The Mistress - Jill Childs Page 0,14

gripped by nervous excitement. I looked again at the poster, trying to work out where the classroom lay. I licked dry lips and tried to gather my courage. Just do it. Why not? It would while away an hour.

I got lost in the Upper School, taking a wrong turn in the maze of corridors that ran to and from the school hall. I was about to head for a stairwell and leave for home after all when a classroom door shot open just behind me.

‘Looking for us?’

Ralph, of course. Ralph Wilson. It’s strange now, looking back, to remember that there was ever a time I knew nothing about him. He told me later that he always kept half an eye out for me, that he saw me walk past, my face flushed, and guessed I might be lost.

All I knew then was that he was standing there at the door, a handsome, charismatic man, with an inviting grin on his lips. He was wearing a crimson corduroy jacket with black faux leather elbow patches and a grey, scoop-necked cashmere jumper. Behind him, half a dozen faces turned to me, teachers staying on after school, sitting in a loose semi-circle round his chair. Blank and uninterested features, for the most part, waiting for this little-known Lower School teacher to hurry up and join or to leave; either way, they didn’t care, as long as I ended the interruption to the reading.

I shrugged and nodded, caught, keeping my eyes low and feeling myself flush as I scurried in and found an empty seat towards the back of the group. They were mostly Upper School teachers. Olivia Fry, her long legs delicately crossed, her long hair falling in a curtain down her back, was one of the few from Lower School.

Ralph settled again and carried on reading. It was one of his own poems, about love and time. I barely heard the words, it was his voice which entranced me, deep and mellow and dramatic. He didn’t so much read as intone, like an old-fashioned stage actor. Something inside me twisted and knotted. When he finished, there was a moment’s silence and he looked straight at me, his gaze direct and open, as if he knew me already and was just waiting for me to realise, to catch up.

As he followed me out of the classroom at the end, he asked, ‘Do you write?’

I shook my head, embarrassed by his attention. He had such presence, such good looks, he daunted me. I worried too that I was already disappointing him. Olivia wrote children’s stories, I’d heard her discussing them with Elaine Abbott in the staffroom, asking for permission to read them to the children in class.

He didn’t look disappointed. He just smiled and held my gaze and I found myself smiling back, stupidly.

Another teacher, a bearded man who’d mentioned he taught physics, called over, ‘Fancy a pint, Ralph?’

‘At the Half Moon? Maybe. I’ll catch you up.’

The men disappeared in a group, familial and collegiate. Olivia and another young female teacher followed along behind. I turned away, willing him to stay and talk to me, but feeling awkward. I was uncomfortable in groups.

‘Well, thanks for coming.’

I nodded, hardly daring to wonder why he was still here, still smiling. His eyes were still on mine. My stomach contracted and – fearing it, fearing him – I turned and started walking away.

Abrupt. John Bickers, in my end-of-year appraisal in the summer, had said I was sometimes described as abrupt. I still wondered who’d said that about me. Hilary Prior, perhaps, so friendly on the surface but with a reputation for gossip and treachery? Or one of my more demanding year two parents?

John had been sitting in his office, his elbows on his desk, his hands raised into arched fingers, touching at the tips to form a bridge, and looked at me appraisingly. I knew that look. The kindly old head of Lower School. Seen it all before.

‘We’re all different, Laura,’ he’d said. ‘Nothing wrong with that. But best to fit in, you know, where one can. Makes for an easy life.’

Now, Ralph hurried after me and fell into step at my side. He held out his hand. ‘Ralph Wilson,’ he said. ‘English. Upper School.’

His hand was warm and soft. I thought then, a poet’s hand.

‘Lower School, year two.’ I hesitated, then grinned. ‘Laura. Laura Dixon.’

He said, lightly, ‘Well, Laura Dixon, come for a drink. Do you know the Half Moon? It’s just around the corner. You’ll