The Mistress - Jill Childs Page 0,20

‘So thoughtful. She’s very close to Clara Higgins. I’ve asked Clara to move tables so they can be together for a while.’

Elaine nodded. ‘Clara’s a sweet girl.’

‘She goes home with Anna a lot, doesn’t she?’ Olivia said.

‘All the time,’ Hilary said. ‘She’s a single parent, Clara’s mum. Works long hours.’

Elaine said, ‘Wasn’t there another Higgins girl?’

Hilary nodded. ‘Isn’t there one in Upper School? Or is she Hopkins?’

‘I suppose Helen Wilson is a single parent too now, isn’t she?’ Olivia looked thoughtful. ‘Wonder how she’ll manage.’ Elaine scraped back her chair and got to her feet. ‘So sad.’

Olivia picked up her coffee mug, ready to wash in the staff sink before we all headed back for afternoon classes. ‘Poor Anna. Who’d have thought.’

‘We’ll all look out for her. Of course we will.’ Elaine reached across and patted Hilary’s arm. ‘And she’s in safe hands here.’

I’d only become aware of Anna’s presence at school recently, since the shock of discovering she was Ralph’s daughter. She was only in year two and seemed a quiet kid. Thin and wiry. I sensed the same romantic dreaminess as her father.

That first week, once I knew she was back, I made it my business to look out for her. When I was on playground duty, which was some part of most days, I watched her every chance I could, scanning the swirling mass of running, screaming children, unbuttoned coats flapping. Clara Higgins, her best friend, was usually close at hand. They crouched on their haunches in corners together, heads almost touching as they whispered, or ran, hand in hand, weaving in and out of the manic chaos.

It wasn’t easy to give her my full attention. I was constantly distracted by the more mundane playground tasks of adjudicating fights, scolding bullies and sending injured or badly behaved children to the office. I also had to fend off the attentions of a minuscule reception girl with a single long plait. Rosie, was she? Or Rebecca? She wasn’t settling well and had taken to hanging around whichever teacher was on duty. She grasped my fingers in her tiny, warm hand and clung to them as if I were a lifeboat in a dangerous, tempestuous sea.

Anna seemed as lively since her return as any other child. Her features had always been a little pinched, but her colour was high and her hair, usually gathered into two stubby plaits, flew as she chased around, screeching, with Clara.

Every time I tried to wander over to where they were playing, dragging the needy reception girl after me, Anna and Clara darted off to another part of the playground, deep in some game of their own invention. It was like trying to lasso water. I’d just need to be patient and seize my opportunity once it came.

Sixteen

Two months later

I straightened my skirt. I was wearing a dress today, just for him. In those two years after Matthew and before Ralph, I’d lived in trousers and shapeless jumpers. Then, meeting Ralph, I had wanted to emerge again, to come out of hiding from the world.

‘Ah, she has legs!’ He had reached for them when I slid beside him into the passenger seat of his car, ready to be taken out. He’d run a warm hand over the smooth mesh of my tights, from calf to my knee and a little further to my thigh. ‘Orwell could never have written “Two legs bad!” if he’d seen yours.’

Then that smile. It turned me to liquid. Always.

Now, I bit down on my lip, took a deep breath and walked on, feeling his eyes, in a face enlarged to poster size and glued onto a black-edged board, follow me into the chapel.

It was a beautiful day. That was all wrong. The sun had no business shining. The bright light fell in multi-coloured shafts through the polished stained-glass windows and threw patterns across the stone flags underfoot. The rows of seats in the body of the chapel were filling quickly. There was a muffled sound of whispering and creeping, of people gathering on tiptoe, people who were afraid to be heard, who were frightened of causing offence.

I ran my eyes across the crowd. A lot of teachers from school were here, bunched together in knots of friends, hushed with embarrassment. The bearded science teacher and another I didn’t recognise hung together by a row of seats as if they didn’t know whether they were allowed to sit down there. Olivia, her long hair cascading freely down her back, was seated