‘Mainly because you look like Mia Farrow, but more eye-catching. Plus you have something mysterious and aloof about you. Just by looking at your expression during assembly, I could tell that you felt the same as me about the whole carry-on; you looked like you wanted to be somewhere else.’
Kathryn didn’t reply, pursing her lips tightly to stop herself from blurting out that her new friend was absolutely right: she always wanted to be somewhere else. She laughed, however, in spite of herself. Mia Farrow? She could only think of her in the sixties, elfin and gorgeous, and that suited her very well. She took it as the compliment that it was intended to be.
Natasha hadn’t paused for breath. ‘So what do you teach, Kathryn, how long have you been here? Do you ever shorten Kathryn? It’s a bit formal for a boho chick like you…’
‘Kate,’ she offered, as she was trying to work out which question to answer first, what a boho chick was and whether she liked being one or not. It was strange that the nickname of her youth sprang so readily to mind, reminding her of the person she used to be.
‘Okay, Kate, yes, that’s much better. So what do you teach, Kate?’ Her new friend used the name twice, testing it out, making it familiar.
Kathryn brought her hand to her mouth in embarrassment. A familiar feeling swept over her: that she had no right to be there; she wasn’t a teacher, she was merely an observer.
‘Oh! I don’t teach. Well, actually, I am qualified – English would be my subject – but I’ve never used it. Life kind of got in the way of my plans, babies and whatnot.’ She gave a small giggle, hating how trite she sounded. ‘No, I am in fact Mrs Grade A Tosser Brooker, Mark’s wife.’
Most people would at that point have laughed, cried or covered their own mouth with embarrassment whilst apologising and over-explaining that it had all been a terribly misunderstood joke. But as Kathryn would discover, Natasha was not like most people. She put both of her hands on Kathryn’s shoulders and looked into her eyes.
‘Tough break, kid.’
And for that reason alone, although there would be many others quickly learned, Kathryn thought that Natasha was wonderful and was very glad that she had been chosen as her friend.
The rest of Kathryn’s day was spent in a whirl of chores that included cleaning the French windows in the dining room, refreshing the flowers in the hall and study, buying and preparing the canapés for the evening masters’ meeting and cooking the family supper. When these tasks were complete, Kathryn gathered her family laundry, ironed the sheets and placed them neatly in the linen cupboard to await their turn on the bed linen rota. By her reckoning, they would next be called for duty on Wednesday. Finally, just before 4.30 p.m., she sat at her dressing table and brushed her hair, then applied a little scent and rubbed some rouge into her pale cheeks. Then she changed into a rose pink linen skirt with a button-up cardigan, as per her husband’s instructions to look ‘feminine and understated’ at all times.
Each afternoon at varying times, depending on the afterschool activity and season, Kathryn would sit at the white-painted dressing table with its triptych of mirrors and perform the task of making herself neat and pretty. The words of a sixties song would float into her head, unbidden, but with alarming regularity, like a pre-programmed alarm clock that she didn’t know how to switch off:
Hey, little girl,
Comb your hair, fix your make-up.
Soon he will open the door.
Don’t think because
There’s a ring on your finger,
You needn’t try any more
She practised her smile in the mirror. She did this too on an almost daily basis, because she hardly ever wanted to smile naturally. She had long ago lost the desire or fancy to do so.
Kathryn always expected to see her face sliding downwards on its bones, like Dali’s soft watch or fried egg, slipping and dripping into an unhappy pool of misery. She was always slightly surprised to find her face still fixed on its anchors, in place and as it should be. It was only the smile that was the problem; she could grin from the nose down, but her eyes refused to cooperate, remaining fixed and frightened no matter how hard she tried. She would just have