shop. Natasha was stocking up with pencils and Kathryn was putting up a notice about a fundraising event for the rugby first fifteen’s trip to South Africa.
Natasha had turned to her friend and asked, ‘Notice anything different about me today?’
Kathryn cast her eye over her friend’s striped tights, flared mini-skirt and pale pink ballet cardigan. ‘Not really. Should I?’
‘Yes! I am rosy and glowing with love! Well, lust actually, but in my cynical book they are one and the same.’
Kathryn felt her cheeks colour. She routinely avoided conversations around this topic, especially with Natasha, so as to evade any reciprocal questioning about the state of play in her own love life. Kathryn felt out of her depth and slightly uncomfortable with the whole subject.
‘Oh? Anyone I know?’ She prayed that it wasn’t anyone that she knew, not wanting the mental pictures that were threatening to form in her mind.
‘Actually you well might. Do you know Jacob Whittington, sixth former?’
‘Yes, nice-looking boy, off to Oxbridge…’ Kathryn wasn’t sure where this was heading.
‘Well, if you think he is a nice-looking boy, you should see his dad. He is hot! I mean, seriously hot! And a surgeon and divorced and shagging me! Aren’t I the lucky one!’
Kathryn stared at her friend and felt her jaw drop, quite literally.
‘Really? Dr Whittington?’
‘Yes, really! Dr Whittington – or Max, to those of us that get to see him butt-naked and making me cups of tea at three in the morning! God, don’t look at me like that, Kate. It’s like I’ve just told you that I’ve committed a heinous crime, you look so disapproving. Why are you looking like that? Is it because he’s so out of my league? You’re right, of course, he is and I know we are not supposed to fraternise with pupils’ parents, but he is really scrummy and I am rather keen, in fact super keen. I can almost guarantee that young Jacob will be getting the A star that he is so desperately seeking if it means I get to keep seeing Daddy! Kate, say something, anything…’
‘Are you not a lesbian?’ Kathryn blurted.
The question caught Natasha off guard and left her momentarily lost for a response, until eventually she screeched with laughter, her head thrown back, loud and unrestrained.
‘Am I not what?’
‘A lesbian,’ Kathryn repeated, feeling embarrassed at even using the word on school premises.
‘A lesbian? Oh my God! Why did you think that? Because I have short hair and wear men’s shoes?’
‘No! No, Natasha, not at all. It’s just that Mark said—’
‘Oh well, that figures. Mark wouldn’t know a lesbian if one came up and bit his arse! He is so keen to pigeon-hole everyone with his nasty clichés. Grrr, that bloody man! It’s not that I give a shit what he thinks about me, but he could really cause some damage with his mean little rumours and nicknames.’
She remembered suddenly that she was talking to not only her newest best friend, but also to Mark’s wife.
‘Sorry, Kate, no offence intended, but you know what I mean.’
‘None taken, and I’m sorry, I should never have supposed that his assumption was correct. I should have known better. And there was me feeling terribly cosmopolitan with my first ever lesbian friend.’
‘Ah, honey, I have really disappointed you, haven’t I? I’m sorry if I’ve let you down with my boring heterosexual practices, all that deviant sleeping with men.’
They both laughed and strolled off arm in arm. The shop staff watched them walk from the store and no one commented as Natasha playfully squeezed Kathryn’s bottom as they were about to round the corner.
‘Well, Kate, if they are going to talk, we may as well give them something to talk about.’
Kathryn had jumped and shuddered, not at the playful act of her friend, or even with embarrassment at the gossip it would create, but because Natasha had inadvertently pulled apart a cut that was trying to heal, breaking the skin and causing her to bleed.
Kathryn smiled at the memory. She closed the dishwasher door and focussed her attention on the task in hand. Tuesday, Tuesday… Think, what are the chores for Tuesday? She had had years to memorise the weekly calendar of chores, and yet increasingly she found herself forgetting. It must be her age. Ah yes, it was coming back to her now. Tuesday’s chores included removing all of Mark’s textbooks from the shelves in the study, dusting the shelves as well as each individual book and replacing them just so; stripping