Chapter 15
“I’ve asked her not to come round to the house,” Rohan said as they walked through the park to school, the dog plodding at their side, occasionally sniffing the ground.
Emma eyed him sideways. “It won’t last, Ro. You were always a soft touch where your mother was concerned. I know you don’t believe she’s capable of hurting anyone, but I don’t want her near me or my son!” She punctuated her sentence with a determined glare and Rohan looked conflicted, hands in pockets and a sad slump to his shoulders.
“I’m not sure what you think she’s done, Em, but she’s just a very unwell lady struggling with a miserable disease. Arthritis is...”
Emma stopped dead. “Don’t you dare defend her, Ro! This is about more than her attempting to murder me or my baby, it’s about other things too.”
“What?” Rohan looked shocked, his brow knitted in disbelief. “She did what?” He shook his head in confusion and then something else lit his eyes. “Ok, ok. Now you sound like my crazy brother.” Rohan pulled Emma in close to him as they found somewhere to stand opposite the school door where Nicky would blast out with Mo like a cyclone. He kissed Emma’s temple and squeezed her. “Nothing’s more important than you and Nicky, Em. Please believe me?”
“No! I don’t believe you, Ro.” Emma pushed at Rohan’s chest as her heart constricted with the truth of Anton’s complaint. Rohan wouldn’t, or couldn’t believe his mother was a cold blooded murderess.
“Oh, Emma!” Felicity clicked out into the playground in her high heels, drawing the attention of the waiting parents. She looked at Rohan with fear in her eyes but when she turned to face Emma, it was with an expression of hatred. Rohan made no attempt to let go of her and embarrassed, Emma wriggled free.
She swallowed and tried to keep the guilt from her expression. “Hi, Felicity.” She distracted herself inwardly with the thought that every time she said the woman’s name, she felt it should be accompanied by some kind of loose limbed John Travolta move. Emma worked hard to disguise the jealousy in her eyes at the way Felicity looked adoringly at Rohan. She wanted to scream and stamp and punch Felicity in the head, but knew she couldn’t. If she didn’t want him, it was cruel to engineer his life so he would be alone. But I do want him, the confused little voice whispered in Emma’s head and she beat it down with gritted teeth and determination.
Felicity smiled up at Rohan and he nodded, a small upward gesture which betrayed extreme disinterest. Emma felt sorry for the glitzy woman as she battled valiantly for her boyfriend’s attention, failing to raise even a smile in the very public forum. Boyfriend, Emma reminded herself. Felicity’s boyfriend, not yours.
“Have you got a minute?” Felicity successfully shed Emma away from the herd, taking her over to a section of wall where she wouldn’t be overheard. She faced Emma with a precision of movement which made the other woman clench her fists in her pockets just in case. “The headmaster wants to see you,” she said coldly. “He’s got some work you might be interested in. I vouched for you, thinking Rohan might be grateful if I helped his stepsister out. Now I’m regretting it.” Felicity leaned in conspiratorially towards Emma. “Are you and my boyfriend having an affair?”
“Er, no.” Emma regretted the doubt in her voice.
Felicity postured in front of her, tapping the toe of a red stiletto on the concrete playground. Emma gulped as the happy smile painted onto the ground under her foot was pounded in the face. “Well you’re looking pretty cosy,” tap, tap, tap, “but I don’t have any choice but to believe you.” She shot a look across at Rohan as he watched the exit for Nicky with an air of excited anticipation. “You know he’s...” she looked around her and lowered her voice. “You know he’s impotent, don’t you?”
Emma’s eyes widened in shock at Felicity’s revelation. Then she shook her head in denial. “I don’t think...”
“He is!” Felicity hissed, darting a look at Rohan, filled suddenly more with nervous tension than spite. “Every time we get anywhere near the point of...”
“La, la, la!” Everyone stared as Emma wedged her fingers into her ears to dull out the personal details of Rohan’s inner workings. “That’s really none of my business! And if that’s the case, why are you asking me...” she lowered her voice and shot an agonised look towards the beautiful blonde Russian man who stood in the playground, legs slightly splayed and his hands shoved into his pockets. His eyes were trained on the doors with furious intensity. “Why are you asking me a stupid question like, are we having an affair? What’s wrong with you?”
Felicity heaved out a sigh of exasperation. “Ok, fine. I’m just losing patience, I guess and wanted someone to blame. He’s definitely been a lot more distracted since you turned up, not that he was particularly attentive before! I apologise. It was a stupid question really because you’re related. That would be so yuk!”
Emma paused, speechless as Felicity clip clopped away in the direction of the front office, expecting her to follow. A bell sounded, pealing into the concrete and brick space like a claxon. Children clad in woolly scarves, hats and warm clothes poured from the building and congregated round the entrance, looking for their responsible adult before charging forwards with pictures, library bags and spare or soiled clothing. Teachers kept head counts and nodded to parents as they handed over their charges and then suddenly in the doorway was Nicky. He cast around for Emma through huge blue eyes which glittered in the smattering of winter sun. The colour of a calm lake, they settled on Emma and turned up at the corners in an effortless smile. He raked the playground and then patted his teacher on the leg and spoke to her. She smiled and nodded at Emma’s little boy. His faded puffer jacket was open and his white polo shirt hung out of trousers a bit too big for him. His library bag bashed his kneecaps as he skipped down the stairs. He tripped a little on his spindly legs and Emma held her breath but it wasn’t to her that he rushed.
Rohan scooped him up with a grin and swung him round, much to Nicky’s delight and the jealousy of every other child in their vicinity. Farrell whined and wagged his tail so hard his bum came up off the floor a few inches and leaves and bits of gravel swam around his back end like the detritus from a road sweeper. Emma’s brow knitted and the brown eyes in her pretty face grew dark as coals.
“Come on!” Felicity walked back for her, curiosity piquing her soft lips and cold blue eyes. The wind ruffled her perfectly curled blonde hair and she frowned. “Mr Dalton’s waiting to see you. He has important things to do.”
Emma pulled herself away from the sight of her son enjoying Rohan’s company, recognising the green snakelike fingers of jealousy settling in her soul. Mel smiled and waved at her from the exit and Emma smiled and acknowledged her with a roll of her eyes. I’m becoming a nasty person, Emma chided herself sadly, no longer feeling the prevalent sense of optimism she usually did. She felt lonely without it and had nothing but bitterness to fill the gap.
“Ah, Mrs Harrington,” the headmaster intoned in a deep baritone. His cauliflower ears and twisted nose on an otherwise handsome face, bore testament to his rugby career. His diarrhoea brown suit had seen better days but the man exuded enough confidence for it not to matter. He was someone who got up each morning and went to work for the thrill of seeing the children in his care and satisfaction emanated from him like a cannabis haze.
The urge to correct him on her marital status came and went as Emma remembered the lecherous employer from her last school. Felicity looked at her again with a sideways pout and Emma hid her smirk. Even if the woman ran back to her filing cabinet and checked Nicky’s enrolment form, Emma knew she hadn’t ticked the box which betrayed her as married, single or somewhat worryingly...other. The headmaster beamed as though Emma was the giver of a fine present he had always coveted. A missing side tooth made the experience a little freaky. “Walk with me!” he said with great excitement.
The journey down the corridor was not easy. The school population of four hundred tiny, fragile bodies should have
left the premises by now, but once the word went out that their halo wearing headmaster was on walkabout, all hell broke loose. Children appeared on every side of him as his small stature bustled along the corridor towards a staircase Emma hadn’t noticed previously.
“Mr D, I done this picture for you!”
“Mr D, is your wife all better now after her hystericalectomy? Mum got sweets for her but the dog ate them.”
“Mr D, look at my new shoes.”
“What ya doin’ Mr D?”
“Where ya goin’ Mr D?”
Emma surged along in the bodies which thronged around her like floodwaters. The man was like a demigod to this miniature fan crowd. At the bottom of the stairs to the mezzanine floor he stopped and turned, holding out his arms like a televangelist about to ask for money. “Well, children,” he said in a sing-song storyteller’s voice. “See you all tomorrow.”
There was a hum of disappointment and the bodies dribbled away like flotsam, back to their bewildered parents outside in the cold. Mr Dalton beamed at Emma. “I love this job.” He skipped up the stairs ahead of her. Emma followed, but at the sound of Felicity’s high heels clipping up the stairs behind them, the headmaster turned and bestowed a look of utter benevolence on her. “You can leave early, Miss Prince. I’ll just show Mrs Harrington the artifacts.” He said the last word as though summoning up an air of mystery and his eyes popped with excitement. He skipped up the fifteen stairs like a mountain goat and entered the door at the top.
The upper level was packed wall to wall with computers and Emma waited patiently while the man opened a door which seemed to disappear into the roof cavity. His voice echoed oddly as Mr Dalton continued to speak inside the cavernous space. “Your son tells me you’re looking for work and amazing at this!” he boomed. Emma heard the sound of boxes shifting about and her heart sank. Lunch monitor, kitchen hand, chief stapler, anything but...
“Oof!” The headmaster emerged from the half-height doorway in a rush, bringing with him a cloud of dust, a damp cardboard box and the smell which every good archivist dreads. Mildew. Undeterred, Mr Dalton got up and went back in for more. “It’s paid work,” his voice came again, repeating itself as it reverberated off beams and slate tiles Emma couldn’t see. “Let’s start at fifteen hours a week and see how we go.” He emerged with a nasty looking cobweb hanging over his left ear. Then he spoke the familiar but terrible words which had suddenly placed the neglected boxes firmly in the spotlight. “It’s our hundred and fiftieth celebration next year.”
“When next year?” Emma’s voice sounded flat next to the man’s exuberance.
“December,” he replied. “So that gives you a year to get it ready. That’s plenty of time.”
Emma eyed the box of tarnished trophies, mouldy photographs and cracked frames. Her eyes flicked back to the hopeful man in front of her. She couldn’t raise a child on fifteen hours a week at minimum wage and she couldn’t impose on Rohan any longer. Emma bit her lip and looked doubtful. Mr Dalton smiled at her and her eyes widened as a spider trotted up the side of his head and sat on top of his ear. She swallowed and to her dismay, the man clapped his hands. “Fantastic!” He reached forward with filthy hands and clasped hers in a bearlike grip. “Welcome to the team! I’ll get our caretaker to bring the rest out.”
“How many are there?” Emma heard the wobble in her voice.
“Oh heaps!” he said, sounding thrilled. “Look!” He opened his arms like a circus master and Emma poked her head under the dusty lintel. A dim light bulb lit the whole area which resembled something off an Indiana Jones movie. The makeshift room was covered in brown cardboard boxes in various states of decay and Emma’s heart sank to her toes. The life and history of this treasured landmark lay in a field of neglect, far more than a year’s work.
“I’ll need a budget if I’m to sort this lot out,” she said. “Are you sure you can afford it?”
“Oh yes!” Mr D grinned like an epitome of the Cheshire Cat. “We’ve got a committee and everything.”
Emma emerged from the school door feeling daunted. The playground was empty and she felt like the last prisoner to emerge from a third world jail, greeted by almost nobody. Almost, because three people and a tail wagging dog waited patiently for her arrival. Rohan sat on the bench which lined the playground, its surface worn down by years of small bottoms and naughty, clambering feet. His elbows rested on his knees and his head hung low, peering at the floor with an intense expression. Cuddled up tightly next to him in a furry coat which doubled her size, was Felicity. Nicky ran around a small court painted onto the concrete, intent on his mind numbing activity; having shut himself off from the world.
As Emma walked towards them, Rohan stood quickly and Nicky deviated his pattern to include her in its new trajectory. Felicity stood and slipped her arm through Rohan’s, eyeing Emma with enough curiosity to make her feel like a butterfly pinned to a collector’s board. “Did you take the job?” she asked.
Emma nodded. “Yeah. It’ll be a start.”
“We stayin’ down here?” Nicky asked, jumping up and down next to her.
“I’d like to.” Emma squatted down next to him. “But it doesn’t pay very well so I’ll need to get another job in the afternoons so I can afford to get us a house.”
Nicky’s face dropped into a sad pout. “But we live with Ro and Farrell.”
“Not forever, sweetheart. You know that. Only when he goes away, so we can look after Faz. He won’t want us there indefinitely. He has his own life and he’s been kind enough already.” Emma refused to look at Rohan’s blue eyes, feeling his stare fixed on her face. She flushed with guilt and embarrassment. “Come on, let’s go home. It’s cold.”
The little party progressed through the park, sneaking out of the playground just before the smiling, elderly caretaker closed and locked the side gate. Rohan walked ahead with the dog, Felicity clamped to his arm, dragging her heels in a sexy-don’t-care kind of way. Nicky held Emma’s hand and sulked. She dropped back to talk to her son, noticing how the dog kept trying to turn to be with her. Darkness crept around them, extending its long fingers out to touch them as the lamps in the park flicked on overhead. “What’s up, baby?” Emma asked quietly, seeing Nicky shrug. “I thought you’d be pleased I’d got a job. Don’t you want to stay here? Would you rather go back up north?”
“No.” He didn’t sound sure.
Emma sighed. “Maybe have a little think about what the problem might be, then we’ll talk it out.” She squeezed his hand, not pushing him to rationalise or explain something clearly too big to describe. It usually worked. As they crossed the Northampton Road, delaying so they ended up in the centre aisle with Rohan and Felicity strolling ahead, Nicky tugged on Emma’s hand.
“Mummy, I don’t like her. I don’t like it when she cuddles Uncle Ro. He belongs to us, not her.”
Emma breathed out heavily and picked her words as they dodged traffic to make it to the other side. “She’s his girlfriend, babe. That’s what they do. When you get a girlfriend, she’ll hang off you like that and keep kissing your face.”
“Yuk!” Nicky screwed his handsome features into a horrible squished mess. “I won’t be doing kissings and stuff. She can climb trees wiv me and play soccer. I ain’t doin’ none of that sloppy crap!”
“Language, Nicky...”
“I know, I know. I’m sorry. It just popped out. I wanted to say, shit, but I chose that one instead. I didn’t wanna say shit out loud.”
“You just said it twice, to me!” Emma complained and Nicky tugged on her hand.
“Yeah but you don’t count, Mummy. I can be myself wiv you, can’t I?” The child’s earnest face was so open and honest, Emma found it hard to reprimand him but knew she had to. They spent the rest of the walk home along narrow streets and lit pathways, discussing the merits and drawbacks of the dictionary according to Fat Brian and Big Jason.