Page 51 of Between Us
Roisin nodded, because if she spoke, she’d cry. Kindness was pushing her over the edge.
‘I understand they were doing some teasing regarding your partner’s television series? The one that was on last weekend?’
Roisin swallowed a throat lump the size of a hamster and nodded again.
‘Your personal life entering the classroom is a deeply unpleasant feeling, and no one can really prepare you for it,’ Wendy said.
‘It’s just …’ Roisin tested her voice, which sounded hoarse, and hoped she’d not need the box of tissues discreetly placed near Wendy’s left elbow. ‘I had so little say. Over the content of my partner’s show, I mean. Obviously, it’s greatJoe’s had the success he’s had, but …’ She trailed off.
‘It’s a poor fit with your line of work?’ Wendy said.
‘Exactly,’ Roisin said, with gratitude. ‘They brought it up, and I’d not anticipated …’ She had to pause to gather herself. ‘… how it’d feel.’ Her voice wavered, dangerously.
‘Smart phones don’t help, but let me tell you, there’s nothing new under the sun. This has always happened, and always will,’ Wendy said, to rescue her.
Roisin cleared her throat. ‘Yes. I think I’d have handled it better if I’d been prepared. I stupidly didn’t expect my partner’s job to be that interesting to them.’
‘Oh, they’re seagulls with chips,’ Wendy said. ‘Indiscriminate yet ceaseless scavengers. The word-of-mouth wildfire never fails to amaze me. Last year they discovered Pamela Mellen in Physical Ed had an oophorectomy. They’re accessingmedical notesnow.’
Roisin had forgotten about that. Like the American gossip site, TMZ, it turned out the student body had contacts working inside hospitals.
‘Needless to say, I traced the source to Jagger Riley in Year 8. His aunt works at The Christie. Yet I couldn’t prove anything. I must say I will be relieved when the last of their ludicrously monikered dynasty make their way through our system. I hope to retire before the next wave arrive.’
‘Ohhhh … is that why Madonna Riley was a Madonna?’ Roisin said. ‘I didn’t know if it was pop or Catholicism.’
‘Mmm-hmm. I hear tell of an exhilaratingly revolting Miley Riley on her way towards us, in primary.’
Roisin laughed.
‘However, this is no reason to skip your smear,’ Wendy added.
Roisin laughed again. Her boss was dry-as-a-bone funny. She was also very grateful right now that she was a woman. Roisin had a feeling a male manager, with less class, could be approaching this problem in a way that made it considerably worse.Your man is what they call ‘Sex Positive’ now, then, eh?
Wendy moved a stapler to one side and clasped her hands on her desk. ‘Let me tell you a story. In my first teaching job in Hampshire, I was foolishly having a fling with a married member of the Geography department. Neil Hartley. In my innocence, it was as though he bestrode that grammar school like a balding colossus. His classroom presence was that of a baboon. Made love like one, too.’
Roisin let go of a surprised snort.
‘It was unfathomably stupid on a personal and professional level. I was twenty-five and awash with lovesick hormones. Jesus, did not, as they say, have the wheel.’
She took a sip from a water bottle on her desk. ‘We revelled in the clandestine nature of it. Sneaking around is rather exciting and becomes a bit of an art, even more so before the internet. It was very much part of what made it electrifying. We drove miles and met at pubs and restaurants in the middle of nowhere, so we’d not be spotted. Of course, if you play the odds, sooner or later, you lose.’
Roisin felt something surging up inside her again, a self-doubt like severe vertigo.
‘One evening, we were what my parents would’ve called “necking” in a car park at this little village in the New Forest called, I’m not making this up, Buckler’s Hard. Who should saunter past but one of the most insidious, slippery bullies in lower sixth, who we were looking into expelling. You know, precisely the bastard you’d least want to have the Gotcha.’
She drew breath. ‘We knew we were sunk. By the time I came to take my first lesson on Monday, it had done the rounds so many times, they’d practically hung bunting out. I was called in by the head and read the riot act. I could do nothing but sob, confess and promise it was over. Which of course, in my heart, it was absolutely not.’
‘Oh God,’ Roisin said. ‘I’m cringing for you even thinking about it.’
‘It was dreadful. Every lesson involved being heckled about my ruinously stupid love life. Luckily, soon after, Neil got offered a headship at a school in Worcester. I say luckily; at the time I was devastated, as I felt sure we were going to be together. Just as soon as his father-in-law had recovered from his non-specific but debilitating illness that impacted his wife, as his carer.’ Wendy pulled her black-rimmed spectacles down her nose to peer directly at Roisin. ‘Need I tell you the plot twist there?’
She sighed heavily.
Roisin thought of Wendy as a force-of-nature, self-assured and invulnerable, yet she felt the old hurt bubble up, even at one remove.
‘Neil left. The news cycle moved on. Another intake ofkids turned up. And another. And another. I met my husband-to-be. It became very old news, passing into folklore. The affair was forgotten by everyone. It’s actually difficult to be terribly interested in gossip if you only know one of the parties involved. Bear that in mind.’
Roisin said, ‘I will.’
