The Learning Curve (6 page)

‘Nothing,’ she sniffed. ‘Nothing. It’s just been a long day.’

‘Hey, hey!’ he murmured. ‘I thought that was a good thing.’

She nodded. ‘Yes,’ she managed. ‘It’s brilliant.’

‘Please, Nicky! Shit! Forgive me! The last thing I want to do is upset you.’

‘You haven’t upset me,’ she sniffed. ‘I’m just tired and emotional.’

‘Husshh,’ he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. She shoved him away and fished for a tissue in her pocket. Why did tears make people treat you like a five-year-old when usually they meant something grown-up was going on inside?

‘Just ignore me,’ he continued. ‘Forget everything I said.’

‘OK,’ she said. ‘Done.’

‘And remember, your career’s got a shelf-life on it, but you can have kids whenever. After all, there’s no state retirement from kids, is there?’

She turned to him. ‘Will you shut up about kids!’ she cried. ‘Anyone would think you’re obsessed with them.’

‘Ah, yes,’ he allowed, somewhat sheepishly. ‘You spotted that. Well . . . you know . . . a bloke gets to a certain age and looks at life very differently.’

There was a long pause.

‘Really?’ she asked weakly.

‘Yeah,’ he said seriously. ‘Really.’

‘Wow,’ she said. ‘You mean, like, you don’t think children would make perfect, moving tables for your pint?’

He laughed.

‘Right,’ she said, suddenly desperate to get away. ‘I’m going home. By the way, I know we’re not meant to dicuss it with everyone, but what shall we tell the others?’

‘Ally and Pete? Dunno.’ He paused. ‘That we’re better than them?’

She hit him on the arm. He hit her back. Then she roughly wiped her eyeliner off her cheeks. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘I have to get home and prepare for tomorrow.’

‘Attagirl,’ said Rob, and pretend-punched her on the shoulder.

She punched him back. ‘Piss off, Prattison,’ she said, a bit snuffily.

It was amazing how effective the cold water in the Ladies could be. If Nicky ever needed ice, she should remember to come here. After a thorough face wash, she was as good as new, except with no feeling in her fingertips. Ten minutes later she walked across the playground to the car park, repeating Miss James’s words, forcing herself not to give Rob’s words a moment’s thought. How would the other teachers take the news? Ned? He’d been here for ten years. Gwen and Roberta both had children to support. Ah well, she thought, trying to push any guilt out of her mind and to focus only on the good. They obviously weren’t as good as her at their job. She knew she was good. She wondered what would happen if Miss James retired. Could she actually become Head one day? Was it possible to be a sexy,
eligible headmistress? Would it, in fact, make her
more
sexy and eligible? Would the offers come pouring in and before she knew it she’d be a headmistress
and
a mother of three? Hah! That would show Rob and his ‘change your mind’ garbage.

As she walked out of the school an echo rang out across the playground, interrupting her thoughts, and she looked behind her to the main gate to see if a passing teenager was vandalising the entrance. She was surprised to see a young boy – possibly one of the school’s pupils – standing on the pavement, head down, hitting the gate with a cricket bat. She watched as he regularly, if rather forlornly, smacked each iron rail of the gate.

As she approached the gates, she recognised the boy she’d seen in the after-school club. One of her new pupils. Oscar. She called out his name and his head shot up at her voice, his scowl relaxing slightly. He clearly had need of the cold water in the Ladies.

‘Don’t hit the school gate, please, Oscar,’ she said, approaching him. ‘Is that your cricket bat?’

He looked at it and thought about lying. He nodded.

‘Well, I think you know it’s far better suited to playing cricket than vandalising the school gates.’

His head hung low. An apology just reached her over the wind.

‘It’s ever so late,’ she said, opening the gate and standing next to him. ‘What are you doing still out here?’

‘Au pair’s late. Probably lost.’ He let out a long sigh. ‘She’s new.’ He took out his mobile phone, and Nicky was surprised to see it had a camera facility. ‘I’ll call her,’ he said.

She listened as he managed to have an entire conversation using only one grunted syllable. He clicked shut the phone. ‘Two minutes,’ he said.

‘Right,’ she said, hugging her coat to her and sitting on the ground, her back leaning against the gate. ‘Sit.’

Oscar sat.

‘Three things,’ she said. ‘One: Don’t bring your phone into school again please. You know that can cause problems. If you need to make a call you can always use the school office. Two: Especially a phone with a camera facility because it won’t just get lost, broken or stolen, it will get stolen and you will get mugged. Three: Tell me where your parents are.’

‘My dad’s working late. Again.’

‘And your mum?’ she asked.

‘I don’t have a mum.’

There was a pause.

‘I’m sorry about that,’ she said, her voice softening.

Oscar shrugged.

‘Neither do I,’ she said.

He looked up at her. ‘But you’re a grown-up,’ he said.

She shrugged. ‘I still don’t have a mum.’

A car swung into the space in front of them and the driver hooted.

‘That’s her,’ he said. ‘I better go.’

‘What are you going to do with that cricket bat in future?’

He managed a placatory smile, eyes down. ‘Play cricket.’

She cupped her ear, an already familiar sign to him. He gave a half-smile. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Hobbs.’

She smiled at him. ‘I should think so too. See you tomorrow.’

He gave a nod. ‘Bye.’

‘Pardon?’ She inclined her head towards him.

‘Bye, Miss Hobbs.’

‘Bye, Oscar. Have a good evening.’

Oscar gave a grunt, stood up slowly and lolloped to the car. Neither he nor the au pair acknowledged each other’s presence as the car swerved out from the kerb. Nicky stood up, wiped the back of her coat, and wondered why some people bothered to have children.

She walked to her car gently chewing the inside of her lip.

Oscar stole a cautious glance at the au pair’s hands on the wheel. Her knuckles were white, which was stupid, seeing as she was only driving at five miles an hour. He could skateboard faster. He’d stopped bothering to take any notice of their faces any more, except to register – he didn’t know what; prettiness, friendliness, motherliness? This one’s face was all hard lines. He hated her.

As they drove through the high street Oscar stared out of the window at the children walking beside their mothers as they passed shops; at the babies in buggies being pushed by their mothers, and at the laughing teenagers flirting in their baggy trousers, holding cigarettes or bags of chips. He imagined their mothers at home, waiting for them, baking bread.

He couldn’t wait to be older. Sometimes he could almost feel it, as if it was days away, and then, like a mirage, it would fade, and feel like it would never come.

‘What time deed your faather say ’eed be ’om?’ asked the au pair.

Oscar shrugged.

‘Ozkarr?’

He grunted.

‘What time deed –’

‘He didn’t,’ Oscar cut her off. ‘Something important came up.’

His au pair whistled through her teeth. Oscar clenched his fists under his satchel.

The road took them past the terraced houses of Muswell Hill where there were buses and lots of people, through two woods on either side, and then suddenly rose up towards Highgate. Here there was more greenery, fewer people and buses, large detached homes and a village pond. He watched the posh boys spill out of the local private school in gangs of four and five. His dad had asked him if he wanted to go there. It would have meant exams later this year, but his dad was happy to pay for private tuition if he felt he needed it. Oscar had said no. He wanted to be like the cool teenagers he saw on the street corners in their baggy trousers, not like these saddos.

The car now crawled down a steep hill and, without indication, turned
into the spacious side road where he lived. Oscar’s dad often said that the houses in this road were so far apart you didn’t have to ever see your neighbour, which was amazing for London living. But Oscar knew the neighbours were there because in the summer he heard them splashing in their pool. The au pair stopped the car, held her breath, put the car into Park, got out, pressed the button at the side of their gate and ran back into the car. While the gate slowly opened, she manoeuvred the car down the drive and tried to negotiate it into the garage. What was the problem? thought Oscar. Just park anywhere, the garage was big enough for two cars. As soon as she stopped the car, before she had exhaled, he leapt out and raced through the connecting door from the garage into the hall. He ran through the vast, square hallway, leaving mud marks on the marble floor and scattering satchel, coat and shoes on and around the cream chaise longue. He went straight to the kitchen, opened the walk-in fridge and took out some Diet Coke before his au pair had even come in.

‘Whot are you goin’ too doo now?’ she asked, holding his coat in her arms.

He shrugged. ‘Homework,’ and went for the stairs.

‘Aye weel be mekking pastahr at seven,’ she called after him.

‘I
hate
pasta!’ he bellowed. ‘I’ll make my own dinner.’

‘Yoo know your faather will be upset eef yoo are not een bed by nine,’ she called out.

Oscar let out a roar of anger as he raced three at a time up the curved staircase, past the full-length window. He slammed his bedroom door shut behind him. Then he flung himself on to his bed, located the remote control under a pillow in one movement and turned on the TV.

He ate dinner upstairs. Toast with peanut butter and a packet of crisps. Luckily he didn’t hear from the au pair again. When he made his toast he could hear her in the utility room talking on her mobile in a harsh, bitty language. It sounded like she was trying to cough up phlegm. She was probably ironing, and thankfully she didn’t come out. After dinner, he spent a couple of hours on his Xbox and then did his homework cross-legged on his bed in front of the telly. Then he shook off his clothes, leaving them next to his bed alongside the plate of toast crumbs and empty crisp packet, put on his pyjamas and picked up his well-thumbed copy of
The Lord of the Rings
.

He didn’t look at his alarm clock as he turned off his AC Milan bedside lamp, but he knew that he’d got away with later than nine o’clock. Stupid au pair didn’t even check. When he couldn’t sleep, he turned on his torch and continued to read under his bedclothes. He didn’t remember falling asleep.

And he didn’t hear the garage door sliding shut hours later.

Mark Samuels slipped off his shoes, threw his briefcase and jacket on the chaise longue, and took the curved stairs three at a time. He tiptoed across the hall and opened his son’s bedroom door. He waited. No movement. He coughed. He opened the bedroom door wider, letting in light.

He walked across the room, sat gently on the edge of Oscar’s bed and looked at his sleeping son. He leant over and gave him a kiss on his cheek, taking in the smell of sleeping boy, then pulled the duvet up to cover his shoulders.

He watched how Oscar’s breathing made the duvet rise and fall steadily. When Oscar made a small grunt and turned over, he smiled. It was always worth waiting. Eventually, he got up, put Oscar’s book and torch on the bedside table, picked up the plate, crisp packet and clothes, and took them downstairs. Ten minutes later, he was in bed, setting his alarm clock for the morning.

FOUR HOURS LATER,
at half past five in the morning, a besuited Mark Samuels was back in Oscar’s bedroom. He felt lots of emotions watching his son sleep, but the most visceral one was envy. Holding his tie against his chest so that it wouldn’t drop on to Oscar’s face, he leant over and softly ran his hand through the boy’s growing curls – his mother’s curls, nothing like Mark’s own hair – then moved the duvet up to cover his shoulders again. Then he kissed his cheek, wondered how his son could look so much like a baby in his sleep while his body filled up so much of the bed, and traced the delicious curve where the back of his head joined his neck. Then he left the pitch-black house.

The roads and tube were always empty this early and he made it into the office in a record twenty-five minutes. He glanced at the clock as he paced into the office. 6 a.m. Half an hour before the rest of the team would start coming in. In a matter of weeks they would be doing all-nighters. It was always like this during a Due Diligence – the massive, secretive project of checking a firm’s entire accounts and reporting back to their client before their client bought the firm. And, as one of the newest partners at the City’s second
biggest firm of accountants – and in fact the partner who had brought in this huge amount of work – Mark Samuels was for the first time in his fifteen-year career, answerable only to himself and the client. And the other hundred partners, of course. His days of drawing pretty graphics or ticking tidy sums might be over, but the stresses of meeting deadlines and keeping the client sweet were now all his. It never got easier, it just got different.

His office had yet to be moved to the partners’ rooms, so it – and he – were still attached to his department. So far, it was working well. He walked through the empty office, carrying a coffee that he hoped would see him through to 11 a.m. in one hand and flicking on light switches as he went with the other. He passed the desk of his personal assistant, Caroline, and opened his office door. He kept it open and pulled up the blinds to the window between him and his department so that he could get a good view of his team throughout the morning, until they got their cabs to the firm on the other side of London. The room they were assigned to there was stuffy and badly lit. He opened his window, sat back in his chair and sipped his coffee. He managed to get a full twenty minutes of work done before his team came in.

Matt was the first.

‘Yo, boss!’ he called out loudly.

Mark smiled a bitter smile. It was so nice to be respected. He would have got up to chat, but that would have meant moving his bones.