‘Phil?’
‘The very one. I always like to phone my clients after the first day to check how it went.’
‘Great, I think. Well, it was, but Roger Newcombe barged in this morning because it was a bit chaotic at first. I mean,Iknew exactly what we were doing but—’
‘Don’t worry! That was all part of the learning curve, I’m sure. He was delighted and he wants you back tomorrow.’
It appeared that short of actually setting the school on fire, she was going to be kept on for the moment.
She baulked. A single day was one thing, but the idea of facing 4B as their main teacher every day was an exhausting prospect. Still, the money was good and it certainly felt nice to be in demand. There was something about Phil that made everything feel safe and manageable.
‘Fantastic, Phil, thanks for the call. I’ll be there tomorrow.’
‘Do you know something? I think you have a flair for this .?.?. It’s just a feeling, but I believe in you. I’ll say no more.’
And he was gone, leaving a whiff of positivity in the air.
* * *
‘Eric is mad about him,’ said Mam, ‘and don’t be fooled by that little office. He does very well, he just doesn’t bluster and brag like some people without an arse in their trousers.’
She was busy was filling their mugs with steaming tea.
‘Mam, are you trying to set us up?’
‘All I’m saying is, sometimes you can end up looking for romance in all the wrong places. I don’t want to drag up the past .?.?.’
‘Oh, why change the habit of a lifetime.’
‘But that fellow in England, the Scots one .?.?.’
‘Gavin was his name, I was with him for fifteen years.’ She paused. ‘You might as well know, I just heard from Josie that he’s getting married to a young one.’
‘Oh no, love. I’m sorry, that’s desperate.’
‘Yeah, I’d a pants of a weekend but I think I’ve made my peace with it.’
Mam reached out and squeezed her hand. ‘You’re better off, love, I mean that. We only met him twice. Don’t take this the wrong way, and I’m saying this as your mother and I care about you, but did it never occur to you in all the time you were with him that he’d leave you high and dry? Because it was there in big flashing letters six-foot high to the rest of us.’
‘Well, you could have said something at the time rather than hitting me with it now.’
But even as she said it, Cassie knew only too well how she’d have responded.
‘I loved him and I just thought it would work out.’
‘Things don’t just “work out”, not for most people anyway, and it’s not “uncool” or whatever you call it to want to know what’s going on.’
Cassie felt her heart sink but there was something about the starkness of Mam’s words that felt like a relief. It was all true. She had to stop hiding from herself.
‘I was afraid to push too hard in case I heard something I didn’t like.’
‘For the love of God, you always lived in cuckoo land. You’re not a stupid girl, in fact I always said to your daddy that you’d brains to burn. But there was always .?.?. something missing with you. Reality maybe. Maybe that’s what made you choose that crazy career. Sure, isn’t that what created the whole rift with Maxine in the first place?’
Cassie began to cut thick wedges of the Swiss roll she’d picked up on the way. ‘I’m whacked, can we not just have our tea?’
‘Please yourself, all I’m saying is I’m delighted you’ve started a nice sensible job. And you’ve Phil to thank for that.’
‘Mam!’
