‘I don’t want to, Matt, is that clear? I don’t want to.’
It felt cruel, watching him deflate before her. But what else could she do? She certainly didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, and she and Matt did have something, something she had never really experienced before, but this was too complicated; she was not allowing herself to get involved in this level of mess. Dear God, this was how TV dramas started – one minute everything bubbling along and then one poor decision, usually influenced by lust, and boom, before you knew it, it was all body bags and prison time. Well, it wasn’t happening to her. Not again. Although to be fair there hadn’t been body bags or prison last time… but there could have been. There could! She wasn’t getting sucked in again, no way.
She deftly slid off the side, angling her body as far from Matt’s as she could.
‘I’ll show you out.’
‘OK.’ He nodded slowly, stepping back and accepting his cue to leave. ‘But maybe we should talk about the idea I’ve had for the school later, and it does need to be soon. If we forget it’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow could we talk about it then, in a purely professional capacity?’
Back in control, she pasted her most competent smile on as she considered his tenacity. Despite her previous crush – previous? Who was she kidding? Her up-until-five-minutes-ago-crush – she suddenly looked at him with a new clarity. Yes, he was gorgeous. Yes, he was kind and generous and all those things she had on her wish list. And he obviously wasn’t Josh, she knew that; it was just her most basic level that went into panic. But since university she had made decisions about how her life was going to be and so far those decisions had led to a carefully planned but smooth and content life. She had a great job that she loved, she had some good friends and right now, with the school being threatened, this was not the time to throw everything that had guided her well up into the air. She was not the gambling type.
She may have been shilly-shallying around this fact for a fortnight now but something had clicked, like her four-year-olds learning to read, and everything fell into place. She knew this feeling, and with it came a sense of relief. This lady was not for turning.
‘I’m sorry. As I was saying, I can’t see you tomorrow – I’m far too busy – but if you have an idea that could help please get in touch with Marion, she’ll be in school tomorrow and she’s the correct person to talk to about this, not me.’ And then, just in case twice wasn’t enough, ‘I’m busy tomorrow, all day. Let me show you out.’
Chapter Twenty-One
It was a bleary-eyed Rosy who drove into school the next morning. She had spent very little of last night sleeping, although she could hear Angelina next door snoring so loudly the windows rattled. It hadn’t helped the confusion whirring around Rosy’s head. A mishmash of emotion that hours of analysis hadn’t helped clear.
She knew that she shouldn’t have kissed Matt. The Rule was simple enough – it stated that you didn’t involve yourself with anyone with ties to your life, ever. That way, when things went wrong they could be neatly erased from life, and social media, without major fallout. Without them entangling mutual friends or colleagues. Without them broadcasting to everyone who knew you what your flaws were, real or fabricated. Without them painting a picture of you so dark and unexpected that you lost all of your standing in the community, your job and your friends. She knew that most men weren’t delusional psychopaths that manipulated the world around them as if it were a personally designed board game. She also knew, through bitter experience, that it only took one.
However, when Rosy had been busy defining The Rule and then practising it over the course of her lifetime, she had applied it rigorously, as if all were black and white. As it should be. It was unfortunate that, up until now, Rosy had forgotten all about the existence of grey. As much as she may not think it should exist, as much as she may not want it to exist, yesterday grey had stood up and announced, no, shouted its presence.I am grey. I will not be ignored. Stand up and count me and all my shades of gorgeousness.
Grey said that it didn’t matter about what may seem sensible. Grey whispered that there was more to be thought about. That intuitively Rosy knew that walking away was not the sensible option, that she and Matt had a bond, a something unique to them that should be, had to be, explored. Grey reminded her that intuition was what had saved humanity time and time again. It was both part of evolution and existence. Grey had to be listened to. Not to do so, to only see black and white, was foolhardy.
Rosy would have liked to cosh grey over the head and bundle it into a sack with black and white and hurl all of them over a cliff, but instead she got up and went to work. And whilst she loved her job, and usually was happy entering her classroom in the morning, today – despite being exhausted and emotionally wrung out – the primary colours of Class One, the red, the yellow and the bright blue, had never been so welcoming. She might stay here forever.
Sitting at the playdough table fashioning hearts and relieved that for the past twenty whole minutes she hadn’t focused on her own, Rosy played alongside the children. ‘Played’ was a misnomer; she was of course being terribly professional, modelling behaviour as well as shapes, observing social skills and fine motor control. Just in case anyone asked.
‘Miss.’ She felt her sleeve being tweaked and smiled to see Billy standing at her arm, being very bashful. Billy was not a bashful child; Billy was a rough and tumble ball of joy that had no qualms about shouting out everything he knew all of the time. A shock of blond hair, a swoosh of freckles and a constantly cheeky grin, he was a child to be constantly watching. If the room was quiet and Billy was in it then that was a red flag.
‘Billy, good morning. How nice to see you.’ This was true; she had a sneaking fondness for the sparky ones, although they did make group reading rather tricksy. She turned on her teeny-weeny chair to look at him.
‘Good morning, miss, I’ve… got… got somefink… I love you, miss!’ With that he gave her a card and sped away to his friends in the construction area, blushing as red as any Lego block, legs falling over themselves in his haste to escape.
Rosy smiled and, turning back to the table, opened the envelope. Inside was a hand-drawn card filled with lots and lots of tiny heart-shaped sequins, admittedly now all over the floor, and lots and lots of scrawling inside as he had tried to go over the letter shapes his mother had traced out. Billy was not keen on writing, and was far from ready. Rosy knew from experience that he would much rather put a pen up his nose or his friend’s nose than hold it in his hand and press it on some paper. This card was special.
Smiling, she got up from her chair and started to herd the children together so that the day’s formal teaching could begin.
The day dragged a little but it didn’t take long to lose herself in the children. It didn’t matter what she had going on in her personal life – the minute she was surrounded by her class nothing else took priority. It wasn’t mere professionalism, though; it happened without thinking, she just loved them. Hence it took until break-time before her mind was dragged back to the happenings of last night, as she saw Matt’s face, that funny, sexy face flash into her mind, and she swore she could feel the pull of his hand on her leg as he had lifted her onto the table. She decided to escape to the staffroom for lunch, where the babble of the rest of the staff and the extras in the shape of the PTA would drown out any inappropriate imaginings –memories now, her irritating internal voice piped up. Oh bloody hell, she was lost. Was rehashing last night’s TV over bad coffee really going to work?
It seemed it would have to. There was the usual buzz throbbing out from the door as Rosy approached. She managed to secure herself a cup of coffee and lose herself in the swirl of babble about what had happened last night in Walford.
She had been worried that with all the upset in the school recently, the insecurities would make the staff funny with her. She had seen it happen before and was expecting but dreading it. Surprisingly it hadn’t come; she was still treated as warmly as before. But then the realities of the changes hadn’t begun yet, so she was concentrating on keeping the school buzzing, the children and their parents happy and their profile high locally. Marion Marksharp opened the staffroom door and the mood fell, the happy but silly babble deflated. There wasn’t a single member of staff that hadn’t felt the sharp edge of her tongue at some point and as for the parents, membership to the PTA was almost like a biker gang. The hoops they had to jump through to gain entry and move up the ranks were insane. Rosy suspected most of them would rather take the punishments a set of bearded and armed middle-aged bikers might mete out than the public humiliation of one of Marksharp’s famous verbal attacks.
For a second Rosy felt a flash of sympathy for her. There was no ignoring the fact that the room had fallen silent and people began shuffling papers and scraping chairs back to leave. It must be horrid to know that you were so disliked. Rather like being prime minister; you were never going to please everyone. Then she remembered that with the power of a single whisper Marion could tell the whole school what she had walked in on last night.
‘I need to speak to you, Rosy.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Rosy made a gesture to leave the staffroom – if Marion was going to say anything about yesterday then it didn’t need to be witnessed – as the rapidly emptying room was punctuated by the phone ringing in the corner.
‘Oh, just let me grab this.’ Rosy turned to answer it. Maybe there was a fire in one of the classrooms? Or the school hamster had escaped again – anything would do! Sheila was on the other end and informed her that it was a call for Marion. Miraculously, she managed to do so without mentioning her grandchildren or forgetting why she was on the phone. Was progress being made?
Puffed up with importance, Marion took the receiver from Rosy and then proceeded to put on her telephone voice.
‘Marion Marksharp here. How can I help?… Lovely to hear from you so soon… Yes, yes, it was great to meet you last night… Oh really? Yes, I had heard a whisper about that, such an interesting project, I didn’t realize you were involved, your sister never said… yes, quite… well, community is at the heart of all successful endeavours… Really? Are you serious? That would be wonderful… Well, some of the parents may not be keen but in my role as head of the PTA I’m sure I can address any concerns and as you say this would be a wonderful opportunity for the children… How many… All of them, the whole school! That would be quite some undertaking but I don’t see why not. I would have to run it by Rosy but I think she’ll agree with me that this could be exactly what the school needs. You could talk to her over the weekend… or come in and meet the children, perhaps have an assembly and outline your exciting plans to everyone, although as I say I can’t see any problems, but then it isn’t entirely my decision…’
Rosy drained her coffee as she listened to Marion’s conversation. This couldn’t be happening. She knew that she had told Matt to call Marion but she hadn’t expected him to actually do it. This was getting serious now. He had just, with one phone call, encroached upon her professional life. How the hell was she going to handle this? See, it confirmed her worst fears; one kiss and he was already at stage two of the psychopath’s playbook. Whatever he was saying was certainly making Marion very animated – remarkable for a woman who must have a hangover so monumental it could become the eighth wonder of the world. He was clearly a master at this game. How, how had she managed to attract another one? She knew people had a type but she had worked so hard to actively ensure this never happened again. Whatever happened she needed to deal with this one step at a time, with thought, and precision and a plan. However, this was not the time for that. She needed to get back to class, finish teaching and then work out what she was going to do to make sure this went no further. She raised her hand up to Marion as a goodbye and left her to it.
