who was the latest object of his affections, but there was no point commenting or getting involved – it would be another identikit, glossy-haired lovely in a few weeks’ time. This seemed to be how it worked nowadays.
There were many aspects of her son’s life, not just his courtship rituals, that Kathryn simply did not understand. Far from disapprove, however, she was in fact happy for him, happy for both of her children. Delighted that they were living busy, joyful lives, full of fun and excitement, with a host of possibilities ahead. She needed to know that this was how it was and that there was a whole world out there for them to grab with both hands and run with; otherwise, what was the point?
The Brooker family had lived in the house for seven years, having moved there in the September when Mark had been promoted from head of year to headmaster. It was a wonderful achievement, the youngest head of school ever to be appointed. It meant a happy life for her and her family; this had to be true because everyone had told her so, even her sister, Francesca. Kathryn had detected the vaguest hint of jealousy and for Francesca to be jealous, it most certainly had to be true.
She knew that the outside world saw her as the fortunate Kathryn Brooker, living a fulfilling life in a lovely two-hundred-year-old house with her perfect family and a rosy future. Many envied her charmed existence, her prestige and her material wealth. Not to mention that she had bagged the rather handsome Mark Brooker – the girl had definitely been punching above her weight on that day. This amused Kathryn, knowing that if they walked in her sensible shoes for a day and a night, they would be clamouring to escape, clawing at the flint stones until their fingernails ripped away, scrambling over the walls until knees were raw, and digging with bare, bloodied hands at the very foundations to make a tunnel. They would try anything and stop at nothing to be free of the charmed life she led.
There was something about living in a school house on school grounds in a building that was joined on to the school that meant that she never quite felt like it was hers. Which was quite right – it wasn’t. The majority of the time, Kathryn felt more like a curator or custodian than a home-maker. She took extra care of the blackened range, original window cording and parquet flooring, as if she would be judged on the state in which she kept this venerable property and the state in which she handed it back. This of course is exactly how history would have judged her, had some other more significant and somewhat more shocking event not occurred, rendering the cleanliness of her windows and their dust-free cording quite irrelevant.
The children had been young when they moved in and it had taken a while for them all to get used to the new set-up. Lydia could no longer run around ‘nudey dudey’ after her bath, not with masters and pupils dropping in unannounced. And Dominic had had to say a reluctant goodbye to his beloved pet chickens, Nugget and Kiev; the prospect of having to repeatedly retrieve them as they pecked around the cricket crease could not be countenanced. Once had been enough to cause much annoyance to the visiting Millfield eleven, who to this day were convinced it had been a clever tactic to divert and conquer.
Those youngsters were now teenagers, Lydia fifteen and Dominic sixteen. Being the headmaster’s children meant that you were either extremely popular or unpopular for all the wrong reasons. Thankfully for the Brooker children, they had already been at the school for a number of years prior to their dad’s appointment as head honcho, so they were established and accepted. It also helped that they were both considered attractive by their peers. They had inherited Kathryn’s rangy physique and the striking face of their father translated very well onto those sharp, young cheekbones. They were funny, cool kids who were well liked, regardless of their parents’ status.
Mark, of course, flourished in such an environment, constantly in character and always ready to perform. He engaged in banter with the children and displayed the jovial camaraderie that made him a hit with the masters. He appeased and buttered up the parents, offering a firm handshake to the wealthy fathers and all the time in the world