‘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
* * *
I can’t think where I am when I wake.
All I can hear is the cooing of a wood pigeon or two, and I lie there as it slowly comes back to me.
When I switch my phone on, there’s a voicemail message.
I can’t make it out at first – but then I realise it’s from Scarlett.
‘Why did you just go like that?’ she is saying furiously. I’m baffled. ‘Why did you run away too?’ There’s a pause – someone calling in the background. Then she hisses, ‘Why do you all go?’
All?
When I call her back, it goes straight to answerphone. I leave a message apologising, saying I’ll see her soon I hope.
But I don’t think I’ll see her soon. I think our relationship is over. She got what she wanted in the end.
Fifty-Two
Jeanie
19 May 2015
Marlena arrives back in London just as I’m making my final preparations to move up to Derbyshire. They’ve offered me the job, and frankly I can’t wait. I feel a rare sense of purpose again.
We are like ships that pass in the night, my sister and I. She’s keeping strange hours, and I heard her on a very odd Skype call near dawn yesterday, something about love for Allah – but this morning she’d left a note for me on the kitchen table that I read when I got up:
Meet me in Oxford Street Starbucks near Soho Sq, 9.30.
It’s v. important.
‘Important’ is underlined three times.
I know my sister; I take it seriously when she says ‘important’. I catch the bus to Tottenham Court Road, making my way through crowds already pushing their insistent way forward, despite the earliness of the hour.
I can’t believe how many people throng the busy shopping streets here; everyone with somewhere vital to go apparently – more vital than anywhere you or I might need to be. No one so much as looks at one another as they duck and weave across dirty pavements, surging on and on and on. Drills vibrate the air; yellow-and orange-jacketed workers jostle in the building site that’s currently the underground station. Infernal, eternal sirens pierce the air whilst enraged drivers jam their hands on horns.
It feels like Armageddon; I’m glad to get into the coffee shop.
Marlena’s already in the corner, wedged in by a young mother and a toddler gearing up for a tantrum.
As usual Marlena’s tapping and flicking on her phone. She doesn’t see me at first, but when I call her name from the queue, I can tell straightaway from her face something’s wrong.
I don’t bother getting coffee.