‘I never thought of it that way,’ she murmured.

There was silence.

‘OK,’ sighed Claire. ‘I hear what you’re saying. I’ve been . . . annoying.’

‘Patronising,’ said Nicky.

‘Patronising.’ Claire nodded.

‘And you’re really sorry,’ said Nicky.

‘Jesus Christ,’ muttered Claire.

‘Well, are you?’ asked Nicky. ‘For making me feel my life is crap?’

Claire nodded. ‘Yes! When you put it like that.’

Nicky raised her eyebrows. ‘What? Like it
is
.’

‘Well,’ said Claire, ‘when you put your side of the argument forward. But that’s only one side, isn’t it?’

‘No, it’s how I feel. There is only one side to how I feel.’

‘Yes, but my feelings are in there too.’

‘Go on, then,’ said Nicky, crossing her arms. ‘This should be good. What’s your side?’

‘We-ell,’ began Claire. ‘Has it ever occurred to you that I might be jealous of your career?’

Nicky blinked. ‘No,’ she said firmly, putting her mug to her lips. ‘Not for one second.’

‘Well, there you are, then. You don’t know everything.’

‘What on earth have you got to be jealous of?’ asked Nicky.

Claire shut her eyes and spoke with them still shut.

‘I . . .’ she whispered, ‘have to ask Derek for money.’

Nicky stared at her sister. ‘What?’ she whispered back. ‘Don’t you have a shared bank account?’

Claire shook her head. ‘No. He’s set up a monthly direct debit into my housekeeping account. It hasn’t gone up in ten years. If I need more, like if the girls need new shoes or I want to treat myself, I have to ask him. But, of course, if he wants to buy himself a new car, he just does it. And he uses his annual bonus on a treat for himself. Says it’s his bonus and he deserves it.’

Nicky’s eyes were saucers.

‘Although he’s never said it,’ said Claire, ‘I know he thinks he’s better than me because he’s got a job and I haven’t.’

‘But you have got a job,’ insisted Nicky, ‘you’re bringing up his children. Fantastically. They’re going to be future world leaders, those three.’

Claire shrugged. ‘Anyone can do that.’

‘Anyone except Derek,’ shot Nicky. ‘He can’t even tie their shoelaces without a map.’

Claire let out a deep sigh. ‘I just always assumed I’d have a career,’ she said. ‘I completely took it for granted. Instead, I’m slowly watching that life drift off in the other direction. And the further away it gets, the less likely it feels that I’m ever going to have it.’

Nicky’s eyes suddenly filled and then overflowed. Why did this keep happening?

‘What’s the matter?’ whispered Claire.

Nicky shook her head and waited for the feeling to pass.

‘I just, I just,’ she sniffed, ‘I know how you feel,’ she whispered. ‘It’s terrifying.’ She suddenly got a flash fast-forward of her not pushing Rob out of the kitchen after their kiss and instead taking him into her bed and her life, giving him her key, marrying him a year later, and then popping out three children and baking Barbie cakes with
Woman’s Hour
on in the background.

‘But it’s not too late for you,’ said Claire. ‘You’re still young.’

‘Nor you! There’s loads of women going back into the workplace at your age. Older.’

Claire shook her head. ‘I’m terrified. I haven’t had a boss for over a decade.’

‘No, you’ve had Derek! And three tyrants! You’re going to find a boss a piece of cake after all that. Bosses are only people in smart clothes.’

After a moment’s silence, Claire sipped her tea.

‘Nice tea,’ she said.

‘Thanks.’

They both seemed to suddenly run out of energy at the same time. There was a tacit agreement that the argument was over.

‘Tell me something,’ said Nicky.

‘Hmm?’

‘Why do we feel that we can’t have both? There are loads of women out there with careers and family. It’s tough, but they do it. I work with enough of them. But how come you and I both seem to feel the two are mutually exclusive?’

‘I don’t know,’ pondered Claire. ‘Maybe Mum and Dad typecast us.’

It had been so long since they’d discussed their parents that it almost sounded to Nicky as if Claire was making up some fairy tale.

‘Did they?’ Nicky whispered back. She tried to picture her mother and father as they were when they were together, but only saw shadows against the wall of their old family kitchen.

‘Yep.’

‘I don’t remember.’

‘Well, I knew them for longer, I suppose.’

Nicky felt a stab of envy. ‘Why . . . how do you mean “typecast”?’

Claire shrugged. ‘You played with dollies and I didn’t? Something and nothing. They said you’d be a mother and I’d have a career. I always felt they were criticising me.’ Claire continued musing while Nicky sat in silence. ‘I suppose, I always felt they were opposing lifestyles. You were going to have the babies, I was going to have the career. And then I met Derek and happened to marry young. And then before I knew it I was a mother of three. I had your role while you were the one with the glittering career.’

Eventually Nicky dared to speak. She spoke softly, and it felt a bit as if the voice wasn’t coming from her. ‘Sometimes,
when I’m at your house, watching you with the girls, I feel like you got the kids . . . so I can’t have any.’

Claire’s face whitened. ‘That’s very, very weird,’ she whispered. ‘Because that’s how I feel about you. You got the career. So I’ve got to make do with the kids. Don’t get me wrong,’ she rushed. ‘I love them. But sometimes I feel like I’m living their lives and not mine.’

‘And you got the husband,’ allowed Nicky.

‘Don’t mention him,’ whispered Claire. ‘I’ve cried enough for one day.’

Claire went home and asked Nicky to pop by later. Nicky suggested they go out for lunch together instead. For the first time since she could remember, Claire accepted and so they didn’t chat in her kitchen, being interrupted by the girls, they chatted in a café, being interrupted by waiters. It was Claire’s idea to stay on for a coffee. Afterwards, when Nicky dropped Claire back at her house, she was preparing to say something suitably gooey. Instead, Claire said, ‘I do love Derek.’

‘Of course you do,’ said Nicky softly.

‘And it’s not as bad as I made it sound.’

‘Of course it isn’t,’ she said. ‘I know that.’

‘Good. Good. Well, thanks for a lovely lunch.’ She gave Nicky a wide smile. ‘Right. Back to my lovely family.’

Nicky watched Claire open her front door and then she put on some loud, shouty music for the journey home.

MARK’S ALARM CLOCK
leapt into action and so did he. He was in and out of the shower in five minutes. Towel tied at his waist, he knocked on Oscar’s door, now only a stretch away from his own.

‘OK!’ shouted Oscar, a laugh escaping.

Ten minutes later, they met downstairs in the kitchen.

‘Right,’ said Mark, glancing up at the clock, which now swamped the new kitchen wall. ‘Cereal or toast?’

‘I’m not eating,’ said Oscar.

‘You have to,’ said Mark. ‘It’s the first morning of your new term. You have to have breakfast.’

Oscar giggled. ‘Toast.’

Mark ran to the fridge.

‘No!’ yelled Oscar. ‘Cereal.’

Mark stared, hand on the fridge handle. ‘The clock is ticking, Osc.’

‘Cereal,’ said Oscar firmly.

‘Right. You get the cereal. I’ll get the milk.’

Mark made himself an instant coffee and then threw it down the sink when he realised he’d forgotten to boil the water.

Oscar finished his cereal and leapt up from the table.

‘Er!’ said Mark. ‘What’s that?’ He pointed at the cereal bowl.

Oscar tutted. ‘Da-ad, it’s only –’

‘In the dishwasher. Now.’

Oscar ran to the bowl, squeaking with repressed excitement, ran it under the tap and put it in the dishwasher.

Coats on, bags collected, new house alarm set.

They ran out of the front door, Mark slamming it shut behind them. They sped off down the empty road. When they approached the silent school gates, Oscar ran the last few yards, hit them and shouted, ‘NOW!’

Mark ran to join him and stopped his stop-watch.

‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘Not bad at all.’

‘Go on, tell me!’

‘Twenty-eight minutes. A record.’

Oscar cheered.

‘Which means,’ said Mark, ‘we can get up tomorrow as late as 7.15.’

Oscar cheered again.

‘But to be on the safe side, perhaps we should make it ten past.’

Mark walked home slowly, savouring the last day of Oscar’s Christmas holiday, while Oscar did his Tigger impersonation of running a few steps ahead and then running back to walk with his dad, then running ahead again only to come back again. Excellent exercise.

The next morning, first day of the spring term, adrenaline was pumping fiercely through the Samuels household. The very fabric of the house seemed to pulsate with it and everything looked somehow different today. When Mark
knocked on Oscar’s bedroom door, Oscar appeared fully dressed. By the time Mark sped downstairs, Oscar had already put the cereal bowl in the dishwasher. By the time they were on their way to the school, they were well on their way to a new personal best. Oscar ran the last ten yards and hit the school gates. It was Mark’s turn to cheer.

‘Twenty-
two
minutes!’ he shouted.

They did a high-five outside the school gates.

‘How are you feeling?’

‘Fine.’

‘You’ll be great,’ Oscar told his father. ‘I know you will.’

‘Thanks, Osc,’ said Mark. ‘You have a good day too.’

Just then Oscar saw his friend Matthew. Mark felt he now knew Matthew quite well after having been at home when he’d come to play with Oscar. Mark had even made them lunch together. Oscar shouted across the road to Matthew and they raced each other across the playground to the school entrance. Mark watched through the gate and when Oscar hit the door first, he kept the cheer to himself.

A child – possibly as old as nine – walked past him and through the gate. He followed.

It was 3 January, the first day of the new term, and the staffroom was empty when Nicky arrived. She made herself a cup of tea and had just concertinaed her diaphragm into a chair when Janet, Miss James’s secretary, appeared at the staffroom door. She glanced round the room and then back at Nicky. She raised her eyebrows and pointed to Miss James’s office.

‘Miss James’s office?’ Janet gave a quick nod. ‘Now?’

Nicky’s breath caught. She heaved herself up out of the
chair and followed Janet down the corridor. The photocopier was set back off it, just outside the bursar’s tiny office. Both were opposite Reception and Miss James’s office. As she passed the photocopier, Nicky heard office furniture being moved in the bursar’s office, giving her the excuse to look at it. The door was ajar. So, she thought, he’s already in. Mark Samuels was in the building. And in his own office, not in Miss James’s office. Which meant he wasn’t waiting for her in there, ready to brandish a P45 in her face.

Janet’s usual style was to sit down at her desk and give a curt flick of her head to indicate that Miss James was ready for her, but today, she gently tapped on the open, connecting door to Miss James’s office. Miss James started with shock.

‘Miss Hobbs is here,’ said Janet with a quiet significance that Nicky found most ominous.

Two Year 5s, who had come in early for an assembly meeting, were now standing at her puzzle. Miss James turned to them.

‘Don’t worry about that now,’ she said. ‘Off you go.’

Both children stared at her in disbelief before running out fast. Nicky swallowed hard. Now she was frightened.

‘Hello, my dear!’ cried Miss James. ‘Come in, my love. Come in, come in.’

Nicky walked into the office. She heard the door softly click shut behind her. Miss James gave her puzzle one last look, and then stepped slowly to her desk. She smoothed the back of her skirt with her palms, sat down, and gave Nicky one of her long, slow smiles.

‘Do sit down, my dear.’

Nicky sat down.

‘How are you feeling?’ she asked.

‘Fine!’ Nicky replied throatily. She coughed. ‘Looking forward to the new term.’

Miss James nodded. ‘Good girl, good girl.’

Nicky’s throat closed.

‘Well now,’ said Miss James. She paused. She cocked her head. She straightened it again. She looked across the desk at Nicky and sucked her lips in, with an air of sad finality. Nicky’s ears started whistling.

‘I have some news,’ announced Miss James with an air of concluding sorrow.

Nicky’s blood rushed from her extremities straight for the door.

‘I think you may have guessed it, my dear,’ said Miss James kindly.

Nicky’s head nodded. So this was it. Mark Samuels had said he couldn’t work in the same school as her and Miss James had chosen him.

‘I am . . .’ Miss James gave a sigh, her eyes down, ‘leaving.’ She looked up at Nicky. ‘I am leaving, my dear.’