The Learning Curve (40 page)

‘I’m sorry if it feels sudden,’ said Rob. ‘To be honest, I wasn’t expecting this either. But now that it’s out there, please . . . just promise me you’ll think about it.’

‘Think about what, exactly?’

‘Us. The real thing. Seriously. I think about it all the time. If we just . . . decided to sod the consequences for once; went with our gut feelings instead of our minds. Just imagine the life we’d have together . . . the
family
we’d finally let ourselves have –’

The staffroom door opened and they sprang apart. Two minutes later, they were both inside with Pete and Ally,
and apart from the odd earnest glance from Rob, he acted as if nothing had happened. Nicky’s hands shook for an hour.

For the rest of the day, she felt her life had completely changed perspective. It was as if her pupils were a fantastic precursor to her life instead of a worthy alternative to it. It made such a difference, just believing that her dream of motherhood could actually one day be a reality.

At lunch-time, she was passing Mark’s door when it opened and he appeared in the doorway. They stopped and looked at each other, and she felt strangely removed from him, as if she hadn’t seen him for a long time.

‘Hello,’ he said.

Miss James appeared from her office.

‘Hello, hello, hello,’ she said. She joined them both. ‘Did you know,’ she told Nicky, ‘that Rob, your worthy adversary, has been helping organise chess club all term?’

‘No!’ replied Nicky, eyes wide. ‘Good! Good for him.’

‘Isn’t it?’ Miss James smiled. There was a pause.

‘Shall I tell Miss James what we were just talking about?’ Mark asked Nicky.

‘Er . . .’ she answered.

‘She’s being modest,’ he told Miss James. ‘She just offered to help me organise the table quiz.’

Miss James gave a little squeal. ‘Did you? Oh, wonderful girl! I’m so proud of my Deputies. I’m proud of all my staff. Oh, I do know how to pick the best, don’t I? When do your meetings start?’

‘The preliminary one’s tonight, actually,’ said Mark. ‘At my place. Eight, on the dot. Miss Hobbs was just telling me she could make it.’

Miss James’s eyes shone at her. ‘You can tell me all about it tomorrow morning!’ she said.

‘Actually,’ Mark said to his boss, ‘I was going to ask you if I could have a quick word.’

‘Mi office es su office!’ Miss James beamed. ‘You can tackle Eastern Europe while you’re there.’

‘Excellent.’ He turned to Nicky. ‘So eight tonight, then. I’ll e you my address.’

She nodded and watched him follow Miss James into her office.

After Miss James’s door shut in front of her, Nicky stood looking at it for a while. Her head was in a spin. She wondered how she’d be feeling about spending an evening with Mark if she hadn’t recently worked out a possible secret motive for his support and if Rob hadn’t suddenly started talking like something out of Mills and Boon this morning. Were her internal organs pulsating to the
Mambo
because of Rob’s sudden declaration of a decade of secret lust this morning or because of Mark’s spontaneous table quiz meeting? She had absolutely no idea. All she knew was that it was definitely the
Mambo
.

When school finished, she set up her laptop in the staffroom. If there was no email from Mark, she’d assume that he had been bluffing. She logged on. Under the title
Meeting
was his address and a message.

Mi casa es su casa . . . See you tonight. x

She stared at the kiss. How could a small letter, a typewritten, lower-case letter, feel so significant?

What should she do? Would Oscar be there? Would Oscar mind that his teacher was coming to his house? Did he even know about this? Or would Oscar be away tonight?
In which case, would they be alone? In Mark’s house? All evening? Or would it be a completely above-board meeting, with a secretary and everything? If so, who would that be? Amanda? Martha? Janet? Rob? (As for Rob, what the crap was going on there?) What would Mark be like in his own home? What would the décor be like? Would he have a live-in partner there? An au pair? A
wife
? Would she be tall and blonde or tanned and wiry? Did the table quiz actually exist? Or was he just trying to get her on his own? If so, why?

Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

She’d thought that when she handed in her application all her worries would subside for a while.

Ally walked into the staffroom and she glanced at her.

‘Blimey, what’s the matter?’ asked Ally. ‘You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’

‘I’ve got to go to a spontaneous fundraising meeting at Mark’s house tonight,’ she said. Oh, and Rob offered to father my children, she thought.

Ally’s eyes widened. ‘A “spontaneous” fund-raising meeting? Wow.’

Nicky didn’t reply.

Ally sat down next to her. ‘It’s just a meeting,’ she said soothingly.

‘A spontaneous meeting.’

‘So act spontaneous. You’ll be fine.’

Nicky nodded. ‘I’m feeling very stressed.’

Ally nodded slowly. ‘And wear perfume.’

Nicky nodded again. ‘Thanks.’

At five minutes to eight, she parked her car two houses away from the address she’d been given and sat in silence. Her thoughts were as tangled as her intestines. She was
dressed in clothes Oscar saw her in every day. She was here in a professional capacity. She was a teacher. Mark was the bursar. This was a meeting.

She looked in the rear-view mirror for the fifth time. Her freckles had multiplied from spending most of Saturday in the sun. She frowned at her reflection. Everything had changed since Saturday. She had hated Rob then and had had a crush on Mark. Now . . . she just didn’t know what she felt.

She tutted and told herself it was just a fundraising meeting, heaved open the car door and made her way to the number house she’d been given. She stood outside it and checked the address again. It was not what she’d expected at all. She’d imagined something grand and masculine, possibly with columns, but this was a nondescript end-of-terrace semi with, if she wasn’t very much mistaken, nets.

She rang the doorbell and turned to look at the road. The evenings were getting much lighter now. Summer was on its way. Still, she thought, she should have worn a hat.

She heard the door open behind her and turned round. To her delight, Oscar stood at the door, beaming at her.

‘Hello!’ she exclaimed. ‘How’s my favourite pupil called Oscar?’

Laughing, he stepped back into an elegant and spacious hall.

‘Daddy’s just changing,’ he said, with an ear-to-ear grin. ‘I’m meant to ask you if you want some wine.’

‘Are you indeed?’ She raised her eyebrows.

‘Yes.’

Oscar led her into the kitchen where he opened a bottle of white with so much concentration he almost forgot she was there. She scanned the room for signs of a woman’s touch,
but the signs were too confusing: a borderline chintzy blind and sunshine-yellow kitchen cupboards, but minimalist furniture and completely bare walls. She looked for photos. Nothing. A timetable was stuck to the fridge with Oscar’s weekly after-school activities inked in in red capitals. Ooh, and a photo of Oscar, Daisy, Mark and Lilith in a garden, looking suspiciously like a happy family.

When the bottle opened, Oscar cheered and started shouting upstairs. ‘I did it! I did it!’ As Nicky heard footsteps coming down the stairs, her mouth dried and she swallowed hard. She turned to greet Mark, who came into the kitchen towel-drying his hair. He was in jeans and a simple V-necked green T-shirt that emphasised both the greeny blue of his eyes and the width of his shoulders. She gave him a quick professional smile, wholly appropriate for a supper quiz meeting, then when he turned round, stared at the back of his neck and the breadth of his shoulders as he stretched up to get the glasses. Just a meeting, she told herself. Just a meeting.

‘Did Oscar ask you if you wanted wine?’ Mark asked her.

‘Well –’ she began.

‘I told her I had to,’ Oscar explained.

‘That’s not quite the same thing,’ his father told him.

‘Oh,’ said Oscar, studying Mark pour out two full glasses and one small one.

‘It’s fine, really,’ said Nicky. ‘To be honest, I’m not sure how appropriate it would be anyway.’

Mark gave her a mildly quizzical expression. ‘Appropriate?’ he repeated, handing her a glass. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well,’ she said. ‘Wine at a fundraising meeting. In front of a pupil.’

‘Ah,’ breathed Mark, nodding slowly. ‘Yes. I see.’

Nicky raised her glass and downed most of her wine in one.

For half an hour they sat round the kitchen table drinking wine, the conversation punctuated by Mark’s ‘Don’t rush it, sweetheart, savour it’. Nicky felt like she was glimpsing the secret backstage banter of her favourite band. Only once did she forget herself. ‘You’re going to get tipsy if you drink at that speed,’ she warned, smiling at Oscar. Oscar looked across at his dad for approval. She followed his gaze, remembering herself too late. She apologised quickly. To her relief, Mark nodded at Oscar. ‘She’s not a teacher for nothing,’ he added. ‘She speaks with great wisdom.’

‘And considerable experience,’ she murmured into her glass.

They all laughed, Oscar the loudest, because although he didn’t understand the joke, their laughter put him on a high. Thanks to his high the conversation was easy and fluid. Nicky felt so relaxed that after a while, she felt able to ask if anyone else was coming.

‘Such as?’ asked Mark.

‘I don’t know,’ she said, pretending. ‘Amanda – I mean Miss Taylor? Miss Matthews? Anyone?’

‘Miss
Taylor
?’ repeated Oscar, looking at his dad. ‘Is she coming?’

Mark gave Oscar a quick look and then turned to Nicky.

‘Well,’ he explained slowly, ‘seeing as there’s no meeting and it was the first thing that came into my head,’ he said, ‘it would be a bit odd if they turned up. Unless you mentioned it to them, of course.’

Nicky tried to think of something to say, but it was hard to
concentrate over the four-part chorus of the ‘Hallelujah’ going on in her head. She wished she’d worn perfume.

‘I suppose I’d better go and do my homework,’ said Oscar quietly. He turned to his dad. ‘Can I come down when I’ve finished?’

‘Of course, gorgeous boy.’

Oscar turned to Nicky, suddenly shy.

‘Night, Miss Hobbs,’ he said.

‘Night-night, Oscar,’ she replied. ‘Good luck with your homework. I’ll see you tomorrow.’

‘Unless you’re still here by the time I’ve finished,’ he corrected before running upstairs.

Feeling wrong-footed, wrongly dressed and all giggly, Nicky followed Mark to the cosy corner of the kitchen, where she sat on the two-seater sofa by the French windows, tucking her skirt under her legs. He joined her there, sitting nearly in the middle, facing her and leaning forwards, one leg stretching out in front of her.

‘So,’ she began, ‘it appears I am here under false pretences.’

‘Well,’ allowed Mark, arm resting on the top of the sofa, ‘you could put it like that, I suppose. I just hated Miss James playing you off against Rob so obviously. But to be honest, it would be great if you could help me with the table quiz. I’ve never organised one myself and it would mean that, well, I won’t get stuck organising it with Martha. Or worse still, Amanda.’

‘Ooo-ooh,’ giggled Nicky, exhilarated. ‘Nasty.’

Mark smiled. ‘Honest.’

She smiled back. ‘Honest
and
nasty,’ she said. ‘Better and better.’

They discussed Amanda cautiously at first, and when it became obvious that they concurred wholeheartedly, their observations grew less and less cautious.

‘It’s her duplicity I can’t bear,’ he said. ‘I don’t trust a word she says.’

She nodded furiously. ‘I know!’ she cried. ‘Every smile’s like a little lie.’

‘Yes!’

They laughed. ‘Rob and Pete can’t see it at all,’ she went on. ‘For obvious reasons. She’s been following us – well,
them
– well,
Rob
– around for ages. Like a little . . . stray dog.’

He laughed. ‘Oh yes?’

‘Yes,’ sighed Nicky. ‘I mean, she obviously still really fancies him.’

‘Mmm,’ agreed Mark. ‘In a bitter, twisted, vengeful way.’

She gave a smiling nod and pondered this for a while. This all felt like yesterday’s news, after Rob’s impassioned plea to her this morning. She felt disloyal discussing Rob with Mark, but for some bizarre reason, she felt just as disloyal, if not more so, not telling Mark the latest about herself and Rob. Were her loyalties shifting? She was just about to mention something – she didn’t know what – when Mark spoke again. He eyed her above his wine glass.

‘Do you think it’s really over between Rob and Amanda?’ he asked slowly.

She paused. Then she nodded firmly.

‘At the Christmas party,’ he went on, ‘you seemed to be . . . involved. If I may be so bold.’

She gulped down some wine. ‘Involved?’

‘In the garden. I came out and you two were hugging.’

‘Oh yeah. No, no,’ she said. ‘We hadn’t . . . talked for quite a while.’

‘Ah.’ Mark nodded. ‘I see.’

‘You know . . . as part of the gang. He said he missed me. As a friend.’

Mark nodded. ‘And now you’re . . . all friends again.’

‘Well . . .’ She scrunched up her nose, remembered her freckles and unscrunched it quickly. ‘It’s probably a bit more complicated than that, actually,’ she said softly.

Mark said lightly, ‘Ah. I see.’ He spoke slowly and carefully. ‘Would I be right in saying that you and Rob once went out with each other?’

She gave the smallest of nods, her eyes on her drink. ‘A long time ago,’ she whispered.

‘But sometimes,’ he asked tentatively, ‘there’s still a little chemistry there?’

Now there was a tricky one. If Mark had asked her before fireworks night, she’d have said nothing serious. (But was that because she’d been in denial?) If Mark had asked her immediately after fireworks night, she’d have said No Way. (Because she kissed Rob thinking of Mark, and in a cynical ploy to get closure with him. And it had worked.) If he’d asked her when Rob was dating Amanda, she’d have maintained the no. (But was that because she’d been angry and jealous?) If he’d asked her after Rob had chucked Amanda and begged her to be friends again, she’d have probably admitted yes sometimes. (But was that really because she felt victory over Amanda?) If he’d asked her just after the ‘shag ’em’ comment, she’d have said she genuinely hated him. And after this morning’s epic turnaround? She had no idea, but she did know she was beginning to feel seasick.