The Stepmother(81)
I want Matthew back on the one hand, but on the other, I have to admit I’m not sure it will ever – can ever – work.
I mention in a text that I might be going up north for a bit.
* * *
I drive up the M1 to see Jon. We meet at a café in the old part of Derby, near the cathedral. This end of the small city is cobbled and picturesque.
Jon arrives on his pushbike as I sit outside in the spring sunshine. He’s fit and tanned, looking infinitely better than when I last saw him in Sussex. Then he was drinking too much: puffy faced and overweight, in the throes of a bitter, acrimonious divorce.
‘You look so well,’ I marvel. ‘You’re like an advert for the countryside.’
‘It’s all the fresh air.’ He grins. ‘It’s good to see you, Jeanie.’
He doesn’t say I look well, and I know that’s because I don’t. I’m too thin – which is rare for me – but I’ve lost my appetite, and I’m not enjoying my weight loss as I might. My sleep patterns are shot again. But I am doing all right really. All things considered.
We drink cappuccino outside the café. White and pink tulips like cupped hands bob around us in the gentle breeze.
When I fill Jon in briefly, he reaches over and pats my arm.
‘I’m sorry it went wrong,’ he says sincerely. ‘Personally I’m giving up on love. Had enough bullshit.’ I have a memory of muted telephone arguments in the staffroom to his wife Lynne, vitriolic and tense. ‘Hence the VSO.’
He’s enthusiastic about the school; he is form tutor to what’s described as a special-needs class, who he’s grown quite attached to.
‘They’re more open up here, the admin. I know it’s been tough for you since the Lundy thing.’ He drops his voice slightly – in embarrassment I wonder? ‘I don’t know what I’d do if it happened to me.’
I think of that terrible day, the day Otto’s arch-enemy posted that photo on social media. It went viral within hours – until the whole school was buzzing with it and soon after that, what felt like the whole town too.
It had been late afternoon, and I’d already got home when the bursar rang and said urgently, ‘You’d better get back to school now.’
It had all been caused by a sad, embittered boy who, riven with jealousy at Otto’s popularity, had tried to ruin Otto’s life – and had partly ruined mine into the bargain.
The experience will shadow me forever – I know that now. There’s no safe place from the memory of the scandal.
‘But it’s over,’ I say now to Jon, shaking my head. ‘It happened, and I have to be more transparent in the future. I tried to hide it last time I went for a job – and it backfired badly.’
‘Well I can see why you wouldn’t want to tell all.’
‘But if they find out of their own accord – well I’m kind of doubly buggered.’
‘Come on.’ Jon looks for the waitress. ‘Let’s drown our sorrows in carrot cake.’
The college where I’ll be interviewed tomorrow morning already knows about my past. I sent them a link to the report that thoroughly exonerated me – and Jon has spoken to the head too.
I owe Jon a lot right now.
* * *
After putting his bike in the back of my car, Jon and I drive through the green hills to the winding roads that lead to Ashbourne.
Home for Jon is a pretty little honey-coloured stone cottage, halfway up a gentle hill at the back of the small town. He shows me around and then leaves me to ‘chill out’, as he puts it.
I stand in the window of the top bedroom and look out. I can imagine living here a while. Whilst I try to decide what’s next.
Later, over a glass of wine and home-made rabbit stew – delicious, despite my slight squeamishness about Beatrix Potter bunnies – we reminisce about Seaborne – about the good things. There were lots of good things, before it went so bad.
Neither of us talks about our marriages – and we don’t mention for a second time the scandal that saw me leave, tail firmly between my legs. Jon’s a nice man, I think; his wounds rather more healed than mine.
My wounds are scabby and recent.
I fall asleep listening to the owl that I saw earlier, sweeping like a ghost across the fields behind the cottage. Utterly free.
* * *
14 MAY 2015