The Learning Curve (37 page)

‘No,’ she said. ‘Actually it’s . . . really nice . . . to talk about it. I can’t talk about it to Rob, obviously. Or any of the other teachers. And . . .’

‘Well,’ he grinned, ‘if you ever want to “brainstorm” it – I’m your man.’

After a moment, she heard herself say, ‘I’d invite you up for coffee, but . . .’ and then wondered how to end this. She looked at him. He raised his eyebrows. She sighed.

‘I’m knackered and caffeine this late gives me the runs.’

Two minutes later, as she heaved herself up the stairs, Mark’s laughter echoing in her head, she wished she had a superpower to turn back time. But of course, if she did, it would be a cruel misuse of it, which was probably why that sort of thing didn’t happen to her.

As she opened her front door, her mobile phone beeped. It was a text.

Phew
, came Rob’s text.
I’m still alive. U?

She frowned as she replied, realising that for all his confusing messages, she’d never had any awkward moments with Rob like she’d just experienced with Mark.

Meanwhile Mark drove home slowly. How on earth had he imagined that a woman like that wouldn’t have some bloke in the background? And from the sound of it, some bloke who was pressurising her to settle down fast.

MARK AND NICKY
didn’t discuss the promotion for another fortnight, even though it was on her mind all the time. (Well, most of the time.) It wasn’t easy to keep the subject to herself. In fact, it wasn’t easy to keep anything to herself, and she had certainly never managed it for this long before. She hadn’t been able to discuss it with Claire because Claire was now so busy, she had been forbidden to discuss it with Ally, and whenever she touched on the subject with Rob, he would inevitably joke that one day, in a long, long time, they’d laugh together about all this. Possibly over the family Christmas turkey. Obtuse, but she understood it. She stopped talking to him about it.

Which was why, one lunch-time, she found herself knocking on Mark’s office door. His office, now cleared and tidy, was very cosy. It even had a plant in it, although it looked rather too suspiciously healthy to be real. There was only one photo facing him on the desk, and Nicky wondered idly whether it was of Oscar, Helen or an au pair. But thoughts like this occurred less and less as their chats continued.

Although Nicky’s possible promotion was their main topic
of conversation, it was never their only one. They covered all the important areas of contemporary culture, from whether they preferred showers to baths, aerobics to the gym, reality TV to US sitcoms.

Before long, Nicky felt as relaxed as she was content talking to Mark, and was able to be up-front about most of her concerns about this promotion. Within a month, she had revealed why she’d gone into teaching in the first place and had confessed just how special she thought Oscar was. The one topic she kept well away from was, of course, her biggest block; her concern that with increasing work responsibilities, she might actually be thwarting her dreams of one day having her own family. Only the other day, she’d read an article in the newspaper exclaiming (victoriously?) that men emphatically did not look at successful career women as potential wives. And it was too simplistic to retort that she wouldn’t want a man like that for a husband anyway.

Part of the reason she kept away from the subject was because it felt too personal, but the other reason was because it was purely academic, there being no man in her life, and she didn’t want to look like a completely sad loon.

Because of her reticence on the subject, whenever the topic came up there were ambiguous pauses and unsatisfactory silences, but she just couldn’t bring herself to say the words out loud.

Sometimes she felt disloyal to Rob having such intimate discussions with Mark. But then, she’d tell herself that was ridiculous. She owed Rob nothing. They were friends, nothing more. And anyway, she wasn’t doing anything to be ashamed of. Mark was also just a friend, nothing more. It wasn’t her fault she was enjoying his friendship so much that
she had started to look forward to seeing him in the mornings more than anyone else. Mark was selflessly helping her, with wholehearted support that came from complete belief in her. Not the kind of thing she’d ever got from Rob. And the chats with Mark were getting so enjoyable that they were her first waking thought, giving her a feel-good morning moment before she’d even opened her eyes. She didn’t realise it but he was turning into a drug and before long she needed a daily fix of him just to keep her up. Thankfully, due to her difficult decision, and his keenness to support her in making it, she had the perfect excuse to get her daily fix.

But then suddenly it all changed. A few days after the clocks went forward and the longer days pulled everyone out of their winter slump, Miss James had some rather startling news. It was days before the spring fête. During the morning meeting – as soon as the unfortunate caretaker had finished his piece of the puzzle and scarpered fast, probably never to return – she told Rob and Nicky that she planned to announce her retirement during the fête itself. Her mother would be there, as would many of the PTA and governors, and it felt like the appropriate moment. So! She expected all applications no more than one week later.

After the meeting, Rob found a corner of the Mediterranean just off Sicily within minutes, and left the office whistling a jaunty tune. Nicky, however, stood over Miss James’s puzzle feeling completely thrown. Not only would she have to finally apply for the post of Headmistress – which felt very different from just being asked to consider it – but she’d have no more excuses to start rambling conversations with Mark. She stared at the occasionally
fuzzy map and took twenty minutes to find the northern tip of France.

That lunch-time she popped in to see Mark and when she told him Miss James’s deadline he practically congratulated her on winning the job already. He seemed more excited about it than she did.

‘At last,’ he grinned at her, ‘no more shilly-shallying. It’s as good as in the bag.’

Why was he feeling so confident? And why wasn’t she?

On the delicious spring evening before the fête, as she strode across the playground towards her car, she heard Oscar call out her name. She whizzed round and watched him race his father to reach her. It was close, but Oscar won. He asked her if she was going to the fête tomorrow, and as the three of them ambled to the car park together, she replied that not only would she be there, but she expected both of them to help on her stall. After a picture-book wave goodbye from father and son, she got into her car feeling as if the best-looking boy in the school had just asked to carry her books.

She slept well that night, and woke to blossom on the trees and a girlish skip in her heart. Spring seemed to have had its effect on everything. In the past few weeks, she had experienced global warming. Tectonic plates of relationships had shifted and ice-caps melted. She and Mark were close friends.

It was no surprise that Nicky thought of him so instantaneously after waking that the two practically happened simultaneously. This led instantly to the thought that she was heading for trouble. Trouble like needing-a-mega-size-box-of-chocolates trouble. This led to the next thought that she couldn’t be that serious about her career if her first waking
thought was of Mark and not of the headship. Which led, naturally, to the next thought that perhaps, then, she shouldn’t apply at all. She needed to discuss this with Mark. And then she spotted the deliberate mistake with this theory, realised that she couldn’t ever tell him what was really on her mind, and she was, in all probability, doomed.

Coffee. She needed coffee.

Caffeined up, it dawned on her that when Miss James had finally announced her deadline of one week for all applications to be in by, Nicky had had to hide her disappointment to Mark because it would mean no more excuses for their chats. He, on the other hand, had been cock-a-hoop at the news. The only possible conclusion a sane woman could come to was that these chats obviously hadn’t meant as much to him as they had to her. Not only that, but why such excitement at the possibility of her promotion? Beginning to feel like Miss Marple, but without the confidence or knitting prowess, she got dressed fast.

At precisely 8 a.m., she arrived at Claire’s house. With more bitching, bossing and hierarchical in-fighting than a PTA meeting, Claire’s girls poured the contents of thirteen jumbo packets of sweets into a vast bowl. Nicky set up a system of counting in tens and within half an hour, they had counted the entire collection of sweets and only eaten half of them. Then Nicky poured them into an enormous glass jar and twisted on the lid. She made the girls swear and sign a declaration, one by one, that they promised not to tell anyone how many sweets were in the jar. She even made them give her their fingerprints, thanks to a new toy she’d got especially for the occasion. By the end of the process, even Sarah-Jane was excited.

Thanks to the intimidating efficiency of the school’s PTA, this was all Nicky needed to do to set up her stall. Of course, she needed to show her face early, but tables, refreshments, rotas and even the marquee had all been organised and set up by mothers of pupils at the school. When the girls filed out of their house and cheered because the sun had appeared, Nicky merely assumed that the PTA had sent a memo requesting it to pull its weight.

The girls had wanted to go to their beloved auntie’s school fête because it was always such great fun being at a school that wasn’t yours. They wanted to get there early to help, and Claire was only too happy to have a lie-in, so Nicky aimed to get there for nine with her trusty little helpers, three hours before the fête was due to begin.

She drove to the school singing heartily to Busted’s latest album, easily making more noise than all her nieces put together. As she did so, she wondered if maybe this was as good as it got. Maybe being an auntie was her destiny. And if so, it wasn’t half bad. When she parked in the school car park her singing voice lost its verve due to a spectacular somersault in her stomach. Would she get her fix today? Would he bring a girlfriend? If so, would it be Oscar’s au pair? Or some slick City chick with perfect children of her own? As the girls leapt out of her car, collecting all the gubbins needed, she delved into the dressing-up box that was her boot and found her shades. Feeling slightly more confident behind protection, she led the girls out to the playing fields behind the school. Apart from a couple of the most keen PTA members, plus a handful of overexcited children, they were the only ones there.

The smell of freshly cut grass and the girls’ excitement
were enough to squash Nicky’s nerves and make her feel good to be alive. When one of the mothers offered her some home-ground, organic Kenyan espresso and freshly baked M&S flapjacks (state schools in certain pockets of north London had a unique set of parents), she felt a buzz of contentment.

She and the girls sat on the grass and she began instructing them on how to make the Guess How Many Sweets In The Jar stall the most eye-catching, colourful one at the fête. Each girl was given their task. As the sun rose above the copse behind them, Nicky swirled her hair up on top of her head, using a pencil to keep it up, pulled out an A4 notebook, and drew lines down it, heading each column with neatly worded titles. When the sign was completed, she stuck it to the front of her desk, proudly displayed the jar on the table, and placed the pad and a pen next to it. Then she went to find as many chairs as possible, with the girls in tow.

As they left the marquee and crossed the field towards the school, Nicky sensed movement out of the corner of her eye, near the car park. She sucked in her stomach, held her back straight and looked over. She was surprised to see Rob. They waved at each other.

The school seemed dark after the light outside. The girls ran ahead to the assembly hall, shouting at each other, more excited by the freedom of a strange, empty school corridor than an empty field, and Nicky had a little word with herself. She was thinking too much. Mark was a colleague and friend and here she was turning that into a schoolgirl crush. If she wasn’t careful she was going to make a prat of herself. Why was she unable to have a friendship with a man without her mind going into warp speed (let alone warped speed) and
turning it into something more? Just focus on work, she told herself firmly, apply for the promotion, and then get back to normal. Mark was the parent of one of her pupils, for goodness’ sake, and he was also the school bursar. But perhaps more important than that, he was a man who believed fervently that she had the perfect mind and body to be a junior-school head. Knowing the mind and body of the present junior head, Nicky could only conclude that this was not a man forcing himself to hide his base thoughts about her. Damn.

She reached the assembly hall and called to the girls to stop them playing tag. They took a chair each and formed a neat little procession back to the stall. As she led the way, she continued her little chat to herself. Mark wasn’t even that nice. Don’t be fooled by this
über
-dad act; this was a man who had spent the first decade of his son’s life being an absent parent. She stepped out of the school into the light. Anyway, she continued, more importantly, he wasn’t interested in her as anything other than his next boss.

She let out a sudden gasp! If she got the job, she would be his next boss! She’d spotted it! The reason Mark was so supportive of her decision to go for the job! He wanted her to get it instead of Rob! As she stood there, suddenly frozen in the sun, her skirt floating in the warm breeze, she remembered just how much Mark hated Rob. Great billowing arse! Mark would hate Rob becoming Headmaster because it would mean that Rob would be his direct boss. So he
did
have an ulterior motive for persuading her to go for the job after all. Maybe he even thought he could control her in some way. So that was why he was building on their friendship so intensely at this crucial time – to make sure there was
real competition for Rob and to make an ally out of her if she won. Oh, why on earth hadn’t she thought of that before? It was so blindingly obvious now. What was it, she wondered, that made these men so competitive? And, while she was on the subject, what made them so much better at it than her? She simply had to stop this naïve romantic dwelling on Mark’s belief in her and, instead, focus on what
she
wanted out of life. He was just another competitive man after the best deal he could get out of life.