ONE DAY(55)

‘Why not? And please don’t say “he started it”.’

Her face opens with indignation. ‘But he did!’

‘Sonya!’

‘He said—’ She stops herself.

‘What did he say? Sonya?’

Sonya makes a calculation, weighing up the dishonour of telling tales against her sense of injustice. ‘He said the reason I could play the part was ’cause it wasn’t really acting because I was a peasant in real life too.’

‘A peasant.’

‘Yeah.’

‘That’s what Martin said?’

‘S’what he said, so I hit him.’

‘Well.’ Emma sighs and looks at the floor. ‘The first thing to say is that it doesn’t matter what anyone says, ever, you can’t just hit people.’ Sonya Richards is her project. She knows she shouldn’t really have projects, but Sonya is so clearly smart, the smartest in her class by some way but aggressive too, a whip-thin figure of resentment and wounded pride.

‘But he’s such a little prick, Miss!’

‘Sonya, please, don’t!’ she says, though a little part of her thinks that Sonya has a valid point about Martin Dawson. He treats the kids, the teachers, the whole comprehensive system as if he were a missionary who has deigned to walk among them. Last night at the dress rehearsal he had cried real tears during ‘Where is Love?’, squeezing the high notes out like kidney stones, and Emma had found herself idly wondering what it would feel like to walk on stage, place one hand over his face and push him firmly backwards. The peasant remark is entirely in character, but even so – ‘If that is what he said—’

‘It is, Miss—’

‘I’ll talk to him and find out, but if it is what he said it just reveals how ignorant he is, and how daft you are too, for rising to it.’ She stumbles on ‘daft’, an Ilkley Moor word. Street, be more street, she tells herself. ‘But, hey, if we can’t settle this . . . beef, then we really can’t do the show.’

Sonya’s face tightens again, and Emma is startled to notice that she seems as if she might cry. ‘You wouldn’t do that.’

‘I might have to.’

‘Miss!’

‘We can’t do the show, Sonya.’

‘We can!’

‘What, with you bitch-slapping Martin during “Who Will Buy”?’ Sonya smiles despite herself. ‘You are smart, Sonya, so so smart, but people set these traps for you and you walk right into them.’ Sonya sighs, sets her face and looks out at the small rectangle of parched grass outside the science block. ‘You could do so well, not just in the play but in class too. Your work this term’s been really intelligent and sensitive and thoughtful.’ Unsure how to deal with praise, Sonya sniffs and scowls. ‘Next term you could do even better, but you’ve got to control your temper, Sonya, you’ve got to show people you’re better than that.’ It’s another speech, and Emma sometimes thinks she expends too much energy making speeches like this. She had hoped that it might have some kind of inspirational effect, but Sonya’s gaze has drifted over Emma’s shoulder now, towards the classroom door. ‘Sonya, are you listening to me?’

‘Beard’s here.’

Emma glances round and sees a dark-haired face at the door’s glass panel, two eyes peering through like a curious bear. ‘Don’t call him Beard. He’s the headmaster,’ she tells Sonya, then beckons him in. But it’s true, the first, and second words that enter her head whenever she sees Mr Godalming are ‘beard’. It’s one of those startling full-face affairs: not straggly, cut very close and neat but very, very black, a Conquistador, his blue eyes peeping out like holes cut in carpet. So he is The Beard. As he enters Sonya starts to scratch at her chin and Emma widens her eyes in warning.

‘Evening all,’ he calls, in his jaunty out-of-hours voice. ‘How’s it going? Everything alright, Sonya?’

‘Bit hairy, sir,’ says Sonya, ‘but I think we’ll be okay.’

Emma snuffles, and Mr Godalming turns to her. ‘Everything alright, Emma?’

‘Sonya and I were just having a little pre-show pep-talk. Do you want to go and carry on getting ready, Sonya?’ With a smile of relief, she pushes herself off the desk and saunters to the door. ‘Tell Martin I’ll be two minutes.’

Emma and Mr Godalming are alone.

‘Well!’ he smiles.

‘Well.’

In a fit of informality Mr Godalming goes to sit astride a chair, showbiz-style, appearing to change his mind halfway through the action before deciding that there’s no going back. ‘Bit of a handful, that Sonya.’

‘Oh, just bravado.’

‘I heard reports of a fight.’

‘That was nothing. Pre-show nerves.’ Straddling his chair, he really does look fantastically uncomfortable.

‘I heard your protégé has been laying into our future head-boy.’

‘Youthful high spirits. And I don’t think Martin was completely innocent.’

‘Bitch-slapped was the phrase I heard.’

‘You seem very well informed.’

‘Well I am the headmaster.’ Mr Godalming smiles through his balaclava, and Emma wonders if you looked long enough, would you actually be able to see the hair grow? What’s going on under all that stuff? Might Mr Godalming actually be quite good-looking? He nods towards the door. ‘I saw Martin in the corridor. He’s very . . . emotional.’