Bed of Roses

Scarlett sniggers.

‘But you obviously aren’t. So tell me. What’s going on?’

Scarlett keeps sniggering.

‘What’s funny? Scarlett, I asked you to sit down.’

She sits. Finally Fanny says, ‘Is your mother at home?’

‘How should I know?’

‘I’m going to call her and let her know you’ll be staying late. So you can show me some work – OK?’ She smiles; Scarlett doesn’t. ‘And afterwards I’ll drop you off home in my car. All right, Scarlett? Do you understand?’

Scarlett doesn’t answer.

‘OK, Scarlett?’ says Fanny again.

‘Do I have a choice?’

Fanny hesitates. ‘Er – you don’t actually, no. So. Will you tell me your mother’s telephone number, or are you going to make me go all the way upstairs to the office to look it up?’

Scarlett looks at Fanny as if she’s an idiot. ‘I’m going to make you go—’

‘Of course. Stupid question.’ Fanny opens a maths book to the page the rest of the class has been working from, and asks Scarlett to set to work. ‘Do what you can,’ Fanny says. ‘And don’t worry if you get stuck. It doesn’t matter. It’s what I’m here for. I’ll be back in a minute, all right?’

Fanny pokes her head out into the hall. The staff-room door has been left open. There is no one inside. She glances from left to right; no sign of Robert, then. She’s spotted him a couple of times recently, skulking around after school, obviously waiting for her. Today it looks as though he’s gone straight home. But she still runs across the hall, just in case, and takes care to close her office door, and even to lock it, before dialling the Mozely number.

She leaves a brief message on Kitty’s answer machine and returns to the classroom, where she finds Scarlett leaning back in her chair, hands behind her head, pencil in the same place Fanny left it.

‘Oh, come on, get on with it!’ Fanny snaps. ‘We’ll be here all night. You’re not going anywhere, Scarlett, until you’ve at least shown me—’

A tiny smile plays on Scarlett’s lopsided lips. Her paper is filled with scrawls; it’s an ugly, angry mess. But in those three minutes Scarlett has finished the same exercise her class has been struggling over all week. The arithmetic is there, scribbled randomly around the page. She obviously hasn’t used a calculator. And every answer is correct.

‘So,’ Fanny says finally. ‘So, Scarlett Mozely. That’s what it’s all about, is it?’ Fanny laughs. ‘So! Clever clogs. Well. Of course it is! I should have guessed as much. I mean, this is…this is…so…I mean, this is…phenomenal. Scarlett? I mean, seriously. What else can you do?’

And from the depths of Scarlett’s chest there comes a disarming gurgle, long and deep; a laugh of triumph at having kept her secret for so long. Behind the moon glasses her eyes smart. She looks absurdly happy.

And so does Fanny. ‘Honestly,’ she giggles suddenly, ‘I’ve never taught a Secret Genius before!’ And without pausing for thought, Fanny has leant across the table, pulled Scarlett into a tight, untidy hug and given her a smacker on both cheeks.

‘Oh, shit,’ she says at once, releasing her hurriedly. ‘Sorry. I’m so sorry.’ She tries to rub the kisses off. ‘Sorry. Not meant to do that. Very naughty. Child Abuse.’ She giggles again. ‘They could put me in jail for that.’

Scarlett says nothing. She is paralysed with confusion. When, after all, was she last kissed by anyone? Except for Clive and Geraldine’s chillingly dutiful single pecks, always delivered to the pretty side, Scarlett can’t even remember.

‘Sorry, Scarlett,’ says Fanny again, embarrassed to have so obviously embarrassed her. ‘I am sorry.’

But Scarlett is too blown away to answer.

16 (#ulink_1d8aa959-cbcd-56b2-bd93-4cbd6b10ae45)

It’s dusk by the time Fanny drops Scarlett back home. She and her mother live in a pretty-enough little cottage, with a moss-covered thatched roof and a buckling rose bush at the gate, but the path to the door is overtaken with brambles, and obstructed by an old fridge lying on its back. Inside, all the lights are off. The house looks empty and unwelcoming.

Fanny says, with her car engine still running, ‘Will you be all right, Scarlett? You’d be very welcome to come and have tea with me, if you prefer. It looks as though your mother may have gone out.’

‘I should think she has! I should think she ought to be allowed a life of her own while I’m at school and things. It’s not easy, you know, having a child.’

‘Well, no. But I think…’

Scarlett looks at her curiously. ‘Don’t you believe in a woman’s right to have a life of her own?’

‘What? Don’t be idiotic, Scarlett. I didn’t say that. Anyway, this isn’t about women’s rights. It’s about you being not very old. You shouldn’t be—’

‘I can look after myself, thank you, Miss Flynn. I’ve been doing it for years.’

A drawn-out silence, while Scarlett struggles from the little car, and Fanny dares not offer to help for fear of offending her yet again. ‘I shall see you on Monday then,’ Fanny says at last.

It sounds unnaturally upbeat. They both notice it. Scarlett smiles awkwardly. ‘Thanks for the lift,’ she mumbles.

‘It was a pleasure, Scarlett. And on Monday, bring me something to read, will you? I want to see how you write. Write me a story about…’ She pauses to think of a subject.

‘Actually, I’m writing a story at the moment,’ Scarlett says, unconsciously tapping it, inside her satchel.

‘Ah-ha!’ Fanny laughs. ‘The mysterious Red Book?’

She smiles. ‘It’s about Oliver Adams.’

‘A story about Ollie? I was thinking of something more along the lines—’

‘It’s fiction,’ interrupts Scarlett, her face glittering suddenly, full of mischief. She looks like her mother. She looks almost pretty. ‘Don’t worry, Miss Flynn. I’m writing it like a novel. At the moment it’s called The Most Boring, Feeble-Minded, Over-Indulged Little Pillock in the Universe.’

‘Pillock?’ repeats Fanny, but she can’t help laughing again. ‘I mean, you can write what you want, of course. I’d love to see it. Only I don’t think—I mean—Try not to make him too identifiable.’

Scarlett shrugs. ‘If you like. But he’s never going to read it.’

Fanny watches Scarlett as she hobbles through the dusk and over the brambles, fumbling with the keys before letting herself in. And pauses, engine still running, briefly at a loss. She feels less courageous than Scarlett about the prospect of returning to an empty house, with only the long, quiet weekend ahead. She turns the car around and heads back to the school where, as always, she has mountains of work to catch up on.

She had locked the place up when she left with Scarlett and it, too, as she draws up in front, looks far from welcoming. The encroaching darkness does something Gothic to its 150-year-old face; the enormous windows loom at her, the high stone walls, normally a warm and lichenspeckled russet, look cold and flat and grey. As she crosses the playground towards the shadowy front porch she’s suddenly very conscious of the generations of childish figures that have passed through this place before; of the hopeful voices, the carefree laughter, the lives that have started here, and been, and gone; and she feels, for once, the full weight of her own responsibility. She may only be an outsider but she’s also a link now, in a bigger chain, and it is up to her to keep this small place alive.

She shivers.

In the empty staff room she makes herself coffee, carries it up with her to her office and sets to work. She works for a couple of hours without noticing the time pass, wading doggedly through the interminable paperwork, marking books, filling in forms. She’s about to take her mug downstairs to make a second cup of coffee when the creak of a distant pipe makes her jump. She pauses, noticing suddenly how dark it is outside, and how very quiet. There is a light shining in the bungalow opposite, where Tracey and her Uncle Russell with emphysema live. But Tracey’s working in the pub tonight, and her uncle sits in his wheelchair with the television volume turned up high, so he can hear it over his own wheezing.

Another creak. Makes her heart thud. Makes Brute give a menacing growl. She reaches instinctively for her cigarettes.

Suddenly the telephone on her desk bursts shrilly through the silence. She stares at it. Who calls a primary school at this time? It rings four times and then it stops.

A wrong number. Of course.

She looks down at her desk, tries to remember what she was doing before, and it starts ringing a second time. Again, it rings only four or five times, and stops. Slowly, carefully, trying to breathe through the rising panic, she stands up to leave, and as she does so, knocks against a pile of papers at the edge of her desk. They scatter all over her chair and floor, taking the telephone and her car keys with them.