As the front door banged shut behind Nora’s father, the draught wafted an empty plastic bag up in the air. Nora watched it as it rose and seemed to inflate itself with his very absence, before floating back down and lodging between the banister rails. She started to sing quietly,
“Bye baby bunting, daddy’s gone a-hunting, she sang, over and over, until the words became, not words, but sobs.
“One tuna melt,” said Fran, barely able to tear her eyes from the screen. Sara scrabbled in her purse and handed Fran a fiver, which she took, without shifting her gaze.
“It’s okay, I don’t need any change,” said Sara, pointedly.
“No, right,” said Fran, remembering herself. “Er… well, bon appétit,” she added, giving Sara a terse little smile before she left the room.
“The worm turns!” said Adrian, with grudging respect. Sara nodded in haughty acknowledgement and took a greedy bite of her sandwich. A large gobbet of mayonnaise dripped onto her jumper.
On the train home, she spotted Carol’s Simon getting on further down the carriage. Normally she’d have lowered her eyes to her Kindle, certain in the knowledge that everything they had to say to one another could be covered on the short walk between the station and their road, but she had hatched a plan and was bursting to tell someone, so she called out his name.
“Oh, hello, Sara.” He started to thread his way through the carriage towards her. She could tell from the look of portentousness on his face that he had some news of his own to impart. “I expect you’ve heard…” Sara prepared herself for the death of a pet, or a recurrence of Carol’s sister’s ME.
“What?”
“Cranmer Road got a stinking OFSTED report. One step away from special measures.”
“Shit!” Sara remembered her words to Gavin, as he’d urged a reluctant Arlo over the threshold on the first day of term: “Don’t worry, it’s a really lovely school. You won’t regret it.”
“Carol must be doing her nut.”
“Oh, I think she’s secretly quite pleased,” said Simon, “she’s been looking for an excuse to go private for ages.”
Sara stretched her lips into a smile.
“It was the numeracy that did it, apparently,” Simon added, “that and inadequate special needs provision.”
“Inadequate special needs? That’s a travesty,” spluttered Sara. “They bend over backwards at that school…”
Simon raised a didactic finger. “Ah but special needs includes GAT, you see.”
“GAT,” repeated Sara dumbly.
“Gifted and Talented,” said Simon, patiently.
Of course. The middle classes were in revolt because they thought the Head was squandering resources on the thickies instead of hot-housing their little geniuses.
“Ridiculous,” she said.
“Well, I’m not so sure…” Simon demurred. Then, sensing an ideological rift opening up, asked quickly, “How’s work?”
“Oh, you know, alright.”
Suddenly, Simon was the last person with whom she wanted to share her burgeoning literary ambitions. She could just imagine the smirk on his face as he relayed the news to Carol that she’d given up work to write a novel.
She expected better of Neil though.
“I’m not saying, don’t do it,” he said defensively over dinner, “I’m just querying the timing, is all.”
Sara tried not to wince at the Americanism. They seemed to be creeping into his vocabulary lately. She wasn’t sure if he had picked them up from watching back-to-back episodes of Breaking Bad, or from reading American business manuals, but, either way, they didn’t enhance his credibility as a literary adviser. He seemed to think she should do a course. As if creative writing was something that could be taught, like car maintenance or Spanish. And yet, the most irritating part of this suburban inclination of his to kowtow to “teachers”, was the fact that it piqued her own insecurity. She didn’t want some second-rate novelist picking over her work. She much preferred Lou’s bold exhortations to “just go with it”, to “trust the muse” and “tap into whatever’s down there.”
Now she found herself becoming tearful with frustration. She planted her fork in what remained of her quiche and tried not to let her voice quaver.
“I don’t think you realise what it’s like for me,” she said. “I’d like to see you spend eight hours a day writing consumer questionnaires.”
Neil looked up in dismay and Sara realised, with a mixture of satisfaction and shame, that the tears had clinched it for her, as they always did with Neil.
“No,” he said, apparently overcome with contrition, “you’re better than that. I totally agree. Go for it then. You’ll have six whole hours a day while they’re at school.”
Sara was about to point out that creativity wasn’t necessarily something you could turn on and off like a tap, but thought better of it.
“It certainly won’t hurt to be around more,” she said, “especially with the school on the slide.”
“What do you mean?” said Neil.
“They’ve had the thumbs-down from the inspectors,” said Sara, rolling her eyes, “so expect a mass exodus. Carol’s already looked at St Aidan’s, apparently.”
“We don’t have to copy Carol.”
“It’s not Carol I’m worried about,” said Sara, “it’s her influence on the others.”
“Carol is a bad influence on the other parents,” Neil affected a pedagogic tone.
“I wish you’d take this seriously. Carol wraps Celia round her little finger.”
“And I should care because…?”
“Celia’s Rhys’s mum, and Rhys is Caleb’s best friend.”
“I think you’re making a meal of it. Boys aren’t like girls. It’s easy come, easy go.”
But the damage was done. Sara could only look at Cranmer Road with a jaundiced eye now. As she and Lou sat in the school hall, the following week, waiting for the Harvest Festival to begin, her eyes roved critically around the display boards. BE KIND TO OTHER’S read one poster, its misplaced apostrophe less worrying than the conspicuous indifference of the Year Ones to its message. When the piano struck up the opening song, and the children joined in with their warbling falsettos, Lou dabbed a sentimental tear from her eye, but Sara felt like crying for a different reason. The “orchestra” consisted of three recorders and a tambourine; the harvest gifts, displayed on a tatty piece of blue sugar paper, were mostly dented cans of Heinz soups and dubious-looking biscuits from Lidl. This spoke eloquently to Sara of the disengagement of the middle-class parents. The only item of fresh produce was the pineapple she had donated herself. Most distressing of all was the palpable unease among the staff. Gone, were the wide smiles and big encouraging eyes. Gone was the sense of camaraderie and fun. To a man and woman, they wore the weary, defeated expressions of an army in retreat.
As they stood together afterwards, drinking instant coffee from polystyrene cups, Sara was astonished by Lou’s effusiveness.
“I can’t tell you how relieved I am,” she said.
“Oh?” Sara dragged her gaze from the clusters of muttering, Boden-clad parents dotted around the room and forced herself to focus on Lou’s beaming face.
“I can see