August 2019
I stared at the building where I would spend most of my time for the next year, or even two, with a mixture of hope, fear and resentment.
‘Just a few months,’ I whispered to myself. ‘Just a few months, and then you can get back to normal.’
I pushed my sunglasses up on top of my head so I could see better and squinted in the brightness. It was an old-fashioned school building. The sort of building that in London would have been converted into luxury flats years ago. It had black iron railings, a paved area at the front with hopscotch markings and two entrances, over which in the stonework was carved “boys” and “girls”. I knew that at the back was a more modern extension, but staring at the front I felt like I’d gone back in time.
My stomach lurched with nerves and I took a step backwards, lowering my sunglasses again like a shield.
‘Chin up, Lizzie,’ I told myself sternly. ‘You’ve got this.’
But I wasn’t sure I did have it.
It was mid-morning but it was quiet. No one was around and I was glad. School didn’t start for another ten days though I’d come to Elm Heath early so I could move into my new house, get settled in, and generally find my feet a bit. It was very different here from my life in Clapham and I knew it was going to take some getting used to.
I took a deep, slightly shuddery breath as I thought about my ex-husband, Grant, who was – as far as I knew – still living in leafy South-West London. Predictably, he’d managed to emerge from the disaster of the last couple of years smelling of roses despite being asked to leave Broadway Common School before he was pushed. Never had the phrase “men fail up” seemed truer than when I’d discovered he’d walked into a fancy job in some think-tank, advising local councils on education policy and was earning more now than he’d ever done as a head teacher. Which was ironic considering one of the many, many things he’d done wrong was being creative with some of the school budgets.
Under my sunglasses, I felt a tear start to dribble down my nose and I reached up with one finger to wipe it away. I had to stay strong or I would fall apart. And yes, it wasn’t fair that I’d been treated with suspicion too, even though an investigation had proved that I hadn’t been involved in Grant’s misdemeanours whatsoever. But it was harder to prove I didn’t know anything about it, because while he was head of the huge junior school, I was in charge at the infants’ school next door. And as I’d soon discovered, no one really believed that I was innocent, despite what the official reports said. I’d waited for Grant to clear my name – to speak out on my behalf. But I was still waiting. Because as it turned out, Grant telling everyone I knew nothing would have effectively meant admitting he’d done all the things he was accused of. So instead he stayed quiet.
With the trust gone in our marriage, I’d found myself moving back to my mum’s house at the ripe old age of thirty-eight. And with the trust gone in my job, I’d resigned and applied for new posts all over the place – just to get away from London.
‘And here I am,’ I said out loud, still looking at Elm Heath Primary. Elm Heath was an ordinary school. It wasn’t a super, high-performing school; it was just a normal, nice-enough village primary. And that made it the perfect school for me to prove myself.
There was no doubt everything that had happened had left me needing to show the teaching world that I still had it, and I thought Elm Heath would give me that opportunity. As far as I could see, it was just a bit old-fashioned. The last head teacher had been in her job for yonks, and she’d been quite resistant to change. I thought I could drag the school into the twenty-first century, revitalise it, get my mojo back and then go back to London and to normality. Albeit a Grant-free normality.
I forced a small smile. This was just a blip, I thought to myself. Just a small hump in the road of my career. And perhaps a slightly bigger hump in the road of my personal life because despite everything he’d done, I still missed Grant. I missed being part of a team. The Mansfields. Grant and Elizabeth. A double act. A “you two”. Now it was just me.
Sighing, I picked up my bag. I’d moved into my tiny terraced house yesterday – my whole life reduced to a few boxes of books – but it was still chaotic and I had a lot to do to get sorted before term started. I really should get on with it.
As I turned to walk away from the school a voice shouted from the playground.
‘Ms Armstrong? Yoo-hoo! Ms Armstrong!’
I ignored it for a split second and then looked back over my shoulder as it dawned on me that I was Ms Armstrong. I’d applied for this job in my maiden name – part of my plan to be “me” instead of Grant’s other half.
Across the playground, a short woman – perhaps ten years older than me – came barrelling towards the gate.
‘Wait!’ she called. ‘I’ll let you in!’
I groaned as I recognised her from one of my interviews. It was Paula Paxton, the deputy head. Grant would have said she was the perfect mix of overenthusiastic and underachieving. Though she’d been very nice to me when I met her before, I just wasn’t really in the mood for company.
‘Ms Armstrong,’ she panted as she unlocked the gate. ‘I saw you from my office and thought you would want to come in rather than lurk outside. So I said to myself, I said “Paula, run downstairs and let her in – she doesn’t want to be lurking outside,” and I raced downstairs and then when I saw you pick your bag up, I thought I’d missed you.’
Faced with such jollity, I winced. Despite how nice Paula had seemed at my interview, I wasn’t sure I could deal with her kindness today when I was feeling fragile. She saw my reaction and she paused while opening the iron gate.
‘I’m babbling,’ she said. ‘I always babble when I meet new people. I’m sorry.’
I managed a weak smile. ‘Don’t be,’ I said.
She reached out and took my bag from me.
‘Coffee?’
I smiled more genuinely this time. ‘Coffee would be great.’
I followed her through the echoey corridors of the school. Generally, I disliked schools out of hours. They needed the children to make them feel alive, I always thought. But today, I appreciated the quiet stillness of the building. It was cool inside, no fancy air-conditioning could compete with hundred-year-old thick stone walls.
I was wearing a vest top, cropped jeans and Havaianas that flipped and flopped loudly down the hall. Paula Paxton was dressed for work in a neat wrap dress with court shoes and – I thought – nude tights. It was thirty degrees outside, and it was the summer holidays, so I wondered if she dressed like that all the time. On the beach. At the gym.
‘God, I’m so hot,’ she said, over her shoulder. ‘I’ve been to a funeral.’
Oops.
‘Sorry,’ I muttered, feeling horrible for having had nasty thoughts about her. Paula waved her hand at me.
‘Nah, don’t be. It was some client of my husband’s firm. I only went so I could bring the car home afterwards because I need to go to the supermarket later, and I could have got the bus, but I’ll have a lot of bags …’
I smiled and she stopped.
‘Babbling again,’ she said. ‘Here are the offices.’
She opened a door on her left. It was an original, thick with paint and with a wobbly window on the top half.
Inside was a sort of reception area with seating and two desks for the secretaries I assumed. Beyond it were two more doors, similarly old-fashioned, one marked “head teacher” and one marked “deputy head teacher”.
‘I’m on the left,’ she said. ‘I teach as well, obviously, so I don’t use my office much. But I have the coffee machine. Milk and sugar?’
After suffering in too many staffrooms where the only refreshments on offer were clumpy catering tins of instant, I was pleasantly surprised to hear there was a coffee machine. I smiled.
‘Just milk, please. I’ll just have a look at my own office if that’s okay?’
‘Hold on,’ she said. She opened the top drawer of one of the desks and pulled out a key.
‘This is yours.’
I wondered if there was any point in keeping a key just centimetres away from the door it unlocked but I didn’t say anything. Instead I simply unlocked the door.
‘I’ll fire up the Nespresso,’ Paula said. ‘Well, it’s not a real Nespresso, because they’re so expensive. It’s just the Marks and Sparks version, but I find it’s just as good …’
She trailed off, much to my relief.
‘Just come in when you’re ready.’
I nodded and, taking a deep breath, I went into my new office.
It was pretty bare. There was a big desk by the window, a round table, and two empty bookcases. On one wall there was an old-fashioned black and white photograph of a young woman wearing what I thought was Edwardian dress, and a fierce expression.
‘You’re going to have to go,’ I told her out loud. ‘I can’t have you looking down on me so disapprovingly.’
My voice bounced around the empty room.
Suddenly overwhelmed by everything, I sat down at my new desk and put my face in my hands. This was my last chance to save my career and start again but it just seemed like a huge task. Was this going to be a massive mistake?