I Know Your Secret - Ruth Heald Page 0,73

working too. It must be exhausting.’

I stare down at my coffee. Not for much longer. Not if I’m struck off.

‘Are you sure you’re alright?’

‘Yeah.’ I dab my eyes with the napkin, thinking about the call from social services, the need to find a new place to live.

‘Is it about your ex?’

I look up at her, see the concern in her eyes, remember how I used to confide in her.

‘I just feel like everything’s getting on top of me. I have to move house because Richard is selling the one I’m living in. And a client complained about me. It’s being investigated.’ I swallow, wondering how I’ve ended up blurting it out so easily.

She reaches out to touch my arm. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘I feel like I’m constantly messing up. I lost my teaching job because of a complaint, and now it could happen again.’

‘I really hope it doesn’t. I’m sure you’re a great therapist. You’ve always been the kind of person everyone trusts.’

‘Thanks. What you said last time we met – about me being a good teacher. Did you mean it?’

‘I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t. Look, I really didn’t want to lose you from my teaching staff. But you wouldn’t admit your mistakes. I think if you had just said why you didn’t follow the procedure you could probably have got away with just a warning. But you didn’t.’

The original complaint had been about how I’d handled a fight that I’d broken up between two girls. The fight had happened while I was on duty at the end of the school day, helping kids onto the school buses home. I should have followed procedures and reported it, but I hadn’t because I knew the girls well, I knew it was a one-off and I didn’t want to get them into any more trouble. When I’d been questioned about the fight, I’d played down what had happened, insisting it hadn’t needed reporting.

‘So if I’d come clean about not reporting the fight, then I’d have been fine?’

‘I think so. It was the investigation that followed that got you dismissed. We found out you were regularly ignoring the safeguarding policy and taking the students’ welfare into your own hands without any consultation with other staff.’

I sigh. I’d only done what I thought was best for my students. Some of them were going through really tough things at home, and I’d let them come and sit in my classroom and chat it through with me when they were supposed to be in other lessons.

‘You had one-to-ones with students without telling anyone or leaving the door open. You let students miss classes without reporting them. They even came to see you instead of going to other lessons. You were in complete contravention of the safeguarding policy. I knew your heart was in the right place, that in reality those students probably depended on you, but you repeatedly hadn’t followed the guidelines and we had no choice but to ask you to leave and refer your case on.’

I wince as I remember the day I was told I no longer had a job. I hadn’t been expecting it, and it had tipped me over the edge.

‘Look,’ she says, ‘I’m sure it will work out for you. Just try and be honest about everything.’

I nod. For a moment I consider admitting my mistakes and apologising to Danielle. But it feels like it’s all already gone too far.

‘The whole thing’s really affecting my health,’ I admit. ‘I feel like I’m heading the same way as I was before, like I’m going crazy.’

‘You don’t seem crazy to me.’

‘I’m getting the same symptoms. Paranoia. Delusions. I’ve even started to think someone’s following me. That’s what happened before. After I lost my job, I imagined someone was following me. That was one of the reasons I ended up in the psychiatric hospital. No one was following me. It was all in my head.’

She reaches out and lightly touches my wrist. ‘What makes you think you’re being followed now?’

‘I’ve seen a woman around. Hovering near my house. She stands at the bus stop down the road, but she never seems to get the bus.’

‘What makes you think she’s watching you?’

‘I don’t know, it’s just a feeling. When you can feel someone’s eyes on you. You just know, don’t you? Or maybe you don’t. Maybe I’m imagining it.’

‘We often had people hanging around outside the school. It was difficult to do anything about them when they were outside the school grounds,