Читать книгу Perfect Strangers: an unputdownable read full of gripping secrets and twists - Erin Knight - Страница 15

9

Sarah tapped her mobile phone to her mouth. She eyed the clock again on the far wall of her classroom, flanked by a sea of the children’s impressionist self-portraits. Another ten minutes and the hordes would be back, newly grazed knees, jumpers needing to be retrieved from the playground, friendships broken and rebuilt.

Staff phones confined to staff rooms had been one of her own rule proposals and now she was flouting it. Because she needed to get in touch with Will and couldn’t bear being stuck in the staff room with Juliette while she made a personal call. She stole another look at Jon’s message.

Hey beautiful, thought we could take the boys out to dinner tonight? Tell them the good news in style!

Italian’s still Will’s favourite, right? Think we should cover all bases ;)

She lay her phone screen-down on the desk, hung back over her chair until she was almost horizontal and stared up at the ceiling mobiles, swinging herself in a semi-circle the way some of the boys did when she left the classroom. The lines of the ceiling tiles twisted dizzily as she turned. How were they going to make this go smoothly? If Will didn’t get upset about the house sale he was emotionally dead. Jon was good with the pep talks but he wasn’t that good.

She slapped her hands over her eyes in defeat, something cold and unpleasant touched her cheek. Fantastic. Bright blue poster paint, all along the cuff of her cream cashmere cardi. Hooray. Sarah had never been a cashmere kind of girl, but Jon’s style had just sort of permeated their home. They all seemed so much more polished nowadays: outfits matched, salon appointments were not only made but kept. Everything ticked along instead of stopping and starting in jerky, uncertain motions; they were all cogs in a well-maintained machine. All except for one, very subtle five-foot-eight squeak.

Will. How would he react? Flip out or keep it all in?

Sarah pulled a baby wipe from the top drawer of her desk and did what she could for the cardigan. Yes, she would text Will now, before his lunch hour was up. He could think about the house sale over the afternoon, hopefully mellow on it before they went to dinner, before Jon started popping corks.

Oh God. She couldn’t text him. Hi son, your family home’s just been sold out from under you . . . The driveway he’d learned to ride his bike on. The landing where they’d huddled, crying quietly together so as not to wake the baby, trying to make sense of Patrick’s actions. Sarah’s heart was thudding. It was going to take more than a bowlful of salmon tagliolini to help Will swallow this one.

‘Miss Harrison?’ Two little girls strode purposefully into Class 2, Molly with her painful-looking plaits, and Darcey, black ringlets tumbling over her grey pinafore. Wide, brown eyes on the verge of spilling over.

‘What is it, Darcey?’

Molly ushered Darcey to Sarah’s desk, presenting her the way the hopeful presented afflicted loved ones to the Pope. They looked like a GAP ad, one black child, one white, each lovelier than they could know.

‘Darcey’s got poo up her legs, Miss Harrison. The dinner ladies told me to bring her up.’

Sarah threw her blue baby wipe at the waste paper basket and cast a look over Darcey’s skinny legs. Darcey looked a treat, her little patent shoes shiny and smart. Sarah couldn’t see anything sinister at all. Darcey spun, revealing a mustardcoloured streak up the insides of both ankles. Crap.

‘Darcey, how’s this happened?’

It was too much. One sniff of interrogation tipped Darcey over the edge. Her little shoulders began bobbing up and down, her body wracked with growing sobs and the shame of pooey tights. Molly smiled knowingly. ‘It’s okay, Darcey.’

How the bloody hell had she got that on her tights? Was someone lobbing dog doo over the school fence again?

Sarah set her hands on Darcey’s shoulders. ‘Molly’s right, it really is okay, Darcey. Don’t worry, we’ll get you fixed up before any of the others return from lunch, okay? Look here, I keep a stash of baby wipes in my drawer for exactly these sorts of emergencies. You’re not the only one who gets into a pickle, you know, look at my cardigan!’ Sarah held up her ruined sleeve. ‘Come on, let’s see if I can get the worst of it, then we’ll come up with a plan for your tights and my cardi, alrighty?’

Darcey rubbed the tears from her cheeks and nodded. ‘Why have you got paint all over your clothes, Miss Harrison?’

Sarah swabbed clumsily at Darcey’s ankles. There was every chance she was making it worse. ‘I thought your portraits were all dry when I stapled them up during break. I should’ve done a better job of checking, shouldn’t I?’

Molly gasped. ‘Miss Harrison, you’ve smudged Tabitha’s impressionist self-portrait. Her school shirt is rubbed over her mouth. Look, Miss!’

Sarah glanced up from Darcey’s legs to the far wall, at Tabitha Brightman’s face now blurry and smurf-like. Shit. Tabitha’s mother was one of the PFA lot. And tomorrow was open-door Wednesday. There’d be calls of sabotage and job losses.

‘Right, Darcey. I’m not sure we’re going to get away with just wiping these tights off. I think we’re going to have to whip them off instead. Molly? Could you go to the office and ask Mrs Broome to arrange for someone to take afternoon register please when the bell goes. I’m just going to help Darcey find some socks from the emergency box.’ Molly nodded obediently and disappeared. Sarah led Darcey stiff-legged to the children’s toilets.

Mr Church, the caretaker, was jostling a mop and bucket into the infant girls’ loos when Sarah rounded Library Corner. ‘You’ll have to give me a minute, Mrs Harrison, someone’s stuck paper towels in the plugholes again, we’ve a minor flood. I could open that one up for you?’ Mr Church nodded to the disabled/visitors toilet.

‘Thank you, Mr Church. Come on, Darcey, we can pop in here, just this once.’

Mr Church unlocked the room for them then returned to his flood. Sarah stood aside ushering Darcey in, pulling the door to between them. How was this going to work then? A six-year-old pulling those tights off without further disaster? Tights were a bugger at the best of times; it was one of the biggest perks of being a mother to boys, no tights.

Sarah called around the door. ‘Darcey? Can you manage? Or would you like some help?’

It wouldn’t be ideal, just the two of them in a single toilet. This was the way you had to think as a teacher now, Jon was constantly reminding her of this fact. Don’t leave yourself open to accusation. Ever. Jon wasn’t a mother, though.

‘Darcey? How about you pull your tights down at the top, then I’ll pull them over the yucky bit? So it doesn’t go anywhere else?’

‘Yes please, Miss Harrison,’ Darcey whispered. Sarah nudged around the toilet door. Darcey’s mum would rather Sarah helped, wouldn’t she? Heidi Thurston had seemed lovely when they’d met at parents evening in February. She’d come straight from court and listened so attentively to Sarah’s feedback on Darcey’s progress that Sarah had felt like a flaky witness, her testimony about to be picked apart for scrutiny. There was an air of celebrity about Heidi Thurston, the PFA mums were desperate to bag a barrister.

‘Let’s get your shoes unbuckled first, shall we, sweetheart?’

‘No. It’s all Jonathan’s.’

It came from the other side of the cubicle wall. Sarah stilled. Everyone knew about the disabled loo’s acoustics. Don’t slag anyone off in the staff room. If someone’s taking a whazz next door you’re toast. There had been an unfortunate incident involving a parent volunteer overhearing a damning rumour about her husband after popping into Hornbeam one morning to listen to the reception kids read. A written apology from the head had followed, and later a divorce. Now the key to the disabled toilet was stationed on a hook in the staff room. Just so everyone could be ‘aware’ of its use. The only other key hung on Mr Church’s key chain.

‘Jonathan’s, really? But I thought . . . well, she’s always lived there, hasn’t she?’

There was more than one Jonathan in the world. And it was rude to eavesdrop. ‘That’s it, Darcey, just lift your leg a sec . . .’

More voices muffled through the wall. ‘I just assumed the house would’ve rocketed in value and she’d be stumping up a good whack herself.’ Olivia Brightman had a distinct, honeyed voice. She’d come into school to speak to Mr Pethers about running pony rides at the summer fair. And to Juliette about Sarah’s private life.

‘Sarah can’t stump up seven hundred thousand, Olivia.’

‘Good God, seven hundred thou? Is that how much they’re going for up on the bluff? They’re not even bespoke!’

‘They do have stunning ocean views.’

‘Yes, but Compass Point, have you ever heard anything so pretentious? She’ll pop a baby out soon, you watch. New house, new husband, new ankle-biter.’

Sarah swallowed. Jon had suggested a five bed, so there was a guest room for the boys’ friends. Or for grandparents, so they could stay over when babysitting . . . once a baby arrived. She felt her head whoosh. Darcey blinked up at her, barefoot on the toilet floor, her inside-out tights dangling from Sarah’s hand. ‘Come on, poppet, let’s go find you some socks.’

‘What was his name? Her first husband?’

Sarah’s hand froze on the door handle. First Husband. Sarah, the femme fatale.

‘Patrick Harrison. Incredibly talented photographer, got lucky when some sports giant liked one of his action shots. Started off as a wedding snapper.’

Olivia sniggered. Sarah flinched. She’d met a lovely wedding photographer last month. Her mother had sprung a surprise consultation. He’d had a kind, tired face and worked too hard for his money. Sarah had booked him in under twenty minutes because she felt sorry for him. And because she didn’t want to talk weddings.

‘So where’s husband number one now, do you think?’

Juliette paused. ‘Patio, probably. Patrick was the selfish sort, in fairness to her.’ Juliette’s reasonable deduction landed like a slap on the cheek.

‘Maybe she cashed in his policies? Seven hundred thousand starting price? Hardly manageable on two teachers’ salaries,’ scoffed Olivia.

‘Jonathan’s sitting on a small fortune. He’s loaded.’

‘How do you know?’

Yes, how did she? There was a pulse thumping over Sarah’s temple. They lived well, but not ostentatiously. Jon was subtle about it. ‘Miss Harrison?’ squeaked Darcey.

Sarah held her hand up, her ‘silent signal’ when she wanted the class to hush down.

Juliette hesitated. Probably checking the toilet key was definitely on the staff room wall. ‘Karl read about it. In one of the nationals, right there in the surgery waiting room. Hopeless receptionist hadn’t recycled them for weeks, I can’t abide clutter in Karl’s waiting room.’

It was inevitable, talk was inevitable, Sarah knew this. It was silly and she’d never really worried about it much; it was Jon who’d said she would need to be prepared for tittle-tattle at some point, and she was. She just wasn’t prepared for Juliette to be the one gathering the juicy cuts and processing them into a toxic gossip sausage.

‘Spill, Juliette! What did Karl read? What have you got on Sarah Harrison’s gorgeous fiancé?’ Sarah imagined Olivia frothing at the mouth like one of her horses.

‘It’s yesterday’s news, Olivia. Years old. The article was retrospective, looking at precedents for obscene payouts in education. Apparently, Jonathan Hildred had something of an ordeal a few years back at a very respected private school, Gloucester way. Left a lot better off than he started.’

There was another pause. Olivia was connecting the dots. ‘Hot-stuff Hildred won some sort of payout?’

‘More of a golden farewell, with a hint of “sorry, please don’t sue us” thrown in. I wouldn’t even be discussing it at all had it not been there in a national paper. I’m not really one for gossip, Olivia. I find it all a bit . . . tacky if I’m honest.’

Juliette knew. At least she thought she did.

The bell crackled through the corridor towards the disabled toilet. Sarah startled. ‘Miss Harrison?’

‘Yes, sorry, Darcey.’ She had that awful, hot, adrenal feeling. She’d felt it before, standing like a complete and utter reject in the middle of a photography exhibition in a posh Portuguese hotel, a tired ten-year-old Will at her side in his dickie bow, Max asleep in her arms.

‘Miss Harrison?’

‘Yes, Darcey, what is it?’

Darcey’s lip wobbled. ‘You’re dangling my tights in the toilet.’