The Things We Never Said (7 page)

CHAPTER TWELVE

January 1962

Although it is well past twelfth night, there are still faded paper chains hanging from the ceiling and straggly bits of tinsel draped over the hunting prints on the wall. The place smells of burnt sausages and tomcat but the rooms are cheap, and as she’ll only be earning five pounds ten a week, that’s the main thing.

The room is part of a converted attic, and the ceiling slopes either side of a tiny dormer window through which Maggie can see the rain-varnished rooftops of Sheffield. The flinty eyed landlady stands behind her, puffing and wheezing from the climb. There is a half-crown of rouge on each dusty cheek; her mouth is a red scar. ‘Thirty bob a week,’ she says after she’s caught her breath. ‘In advance.’

Maggie looks at the green linoleum, pockmarked with cigarette burns; the litter of spent matches beneath the gas fire; the faded orange candlewick bedspread and the vase of dusty red plastic tulips on the bedside cabinet.

‘I don’t allow food in’t rooms, no loud music, and no lads. Lavvy’s two floors down and bathroom’s in’t basement. Take it or leave it.’

‘Oh, I’ll take it please.’ Maggie is conscious of how high and tinkling her voice sounds compared to that of her landlady who, she later discovers, smokes forty Players a day. Maggie wishes her accent wasn’t so obviously southern, although Mr Howard – Clive – seemed to like it. ‘Pretty voice, that,’ he’d said at her audition. ‘Might find you a speaking part if you make out well.’

‘Is tha working?’ The landlady does not smile, nor does she remove her hands from her hips as she eyes the ten-shilling notes in Maggie’s outstretched hand. She’ll not let rooms to lasses without jobs, not under any circumstances.

‘Yes,’ Maggie says quickly. ‘I’m starting at the Playhouse on Monday – Assistant Stage Manager.’

The landlady relaxes. ‘Ta, love.’ She counts the money with practised rapidity before putting it in her apron pocket. ‘I’m Dot. You’ll meet Alf, me husband, and the other boarders at teatime – that’s half past five sharp. What’ll we call thee?’

‘Maggie,’ she says. ‘Maggie Harrison.’

Dot nods. ‘There’s a washbasin in’t lavvy but if you want a bath, it’s a shilling and I’ll need a day’s notice. No baths on Sundays – that’s mine and Alf’s bath night – and Mr Totley downstairs has his on a Friday.’ She then runs through the rules of the house: keep the wireless turned down, no music after nine o’clock and no visitors after eight. Maggie can rinse a few things through in the bathroom if she puts a shilling in the meter, but there’s a launderette – Dot pronounces it ‘laundriette’ – on the corner. There’s a telephone box on the main road by the bus stop. The house telephone is Dot’s private number and only to be used by the boarders in special circumstances and if they put thruppence in the box. The gas fire is operated by a coin meter, which takes one- and two-shilling pieces, of which Dot has a supply should Maggie need to change a ten-bob note. Maggie is beginning to wonder quite what the ‘all’ in ‘all included’ in the advert meant.

‘Get thi sen unpacked, then, love, and I’ll see thee at teatime – in’t big kitchen, second door on’t right as tha comes down ’ stairs.’

The bed almost caves in as she sits on it, and there is a musty smell about the bedding. It’s no palace, but it’s hers.

After Maggie has settled in, she telephones her brother from the call box. ‘I’m here, safe and sound.’

‘Good.’

‘I’ve got the room I rang up about. You should see the landlady! Sixty if she’s a day and plastered in make-up – like those mannequins in C&A’s window.’

‘Really?’

‘Oh, Leonard. Stop sulking.’

‘I’m not.’

‘You are. You’re talking in that sulky voice.’

‘It’s too quiet here without you.’

‘You’ll get used to it. Anyway, it’s not like I’m never coming back, is it? You can come and see me once I’ve settled in. And we can write.’

‘I was going to write today anyway. I didn’t get a chance to tell you what happened at work last night – you’ll wet yourself!’ He sounds happier now, but she feels a pang. She’ll miss her old job; at least, she’ll miss the dramas and scandals that are part of life in a hotel kitchen. But if she doesn’t get away now, she’ll end up doing the same job, in the same place, for the next thirty years. Both her parents had cooked for a living, working in hot, windowless kitchens all their lives, and now Leonard was doing it too.

The pips go and she puts in another tuppence.

‘I’m going to have to go in a minute,’ she says. ‘The landlady’s strict about mealtimes. We’re having toad-in-the hole tonight. It smells awful.’

‘You can’t eat muck like that; you’ll die!’

‘Quite possibly. What’s on at work this week?’

‘Veal escalopes in Marsala sauce, beef Wellington and lobster risotto. See what you’re missing? Listen, I was looking through the
Stage
this afternoon and they’re auditioning for ASMs in Brighton.’

Maggie sighs. ‘I want to try somewhere different, smell something other than the sea every time I go out.’

‘I thought you liked the sea?’

‘I do but . . . oh, Lenny, you know this is what I’ve always wanted to do.’

‘What about London? We know loads of people there already.’

‘Exactly! And even if I could get into a theatre in London, which I doubt, I’d be bumping into them all the time. I want to go where I can move around without people saying hello every five minutes and telling me I’m looking more and more like my mum.’

Since their mother died, Maggie has felt like she was growing up under a microscope: would little Margaret have her mother’s looks? Would she be as good a cook? As good a seamstress? As thoughtful and kind-hearted as her dear mother? It was as though her only purpose in life was to step into her mother’s shoes and tread her mother’s path.

‘What’s wrong with looking like—’

‘Nothing. I just want to look like
me
sometimes.’

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

‘Hadn’t you better make a move?’ Fiona glances up from the
Guardian
. ‘The milkman’ll be here in a minute for his daily shag.’

‘Do we still have a milkman?’

‘Ah,’ she says. ‘Good point.’

She has an antenatal appointment this morning, so she’s still in her dressing gown, wearing her old glasses so she can read the paper before putting in her contact lenses. The dark, heavy frames make her look stern and intellectual, but they always slip down her nose and there’s something exquisitely touching about the way she keeps pushing them back up with her finger. He watches as, barely taking her eyes from the paper, she spreads thick honey on her toast. Her dressing gown is loose at the neck and as she bites into the toast, the fabric falls forward to reveal the enticing curve of her breast.

‘I’m not looking forward to today,’ he says.

She puts the paper down and takes her glasses off. ‘No, I’m sure you’re not. There’s bound to be some sort of disciplinary, but let’s hope Malcolm’s right and it’ll just be a ticking off. It’s not as though you actually hit the kid, is it?’

‘True,’ he leans over to kiss her. ‘Wish I was coming with you.’

‘No need. It’s just weight and blood pressure today. See you tonight. Good luck!’

*

Traffic is heavy, slowed by that nasty, misty drizzle that never quite becomes rain. As he turns carefully into the school’s steep approach road, kids swarm over the tarmac. Some of them peer in at him as they pass. There’s a loud thud on the roof and a scuffle behind the car. ‘Sorry, Sir,’ a Year 7 boy shouts as he grabs his rucksack and slides it down from the car roof. Jonathan pulls into a parking bay and switches off the engine. Then a face appears at the window. Leah Richards, Year 8, grinning, forcing a fat pink bubble from her mouth, bulging forward, bigger and bigger, then splat, it hits the glass and she runs off, shrieking. At least it’s only gum. Malcolm’s had nail varnish poured on his windscreen and obscenities scrawled on the bonnet in marker pen. Everyone’s had their tyres let down at some point, and the new computer studies teacher came out of a staff meeting one night to find a load of Coke cans superglued to the seat of his motorbike. Jonathan sighs. Teaching’s supposed to get easier over the years, but sometimes it’s like walking up the down escalator.

As he locks the car, he becomes aware of someone nearby. Ken Pinkerton, one of the assistant heads, is standing right beside him. ‘Morning, Ken,’ he says. The man reeks of body odour. Stinky Pinky, the kids call him.

‘Will you come with me, please, to Mrs Fawcett’s office.’

‘What, now? But registration’s in five minutes. Can’t I pop up after period two?’

Ken adopts an even graver expression and repeats the instruction word for word.

‘Come on, Ken,’ he says. ‘Who’s going to register my form? They’ll go feral if I’m not there by eight forty.’

‘Cover for your registration period has been arranged.’ Ken gestures for Jonathan to follow him.

‘Oh, right,’ Jonathan says. For some reason, this makes it all feel more serious, and as he follows Ken up the stairs it feels as if he’s being escorted to the gallows.

‘Come in, Mr Robson. Take a seat.’ Mrs Fawcett waits with her hands clasped under her pointy chin while he sits down. ‘Early this morning, I received a complaint . . .’

He opens his mouth to speak but she raises a traffic-stopping hand. ‘Your head of department has put me in the picture as far as he is able. But I need to hear your version.’ She takes off her glasses. ‘At this stage, of course, it’s informal. But you may want to talk to your union rep.’ She leans back. ‘So, what happened?’

‘Well, the group was a bit agitated right at the start.’ He tries to look her in the eye, but it’s like making eye contact with a dog that’s considering ripping your throat out. He steels himself. ‘They were upset; they’d just heard that their theatre trip’s been cancelled.’

‘Oh?’ She manages to get two syllables out of the word.

‘They were looking forward to it. And to be honest, I felt at a bit of a disadvantage, considering I knew nothing about it.’ He waits for her to apologise, and then he’ll ask if there’s any way round the problem.

‘I think you’ll find I put a memo in your pigeon hole, Mr Robson.’

He feels the proverbial wind being sucked from his sails. ‘I must have missed it,’ he mutters. He almost mentions having been off on Tuesday to attend his father’s funeral, but he knows it’s irrelevant. He never checks his pigeon hole; no one does. Why can’t she use email like everyone else? ‘Anyway,’ he says, ‘when Ryan came in, it started to get out of hand.’ He goes over everything as accurately as he can, conscious that his hands are sweating. When he’s finished, the room is silent apart from a fluttering above him where a moth has become trapped in the lightshade, its wings batting frantically against the sides.

‘Ryan says you hit him.’

He feels a thud in the pit of his belly. ‘No, no way. Definitely not.’ He shakes his head.

On go the bifocals again and she peers at the paper in front of her. ‘He told his mother that you struck him on the side of the head.’ She looks at him over the top of her glasses, reminding him briefly of his father.

This can’t be happening. ‘I don’t know what to say. I did feel stressed; I did thump the wall and he
was
standing nearby, but I certainly didn’t hit him.’

She allows another silence to grow. ‘So you’re telling me that at no point did your hand make contact with his head?’

‘Absolutely not.’

‘Very well.’ She straightens the papers in front of her. ‘The incident still constitutes a disciplinary offence, but it’s considerably less serious than a physical assault.’ Again she takes off her glasses. ‘Jonathan.’ Her tone softens, and he gratefully registers her use of his first name. ‘You wouldn’t be the first teacher to be falsely accused and you won’t be the last. We’ll take statements from the students and hopefully we’ll clear the whole thing up quickly.’ She rises and gestures towards the door. He stands, obediently. ‘However, I’m suspending you while I carry out a full investigation. I’ll telephone as soon as it’s been completed. In the meantime, you’re going to have to trust me.’ She opens the door.

Physical assault;
physical assault.
Does the boy really hate him that much?

Ken is still out in the main office. ‘Okay, Mr Pinkerton.’ She nods at Ken, then turns to Jonathan. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to be escorted from the premises.’

His legs are weak as he walks to the car and he can feel his heart rate speeding up. He fumbles with the key, but can’t get it in the door.

‘Oh well,’ Pinkerton can barely contain his smirk. ‘See you
anon
!’

Bastard. He looks like he’s just won teacher of the fucking year. Jonathan starts the car, crashing the gears as he puts it into reverse, then he accelerates out of the parking area and swings onto the approach road, his brain reeling. He wants to get home, away from Ken’s mocking eyes, so he can think about this properly. He turns sharply into the main road, whacking the back of a very new-looking silver Volvo parked on the corner. He slows down and looks in the rear-view mirror. There’s no one around, no one running after him waving their arms. He puts his foot down again and doesn’t stop until he gets home.

*

There’s a pleasing rhythm to chopping, and Jonathan starts to feel calmer as he flicks the shallots into the pan with the butter, lemon zest and rice. Then he turns up the heat and sloshes in white wine, which makes a loud hiss and sends up a cloud of fragrant steam. When the rice is just right, he’ll add lemon juice, rocket and parmesan, a good grind of black pepper and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Risotto requires patience; you have to add the hot stock little by little so that the rice expands slowly, becoming plump and creamy but still retaining a little ‘bite’. But he messes it up; he adds the stock too quickly and he cooks it for too long.

‘Sorry,’ he says as he puts the plates on the table. ‘Not a culinary triumph.’

‘Better than I could make, though.’ Fiona looks at him. ‘It’ll blow over in a couple of days, Jonno.’

He leans over and kisses her forehead. ‘Thank you for being calm and sensible. What would I do without you?’

She forks up a mound of risotto. ‘Less cooking and more ironing, probably.’

After dinner, they watch a programme about bears in Canada. ‘Oh wow, look at that,’ Fiona says. On the screen, the bears have positioned themselves at the top of a waterfall where salmon are travelling upstream to spawn. As the fish make their incredible leap, the bears simply open their mouths. Some of the salmon make it back to their birthplace to lay their eggs, but many don’t. Jonathan wonders how they felt when they realised they’d leapt right into the mouth of a hungry bear. Probably not that different to how he’s feeling now. Christ. How can he have been so stupid? Why hadn’t he just sent Ryan to Malcolm instead of trying to face the boy down?

*

Malcolm rings on the Wednesday to see if he’s going to rehearsals. Their am-dram group is doing ‘Snow White’ this year, and he and Malcolm at six feet and six-one respectively are playing dwarves – Smiley and Blushful. They can’t use Happy and Bashful because, much to Malcolm’s disgust, Disney holds copyright on all the original names (except Sneezy, apparently). Cassie makes an equally ironic Snow White with her vast hips, her butterscotch skin – courtesy of her Guyanese father – and her short-cropped hair, currently a fiery orange, but she might dye it a festive red and green for the Boxing Day performance, she says. ‘Give the thing some colour. Everything you guys do is so damn black and white.’

Jonathan had totally forgotten. ‘Tell them I’ve got the trots or something,’ he says. ‘I won’t be able to concentrate. All week, I’ve been pouncing on the phone, thinking it’ll be Linda Fawcett, but nothing. So I rang her today; I thought they must have finished interviewing the kids by now, but do you know what she said? She said things are taking longer because of the planning for the Christmas activities. My job’s on the line and she’s worried about the fucking Christmas activities. Can you believe that? Perhaps I should go in and see her.’

‘I wouldn’t if I were you. Our Mrs Fawcett doesn’t like being hurried. You don’t want to risk pissing her off and slowing things down even more.’

Jonathan nods. ‘True. The waiting is driving me nuts, though.’

‘I’m sure it is. But at least you can use the time to catch up with your marking.’

‘That’s what I’ve been doing, but it still feels like I’m sitting on my arse while Fi has to drag herself out of bed to get to work in the morning.’

Malcolm sighs. ‘I know. I wouldn’t like it either, but listen, if you start hiding yourself away, people might think there’s a reason.’

‘No smoke without fire, you mean?’

‘Remember that bloke who taught geography when old Wilkins was Head? What was his name? You know, Welsh chap. Lovely bloke.’

The guy had been young, mild-mannered. It was his first teaching post. He’d taught art as well. Or was it music? Anyway, he’d been accused of ‘inappropriate behaviour’ by some Year 9 girls. Apparently the girls’ stories hadn’t tallied and the police felt the whole thing was a nonsense. But the teacher hadn’t ever returned to school, which had prompted vindictive mutterings from a particular corner of the staffroom.

‘Oh, all right,’ he says. ‘You win.’

*

He’s glad he went to rehearsals in the end. Fiona came to watch, and then they all went back to Malcolm and Cassie’s where Jonathan and Malcolm knocked up a pretty reasonable Spanish omelette which they had with ciabatta and red wine while they debriefed. Throughout the whole evening, he realises as he gets into bed, his thoughts haven’t once strayed towards school. Fiona is already asleep even though she was only ten minutes ahead of him. She looks exhausted; her reception class is pretty demanding and she’s really feeling the strain now.

He wakes refreshed for a change, having dreamt of summer, of sitting on the beach, looking out to sea. The dream makes him think about days at the seaside as a boy, watching the waves and marvelling at the thought that even after he’d gone home, even when he was at school, or asleep in bed at night, the tides would continue their inevitable, rhythmic movement. The day is cold, but sunny outside. Malcolm says he should make the most of this enforced time off. If Fiona wasn’t at school they could have driven down to Hastings for the day, had a wander around the Old Town, got fish and chips from The Mermaid like they used to and eaten them huddled together in the bus shelter overlooking the fishing beach. He loves Hastings, even at this time of year. It’s not as trendy as Brighton but there’s something about the place. He first went there on a school trip when he was ten. He and Alan Harper would stand gawping at the tall wooden huts where Victorian fishermen used to hang their nets to dry, then they’d wander around the fish market where you could buy fish caught just a few hours earlier. Glittering piles of mackerel and herring, red-spotted plaice, crabs the size of saucers and other fish he couldn’t identify without his
Observer’s Book of Sea and Seashore
. With the typical blood-lust of the schoolboy, they’d watch, fascinated, as the men took fish from the pile, deftly slit them open and scraped out the innards, then tossed the bloody, stringy bits of flesh into plastic buckets. Seagulls, flapping their huge wings and shrieking and screaming at their rivals, swooped down to steal from the buckets, then soared off with mackerel guts streaming from hooked beaks.

Perhaps he should go fishing. A couple of hours of tranquillity will do him good, and at least it’ll mean he’s not sitting here waiting for Linda Fawcett to call. The doorbell rings. He ignores it; probably someone selling dishcloths. But it rings again, longer, more insistent this time, so he gets out of bed, puts on a pair of boxers and a t-shirt and goes downstairs. The police uniforms show through the glass. It must be about that car he hit – he’d completely forgotten about it, and an apology is already forming on his lips as he opens the door.

‘Jonathan Hugo Robson?’ the male officer says, then defers to his partner, a great heffalump of a woman with an unexpectedly jolly-hockeysticks voice that makes Jonathan think of gymkhanas. He can’t take in what she’s saying at first, but the gist of it is that he has to go to the police station this evening to make a statement regarding an ‘alleged assault’. Six o’clock, she tells him; report to the desk.