“I’m sure you know everyone,” Louisa said to her.
The only familiar face was Mel Mowar’s. Mel a swimming teacher? She didn’t see that one coming, but it fitted Mel’s default position at Louisa’s right-hand side.
Helen scanned the other faces, looking for identifying marks, a habit she picked up as a school teacher. To avoid the embarrassment of not recognizing a pupil or a parent in the street, she made sure their features were imprinted on her memory. It was going to be much harder to memorize this lot with no distinctive clothing style to go on. Louisa was the only one not in a white polo shirt. Hers was coral pink and it enhanced her skin tone.
Sweat pooled at Helen’s armpits. Hoping there’d be a chance for a few lengths in the school pool after the meeting and before the lessons started, she’d put her swimsuit on underneath her tracksuit. The row with Gary had continued until they both lost interest and saw how stupid it was. As part of their passionate making up, she’d agreed to stay away from the open-air pool, so she was now in dire need of a substitute swim. It hadn’t been a difficult compromise to make in the end because she was in no mood to face Sascha again. She couldn’t care less about his feud with Louisa – if anything that lifted him higher in her estimations – but she’d trusted him and he’d taken her for a mug. She caved in about the after-school swim club too. Gary had her interests at heart and persuaded her to go whatever her view of the chairwoman.
“You need to put in your DTS claims to FD,” Louisa was saying.
Helen took a deep breath. Acronyms, it was like being pelted by a typewriter. She felt like a complete outsider. It was another Aldi moment – whenever she ventured out to shop in Dortmannhausen village, she felt an acute sense of foreignness. She’d only ever felt alien once before moving to Germany and that was on a student holiday in Sri Lanka where the people had stared and smiled, and some had asked to have their photo taken with her. It had been a good-natured curiosity and she went home feeling exotic and beautiful. But being foreign in Germany meant awkward supermarket visits where unsmiling cashiers scanned her shopping, rang up her bill and had her change ready before she’d even opened her purse. And now this meeting, on the supposedly home territory of Gary’s school, was pocked with jargon she didn’t understand.
“Let’s move on to Item 4: Paired Teaching,” Louisa said.
Helen checked her watch. Item 4, the bloody woman had started the meeting without her.
The bloody woman was still speaking. “Now this is a new initiative of mine. Darren. I assume you’re working with John?”
The man next to Helen nodded.
“And I’m with Kate.” Louisa paused, her gaze lingering on Helen.
Helen, partnerless, looked down, pulling her sleeves over her hands, feeling like a teenager picked on by the mean girl. Then a shoot of defiance grew in her. “Mel, have you got a partner yet?” she said, pushing a tone of confidence into her question which she didn’t feel.
Mel flushed. “I …”
“Do you want to work with me?” Helen said before Louisa could intervene.
Mel smiled, blushing even redder. Helen smiled back, trying to hide the smugness of her victory over Louisa. This was more like her old self – assertive; inventive; no problem too large; no petty-minded, coral pink chairwoman too small.
But her triumph was short-lived. Louisa trumped her. “Mel’s the changing room monitor. She’s here to take the minutes.” Mel picked up her pen obediently. “But you won’t need a partner, Helen, while you’re observing classes.”
“Observing? I’ve got several years’ experience. I don’t think …”
“Not here you haven’t.” Louisa tapped the edge of her papers against her knee to straighten them out.
“But you’re desperate for teachers. I read the newsletter. Some of you are having to double up classes. What do the rest of you …?” Helen’s voice trailed off; no one was looking at her. She’d been the head coach of the most successful junior squad in the West Midlands but here in this stupid drain of a swimming pool, she was an invisible nobody in over-heavy sports kit. Roll on half-term; she was getting the hell out.
Thursday, 6 May
Helen stood on the doorstep to see Gary off to work. Her smile made her face ache; she was turning into a proper housewife. Gary’s mobile rang on the hall table. The screen said: Steve C calling. She grabbed the phone and caught up with him by the car, but Gary cancelled the call.
“Not important then?” she asked.
“It’s just some insurance guy who rings me now and again,” he said, starting the engine. “I’m surprised he bothers; I never buy anything.” He drove off, waving his arm out of the window.
Helen waved until he disappeared round the corner, and she thought it was strange that he’d added an insurance salesman to his list of contacts. But then he was a sociable man with twice as many Facebook friends as she had.
She darted away from the kitchen window when Louisa came across the road. She was carrying a file of papers. The woman lived her life in other people’s houses. What was it this time: Parents’ Association agendas for Audrey Garcia, the American teacher at number 3; spaniel-masking aromatherapy brochures for Karola Barton at number 1; or corrections to the swim club minutes for Mel at number 7?
She cursed herself for hiding – so what if Louisa saw her? She was in her own home. Louisa didn’t control everything; the swim class last night proved that. Louisa had deposited her with the instructor called John, insisting that she couldn’t possibly be let loose with a group of her own until she’d been “assessed”. But John had different ideas and gave her five children out of his class of twelve to teach front crawl.
“You’ll warm to Louisa in the end,” he said.
“How long will that take?”
“Until the Christmas social. She holds it at her house. All the booze you can drink. Best club chair I’ve ever worked for.”
The swimming class had been an excitable bunch of 7 year olds. She recognized one of them as the dark-haired boy from number 6, the house opposite hers. Afterwards his parents introduced themselves in the foyer.
“My name is Dimitris and my wife is Maria. I am an exchange teacher from Greece. I normally run the history department at a school in Athens.”
Helen smiled. “You speak excellent English and I think your son must do too; he understood his swimming lesson.”
“Alexandros learns quickly. Only my wife has no chance to learn.”
“I’m sure she’ll pick it up.” An idea occurred to Helen. “I could help. I’m a teacher too but I’m not working at the moment.”
“You would do that for Maria? I can pay you.”
“I’m sure we can work something out.”
Dimitris spoke rapidly to his wife. She beamed and took Helen’s hand.
She’d driven home knowing she’d turned a corner in her frame of mind. The swimming lesson and the prospect of teaching English made her feel fulfilled. Her contentment lasted into the night as she made love with Gary.
She peered through her kitchen window again but could no longer see Louisa. She must have gone into Mel’s. If the lessons with Maria worked out, she could offer something similar to local German people. She smiled as more warm feelings of usefulness came over her.
The