‘I’m afraid Miss Winter was quite clear when she took me through the safeguarding policy. I’m sure if you nip and see her then she can tell me that it’s OK and all will be good but I just can’t let you, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh well, I certainly don’t want to upset our prima ballerina. I shall put it away just this once but it’s best you have another chat with Rosy, dear.’
‘I wasn’t a…’
‘Yes, yes, I know. So modest. Anyway, pleased to have caught you, dear, you’re doing a wonderful job. Now I must dash. Should that child be climbing the wall bars in just her knickers?’
Sylvie turned speedily. Marion was right. The wall bars weren’t supposed to be out today and Ashleigh was busy scaling them whilst they were attached to the wall, naked apart fromher knickers whilst Mouse Kings and Sugar Plum Fairies watched, unusually silent and mouths agape.
‘Ashleigh, come down at once and get dressed. You know the rules in school. The rest of you, it is almost lunchtime, so let’s get ourselves changed instead of watching Ashleigh and then we can have a quick chat about what we’ve learnt today.’
As she helped the small, practically naked, girl get down she glimpsed across the hall to see Sam and Ellie deep in conversation with Marion. She dreaded to think what that was about, but as she caught Sam shooting her a quick, guilty look and saw Marion actually rubbing her hands as Ellie bounced up and down on the spot, she decided that one headache was more than enough to deal with today.
Chapter Thirty-six
Alex had spent the morning on the phone, and the fundraiser he was organizing in London, planned for New Year’s Eve, was taking shape nicely. He had been blown away with the response from those he had reached out to. The upcoming celebrity auction had such a varied list of celebs, from renowned academics to television personalities like Matt and Angelina, that there really was something to cater for everyone’s tastes. Although he suspected that Chase’s prize package offering a special one-to-one with him and a weeklong stay at his premier retreat in the Napa Valley was going to be the lot that blew the fundraising to stratospheric levels.
It still made him smile to think that the gangly young boy he had befriended that very first week in school, the one who had already been picked out as victim by the arseholes in the year above, had gone on to carve such a name for himself. Chase might call himself a motivational speaker and healing facilitator, but it all smacked a little bit of cult leadership to Alex.
If he didn’t know for sure that Chase was a truly good guy and utterly lacking in malice he would steer well clear of such quackery. The fact that it was the man he knew him to be doling it out forced him to accept that there might be some validity in the way his best friend earned his living. It was a shame that so far he had had zero impact on Hector.
It wasn’t just prizes for the auction that they had offered; once Matt had headed home after their boys’ night both Hectorand Chase had promised substantial donations, and they had been good for them too. Alex had known his old school friends were wealthy but the donations that had turned up for the foundation from the both of them had made his eyes boggle.
The knock-on effect was that he could start his expansion plans for the Healing Hearts Orphanage before he had anticipated. And to this end he had been able to track down his old fixer from Juba and offer him work overseeing this project. He wasn’t sure that Kene would take it, but hoped that the man would not only appreciate a regular income, a little less danger (hopefully) and a chance to contribute to the act of nation-building that was so important for shaping any chance of a future. The other big positive was that Alex knew there was no way anyone would be getting shoddy supplies and corrupt practices past his old friend. Kene’s eagle eye and refusals to take any nonsense would mean the whole process stood a much better chance of success in a newborn country built on constantly shifting sands.
The whole thing was snowballing but in a good way. He had had a meeting with Rosy who had suggested that she not only make Penmenna School a twin to the school that he was going to attach to the new extended Healing Hearts Orphanage, but also that she promote his work amongst her fellow head teachers. She had already arranged for all the schools within her Cornish Network to donate five books per school, which would lead to a huge new library for the children that Alex’s foundation was designed to help.
Rosy had also appointed Pippa, her teaching assistant from Class One, to oversee a citizenship project that would continue to raise funds and teach the children at Penmenna about how things were different for others, namely those in South Sudan.
He was planning to fly out and oversee the building work in January after the fundraiser and talk to some other NGOson the ground about the best and most effective way to take forward any plans for reuniting children separated from their families during the fighting. With tens of thousands of children displaced this was probably the issue closest to his heart and he was so excited to see how he could go on and make a difference.
On top of all his work he had been developing a plan for Sylvie. She had had such a crazy few months and he knew from experience that when all the trauma was over was when you needed support too. When everything was good and right, that was when the emotion hit, and whilst that needed to be processed it was nice to have something else to look forward to. He had been toying with doing something lovely for her, something to help her relax, and had had a brilliant idea based on one of their very first conversations.
He was just beginning to put it into play (thank you, Hector) when Marion had approached him with reports of the children developing a plan of their own. And most alarmingly they had taken it to her. He wasn’t sure which of them decided Marion was the best person to bring onto their side but he had to admire their nerve and judgement. She was scary enough to approach when you were an adult, let alone a five-year-old child. Recognizing that she was a woman who got things done, though, showed pretty effective judgement. He couldn’t do anything but bring them on board. It had to be a better decision than allowing them to carry on as a splinter group with a very clear, and very different, agenda to his.
The last thing he wanted was to put pressure on Sylvie; he wanted to make it clear that he had heard, processed and accepted that Sylvie didn’t want anything other than a platonic relationship. He might be receiving mixed messages, but he had to listen to her words, or risk being one ofthosemen, the ones who thought they knew what everyone wanted, what was for the best, regardless of what they might have been told. It was justthat trying to get the children, and Marion, to listen was proving tricky.
It had been quite cute the way the children had plotted behind his back. He had been aware that Ellie had been pushing for a mummy since the time she met Sylvie on the beach but what he hadn’t known was that Sam had been colluding willingly too.
Sam had told Ells that he was sure his mummy was in love with Alex, quite a sophisticated concept for a four-year-old, but he was learning every day how much wisdom and insight small children could have. Once Alex had been admitted into their inner circle, Ellie had gleefully relayed that according to Sam, Sylvie had never smiled at anyone other than Sam the way she did Alex, and that she was always happy these days and that Sam really wanted her to carry on being happy and thought Alex being his new daddy might be a very good idea indeed. Sam had nodded vigorously and then high-fived Ellie.
Sam had been so animated when Sylvie had been teaching last weekend and Alex had offered to babysit him so they could hatch their plan. The only difficulty was keeping the other three on task. All were convinced that he and Sylvie should be married tout de suite and as much as their agenda might be reflective of what he really wanted, what his heart wanted – and his mind and body were pretty keen on too – he had to keep reminding them this was not a romantic operation, this was about friendship only. It had taken all of Alex’s persuasive skills to convince them that forced marriage had been frowned upon for several hundred years. He wasn’t sure they were listening.
He was also increasingly worried that what he was going to have to try and achieve next week for Sylvie was going to be far more difficult than anything the foundation might throw at him.
Chapter Thirty-seven
Despite all the lovely changes in Sylvie’s life, the world did not stop spinning on its axis, or explode into a hundred happy unicorns; instead it carried on its unrelenting trudge. Luckily Sylvie’s unrelenting trudge was one she enjoyed immensely. Getting Sam up in their cottage in the dark mornings and walking into school on days when the rain held off, stopping to pick up Ellie and Alex on the way, was her idea of heaven.
This morning had been crisp with its cold, the temperature having dipped drastically in the night. As Sylvie and Sam marched stoically up the road, Sylvie wondered if perhaps she should have driven this morning. It had been terribly tempting, but she and Alex had made a deal when she moved into the village that they would make the children walk every morning unless there was Flood (seriously heavy rain), Fire (unlikely) or Famine (impossible with the way Alex insisted on feeding them all at every turn).
She was just wondering if she could convince Alex somehow that extreme cold made her very cross so surely hit the criteria for Fury when she saw Ellie jumping about on her front step, fluffy ear muffs on and ladybird gloves, joined with a long piece of yarn and threaded through her coat – Alex had learnt the hard way.
‘They’re here!’ Her excited shriek resounded down the street and Sam speeded up. Instead of running to meet him as she usually did, Ellie raced inside and popped out again with twotravel mugs, Alex behind her, also with two mugs and a pair of woolly gloves.
‘Morning.’ He leant in and gave Sylvie his usual morning kiss on the side of her cheek, and like every morning she wished she could angle her face (or her resolve) just a little so he hit her lips instead, and then she could open her mouth just a little and… Anyway, she never did – the children were here and she had established that giving in to her feelings was not a good long-term plan. She had her life on an even keel for the first time in years; she was waking up happy now, and feeling complete. She assumed that’s what it was – that made the most sense, and it wasn’t really something she had felt before. There was no way she was going to topple it, not even for… Alex handed her a mug and she found herself glancing at his hands, well-worn and sinewy. For goodness’ sake!
‘Hot chocolate.’ His words broke her reverie and she realized she had been staring at the mug, or the hands offering it, probably with that lost lust-filled look she seemed to adopt a lot recently. ‘It’s blooming freezing so I thought we could walk to school with these and then I’ll bring them all home with me later.’
