The word ‘fine’ is on the tip of my tongue but there’s something about the softness of her tone and the gentle concern in her eyes that makes me say ‘Tired’ instead.
‘I’m not surprised.’ She touches me lightly on the arm and then her hand falls away. ‘How is Charlotte? She’s very much missed.’
‘There’s no change,’ I say, ‘but thank you for asking.’
Miss Cooper smiles sadly then glances over her shoulder. Ella is leaning against the gate. She has one foot on the ground, the other kicking the metal fencing beside the entrance.
Clang-clang-clang.
‘Ella!’
She stops the second the teacher says her name and shoots a sulky look in my direction. Clara looks back at me.
‘What’s going on there? With Ella?’
I explain about the MSN Messenger conversation and tell her I’m concerned that this ‘Mr E’ might be some kind of threat to the girls.
‘And you think he might be a parent or teacher?’
I explain about Ella’s reaction when I suggested that Mr E might be a teacher and Miss Cooper looks thoughtful.
‘There’s a Mr Egghart,’ she says. ‘He teaches Physics.’
I shake my head. Neither of the girls are studying Physics.
‘It’s definitely a Mr?’ she asks. ‘It couldn’t be Mrs Everett, Miss Evesham or Miss East?’
‘No. They definitely talked about a Mr E. One of them called him a prick.’
‘I’m struggling to think of any more teachers with surnames beginning with E.’ Miss Cooper twiddles her earrings and looks at the pavement, frowning in concentration. ‘Jenny Best from the office has a full staff list. She’d be a better person to as— Oh!’ She looks up in delight. ‘I’ve just remembered. There’s a teacher covering Business Studies for Mrs Hart while she’s on maternity leave. His name begins with E. What is it … Eggers? No. Ethan? No. It’s a very common name. It’ll come to me. I know!’ She smiles in triumph. ‘Evans! That’s it. Mr Evans.’
‘Evans?’ I repeat, suddenly feeling as though I’ve been lifted out of myself and I’m watching us have this conversation from ten feet above my head. ‘You don’t happen to know his first name, do you?’
When Clara’s lips part I know what she’s about to say before she says it.
‘James,’ she says. ‘Same name as my boyfriend.’
The floating feeling stops as quickly as it started and I’m snapped back into my body so violently I have to take a step to the side to stop myself from falling over.
‘James Evans?’
‘Yes.’ Clara is still smiling. ‘Why? You don’t think he’s somehow respons—’
‘What does he look like? Is he over six foot? Blond? Well spoken?’
‘Yes.’ She looks at me in confusion. ‘Yes, he’s all of those things.’
‘Wait!’ She calls after me as I run past Ella and through the school gates. ‘Mrs Jackson, please stop!’
Sunday 1st April 1991
I bumped into Hels on Oxford Street yesterday. My first reaction when I caught sight of her, looking beautiful in a black and green polka dot dress with her red hair piled on top of her head, was delight – but then I remembered we weren’t friends anymore and darted into HMV to try and avoid her. She must have seen me because the next thing I knew there was a hand on my arm and, ‘Sue? It is you, isn’t it?’ She looked so pleased to see me I could have cried. I didn’t though. I didn’t want her to see how miserable I’d been without her. I made small talk instead – telling her about the costumes I was making for Waiting for Godot and how my mum was a little happier in the care home, although her condition was continuing to deteriorate. Hels, in return told me she’d been promoted at work and that she and Rupert had just got back from a week in Florence where they’d got engaged. I hugged her then, I couldn’t help myself and it was only when she pulled away and raised my left hand so she could get a good look at my ring that I remembered that I was engaged too.
‘Aren’t you the dark horse?’ she said but, instead of a smile, a cloud crossed her face. ‘Congratulations Susan, you must be very happy.’
That’s when I started to cry, right there and then in the middle of HMV surrounded by people picking through the latest chart CDs.
Hels looked so horrified I tried to run off. It was bad enough that I was crying in public without my ex-best friend looking at me like I was some kind of basket case. She chased after me, grabbed my hand.
‘Please Susan, let’s go for a drink. Tell me what’s wrong. I’ve missed you.’
We went to the Dog and Duck in Soho and found a dark corner where I could talk without too many people seeing my tear-stained face. I told Hels everything. I told her about meeting James’s mum, about the trip to Prague, about James refusing to sleep in my bed and him throwing Bunny out of the window and she listened attentively, saying nothing apart from the occasional uh-huh or hmmm. But when I told her how he’d asked me to have anal sex with him to prove how much I loved him she gasped.
‘Did you?’ Hels looked at me, her big green eyes wide with concern. ‘You swore you’d never do it again after you tried it with Nathan.’
‘I know. And I kept telling James that I didn’t like it and I wasn’t going to do it again but he kept going on and on, saying that I obviously loved my ex-boyfriend more than I loved him if I would do it with Nathan but not with him. He brought it into every conversation and it got to the stage where, even if we were having a nice time, I couldn’t relax because I was waiting for him to start up again. I figured if I just got it over and done with once then that would be that.’
‘And?’
My eyes filled with tears and I looked away.
‘You need to leave him, Sue,’ Helen reached for my hands, ‘and you need to do it now.’