Mr Whitman had had the foresight to wait until the bell had rung and everyone had gone inside before he had taken Nancy into the school.
Now she was sitting in the chair in James Whitman’s office, only this time he hadn’t joined her opposite, instead he’d remained behind his desk.
‘She’s a nasty bully,’ said Nancy. ‘She has systematically bullied my child pretty much since Lara started here.’
‘Is that why you laid your hands on her?’ asked Mr Whitman.
What? He wasn’t listening. He was focusing only on a single moment in time, not the campaign that had led her to snap. God, it wasn’t as if she hadn’t tried to alert them to this before.
She tried again. ‘Mr Whitman, on Halloween night, Rosie and her friends ganged up on Lara and pushed her on the roundabout in the village park at such speed she could barely stand and then they squirted her with fake blood, while she was unable to defend herself.’ She looked at him, confident of a reaction of disgust, horror, even alarm, but there was nothing. She pushed on. ‘And then, just now in the playground, Rosie took her water bottle and squirted Lara again.’
‘With water?’
‘Of course water,’ snapped Nancy. ‘She’s hardly going to have fake blood here at school, is she? The point is, she’s reasserting her power over Lara. She’s reminding her of what she did at Halloween – something that Lara found incredibly traumatizing.’
‘I’m really sorry to hear that,’ said Mr Whitman, ‘and I sympathize with both you and Lara. As I’ve said to you before, we are aware of the friction between the two girls and we are managing it. Has anything else happened within the school grounds . . .?’ – he looked at her enquiringly and Nancy was forced to acknowledge a negative – ‘Good,’ he continued, ‘so our processes are working—’
‘They are not,’ said Nancy, even while she was thinking: what processes?
‘If Lara hasn’t been the victim of bullying in the school, then something is working. Of course we can’t be across everything the children get up to outside of school but we are open to hearing about things, and this Halloween situation is exactly the sort of event that I am glad you have brought to my attention. It’s unacceptable,’ he said firmly, making eye contact with her to reinforce his words.
Did she believe him? He sounded genuine enough. He sounds like a politician, saying what you want to hear, the devil inside her said.
‘Mrs Miller, in our last Ofsted report – which I’m sure you’ve read – there is a particular mention of how effective our anti-bullying policy is. We all need to adhere to it. In no circumstances is it ever acceptable for a parent to lay hands on another child. If it happens again, I will have to escalate this. Do you understand?’
Later, she called Beth.
‘The sneaky little bitch,’ said Beth. ‘You should have been equally sneaky, grabbed her somewhere no one could see.’
‘Oh Beth,’ said Nancy, exhausted. She sank into the chair and gazed out of the living room windows. The sky was grey and foreboding. A flurry of fallen leaves ran riot across the garden.
‘I feel bad.’
‘You feel bad?’
‘She’s a horrible child,’ said Nancy, ‘and I hate what she’s doing to Lara, but you didn’t see me there in that playground. I was . . . awful. So angry, so full of rage.’ She paused. ‘I didn’t like myself.’
‘You were protecting your child,’ said Beth softly. ‘You think a lioness bothers to be polite when her cubs are threatened? “Excuse me, Mr Hyena, but could you please leave my baby alone and not have her for your dinner?” No! She bares her teeth and sod the consequences.’
‘But this is a civilized society, not the savannah.’
‘Try telling that to Rosie.’
Nancy was silent for a moment. ‘The other night . . . after the whole Halloween thing, I couldn’t sleep. I was thinking violent thoughts.’
‘You and me both. Martin couldn’t believe it when I got home and told him what had happened.’
Nancy sighed. She knew her friend was trying to help but she felt out of her depth.
‘Look, it’s only because you’ve been backed into a corner,’ said Beth. ‘It’s natural. It’s not like you’re going to do anything for real.’
‘I know.’
‘OK, so let’s look at our options,’ said Beth. ‘Move schools?’
‘Again?’ said Nancy, her heart sinking.
‘Exactly. Lara has only just arrived.’ Beth paused. ‘Actually, I took the liberty . . . I called the next two closest schools to you, to check. They’re both full.’
So there was no chance of moving anyway, thought Nancy.
‘It’s seven months until the end of the year. Five and a half, if you take off the holidays.’
Both a flash in the pan and an everlasting sentence, thought Nancy.
‘Maybe, now you’ve spoken to Rosie – and whatever you say about your technique, I do think what you did is a good thing – maybe she’ll lay off,’ said Beth.
Would she? Had she been frightened into submission? Most bullies backed off if people stood up to them, this Nancy believed. Maybe there was a glimmer of hope.