Mummy’s Little Soldier: A troubled child. An absent mum. A shocking secret.

‘Time is of the essence,’ Darryl added, though, again, without looking up. And in the same monotone he’d used for the rest of his little speech.

‘Well, okay,’ I said, rising. ‘I guess you’d better skedaddle then. See you Wednesday.’ Another nod, and he was herding Kelly out of the door.

I watched them leave and felt a familiar prickle of excitement. It looked like I was going to be in for an interesting term. Kieron’s Asperger’s – the kind I knew about – was nothing like this. Time for a refresher course, perhaps, I thought, returning to the computer monitor. While my son was only just over the line that put him ‘on the spectrum’, Darryl seemed to be in a completely different place.

And it seemed he wasn’t the only one. When I got into Gary’s office I realised Kelly hadn’t been exaggerating. The place really did smell like a perfume factory outlet.

‘Wow!’ I said as I pushed the door open. ‘Kelly was right. You really have been splashing on the cologne!’

Gary groaned as I sat down, making elaborate sniffing noises. ‘Oh, God,’ he said. ‘How does she know about it?’

‘Difficult not to,’ I said. ‘Gary, you can smell it half way down the corridor! Anyway, more to the point, what’s the gossip? Go on – spill.’

But Gary didn’t really need to, because his blush answered for him.

‘Oh my goodness,’ I said, watching him. ‘You’ve met someone, haven’t you?’

‘Actually I have,’ he said, glancing past me, presumably to check I’d shut the office door. Which, of course, I had. A pause arrived and lengthened.

‘And?’ I prompted.

‘And today’s the day I am going to meet Mum and Dad.’

I nodded, and then, taking my cue from his expression – which was an odd one – I stopped and digested it further. Mum and Dad. Why would meeting Mum and Dad be such an issue? Gary was in his forties, and presumably his new girlfriend was too. Unless … hmm. Perhaps the girlfriend was younger. Considerably younger. Or there were complications of some sort, such as …

I nodded again. ‘And?’

He shifted in his seat. ‘And it’s quite a big deal. Casey, I know it’s not something we’ve ever discussed but …’ Another pause. ‘Casey, you’ve already worked out that I’m gay, right?’

Dropped into the conversation so quietly, so entirely undramatically, the statement should have simply landed and settled. Should have been absorbed into the conversation like any other bunch of words. Except it wasn’t. Because I’d really had no idea. Most of us – well, the few confidantes I chatted to, anyway – had Gary pegged as the school’s George Clooney character, a charismatic confirmed bachelor. Though one minus a pet Vietnamese pot-bellied pig. Well, as far as I knew.

‘No, I didn’t,’ I said. ‘I mean, well, I suppose I never thought about it that much. I suppose –’ I shrugged. ‘I suppose it never really crossed my mind either way.’ Then I smiled, feeling his tension dissipate, and mine along with it. The truth was that there was plenty of gossip in the staffroom – who was happily married, who less so, who might be having a fling with whom. But Gary was never part of it; he had always seemed immune from it almost. But then he’d always kept his private life private – as did I, really. In our peripheral roles we tended not to get involved in much of the socialising that went on among the more sociable of the teaching staff. It was the way I liked it, keeping my work life and home life largely separate, and Gary did too. And with perhaps even more motivation than most, because, despite all the sterling work being done to change the status quo, a school could still be a cruel place to be if you were perceived as ‘different’ – and that very much included the teachers.

So it all began to make sense. And now it had, it was also clear why Gary might be anxious. Meeting a partner’s mum and dad was hard enough for young heterosexuals, and for gay guys of Gary’s age, whose parents could easily be into their seventies, it might be all the harder. I certainly knew from friends’ experiences that, for the older generation, just the business of a son or daughter being gay might be a very big hurdle to jump in itself.

But that was a big conversation to be having, and perhaps not one for today. ‘So,’ I said thoughtfully, ‘a bit of a watershed, then. No wonder you’re on pins.’

‘You said it,’ Gary agreed. ‘I mean, I know it’s ridiculous. But at the same time it’s not, because Paul – that’s his name – had a partner before me who was pretty long term, and when they broke up last year it was all very difficult, because he was very much part of the family, and his mum and dad really missed him, and … well, as you can imagine, I’m very conscious that …’ He paused to draw breath.

I leapt into the space. ‘Conscious that you’ll be compared to him and be found wanting,’ I finished for him. ‘Which is pretty much the same scenario for anyone in your shoes. And about which you can do nothing, bar what?’

Now I paused, waiting for him to supply the answer.

‘Be myself,’ Gary supplied. Then he broke into a grin. And stood up. ‘Yes, but the burning question is, do I look like the sort of guy who regularly wets himself? Be honest! Do I look like I have? Do I smell of damp dog? Come on. The truth. Do I? Because I reckon I have about seventeen minutes’ free time left in which to zip to Asda and grab some new chinos.’

At which we both could do nothing else but fall about, giggling.

With enormous guilt I conceded that although there was no smell (well, aside from the bordello one), there was an obvious water mark. ‘So go to Asda, and please let me pay –’

‘Absolutely no way.’

‘Well, I owe you a drink then. But hang on. Before you go, the important part. Do I get to see a picture? I’m keen to see what kind of character would fall for a reprobate like you.’

So out came the phone. And up came the picture. Of a sweet-looking guy, with a smidge of designer stubble and a goofy expression on his face.

‘A teacher?’ I asked him.

‘No, he’s a youth justice worker.’

And if there was any justice, one with parents who would take one look at Gary and know their son had struck gold.

I said so. Then we both went our separate ways. Gary, in a mad rush to find replacement trousers, and me, more reflectively, in pursuit of a sandwich – the smile glued to my face all the way.

Chapter 4 (#u3d9ea8c9-bead-55f7-b9f7-a8162c54e9ad)

By the time Wednesday morning came around I was filled with my usual sense of nervous anticipation, running around stroking the radiators, as was invariably my habit, in the hope that the room would be both bright and cosy.

I’d been busy, and I smiled as I double-checked everything. Bright orange and yellow scatter cushions were piled up in the reading area, my long-dead pot plants had now been replaced by twigs and pine cones I’d carefully saved and had now arranged, and all the borders on the notice boards had been replaced too, in order to further represent my autumn theme. It was half past eight so I decided I’d have time to make a quick coffee before Kelly brought my new students along.

Sitting at my desk, then, the Unit now exuding calm and order, it really struck me how appearances could be so way off beam; how what you saw could so often be the opposite of what you got.

But perhaps that was because we spent so much time not properly looking; making only a cursory job of it and seeing what we expected to see. ‘I was stunned,’ I’d told Riley when I’d got home on the Monday evening. ‘At first, it was like, “Whoah! Come again? You serious?” Took me a good few seconds to get my head round it.’

Riley laughed as she stirred the spaghetti we were having for tea. ‘I don’t know why,’ she said. ‘I mean I can’t say I’ve ever really given it a lot of thought, but if someone asked me – I mean, asked me to make an educated guess – I’d have probably considered it. I mean, really, why should he not be? He’s not married, he’s got no kids – not that having kids means anything, really – but, yeah. No, it doesn’t seem strange at all to me.’

‘Really?’ I asked, surprised, even though I had now got my head around it. After all, it wasn’t as if Riley knew Gary well, much less the ‘confirmed bachelor’ gossip that circulated round school. But perhaps the not knowing was key.

Not that she hadn’t got to know him a little, because she had. Although he sidelined those school social gatherings that he could, he’d been to our house on several occasions, mostly to do with work, but also for the odd coffee if he’d been passing. So maybe Riley knew him in a less complicated way than I did. Where I’d had him down as a bit of a ladies’ man, married to the job rather than to the idea of marriage, Riley had obviously made other assumptions – or, rather, not found his sexuality of any interest either way, because, thankfully, young people didn’t seem to. Well, not to the extent the wartime and post-war generations often did.

Riley shook her head. ‘Mum, he’s, what, forty? And minus a wife. You mean it never crossed your mind?’

‘It really didn’t,’ I admitted. ‘I just had him down as one of those “married to the job” kind of guys. But yes, he has a partner now, so love is very definitely in the air.’

She pulled a face as she drained the pasta. ‘Let’s hope the kids don’t get a whiff of it then. Poor man if they do. They can be brutal if they think they’ve stumbled onto a secret like that.’

And that was the paradox. That we lived in the modern world; in a world that was tolerant and accepting and, particularly among the younger generation, was as inclusive and non-judgemental as it had ever been before. Yet it was the youngest in society that posed the greatest threat – no doubt about it; a school was a difficult place in which to be gay, and we had a very long way to go to change that.

I smiled, remembering the debacle that had preceded his ‘confession’ and which I’d also recounted – for the benefit of the daughter who’d played such a part in its happening in the first place. ‘Well,’ I mused, happy for the harmony between us, ‘I don’t doubt he’ll take it in his stride if it does happen, but let’s just hope the whiff isn’t as strong as his new aftershave!’

My thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door, though one not followed by an immediate influx of kids, as per a new temporary protocol Kelly and I had decided upon. Having people knock and wait before entering wasn’t generally the way we did things – more often than not, when we were mid-class, no one heard the door anyway – but we’d decided that we’d get the children to do so on the first morning and, perhaps first thing at least, for the next couple of weeks.

Having to wait to be admitted would form an important psychological barrier; one we’d decided upon creating mainly for the benefit of Ria Walker, who’d been told on Monday that she’d be spending the first few weeks with us and who had since been apparently bragging to anyone who’d listen that she’d soon have the ‘shower of dummies in there’ knowing who was boss. It went without saying that I was looking forward to dispelling that idea, and making her wait outside in the corridor – the last in the queue to be admitted – was stage one.

‘Ah! My new recruits,’ I said as I opened the door to find my new trio of children lined up behind Kelly outside the door. There was Ria, and Darryl – who I’d already met on the Monday – and an unfamiliar girl, who was presumably Cody Allen, and who looked more like she was queuing to get into the fair. I smiled at them and stood back to let them file in. ‘Come on in, then. I have milk, juice and biscuits waiting.’

‘Ooh, biscuits!’ Cody squealed as she ran ahead of the others, trying to grab Darryl as she passed him. ‘Let’s go, Romeo!’ she said, trying to tug him along with her.

He was having none of it. He visibly flinched and squeezed himself nearer to Kelly, once again starting to rock on the spot. But I knew Kelly had that in hand, so I turned my attention to the girls; Cody, who was making a beeline for the biscuits, and Ria, who sauntered in, took a disdainful look around and then went across to the other side of the classroom, pulled out a chair, shrugged off her bag and sat down.