On Monday, I go to see my department head and ask for compassionate leave for the funeral. When she asks me who passed away, I tell her a friend. She says sorry, and I’m granted time off. I suppose you’re wondering why I never told her it was my boyfriend, but come on – she would’ve questioned how, why and when, and I don’t have concrete answers. Unless I’ve missed it, the local news has reported nothing and I can’t bring myself to call Jack’s family. They might call me Clare. Besides, I lied about being sick last week when it happened. I’m new to this school, remember. I don’t want to be thought of as a liability.
Except I am.
Year Ten are preparing for their mocks and all I can do is put them into groups, telling them to devise ‘whatever they like’. I spend the double period going back and forth to the staff toilets trying to pull myself together. Luckily, the kids don’t seem to notice.
At lunchtime, I’m cornered entering the drama hall.
‘Miss, Miss, can I audition for the musical?’ asks the lad, confident. Perhaps Year Eight. He flashes a brace-dressed smile and despite a baby-soft jawline, he reeks of aftershave.
‘What’s your name?’ I ask.
‘Jonah Matthews, Miss.’
‘You know today’s the recalls, Jonah. The main auditions were last week.’
‘Please, Miss. Please?’
‘Fine. Grab your lunch and come back in ten minutes.’
‘AH, FANKS, MISS!’
‘Pronounce your “TH”, Jonah. You can’t be an actor if you don’t work hard on your articulation.’
‘Sure fing, Miss,’ he winks at me. He actually winks at me. ‘Fank you. I mean, TH-ank you. Can I bring my girlfriend, Miss?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘We’ve got too many girls already.’
‘That’s sexist. Give her a chance.’
‘It’s not sexist, Jonah – your girlfriend missed out.’
‘Well, I fink it’s sexist, Miss. Unless you fancy me, Miss. Are you jealous?’
‘Jonah Matthews get your lunch now before I put you on detention.’
God, that’s exhausted me. I ache.
Gathering the recalled students into a circle, I assign Layla Birch to lead a warm-up game of Zip, Zap, Boing. This means I can sit in the corner on a plastic chair drawing doodles, pretending to be doing something important like marking essays or counting names on a register. I let the game go on much longer than necessary, telling myself that it’s cool because I’m still waiting for Si – Mr Sullivan, the music teacher and brainchild behind this musical – to show up.
I say ‘brainchild’; I jest.
He’s written this musical himself, a story of a starlet arriving in the big city without a dime (yep, a dime) in her pocket but a heart full of dreams. I know, I know. The music will be mashups of famous show tunes and obscure songs that only true fans of Broadway will know, mixed in with some current music – you know, to ‘keep it real’.
Layla Birch is politely calling my name.
‘Are we going to start soon?’ she asks.
I look up from my impressively shaded biro drawing of a Venus fly trap and see that Layla has ended the warmup game and got everybody to sit cross-legged in the circle: focused, ready. They even have their eyes closed.
‘It’s the breathing techniques Mr Sullivan teaches,’ Layla assures me. ‘They help with nerves and anxiety.’
She’s brilliant, Layla Birch. I’ve only been at this school a few weeks, covering for a teacher on maternity leave, and admittedly I’m not great with names, but Layla Birch stood out to me from the word go. Attentive, keen and passionate about drama, she’s dyslexic but is determined to excel. And she will. She’s got that spark – one that can’t be taught.
‘Sorry, sorry, sorry,’ Si Sullivan runs into the drama hall, flapping.
He heads straight for the piano, making an absolute meal of laying out his sheet music.
‘Thank goodness the show isn’t until October,’ he reassures us all; but frankly, he lost the room on his first ‘sorry’. Breathing techniques ended with a group sigh, and heightened chatter has since broken out.
I leave it in Si’s flappy hands to regain control. I’m fixating on the word ‘October’. October. Oct …
Thank goodness the show isn’t until …
October.
That’s one, two, three … four months away. Half term.
‘It’ll fly by,’ Jack had said to me, recently. A week ago, maybe. ‘Vietnam. October.’
‘Seems a shame we can’t go this summer though,’ I’d said. ‘I’ve got six weeks off.’
The true crime documentary was on pause while I made a cuppa and Jack laid his wet socks on the radiator in the lounge. The heating wasn’t on – it wasn’t cold enough – but it’s how he hung his washing out to dry regardless, whenever it was raining.
‘I can’t take time off during this project,’ Jack went on. ‘It’s our biggest client and the deadline is end of August. I’ll get bank holiday off, though. We could go camping. Dorset, maybe?’
‘So I’ve got to wait ’til almost the end of the school hols to go camping? In this country?’ I’d glanced towards the garden, to the rain lashing down outside.
‘Not necessarily, darlin’. You can still go abroad if you want, just without me.’
I’d squeezed the teabag against the side of the mug with a spoon, turning the milky tea orange. If this were some other early relationship, I would’ve been cautious of seeming needy; worried about giving off the air that I couldn’t possibly have a life beyond my fella. But not with Jack. We hadn’t played any mind games or stuck to the sweepingly generic rules to keep each other keen. We were keen. And not ashamed to show it.
‘No, I’ll save me money,’ I’d said, tossing the teaspoon into the sink.
‘For Vietnam? In October? Avec moi?’
‘Yes, yes, and oui.’
‘Trust me. It’ll fly by,’ Jack had said again, and I believed him.
‘What did you say, Miss Roscoe?’ Si asks me, lifting his chin above the piano.
The drama hall is in silence and when I look up from my doodles, all eyes are on me.
I smile. We must be ready to start. A few sniggers waft over and some kids give me that look, as if I’ve just started dad-dancing in the nude. My smile remains fixed, but I’m confused.
‘You said something,’ Si says, and he cups his ear with his hand.
‘I didn’t,’ I tell him.
‘You did.’
‘No, I didn’t—’
‘You did, Miss,’ Layla says, her frustration apparent. ‘You said, “It’ll fly by”.’
‘I did?’ I ask.
Layla nods, as do some others.
Oh, God.
I try to wrench myself back to the present, but I can’t stop thinking about Jack. I realise how right he had been. Okay, we weren’t going on a big holiday for four months. But so what? In that time I’d be settling into the flat, exploring London, making dinner, going out for dinner, drinking in pub beer gardens, hitting a few festivals at the weekends, meeting old friends, making new friends, and of course, going to our Kit’s wedding, all with Jack. I think of the fridge. Our plans. Jack wanted to teach me how to ski. Me! Ski! Of course the time would fly by. Everything I’ve just listed sounds like pure heaven – the best four months I could possibly imagine. And fuck me, forgive me for using a big old cliché, but time flies when you’re having fun, doesn’t it?
Si and the students are still looking at me, waiting for an explanation.
‘I was just warning you all,’ I say, forced authority in my voice. ‘Mr Sullivan mentioned that the show isn’t until October, but don’t be fooled. It’ll fly by.’
Layla closes her eyes, dramatically taking my words fully on board. Si slams the piano with his elbow and grabs his throat with one hand, pretending to be strangled.
‘Aggghh! You’ve scared me to death, Miss Roscoe!’ he screeches.
One kid, a little Year Seven girl, finds this funny. But it’s her and her alone, and when she realises, she slaps her hands across her mouth, mortified.
A restless energy has returned.
‘FOCUS,’ I yell, ‘or there won’t be any auditions and I’ll allocate parts willy-nilly.’
Shit. Can’t believe I just said ‘willy-nilly’.
I don’t want to be here. I shouldn’t be here. Why the hell am I here? Why?
I take a deep breath.
When I arrive home, Jack’s smell will hit me. His fat thumbprint on the bathroom mirror will take me by surprise. His drawer will invite me to choose a t-shirt I can wear to sleep in on the sofa. That’s why I’m here – to have those precious snippets to look forward to.
Jonah Matthews appears with his whole crew. ‘Are we on time, Miss?’
He’s brought his girlfriend regardless of what I said, presuming his girlfriend is the one almost twice his height with an intimidating stare and a lip piercing.
‘Right, let’s get started,’ I say.
Si bashes out a chirpy eight bars of generic cheesy musical theatre. I’m not sure I have the energy to see this through – even walking towards the piano makes my legs ache.
‘Everything okay, Miss Roscoe?’ Si asks, a rhetorical question if ever there was one.
I give one, bold nod.
‘Layla Birch,’ I say, returning to my Venus fly trap doodle. ‘You’re up first.’
*
After school, I pick up a decent bottle of wine from the Sainbury’s Local. The auditions went well. A few dodgy performances and, unexpectedly, Layla Birch messed up her lyrics, but on the whole, I was impressed.
As I open the front door, I stumble upon a package.
It’s soft, small enough to get through the letterbox.
I pick it up and read who it’s addressed to.
Miss Chloe Roscoe (and Jack!)
I recognise the writing.
Fishing out the contents, I feel the soft cotton between my thumb and fingers. It’s the beige gingham cushion covers, two of them, all ready to slip onto plain square cushions and add a bit of home from home. If Jack were here, oh how we’d laugh. I’d insist we didn’t use them, but Jack would disagree. He’d love how much I hate them. He’d make poor Rudolf redundant just to revel in this moment for as long as possible, winding me up to the point of me admitting that, fine, I can learn to like them. I slump against the radiator and squeeze the gingham so hard that I wouldn’t be surprised if it bled. The handwritten note accompanying the package has fallen beside me on the floor.
Congratulations on your new home! We hope you’re both really happy there.
Love Mum and Dad xxx