Bed of Roses. Daisy Waugh

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       5

      She wakes up having dreamt of him again, as she often does at the start of her New Beginnings. She dreams of him turning up at every new front door, with a stupid grin, as if she’d be pleased to see him, and a pathetic little offering – a box of cheap chocolates, a jigsaw puzzle – as if that would make up for it all. Usually, in her dreams, she doesn’t let him into the house. But last night, for some reason, she did. He was coming through her door, stepping over her mushrooms, just as the alarm clock went off. So she wakes up in a nervous sweat. When she opens her eyes and looks around her new, small room, she remembers the day which lies ahead, and feels a lurch of a very different kind of terror. She springs out of bed.

      For her first day at Fiddleford Primary Fanny puts on the clothes she always wears on the first few days of a new job; a newly washed knee-length denim skirt (her only skirt in the world) which, for the moment, fits like rubber, and a dark blue polo-neck jersey. The effect is unfussy, like everything about her; simple and attractive, quite sexy, and scruffy. Fanny always looks scruffy. She can’t help it.

      Feeling faintly sick with nerves she forces down half a cup of black coffee (still no milk in the house), picks up her bag of heavy files, takes a deep breath and steps out from her little cottage, which smells of yesterday’s disinfectant, and out into the sweet, fresh morning air of the village street.

      The school is a small, russet stone Victorian building, pretty and symmetrical, with a broken bell tower in the middle, and just two large, arched windows at the front. Three gates open on to the front yard. The one on the right is marked BOYS, the one on the left, GIRLS. The middle one, non-specific, is the only one unlocked. Everyone uses it.

      It’s as pretty a little school, Fanny thinks as she draws up in front of it, as any little school could ever hope to be. She feels a swell of warm pride. It looks more like a school in a story book. Nothing too alarming could possibly happen inside such a place.

      Children scurry around her, nudging each other and giggling. Fanny ignores them – for the moment. She looks at her feet. Doesn’t want to speak to any parents just yet. Nor to anyone. She takes one more long, slow breath, mutters something to Brute about his wishing her luck, and pushes on, through the yard, up the path, into the central hall and right, to the door of the staff room. Pauses for a second. Opens it.

      ‘Morning all!’ she says, sounding unnaturally breezy.

      The youngest head teacher in the south-west does not have a large staff to manage. There is Robert White, who wears a patchy beard and socks beneath open-toed sandals. He is the notoriously idle deputy head, still too idle to resign after being overlooked for promotion, but not, Fanny will soon discover, too idle to feel bitter and obstructive as a result of it. Robert teaches the younger class – when he turns up. There are the only two classes in the school.

      There is also a part-time teacher’s assistant, Mrs Tardy; an elderly secretary, Mrs Haywood, who entertains the children occasionally (or so legend has it) by popping her glass eye in and out; and a dinner lady playground attendant who doubles up as caretaker.

      The playground attendant/caretaker was a pupil here herself not so long ago, and she still has a brother and several cousins at the school. She is Tracey Guppy, the nine-teen-year-old daughter of Fanny’s landlord, Ian, the same girl who used to keep Robert White awake at night (his attention has shifted now to a girl in the Lamsbury Safeways). Tracey Guppy doesn’t speak to Ian or to her mother, who threw her out of the house when she was fifteen. She’s been living ever since with her Uncle Russell, wheelchair bound as a result of emphysema. They live together in a council-owned bungalow directly opposite the school.

      ‘Morning all!’ Fanny says breezily.

      But only half the staff is yet present: only Linda Tardy, the part-time teacher’s assistant, and Robert White the lazybones deputy head.

      At the sight of the dog, Robert’s shoulders jolt in surprise, making the Lemsip he has been blowing to cool spill on to his sock-covered toe. ‘Ow!’ he says irritably, and then, apparently too preoccupied with the accident to look or stand up, adds a grudging and slightly pert ‘Good morning, Miss Flynn’ in the direction of the carpet.

      He places the mug of Lemsip on the floor, lifts the damaged sandal on to his knee and carefully undoes the buckle.

      ‘No one else here yet?’ Fanny asks brightly, looking from Robert White to Linda Tardy and back again. Linda, who is trying to swallow a mouthful of the same fish-paste sandwich she has vowed not to touch before lunch, holds a hand in front of her jaw and shakes her head.

      ‘It’s usually a bit slow on the first day,’ mumbles Robert, removing the sandal and unrolling the sock. ‘And I’m afraid to say I’m only really popping in myself. I’m a bit under the weather.’ He examines his toe, which looks bony and a little damp, but otherwise undamaged, and stands, at last, to arrange the sock on a nearby heater. ‘I thought I should put a nose in, so to speak.’ He smiles at her, keeping his pink lips closed. He is skinny, in his mid-forties, with eyes of the palest blue, and thin sandy-coloured hair cut into a well-kept bob. He is surprisingly tall when he stands up, Fanny notices; over six foot, or he would be if he pulled his shoulders back. ‘I’ll nip back to bed later,’ he continues, ‘but I wanted to say welcome…So –’ with a burst of energy he flaps open one of the long thin arms and winks at her, ‘welcome!’ he says.

      ‘Thank you.’ It is unfortunate for Robert, especially since this is their first meeting (Robert having been off sick on the two previous occasions she visited the school and off sulking when the other governors were interviewing her for the job), but there’s almost nothing Fanny finds more irritating than a man with a well-kept bob, open-toed sandals and a cold. ‘Who’s going to take your class then?’

      Robert looks taken aback. ‘Linda,’ he says, as if it’s obvious.

      ‘You mean Mrs Tardy?’

      ‘Linda always does it. They’re ever so used to her. The kiddies like you, don’t they, Linda?’

      ‘They like it with me because we always do the fun stuff,’ Linda Tardy chuckles, ‘and then when Robert’s back he has to do all the catching up for us, don’t you, Robbie?’

      ‘I do my best.’

      ‘Though generally,’ she adds, ‘there’s more to catch up on than he can manage. Isn’t that right, Robert? With you being poorly so much…But they’re lovely little children, and that’s what counts. Isn’t that right, Robert? They’re super kids.’

      ‘But Mrs Tardy,’ says Fanny, ‘if you don’t mind me being frank—’

      ‘Oh, say what you like, dear. Don’t worry about me!’

      ‘But you’re not a teacher.’

      ‘Oh, I know that, dear. It says it loud and clear in my pay packet every month!’ She rocks with laughter.

      ‘Well…’ Fanny hesitates. It’s a bit early to be throwing her weight around but she feels she can’t let it pass. She turns to Robert White. ‘I think,’ she says politely, ‘with the children being so behind, and with Mrs Tardy tending, as she says, to stick with the fun stuff – it might be a good idea to get a supply teacher in, don’t you?’

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