The Learning Curve (38 page)

‘Hi!’ called out Mark, from her left. She almost dropped the chair. God, he looked gorgeous. Gorgeous like good-enough-to-eat gorgeous. He was wearing slim-cut pale linen trousers and a sheer, baggy open-necked white shirt. The sun filtered through it on either side of his V torso. There was no girlfriend, which was also gorgeous. He wore shades, which on anyone else would have looked pretentious, but on him were gorgeous.

She pulled herself together and had another sharp word with herself: he was the parent of one of her pupils. And more importantly, he wasn’t interested in her, other than as a means of achieving his own agenda.

She smiled at him. He smiled back. His smile was gorgeous.

‘Can we help?’ he asked with an even more dazzling smile that turned his jaw to granite.

She took a deep breath and had another little word with herself: he was the pupil of one of her favourite shades. And more importantly, he was an open-necked torso with smile.

Oscar was standing on one side of him, Daisy on the other. They looked like a glossy magazine photo-shoot. While Nicky was thinking of something to say that would
make her appear a) attractive, b) witty, c) attractive and a) fully in control of herself and own destiny, Mark approached Abigail who was struggling with a chair that was nearly bigger than she was. He knelt down, so he was her height, and asked her softly if she’d like some help with the chair. The little girl gave a Lady Diana tilt of her head, a wonkily coy smile and Nicky swore she almost fluttered her eyelashes. From behind the safety of her shades, Nicky watched Mark’s forearms as he gripped Abigail’s chair with one hand and then took Isabel’s chair with the other. His forearms were gorgeous, lined with soft blond hairs. Then she turned away to give herself a final, proper talking to: Now look, Nix, she told herself, this is the ulterior man with linen thighs and teeth, granite forearms and nipples.

The swishing in her ears was strangely comforting.

‘Osc,’ Mark called out, ‘what are you waiting for?’

Oscar scrunched his face up into an ugly question.

‘There’s a young lady needs help,’ said Mark, indicating Sarah-Jane with a nod of his head.

Oscar thrust his head and shoulders down as if he’d just been given detention, and took her chair.

‘Thanks!’ she said breezily. ‘I’m Sarah-Jane.’

Oscar grunted.

‘I’m Daisy,’ Daisy replied for Oscar. ‘How old are you? I’m nearly eleven.’

As the children went on ahead, Mark and Nicky followed, and every now and then Nicky shifted her eyes from behind the safety of her shades across to his forearms.

‘So, how you doing?’ Mark asked her.

‘Fine!’ she replied. ‘Thanks! You?’

Mark was prevented from answering by Rob’s approach.
As the children ran into the field ahead of them, Rob gave a broad grin and side-stepped to Nicky’s chair.

‘Why, Miss Hobbs,’ he said, ‘what’s a pretty little thing like you hefting a great big thing like this?’

‘Piss off, Prattison.’ Nicky frowned, tightening her grip. ‘I’m a woman, I’m not a six-year-old.’ There. That would show both of them that she was a woman of her time, chasing her own destiny without either of their help. Then she dropped the chair on his foot.

Rob delicately handed it back to her and gave Mark a conspiratorial grin. ‘Good old feminism.’ He winked. ‘They don’t let you carry their chairs but they let you shag ’em.’ He ran on to the school, only limping slightly. Nicky stopped still, her mouth an almost perfect ‘O’. Mark stopped too.

‘I can’t believe he just said that,’ she said in an almost whisper.

Mark’s eyebrows made a brief appearance from behind his shades.

‘You know, you’re right,’ she said, as she started walking again. ‘He can be an arse sometimes.’

‘I didn’t say “sometimes”,’ muttered Mark.

Nicky was trying to work out how to explain that she hadn’t ‘let’ Rob shag her, in such a way that would not make her appear either a) highly strung or b) totally barking, when she was suddenly squeezed round the waist from behind.

She leapt up, banging her chair on her shin, and found herself staring into the somewhat crazed eyes of Miss James.

‘Hello!’ cried her boss. ‘Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello!’

‘Hello!’ cried Mark and Nicky.

‘How are we all today?’ cried Miss James.

‘Fine!’ cried Mark and Nicky.

‘Good, good, good, good, good!’ said Miss James. ‘Good!’

Feeling anything but good – feeling, in fact, bad – Nicky tried not to swipe Miss James over the head, involuntarily or voluntarily, with her chair. Instead, she walked with Mark and her boss to the field, and contented herself with thinking dark thoughts. How did Rob always manage to turn things around so quickly? What on earth had made him say that? He was not a friend. When would she learn that? Men and women could not be friends. Maybe – she gasped again – maybe he and Mark were in it together? Right. That was it. She’d move to Sicily and learn how to fish.

By ten o’clock, everyone staffing a stall had arrived and the place was jumping. Nicky busied herself helping other people and when there was no more help needed, she began playing games with the girls and various other children, to keep them occupied and, more importantly, to stop herself from thinking about the two scheming men in her life. Spending time with children usually sorted her mind out. And it did this time too. As she kept a game going, she actually managed to forget everything and just enjoy herself. The breeze in her hair, the grass under her sandal-less feet, the sun on her skin, being surrounded by kids’ laughter; all of it cast its spell. She was having fun.

Mark stood and watched for a while. Oscar joined him.

‘What’s up, mate?’ Mark asked, nudging his boy.

‘Nothing.’

‘Why don’t you join in? Daisy’s there.’

They both looked over at Daisy and Sarah-Jane holding hands and laughing together.

‘Leave me alone!’ whined Oscar and he stomped off. Mark watched him go and then turned back to watch the
game. A circle of children held hands on the grass, all chanting something that made them laugh with excitement. Nicky chased a niece round the circle, and then the niece suddenly slapped one of the children on their back and took their place. That child, in sudden nervous hysterics, now fled from Nicky.

Watching, Mark saw, under Nicky’s skirt, a slender curve of leg – alabaster apart from a little bruise on her shin – flash past with every pace. Her hair flowed down her back and her cheeks glowed. But that wasn’t what struck him most about her. She wasn’t running like a woman, let alone a teacher, she was running like a child, unselfconscious, determined and without a care in the world.

He watched until Oscar returned. Then he put a gentle hand on the back of the boy’s neck and guided him towards the game. When Nicky turned to them, let go of the circle, and welcomed them both into the game with a wide-open arm and broad grin that lit up her whole face, Mark realised that his feelings for her had finally overtaken those of his son’s.

By noon, the place was filling up and by half past twelve, it was heaving. Nicky’s stall was one of the favourites and she hardly had a moment to herself. When Oscar and Daisy came to help, she was so relieved she almost hugged them. She ran to the Ladies and on her way she found the girls queueing to have their faces painted. She ordered them, on pain of the worst tickle in their life, not to tell Oscar and Daisy how many sweets were in the jar. She needn’t have worried, they were not going to relinquish such power that easily. When she returned, two tigers and a cat were taunting Oscar and Daisy with their knowledge.

At one o’clock, Nicky took a break from her stall and bought a sandwich for lunch. She watched everyone as they mingled and queued for stalls and wondered how different she would feel if she were Headmistress. She tried to imagine it, but couldn’t. Then she spotted Rob in deep conversation with Miss James and felt eaten up with envy. She watched as Rob then walked towards the centre of the marquee with long, confident strides. He jumped up on to the platform, took the microphone and, with the ease of a practised performer, arrested everyone’s attention instantly. He introduced Miss James with a speech that was witty enough for the kids to enjoy, respectful enough for the governors to enjoy, and short enough for the parents to enjoy. Nicky watched, her sandwich uneaten. It dawned on her that she was probably watching the future Head. Morning assemblies would be fun if Rob was Head. Were she to get the job, she’d need hypnosis therapy just to walk to the front of the assembly hall without blacking out.

She became vaguely aware of someone coming to stand next to her. She couldn’t look. Needles pricked under her arms. Rob started the applause going before leaping off the platform.

‘He’s good, isn’t he?’ came Amanda’s voice in her ear, so close now that Nicky could almost taste her perfume. She answered with a nod and glanced round the marquee at hundreds of laughing, smiling parents. When she spotted Mark’s face, he was staring at her. Paralysed, she stared back. He started pushing his way through the crowd towards her.

As Miss James began her shock announcement to the world, Nicky managed to pull her eyes away from Mark. He
reached her side and Rob arrived beside Amanda. The vast crowd gasped in amazement at Miss James’s news.

‘Well, well, well,’ said Amanda, as a slow applause began round the marquee. ‘Now there’s a turn-up for the books. I thought she was about twenty years younger. Didn’t you, Nicky?’

Nicky stared at Miss James as she came off the podium and hugged her mother.

‘Oh I see!’ sang Amanda. ‘Apparently I’m invisible.’

‘Who said that?’ asked Rob. Amanda dug her elbow into him so fiercely that he swore. A couple of parents turned round and tutted. Rob apologised profusely before giving Amanda a look black enough for Trinny and Susannah to approve of. Nicky was vaguely aware of Amanda offering him a muted apology.

Miss James left her mother and joined them.

‘Well!’ she breathed. ‘I’ve done it, people. And I want applications in within the week.’

‘You’ll get mine tomorrow,’ said Rob proudly.

‘Oh wonderful!’ exclaimed Miss James. ‘I do like a man who’s fast off the mark.’

Rob beamed. He gave a little bow of his head and Miss James clapped. There was a moment’s silence. Suddenly scared that Amanda might beat her to it, Nicky spoke up.

‘And mine!’ she cried.

Miss James cheered and clapped again. Mark joined in.

‘Well,’ Miss James beamed at them both, ‘the gauntlet is well and truly hurled to the floor!’

‘So it is!’ laughed Rob. ‘And may the best man win!’ He took Nicky’s hand and brought it to his lips, like a gallant knight. Nicky involuntarily curtsied.

‘Whoever
she
may be!’ added Mark happily.

They all laughed and Nicky felt alive with love and hatred for them all, including herself. If she’d been a computer, her connections would have blown. As it was, she was merely unable to finish her sandwich.

Miss James was whisked away by a governor, and the four of them were left standing in a determined little group. Nicky wanted to be alone.

‘Well!’ said Rob. ‘Well, well, well, well, well.’

‘Well, well, well, well, well, indeed!’ agreed Amanda.

Rob turned to them all. ‘How was the speech?’

They all told him it was good, Nicky satisfying herself with smiling and nodding.

‘I love public speaking,’ he said. ‘That would be my favourite part of the job, I think.’

Amanda gave Nicky a conspiratorial smile. ‘Blimey,’ she said, ‘you’d think the job was his already!’

Confused by Amanda’s friendliness, it took a while for Nicky to realise that what she was witnessing was a politician hedging her bets. After all, either of them might be her next boss. She stopped making eye contact with her. Did this mean that she was now going to start pretending to be her friend? Was anyone here genuine?

‘I’m going for a drink!’ she said suddenly.

‘Excellent!’ said Mark. ‘I’ll join you.’

As they walked away, they brushed arms with each other in the throng.

‘Congratulations,’ he whispered, leaning into her and giving her upper arm a soft squeeze. His hand was warm.

‘Well, I haven’t got it yet,’ she replied. ‘I’ve only said I’m going to apply.’

They reached the queue for drinks.

‘Yes, but I have every faith in you,’ he said, smiling down at her with, she thought, the look you give your trusty, dying Labrador.

She shut her eyes. ‘Thanks.’

‘You’ve applied,’ he whispered firmly, ‘for a job you more than deserve. It would be a crime if you didn’t.’ He inched closer. ‘You know, I’ll tell you something – I’ve seen so many women let lesser men overtake them because of family commitments. And these woefully inferior bastards end up earning double what the women earn,
and
rip the piss out of them when they leave early to pick up the kids from school. Meanwhile it’s all right for them to leave the office early to get plastered in the pub while they’ve got wives at home sacrificing their careers to bring up a family they never see.’ He thought of Lilith. ‘Shit,’ he said. ‘It’s so unfair on working mothers.’

Nicky wondered why this speech of solidarity wasn’t cheering her up.

‘Yes, but I’m not doing it for them,’ she said with a gentle smile, ‘or for whatever women you may have trampled on in the past. I’m doing it for me.’ He was about to say something, but she continued. ‘Anyway,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘you’re assuming that bringing up the kids is the short straw.’ They shifted forward in the queue. ‘Maybe working mums are in on the secret that they’re the ones with the perfect life balance and everyone else has got it wrong.’

‘Mm,’ said Mark. ‘But men can get to the top of their field
and
have the perfect family. And get respect for it in both fields, without doing half as much work as the women.’

Nicky nodded. ‘Yes, but as I say, I’m not doing it for them, I’m doing this for me.’

‘Of course!’ said Mark, slightly bemused. ‘I’m just saying you’re absolutely right; it’s all about balance. You taught me that.’

‘Yes. Unless you haven’t got any children,’ she said, composing her voice. ‘Without children a woman can focus just as obsessively on her career with all the advantages of a selfish, imbalanced man.’