THREE HOURS LATER, still damp from a hasty shower, Hope shoved the Ginger, Lime and Coriander Chicken in the oven, with the hasselback potatoes on the lower shelf. She had been planning to get a salad to accompany the main course but as the meal deal included a bottle of wine and a pudding, a salad seemed a lot like shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted.
Tomorrow, once the children were back at school and she could settle into a proper routine, Hope vowed to start eating healthily again and go to the gym regularly to lose the ten pounds she’d put on over the summer. As it was, she’d looked so lumpen in the changing-room mirror that, as well as buying a set of sexy underwear, Hope had bought a matching slip to hide her pot belly and the faint traces of cellulite cascading down the backs of her thighs. Also, starting from tomorrow, she had to stop spending huge sums of money.
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow … it was time to be a grown-up again, Hope thought, as she got down the Russian tea glasses she liked to use as candle holders. They were back to eating dinner in front of the TV, but she could at least set the coffee table and establish a romantic, sexy vibe, because she and Jack, they were so having sex tonight. Preferably before ten, because Hope wanted an early night, but having sex would definitely get their relationship back on track.
As Hope arranged her candles on the coffee table and even re-polished the cutlery so it was especially sparkly, she could taste the fear and anticipation at the back of her throat. She couldn’t remember ever being this nervous about having sex, apart from their very first time, when she’d gone down to London to visit Jack when he was studying at St Martin’s and he’d booked a room in a sweet little bed and breakfast in Bloomsbury so it would be special and romantic.
Hope sighed a little at the memory of Jack hoisting her over his shoulders like a sack of potatoes so he could carry her over the threshold, just as she heard his key turn in the lock.
She hurried out into the hall in time to say, ‘You’re late,’ as soon as he walked through the door. She hadn’t meant to sound suspicious or a lot like the proverbial little woman worrying that the dinner would spoil, but that must have been what she sounded like because Jack’s face tightened, even as he held up a familiar green carrier bag.
‘I always make sure that I have a canvas tote scrunched up in my bag so I don’t have to pay five pence for a carrier,’ she heard herself say, instead of a husky, ‘Hard day at the office, dear?’
Jack dropped the environmentally damaging bag on the floor where something clinked promisingly. ‘God, I can’t do anything right, can I?’
It was all going wrong before Hope had even had a chance to make things right between them. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, padding forward to hug Jack, then losing her nerve at the last moment and gingerly prodding his arm instead. ‘I didn’t mean to be all confrontational as soon as you got home.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘I didn’t plan on being confrontational at all.’
‘I didn’t mean to be late,’ Jack said a little less sulkily, and he looked so defeated and tired, in a way that had nothing to do with a hard day at the office and everything to do with Hope shutting him out while she had alone-time, then keeping him up most of the night as she fidgeted, ground her teeth and fretted. ‘I thought I’d make us something nice for tea as it’s your last few hours of freedom.’
Hope drew a circle on the sea-grass carpet with her toe. ‘I had the same idea,’ she admitted, and then she placed her hand on her cocked hip, pressed her knees tightly together and stuck her chest out in a pose that a hurried read of Cosmo had told her was textbook sexy. If it was, Jack didn’t seem to appreciate it, even though Hope had convinced herself that the silvery-grey of the slip was the perfect foil for her hair and made her skin look like alabaster rather than just pasty. ‘I even laid the coffee table.’
Jack brushed past her so he could glance at the sensual ambience that Hope had created. ‘You should put coasters underneath those candle glasses, otherwise they’ll burn rings on the table,’ was all he said as Hope glared at the back of his head.
‘So, what’s for tea, then?’ Jack asked, blithely unaware that Hope was giving him the stink-eye. ‘Did you get one of those M&S meal deals?’
‘Yeah,’ Hope muttered, heading back to the kitchen. Once she’d checked on dinner, she might just as well change into her PJs as the new sexy undies had been a total waste of money. ‘Some fancy lime and ginger chicken thing and hasselback potatoes, though I’m not sure how a hasselback potato differs from a normal one.’
‘Me too,’ Jack said, as he followed her. ‘Not just about the hasselback potatoes. I got the lime and ginger chicken thing too, but then I got a poncy bagged salad.’
‘I thought about getting the salad,’ Hope exclaimed with more enthusiasm than a salad warranted but at least they were talking, rather than her sniping and Jack getting defensive. ‘What did you get for pud?’
‘Duh! Chocolate soufflés, of course!’
Hope was already opening the fridge, so she could pull out her chocolate soufflés. ‘Snap! And did you get the Shiraz?’
‘I got the rosé, because I know it’s your summer drink of choice and it’s still officially summer until the hordes of snot-nosed urchins march back into school.’
‘I got the Shiraz ’cause I know you prefer red,’ Hope said, her smile unforced and genuine for the first time in ever.
They got each other. They were in sync. That was all that really mattered.
‘I’m glad our hive mind isn’t broken,’ Jack said, as he put his arms around her. ‘I was kinda worried for a while.’
It was the perfect moment for a kiss, but instead Hope stood on tiptoes so she could rub her nose against Jack’s. It was the same silly but affectionate gesture they’d used as teenagers when they’d both been too shy to make the first move that would inevitably lead to a frenzied snogging session.
Hope felt, rather than saw, Jack’s smile, and his arms tightened around her momentarily until one hand slid down to cup an arse cheek. ‘When you bent down to get the soufflés out of the fridge, I got a flash of a pair of knickers that I don’t think I’ve seen before,’ he murmured awkwardly, because he didn’t have a suave line in bedroom patter. But Hope didn’t mind because neither did she and when Jack did try, he sounded so earnest that it was cute and sexy all at the same time.
‘They’re new.’ Hope looked up at him with her lashes lowered demurely, another move that Cosmo had sworn worked better than Viagra. She certainly had Jack’s undivided attention, as she pulled down one of the spaghetti straps of her new slip far enough to give him a glimpse of her other new purchase. ‘There’s a matching bra, too.’
Jack swallowed. ‘Right. So is there embroidery on the knickers as well?’
‘Well, yeah. It is a matching set.’
His hand, which had been absent-mindedly stroking her bum, now made a sneaky foray under her slip so he could smooth down the faux satin on her new undies. ‘I’d rather have a show than a tell, if that’s all right with you,’ Jack said, right before he kissed her.
Hope wound her arms around his neck and kissed him back with every last ounce of fervour she could muster. Which was a lot of ounces. They kissed desperately, tongues delving into each other’s mouth for the first time in what felt like weeks – though, surely, it hadn’t been that long?
When Jack pulled up her slip, Hope thought that it was time to move this to the bedroom. Then she thought that they should probably call a halt until after dinner because the chicken was just about ready. She even pulled her mouth free from Jack’s neck to say exactly that but no words came out, just a surprised squawk as Jack suddenly grasped her around the waist and hauled her up on to the worktop.
The effort of hoisting her on to the counter left Jack red-faced and panting, which wasn’t very flattering. Another mood-killer was the worktop, which Hope had just wiped down with a wet cloth while she was waiting for the oven to heat up. Now she could feel her knickers clinging damply to her arse and any
frisky, what-the-hell-let’s-just-do-it-right-here-right-now feelings she might have had were quickly evaporating.
Jack had other ideas. ‘You look so sexy tonight, Hopey,’ he declared, stepping nearer the counter and parting her legs so he could stroke his palms along her inner thighs. ‘Really, really sexy.’
She didn’t feel particularly sexy, sitting in a damp patch with her slip all rucked up so her freckly, wobbly thighs were on display, but Jack was looking at the shimmy of her breasts as Hope wriggled to get more comfortable and she could see his hard cock outlined in denim.
‘You look sexy too,’ she told him and he did, face flushed, hair rumpled by her fingers, tongue worrying at his bottom lip. ‘Kiss me again.’
Hope had been sure that the swoony feeling had gone, but when Jack kissed her, it came rushing back so all she wanted to do was wrap her legs around his hips so she could grind against his cock. She didn’t even mind when she heard a tearing sound as Jack pulled her new slip over her head, because the sooner it was off, the sooner he could kiss her again, hands fumbling behind her back as he worked her bra clasp.
Then it was her turn to free him of his worn leather belt and tug his jeans down just enough that she could wrap her hands around his cock. The weight and the length and the curve of him against her fingers was comforting and she didn’t want to think about Susie having her hands anywhere near Jack’s dick, which was her exclusive property.
She wanted those memories gone. Or at least, Hope wanted new memories to take their place and hot dirty sex in the kitchen was a good place to start. Still clutching hold of Jack’s dick, she grabbed one of his hands and hooked it into the waistband of her new knickers. ‘I really don’t mind if you rip these off me too,’ she said.
‘How about I just pull them off with great passion?’ Jack said, tugging them down as Hope obligingly lifted one bottom cheek then the other.
And they were back on familiar ground – Hope showed him where and how and soon his index finger was gently thrumming her clit and she could go back to jacking him off. Maybe there was something to be said for sitting on the kitchen worktop under the harsh glare of the fluorescent light, because when they weren’t stealing clinging, tender kisses from each other, Hope was able to look down and see clearly the effect her fingers were having. Though she wished that she didn’t have a pile of takeaway menus and advertising flyers trapped under her left buttock.
‘Stop,’ Jack muttered, against her mouth, reaching down to still her hand on his wet-tipped cock. ‘Stop … shall we go to the bedroom?’
He’d taken his hand away from her pussy. Hope yanked it back. ‘No, let’s do it right here,’ she said, scooching right to the edge of the counter.
‘You dirty cow.’ Jack grinned and even as he lined his cock up and slipped shallowly inside her, he rubbed her nose with his.
It was an awkward angle for Jack, who had to stand on tiptoes and thrust up to compensate for the fact that Hope wasn’t level with him, but it worked out just fine for her. He couldn’t go that deep but he was going hard and fast and managing to catch her clit every time. Her hands were tight on his hips, directing his every move, and she could hear the slap of their flesh, their ragged gasps and Jack whispering something in her ear, something she couldn’t quite make out.
Her hand crept up to tangle in his hair and rub circles on his scalp, and as she pushed forward with her hips she could feel her orgasm rising up, but still just out of reach, so she was biting her lip and whimpering in frustration. If only there was room for her to worm a hand between them.
Jack’s voice was getting louder and the words, which had been strung together in one indecipherable clump, suddenly became clear. ‘I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you,’ he said again and again, like it was a mantra, the magic chant that would wash away all the bad. And maybe it would, because Hope’s eyes snapped open, and as the words became a shout she was coming, hands dropping away from Jack to grip the edge of the counter tightly as her legs trapped him deep inside her. He stiffened, his muscles locking and then he was coming too, head dropping down to rest on her breasts, and still all he could say was, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you.’
Of course, the Ginger, Lime and Coriander Chicken and the hasselback potatoes were burnt extra crispy, but the half-hour they had to wait for the second batch of chicken to cook was a small price to pay, even if they had to eat it with the poncy bagged salad.
IN THE SPACE of half an hour on a Wednesday morning, Balls Pond Primary School went from a place of quiet, echoing emptiness to a place where the sound of 210 children’s voices became a deafening roar as their new school shoes scuffed the freshly waxed floors.
Hope felt twisted up with nerves as she stood at the door of her classroom wearing a smart grey dress for the first day back – but with a red felt flower corsage pinned to her shoulder to grab the children’s attention and let them know that she wasn’t a po-faced, no-fun lady who’d scream at them if they made any noise.
Slowly Hope could feel the great big knot in her stomach begin to shrink as she said hello to parents and pupils. The catchment area for the school took in the wide avenues of huge Georgian houses in Canonbury, and Hope smiled until her face ached as she talked to parents who were in the media, or ran successful design consultancies, or worked in the City, but were all committed to the state-school system as long as the local state school continued to do well in the national league tables and be deemed ‘outstanding’ in the last Ofsted report.
Then there were the other parents who lived in the sprawling council estates behind Essex Road but were equally passionate about the state-school system as they didn’t have any other option. But all her pupils’ parents, no matter where they lived or how much they earned, shared the same concerns about bullying, numeracy and literacy skills, and why they all had to make allowances for the one child in every class who was allergic to everything from peanuts to Magic Markers.
Back in Whitfield, at the tiny primary school Hope had gone to, where her mother was now headmistress, everyone had been white, everyone had spoken English at home because everybody’s family was British, hardly anyone had had free school meals, and every year they’d had a proper Christian Nativity play, with shepherds and wise men and the two prettiest girls in the school slugging it out to see who would be Mary.
Hope knew that things in Whitfield had changed a little, judging by her mother’s frequent screeds, which always ended with the words, ‘It’s political correctness gone mad,’ but in the Borough of Islington, it had ever been thus. Blue Class was a glorious mix of Somalian, Polish, Kenyan, Bangladeshi, French, Irish, Israeli, Pakistani, German, Bulgarian, Indian, Croatian, Korean, Australian, Nigerian, Russian, American and Chinese. Every continent but Antarctica was represented. She had two children who were trilingual, five who were bilingual, and one who hadn’t spoken a word of English when she’d joined the Red Class the year before. The map of the world that Hope had pinned up on the wall by the door would soon have little stars stuck all over it as each child marked their country of origin.
But now the final tearful mum had left, after telling Hope yet again that little ‘Stuart was sounding a bit chesty last night – can you make sure that he keeps his jumper on?’ and thirty children were eyeing her warily. Even though Hope had spent each afternoon of the last week of the previous term with them, the summer holidays had been long, and generally six-year-olds had the retention span of fruit flies, so that morning she was back to being an unknown quantity.
For Hope’s part, even though she’d memorised their names against their school photos, they all looked the same to her: thirty miniature people wearing identical bottle-green sweatshirts. Apart from Reese who was still crying because she was a girl ‘and girls can’t be in a Blue Class’.
Hope’s nerves had all but gone, though for one final moment, as she looked past their heads to lock eyes with Andy, her new classroom assistant, she felt over-burdened by the responsibility. What if th
ey didn’t respect her authority? What if Justine hadn’t taught them anything, and they weren’t even on nodding terms with the alphabet and numbers one through ten, and couldn’t get changed into their PE kits by themselves? What if they left her class at the end of the summer term without being able to write a simple sentence containing a noun, a verb and an adjective? What if her shoddy teaching skills sowed the seeds that ruined them for the rest of their lives and they left school at sixteen without any GCSEs and … Oh, God, shut up, Hopey, and get your gameface on, she told herself sternly.
She smiled. ‘I hope you remember me from last term. I’m Miss Delafield.’ To her dentist, her doctor and even her bank manager, Hope was Ms Delafield, but pre-pubescents had no truck with titles that drew a polite veil over marital status. ‘I have lots of exciting things planned for us this year and I’ll tell you all about them after assembly, but first I’m going to start off by wishing you all a good morning.’
Hope didn’t even need to prompt them. ‘Good morning, Miss Delafield. Good morning, everyone,’ came back the chant, and Hope could start to take the register and with any luck remember which name belonged to which child. Then it would be assembly, and by the time they’d had a class discussion about what they’d all done during the summer holidays, it would be morning break and Hope could escape to the staffroom for a much-needed cup of tea and a quick debrief with Marta, who’d been throwing up in the teacher’s loos at eight fifteen that morning.
*
The days seemed to speed by, and Hope felt as if the summer holidays had never happened. Her little collection of stock phrases was back in play and she even found herself saying crossly to Jack one evening, ‘If you’re talking when I’m talking, then you can’t be listening, can you?’
After spending the summer in the company of adults, Hope had forgotten that six-year-olds, as a rule, were much easier to read. They gave Hope a running commentary on everything that was happening in their lives, whether it was last night’s EastEnders or what their mother had said about Mr Gonzales, the headmaster. They told tales on their classmates with alarming alacrity, and would do anything to bask in Hope’s approval or get her attention. It made a nice change when she asked a question and at least fifteen hands shot up and a begging chorus of ‘Me! Me! Miss! I know!’ rang around the classroom. In a lot of ways, being a teacher was like being a therapist, rockstar and prison guard all rolled into one.