‘Like to the time o’ th’ year between the extremes of hot and cold […] nor sad nor merry’
(Antony and Cleopatra)
It had been warm enough last night to open wide the bedroom window but now the early morning rain was pattering against the gently flapping blind and chilling the bedroom.
Stretching her body beneath the rose-print duvet, Kelsey allowed herself to drift off again, thanks to the slowly dawning realisation that she needn’t have bothered setting an alarm last night. She had nowhere to go. No six-thirty wake-up, no crowded hour-long bus journey alongside the steely waters of the Forth into Edinburgh, and no hurried coffee shop breakfast on her way to the camera emporium. There was plenty of time to look for jobs later; for the first time in a long time she was going to sleep the morning away. Kelsey’s dozy thoughts were cut off abruptly by a loud buzz from her phone. She peered, bleary-eyed, at Fran’s message.
Lifting the blind, Kelsey stuck her head out the window into the grey May morning. Sure enough, there on the doorstep below was Calum’s present in a supermarket carrier bag.
‘Fran, you wally!’
Racing out to retrieve the dripping bag she wrapped the sodden gift in a towel that had been warming all night on her mum’s ancient stove, shaking her head and muttering obscenities as she went.
The heat from the stove spread out across the kitchen, warming the cracked quarry tile floor. It was always so cosy in there, her favourite room in the house. Flipping the kettle on and finding a mug, a little tug of guilt troubled her. It was telling her that at least Fran had made the effort to make the round trip of forty minutes before he went to work that morning, and in this weather too. In his own way he was trying his best. And he’d known not to wake her. Although she’d have loved to pull him into bed with her this morning, just for a few minutes, or maybe a bit longer.
Distractedly taking her first sip of milky coffee, Kelsey imagined Fran heading off to his school in his suit and tie with that leather belt taut around his trim waist. He’d be freshly shaved and smelling of the expensive aftershave she’d given him for Christmas, deep citrus and spice. Bounding back upstairs, mug in hand, she grabbed her phone and tapped hurriedly:
Then with a deep breath, Kelsey propped herself up on her bed, her laptop primed and coffee steaming. ‘Let the job hunt begin.’
‘Sweet Jesus, I’m in a Harry Potter movie.’
Kelsey brought herself to a sharp halt as she entered Greywalls’ school grounds through the gate of the porter’s lodge. She had seen pictures of Fran’s school but hadn’t quite realised how ancient and imposing it really was. It loomed against the blustery blue sky, turreted and impenetrable, somewhere between a castle and a military barracks.
Following the path – Fran had pre-warned her not to walk on the grass – Kelsey clutched the handwritten visitor’s permit the old porter had given her, keeping a carbon copy on his clipboard.
‘Pull the bell by the main door and ask for Mrs Craven. She’s expecting you,’ he’d said in a shaking voice, pointing a crooked finger across the quadrangle.
Kelsey half expected the impossibly Dickensian gent to tug at a forelock – if he’d had any hair – and put out a hand for a shiny penny. He seemed rooted to his spot by the lodge window as though he’d been there since the laying of the school’s foundation stones.
‘What am I doing here?’ Kelsey muttered to herself as she passed the statue in the centre of the quad celebrating the stern minister who first sponsored the school. He glared down at her, blank-eyed and straight of mouth.
Her job search hadn’t proven as fruitful as she’d hoped. Fran had taken pity on her and had a word with Mr Stevenson, the headmaster. An agreement had been come to that the school would at least take a look at her – Fran’s words – and so here she was, nervous and dispirited and seriously wishing herself back at Mr McLennan’s cosy, quiet shop.
As she reached the door Kelsey set her jaw and took a breath deep enough to get her through the entire job interview. It was cold in the shadow of the building and she found herself increasingly aware of the inappropriateness of her outfit; a simple grey jumper under her thin coat, a mustard yellow cord skirt, and long brown boots with thick grey tights, perfect, she’d thought back at home this morning, for a chilly day by the coast.
To her surprise a schoolboy opened the door and took the slip from her hand as she explained why she was here. Wordlessly, he nodded and indicated that she should step inside. The whiff of boiling cauliflower told her it was nearing the boys’ lunchtime. The child, dressed in a long flowing red frock coat, walked her briskly along a corridor lined with busts of eminent whiskery men.
‘Thank you, Wilson. Off you go to the refectory now,’ shrilled an imperious Morningside accent when they reached the doorway at the end of the corridor. The boy scurried away, leaving Kelsey wondering what to do next.
‘Miss Anderson? Step inside please,’ came the voice again.
Kelsey followed it, bobbing her head around the door frame before presenting herself. A severe-looking woman of seventy or thereabouts was sitting behind the oldest computer Kelsey had ever seen. Its fan whirred noisily.
‘Come in, Miss Anderson. You’ll be having some tea?’
Kelsey wondered if that was a question or an instruction. ‘Um, no thank you. I’ve just had some,’ she lied. In fact, she’d have loved a cup but something in the woman’s demeanour told her she wasn’t truly keen on making her one.
Kelsey looked at the empty chair by the desk. She hadn’t been asked to sit down yet, so she stood as casually as she could, with her hands fidgeting by her sides.
‘My name is Mrs Craven. I’ve been secretary to Greywalls School since 1971. I’m sure Mr Archer informed you of my retirement plans. I hadn’t intended to commence interviews until the summer, but here we are.’ This was followed by a slight tick at the corner of her mouth. ‘You are very fortunate to have a young man like Mr Archer vouching for you to our headmaster.’
Kelsey tipped her head to the side, trying to smooth her pleating brows. This sounded like some kind of accusation, as though she’d used her wiles and influence to beg a job. Far from it; she’d only agreed to come to shut Fran up.
‘Umm, thanks. Mr Archer is lovely, yes.’
Hearing Fran referred to as Mr Archer was very strange indeed, as was the feeling that she was imposing on Mrs Craven’s daytime regime in her neat little office.
The secretary seemed to snort as she shuffled papers on her desk. Kelsey quickly cast an eye over the walls, taking in the framed black and white photographs of proud and studious boys, all jutting elbows and shiny knees; row upon row and decade upon decade of privileged education, acne breakouts, and healthy Greywalls discipline.
‘Tour, Miss Anderson?’ The secretary suddenly stalked out of the room, taking the opportunity to run a cool eye down Kelsey’s outfit as she went. Kelsey pattered down the corridors behind her, wondering if she was supposed to be taking notes.
Mrs Craven occasionally called out over her shoulder. ‘Staff kitchen on the left. That’s where you’d make Headmaster’s tea. Milk, no sugar. Bursar’s office on the right. Nurse’s station at the end of the corridor. This is the store cupboard for the tuck shop stock. I keep the key for that. Any questions so far?’
‘No, got it.’ Kelsey wanted to sound efficient and clipped like Mrs Craven, but it came out brusque and rude instead. ‘I mean, no questions, thank you.’
Mrs Craven turned to face Kelsey, her eyes boring into her. ‘Headmaster likes his girls smartly turned out.’
His girls? Kelsey suppressed a shudder.
‘What sort of thing do you mean?’
‘Something along these lines would be suitable.’ Mrs Craven swept a papery-skinned hand downwards indicating her own lemon yellow twinset and pearls and fixed hairdo much like Her Majesty the Queen’s. ‘No trousers, short nails, no make-up, only lipstick. Court shoes, no higher than a two inch heel. Our parents expect a certain… professionalism.’
‘Will there be a regulation gym knickers check?’ Kelsey clapped a hand to her mouth, but it was too late.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Nothing. Sorry.’
Mrs Craven turned on her heel (regulation height, of course) and marched back towards her office, shaking her head, leaving Kelsey to trudge behind her again, rolling her eyes at her own stupidity. She took the opportunity to give herself a stern talking to.
I’m more likely to get a detention than a job. Buck up your ideas, Kelse! This must be why Fran never invites me to the school Christmas parties or the kids’ science fairs. I’m not smartly turned out enough. Not professional enough. And he’s right too.
She turned into Mrs Craven’s office already feeling utterly dejected but determined to put a brave face on it. She found the woman sitting behind her computer again. This time Kelsey was invited to sit down too.
‘Your curriculum vitae was certainly… interesting.’ Mrs Craven worked her lips as though wondering at a sudden sour taste.
‘Thank you?’ Kelsey said in an uncertain voice into stony silence.
‘Degrees in theatre and history are all very well, Miss Anderson, but have you any secretarial experience?’
There it was. Straight in for the kill. She’d told Fran she wasn’t cut out for an admin job but would he listen? Why had she let him talk her into this?
‘Until recently I was an assistant in a camera shop. I did stock-taking and answered the phone, worked the till, and I had a key, so… lots of responsibility there.’ Her voice tailed off at the sight of Mrs Craven smoothing the pleats in her skirt with undisguised impatience.
‘Can you type, Miss Anderson?’
‘Yes.’
‘What is your WPM?’
‘W…?’
‘I’d expect a Greywalls secretary to type at seventy words per minute with one hundred per cent accuracy.’
‘Would you?’ Kelsey’s voice squeaked, making her suck her lips in nervously.
Mrs Craven was on the move again. ‘Take my seat, please,’ she instructed.
‘Oh, OK.’ Kelsey shifted round the desk, perching on the threadbare cushion.
‘Knees under the desk, Miss Anderson. Elbows at a ninety-degree angle, back straight. Optimum typing position.’
Kelsey glanced up at Mrs Craven who added imperiously, ‘I attended the Gilmour and Bryson secretarial college. There was no such thing as repetitive strain injury in my day; we assumed the correct posture before the keys.’
Kelsey’s eyes widened and just as she was worrying she might blurt out a childish laugh, Mrs Craven whisked a black canvas bag from behind her back and placed it over Kelsey’s keyboard and spoke again. ‘Hands inside the bag, eyes on the monitor. Please re-type the letter on the desk.’
‘I’m sorry, what?’
‘Touch-typing, Miss Anderson, is a necessity. Do you mean to tell me you look at the keys as you type and not at the words as they appear?’
‘Um, yes,’ Kelsey nodded. Like everyone else on the planet.
‘A great typist never looks down. That was the Gilmour and Bryson girls’ motto.’
‘I see.’ Kelsey gulped and slipped her hands into the bag, her fingertips finding the keys, but which, she had no idea. Oh balls!
It was only after a mortifying five minutes of jabbing blindly inside the bag and failing to recreate a single word of the letter accurately while her temperature soared and her heart pounded that Kelsey realised Mrs Craven was side-eying her from over by the book case.
‘You can’t type?’
‘I can. I typed all my undergraduate essays and an MA thesis.’
The woman crossed the room and whipped the bag from the keyboard, raising an eyebrow at Kelsey’s hands. ‘With two fingers?’
‘Possibly.’
‘And how is your shorthand note-taking?’ Mrs Craven’s voice was grave and dramatic as though she’d asked, ‘And you’ve kicked how many puppies?’
‘Umm…’
‘That good?’
Kelsey didn’t bother telling Mrs Craven she could probably take dictation longhand and nobody would die as a result, or that the headmaster could stoop to taking his own bloody notes in the post Mrs Craven era, but instead she looked down at her hands on her lap.
‘I thought this job would be more about running the school’s social media sort of stuff and organising the boys’ bassoon lessons and school trips.’ Kelsey’s shoulders drooped.
This is it. This is the day I’ll always remember as the day I plumbed the murkiest depths of my own arsehattery and incompetence. If they were giving out medals for unemployability, I’d be a fully decorated veteran.
When she looked up, Mrs Craven was standing by the office door, smiling thinly, holding out Kelsey’s coat and bag. Evidently, the interview was over and Kelsey was not destined to be a Greywalls Girl.
‘Not coming back then?’ asked the porter matter-of-factly as Kelsey signed herself out of the school grounds.
She shook her head as she handed his pen back. No, she wouldn’t be back and she’d doubly ensured she’d never, ever be invited to the headmaster’s end of term drinks party in his office. She’d never had any desire to be a staff WAG anyway, but still. Now she understood why she hadn’t been asked before.
Mirren answered her phone after just two rings as Kelsey reached the bus stop. The interview post-mortem was conclusive: death by ineptitude and mortifying class difference.
‘I knew Fran was from another world to me,’ Kelsey lamented, ‘and I knew he’d had his fancy Greywalls education and his private home tutors while me and you bumbled on doing our best at the local high school, even if it was a bit rough, but today, in that fancy school, it felt like me and Fran are from different planets.’
Mirren interjected the occasional sympathetic, ‘mmm’.
‘And I hadn’t forgotten that while I was contented just pottering around the Sunday market or having a chippy tea with Mum and Dad he was brought up at his dad’s golf club and at the cricket pavilion; but I’d never actually twigged that those differences mean I’m an embarrassment to him. Ugh, what is he going to say when he hears about this?’
‘He’ll say he’s sorry you didn’t get the job and that Mrs Speed-typist of the year 1882 is a miserable old cow,’ said Mirren.
Kelsey wasn’t so sure, but she was glad of Mirren’s optimism. By the time the bus arrived to take her home, Mirren had Kelsey smiling again. ‘Something special’s waiting for you, just around the corner. I know it. Hang on in there, Kelse… and maybe don’t let Fran arrange any more interviews for you, eh?’
‘I can give you my word that whatever I end up doing, it’ll be something a bit more… me.’