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The face she saw at the Howards’ fence, was that Sascha? She ought to have told Gary but it seemed a bit late to mention it. “Will they call the police now he’s come back?”
“No idea.” He looked away.
He was doing it again, shutting her out. She was sick of him withholding things. “I’ll ask Sascha when I see him at the pool,” she said.
“God, Helen, you know his name? You need to keep away from him. You can’t go there after this. He might be dangerous.”
“I was alone in the car with him and he was fine until we got to Number Ten. Whatever his quarrel with the Howards, it doesn’t involve me.”
“Of course it involves you. You’re part of this community whether you like it or not. We owe it to our neighbours to show some solidarity.”
He sounded like Louisa again. Helen was surrounded by the neighbourhood mafia and Gary was doing his best to join it. Her resentment boiled over. “Why don’t you show me some solidarity? Don’t you dare take the pool away. I’m bored brainless here. You’ve taken everything else. My career, my house, my swim squad.” She broke down and sobbed.
Gary rested an arm around her shoulders. “I’m sorry. I know it’s been hard for you to give up your career. But it’s not forever. Why don’t you ask Damian about the supply list for teachers?”
She shook off his arm. “How nicely do you want me to ask Damian Howard? How high up the waiting list do you want me to go?” She looked him in the eye. Surely he knew about his head teacher’s extracurricular antics. His face hardened, then he nodded. An unspoken understanding passed between them.
He pulled her towards him and she felt his lips on her hairline. “I shouldn’t have said that about the pool. It’s up to you.”
She wanted to stay mad at him despite the warmth of his breath through her hair. She forced herself not to respond.
He held her at arm’s length. His fingers played on her shoulders, soft and conciliatory. “I want you to be happy.”
“I want that for both of us,” she said. She kissed him.
She felt him relax, let out a sigh. He must be as relieved as she was that the squall had passed.
“I was going to tell you about something that you might like, but it can wait,” he said.
“What? Tell me.” She suddenly thought of half-term. Perhaps he was going to surprise her with a trip. She still hadn’t mentioned her idea of visiting the German lakes, maybe he’d come up with the same thing.
But he looked away. He was still bloody doing it.
“Just tell me, Gary.”
He sighed again but didn’t look at her. “The Elementary School runs an after-school swim club. They need more volunteer teachers.”
It wasn’t what she was expecting, but it was still good news. “That’s amazing. How do I sign up?”
“It’s not coaching and the kids are beginners mostly.”
It sounded like a lifeline. She’d be teaching again.
“So you’re interested then? You’ll give them a call? No backing out?”
“Why would I want to back out?”
He fetched his briefcase, handed her the school newsletter and studied her face.
She read the headline: Swim Club Needs Helpers. Below it was a colour photograph. She recognized the perfect chestnut hair before she read the caption: Club Chair Louisa Howard. She threw the newsletter at him.
Fiona (#ulink_13d4b3a0-7aec-53b0-b8b4-68c5091ed2c8)
I offered to get the first round while Liz and Cheryl hunted down an empty table.
I hovered at the back of the bar scrum, reckoning on a fifteen-minute wait and wishing I had sharper elbows. When someone got served, a gap opened and the crowd regrouped. My arm bumped against the tall man next to me.
He smiled down. “Is it always like this?” he said.
“I’ve only been once before so I don’t know.”
“It’s my first time,” he said, taking a £20 note out of his pocket and waving it at the bar staff. He must have landed in this undergraduate watering hole by mistake. I concluded it would be his last visit too.
“Hello, can you serve me, please?” he called out when a harassed-looking barmaid came within range.
It was worth a try but all the staff were feigning deafness and not catching anyone’s eye. But to my surprise the girl looked up and took the money from his outstretched hand.
He turned to me. “What’s your order?” It was kind of him to save me queuing longer.
When the barmaid passed over the tray of drinks, she giggled and gave him a broad smile. He thanked her and refused to let me pay him back. “Where are you sitting?”
I pointed to where Cheryl and Liz had found the last free booth. When he put the drinks on our table, the girls shuffled along to make room for both of us. They must have thought I’d picked him up. I stayed standing and thanked him for the drinks. A blush grew on my neck and face. What must he think of three little girls assuming he’d be interested in one of them? But it was the second surprise of the evening: he sat down next to Cheryl and asked her name.
When I sat opposite him, he turned to me. “Where do you usually drink, then, if not here?”
“Union bar,” I said quickly. I didn’t want him to know this was a rare outing for me.
“I’m glad you came here tonight,” he said.
I smiled and happily melted into my drink. He liked me, didn’t he? I asked him his name.
He grinned. “You can call me Shep.” But then he leant over to Liz and asked her about her course.
A bubble of disappointment rose and popped inside me but I made a show of flicking my hair behind my ear, telling myself there were plenty more postgraduates in the sea. He had to be a postgraduate; he was definitely older than us.
When Liz told him we were on the same course, he turned to me. “Have you done a sandwich year in France yet?”
I told him about Lyons, but it was like playing ping-pong. His attention moved back and forth between Liz and me. Then he looked at Cheryl, and she launched into a monologue about her set books. His eyes flicked to me. I waited. It was as if he had an invisible thread that could draw me wherever he wanted.
My patience was rewarded. “Do you miss Lyons?” he asked. When had any boy asked Liz or Cheryl an intelligent question like that? Shep was treating me like a grown-up.
I paused, deliberating on how to be intelligent back. “On the one hand, I miss the opportunity to speak French. But, on the other, it’s time to finish my degree and go out into the wider world,” I said, sounding like a GCSE essay.
“You’re wise,” he said, nodding. “You’ve got your head screwed on.” He picked up his glass, and I admired his hands. He was the only drinker with well-manicured nails, and an ironed shirt. I asked him about his course.
His expression grew serious. “I’m not a student.”
Had I blown it? Miskeyed the conversation? What would a grown-up do now? “What’s your job?” I asked.
“Civil servant.”
What now? Could I ask what that meant?
“My dad’s in the civil service,” Liz called down the table. “What branch are you?”
“I’m a shepherd,” he said.
Liz laughed and made a joke about his name. As we listened to her account of her dad’s admin job, Shep whispered to me: “I’ll explain what I do later.”
I blushed; there was going to be a later.
Two engineering students stopped at our table, and Liz and Cheryl went into all-out flirt mode. My eyes strayed to Shep. Every time one of the others spoke, he listened intently and nodded. He had the most beautiful eyes and he trained them on whoever was speaking. I sighed, feeling jealous, and tried to look away. But he caught me staring.
Eventually the girls went to the bar with the engineers. It was just Shep and me at the table.
“Was it hard to find a flat when you came back from France?” he asked.
“I’m in a student hall,” I said and realized that made me sound like a baby who couldn’t live on her own. “But it’s Moser Hall. There are only third years on the first floor. And fourth years, like me.”
“Let me get us another drink,” he said. He found his way through the crowd to his friendly barmaid. Liz, Cheryl, and the boys were still queuing and looked peeved at his success. I gave them a thumbs up and we all laughed.
“Did you miss home when you were in Lyons?” he said when he returned with my wine.
“My father was ill. It was hard not being there.”
His face was full of concern. “But things are fine now?”
I shrugged, blinking back tears. “I think so but you know how it is with cancer.”
“You’re a caring woman, Fiona.” He rested his hand on mine.
I think I smiled. I meant to, but how was I supposed to function after he did that? Although a million watts of power surged through me, I didn’t move my hand away. My blood thundered round my body, but I managed to sit still. Two grown-ups together in companionable silence. A couple.
He fetched out his phone. “I’ve got to read this.”
I watched his face as he looked at the text. When his expression didn’t change, it gave me hope that it wasn’t important. But he put the phone away and said he’d been called into work. He gave a tight smile that showed how annoyed he was. “Will you be here next Friday?”
“I might be,” I said. Grown-ups played it cool.
13 (#ulink_bce00171-25e6-5b5d-af97-2aa7e2452742)
Wednesday, 5 May
Helen expected to have trouble getting into the school campus out of hours, but Klaus, the security guard, opened the gate and waved her through from his sentry box. He must have recognized Gary’s car. He didn’t look surprised to see a woman driving it. Did he know Gary’s wife was living here now? Probably. She stiffened and pressed the accelerator; the entire school knew her business.
She parked in the main car park and took the path round the science block. She knew where the pool was as she’d found it when she was looking for the library. But she would have located it anyway; the chlorine smell was a guiding beacon. It was a favourite smell. Home. She smiled and broke into a jog.
The door into the pool foyer was open. She stepped in and embraced the heat. There was no one about but she followed voices to a group changing room and went in.
“Come and sit anywhere, Helen. We’re casual here,” Louisa said, bestowing her with a smile that lengthened on the word “casual”.
Helen waited for two young men to move along the bench to make room for her. In pressed polo shirts and shorts, they resembled army physical training instructors, all cropped hair and muscles. The seat was lower than she judged so she made a crash landing and her handbag slammed into her hip. No one noticed because they were looking at Louisa.
“I’m sure you know everyone,” Louisa said to her.
The only familiar face was Mel Mowar’s. Mel a swimming teacher? She didn’t see that one coming, but it fitted Mel’s default position at Louisa’s right-hand side.
Helen scanned the other faces, looking for identifying marks, a habit she picked up as a school teacher. To avoid the embarrassment of not recognizing a pupil or a parent in the street, she made sure their features were imprinted on her memory. It was going to be much harder to memorize this lot with no distinctive clothing style to go on. Louisa was the only one not in a white polo shirt. Hers was coral pink and it enhanced her skin tone.
Sweat pooled at Helen’s armpits. Hoping there’d be a chance for a few lengths in the school pool after the meeting and before the lessons started, she’d put her swimsuit on underneath her tracksuit. The row with Gary had continued until they both lost interest and saw how stupid it was. As part of their passionate making up, she’d agreed to stay away from the open-air pool, so she was now in dire need of a substitute swim. It hadn’t been a difficult compromise to make in the end because she was in no mood to face Sascha again. She couldn’t care less about his feud with Louisa – if anything that lifted him higher in her estimations – but she’d trusted him and he’d taken her for a mug. She caved in about the after-school swim club too. Gary had her interests at heart and persuaded her to go whatever her view of the chairwoman.
“You need to put in your DTS claims to FD,” Louisa was saying.
Helen took a deep breath. Acronyms, it was like being pelted by a typewriter. She felt like a complete outsider. It was another Aldi moment – whenever she ventured out to shop in Dortmannhausen village, she felt an acute sense of foreignness. She’d only ever felt alien once before moving to Germany and that was on a student holiday in Sri Lanka where the people had stared and smiled, and some had asked to have their photo taken with her. It had been a good-natured curiosity and she went home feeling exotic and beautiful. But being foreign in Germany meant awkward supermarket visits where unsmiling cashiers scanned her shopping, rang up her bill and had her change ready before she’d even opened her purse. And now this meeting, on the supposedly home territory of Gary’s school, was pocked with jargon she didn’t understand.
“Let’s move on to Item 4: Paired Teaching,” Louisa said.
Helen checked her watch. Item 4, the bloody woman had started the meeting without her.
The bloody woman was still speaking. “Now this is a new initiative of mine. Darren. I assume you’re working with John?”
The man next to Helen nodded.
“And I’m with Kate.” Louisa paused, her gaze lingering on Helen.
Helen, partnerless, looked down, pulling her sleeves over her hands, feeling like a teenager picked on by the mean girl. Then a shoot of defiance grew in her. “Mel, have you got a partner yet?” she said, pushing a tone of confidence into her question which she didn’t feel.
Mel flushed. “I …”
“Do you want to work with me?” Helen said before Louisa could intervene.
Mel smiled, blushing even redder. Helen smiled back, trying to hide the smugness of her victory over Louisa. This was more like her old self – assertive; inventive; no problem too large; no petty-minded, coral pink chairwoman too small.
But her triumph was short-lived. Louisa trumped her. “Mel’s the changing room monitor. She’s here to take the minutes.” Mel picked up her pen obediently. “But you won’t need a partner, Helen, while you’re observing classes.”
“Observing? I’ve got several years’ experience. I don’t think …”
“Not here you haven’t.” Louisa tapped the edge of her papers against her knee to straighten them out.
“But you’re desperate for teachers. I read the newsletter. Some of you are having to double up classes. What do the rest of you …?” Helen’s voice trailed off; no one was looking at her. She’d been the head coach of the most successful junior squad in the West Midlands but here in this stupid drain of a swimming pool, she was an invisible nobody in over-heavy sports kit. Roll on half-term; she was getting the hell out.
14 (#ulink_bd35b431-f02d-5fe7-8f07-1e95121f3a7a)
Thursday, 6 May
Helen stood on the doorstep to see Gary off to work. Her smile made her face ache; she was turning into a proper housewife. Gary’s mobile rang on the hall table. The screen said: Steve C calling. She grabbed the phone and caught up with him by the car, but Gary cancelled the call.
“Not important then?” she asked.
