Polly (25 page)

Needless to say, Polly Fenton and Chip Jonson would never meet again.

Staff dining room

Lunchtime

4th Feb

Hiya Polly,

Just thought I'd drop you a quick line to thank you for your analysis of the US education system, which arrived this morning. I think I'll stick with G.C.S.E.s and A levels. I wonder if you'll be home before you learn how well your students perform in those S.A.T.s?

Suffice it to say, BGS is BGS and I've been dishing out detentions like they're going out of fashion. Lynn Drewe has been suspended for snogging her boyfriend bang outside the main school entrance. At lunch-time. She wasn't wearing her blazer but was sporting his school tie in her hair. Two days later, we expelled Clare Allinson – she'd notched up a fine trade selling single Marlboro Lights to the first and second years. Business as usual, you could say.

School, I hasten to add – and right at the end of the letter to cajole you into responding immediately – is merely how I fill my days. My nights, my dearest friend, I am filling with one Dominic Fyfield. Or shall we say one Dominic Fyfield is filling me at night?

Want to know more?

Then beg!
                                   

Love you, child,           

Megan

Feb 21st

Polly Fenton,

If I'd have held my breath waiting for your reply – well, this letter would have been my death notice. Luckily, I'm so engrossed in nightly enactments of the
Kama Sutra
with your boyfriend's brother, that I only realized yesterday that it's been a letterless month from you to me. Write soon – or I'll send Anna Powell from Upper Five over (she collided with Jeanette Butcher in netball and knocked poor Susie Waldren out cold in hockey). You've been warned.

M Reilly (Miss)

5th March

Dear Polly,

‘I'm so busy' isn't much of an excuse, I'm afraid. I don't care if you only have one day off every fourteen, or if taking on the school revue has eaten into your free periods in which you feel you must now mark homework. I'm certainly not sympathetic to the fact that skiing now appears to be your priority. I'm your best friend and unless I'm treated as such, I shall sever all contact immediately – and sever your right hand when I see you at Easter (less than a month, I might add) – only then will you have a worthy excuse not to write.

Cow.

Bitch.

I hate you.

Megan

PS. Not really. But please write soon.

PPS. Everything OK?

PPPS. I thought I'd put the above into small writing, just in case.

March 18th

Dear Polly,

Thanks for your line.

Here's one from me:

Let me know which day and which flight when you finally decide – and if you want me to meet you at Heathrow.

Max

P
olly left New England before Max's last letter arrived. She was returning to England feeling cleansed and healthy and a day early. As a surprise. She was eager to fling her arms around him and beam a very literal and heartfelt ‘I'm back!' to his gorgeous, flabbergasted, well-known and much-loved face.

How it'll make up for my appalling lack of correspondence. Looking back, it feels an incredibly long time since I last saw him. And yet this last term galloped by. Was there really time to write? I didn't put it off. There was just so much to do. Never mind. Just wait till he sees me!

It was Friday afternoon, three o'clock, Logan Airport. Polly was gazing at the planes lumbering along the runways, a pot of unseasonal but delicious frozen yoghurt to hand to last the two-hour wait before her departure.

I must try Jen Carter again – and if it's the answerphone once more, I'll just have to leave a message. I know she's not due to leave until tomorrow and I can't really turn up unannounced, even if it is my flat. There's such a thing as manners, as decorum.

‘Hi, this is Jen. I can't take your call right now. Leave a message after the tone. Thanks.'

‘Oh, yes, hullo Jen Carter, it's Polly Fenton here. Hope you're well and Buster's looking after you. Um, I hope it's OK with you – only I'm taking an early flight – God I hate these machines. What I want to say is, I arrive at Heathrow at about four in the morning, would you believe, and I wonder if you'd mind me sneaking in and crashing on the settee? I hope that's OK. I want to surprise Max, you see – he thinks I'm not due till Sunday afternoon. I really hope you don't mind, I'll be as quiet as a mouse – maybe we could have breakfast together and finally meet and swap stories! Hope all of this is OK. I'll see you at some point tomorrow. Thanks a lot. Yup, bye. OK. Thanks, Jen. Oh! Just in case you speak to Max or Megan or anyone, please don't let on, as I want it to be a surprise. I think I've already said that. Brilliant. Many thanks. See you tomorrow.'

Wedged into the window seat by a very large couple on honeymoon, Polly tried to watch the in-flight movie. She couldn't concentrate. She tried to sleep. She wasn't tired. She tried to read but couldn't settle into her book, though she was already half-way through it. She felt too fidgety. With nerves, with exhilaration. She was going to see Max so soon. She'd had such a brilliant time. Her fling, so often reasoned to herself, had served only to rekindle her love for Max.

Chip's gone. Spring's almost summer. The snow's melting. That was then.

Now she felt truly ready. Things wouldn't be the same, oh no, they'd be far better.

Kate said so, didn't she? Every woman deserved a Chip once in her life.

She also warned you that it was a heavy, guilty secret.

No, no. I won't feel guilty – that's stupid. Destructive. What would be the point?

I'm not going to tell you. And I'm not going to tell you how you should feel.

Do you know, I remember what she said by heart actually: ‘It's healthier to do and denounce, than not to and forever to wonder.'

She also told you, in no uncertain terms, that it's a crime of which she does not approve.

Sod Kate, it's nothing to do with her anyway.

Glad to hear you say it.

It was just a fling. With a purpose. Much good will come of it. No remorse. No guilt. Otherwise, what was the point?

Polly, are you deluded or just immoral?

Leave me to look at the duty free.

There's always a price on duty.

How very odd to emerge at Belsize Park underground station at 5.45 in the morning. It should feel like elevenses time but a sleepless flight has meant that, in mind and body, Polly is happy to subscribe to English time immediately and feels sufficiently tired and disorientated.

Doesn't everything look sleepy and grey!

You do, too.

Look! That café, which used to be an opticians, is now a flower shop.

Life goes on without you, despite you presuming England to be somehow on hold while you're away. Months have passed, Polly. For them as well as you. Turn left. Left again.

Buster!

Polly's cat was sitting on somebody's garden wall, licking his paw and his chops. When he registered Polly, he yawned, scumbled down the wall, walked in the opposite direction and then turned back, swaggering along half the distance that separated them before sitting down in the middle of the pavement.

‘You knew!' Polly exclaimed in a broken whisper, dumping her rucksack in the middle of the pavement and skipping over to him. ‘You knew I was coming home, didn't you?'

The cat wriggled free from her bear hug, fled away a few yards and then turned and sauntered back to her.

‘Buster, you've been fighting,' Polly chided as she heaved on her rucksack, scooped up Buster and carried him like a babe in arms, much to his clearly visible horror.

‘Here we are,' Polly smiled, her key in the lock of the front door.

Surprise, surprise – no bloody lights on. I'm back, Mrs Dale! I'm switching the hall light on and you'll not know who it was when you wake up in a couple of hours. Edith Dale 0 – Polly Fenton 1!

‘Buster!' she hissed as the cat scampered up the stairs towards the other flats, claws dragging surely too loudly on the poor carpet. However, as Buster loathed Mrs Dale as much as Polly feared her, he was soon down again, purring clangorously at his own front door.

‘Ssh,' Polly whispered, easing her key and slipping into her flat. She had to swallow hard to suppress the urge to sing out ‘I'm home!' to all asunder. She closed the door soundlessly and peeled her ears at the base of the five steps which led up to her bedroom and her bathroom. Silence.

Sleeping like a baby, good old Jen Carter. Sleep on, sleep tight, see you in the morning proper.