The Roman soldiers were lined up smartly, twirling prettily in the faint breeze, the ghost-breath. Light rain was falling half-heartedly past the windows, almost as if it couldn’t be bothered. It was quarter past four.
Noah Forsyth’s teacher sat back in her chair, relieved, as his parents left the room. That hadn’t gone as badly as it might have done, and it was good that they’d discussed it. It was hard being a teacher sometimes – you ended up being responsible for far more than a child’s education, and you had to be careful not to overstep the line to wanting to become their mother too. But she’d thought about it carefully, discussed with the head beforehand what she was going to say – and anyway she owed it to Noah, he was such a sweet little boy, underneath.
It was odd how Mrs Forsyth seemed to have softened these days, Miss Pridmore thought. She knew it had been hard for her to come into school when she and her husband were still being splashed all over the news all the time, and it must have been particularly awful for her to have been virtually accused of being a murderer like that. Still, she thought, there was no way she would have left a friend in that situation, no matter how drunk she was – sometimes it seemed the more money people had, the fewer morals they possessed, even if they did just about manage to operate within the confines of the law.
But somehow today Mrs Forsyth had seemed less uptight, less angry than normal, and Noah certainly seemed happier of late too. It was funny how kids sometimes seemed to fare better after the parents had split up – Miss Pridmore had seen enough children throughout her career to know that staying together wasn’t always the answer. Mrs Forsyth had seemed genuinely interested in what she’d had to say too, as though she was trying desperately hard to support her son. Even the husband had turned up for a change, and although the atmosphere between Mr and Mrs Forsyth had been terribly strained, it was a step forward – he never used to come when he and his wife were still together.
Miss Pridmore made a note in her diary to book the session for Noah with the school counsellor, and then she shuffled her papers, adjusted her glasses, took a deep breath, and went over to the classroom door where she welcomed in the parents of Rupert Rees-Smith, who, she would be obliged to inform them, was having trouble with his maths.