The Teacher's Secret (16 page)

Crouching down by the edge of the pool, Terry extends an arm to help Ethan out. ‘Only fifty metres, sir,' he says. ‘I can probably get myself out.'

Terry shrugs. ‘My motto, Ethan, is that you should always take a leg up when it's offered because it might not happen again.'

That makes Ethan smile. ‘Got a bad start,' he says, relenting, as Terry pulls him out of the water.

‘Made up for it, though, didn't you, boy? That's the main thing. That you made up for it.'

Cody is resting his arms on the edge of the pool. ‘How about me, Mr P?' he pipes up. ‘You going to give me a leg up too?'

With a smile, Terry pulls him up and out of the pool. He's a feather compared to Ethan and his slight body is trembling with the cold. ‘Not much of you, is there, mate?'

Teeth chattering, Cody doesn't answer, he just opens up his palm to show Terry a green plastic disc. ‘I got fourth, but.'

Kurt is already out of the pool, water dripping onto shoulders that have halfback written all over them. He even walks like a league player: shoulders first, swinging left and right, his neck
already thickening into place. A bulldog, that's what he is, a hazel-eyed bulldog.

He finds Bridie sitting back in the grandstand. The first time he scans the rows, he misses her. The second time around he spots her bang in the middle of the stand, blinking myopically because she can barely see a thing, poor little love. Funny, though, how different she looks without her glasses; free of the milk-bottle lenses, she's got pretty eyes. And her face is heart-shaped, which is something else he hadn't noticed before. He'd never given it a shape, just skinny. Not that heart-shaped does you a whole lot of good if you can't see a thing in front of you.

‘Bridie,' he calls out as he waves his hand towards her. She looks in the direction of his voice but her face stays blank. ‘Bridie,' he calls again, then a third time, until she's got him.

He climbs up the stairs to her. ‘Well, that's a race I won't be forgetting in a hurry.'

He says it as a joke, but when she drops her head in embarrassment, he kicks himself for saying anything at all.

Keeping her head down, she mumbles something to him.

He puts a hand on her knee. ‘What was that, love?' he says gently.

‘Can I have my glasses?' The question makes his stomach turn even though he's got his answer ready.

‘Okay,' he says. ‘I've got some good news and I've got some bad news.'

She raises her head.

‘So, the bad news is that I accidentally broke your glasses.' When her face falls, he hurries on. ‘The good news is that straight after school, you and me, we're going to go and get you another pair.'

If the good news has registered at all, it's not obvious. Her face is white and drawn. ‘Nan's going to kill me,' she whispers.

In his rush to reassure her, his words become clumsy. ‘I mean it, Bridie. Today. We'll go today. Straight after school. Before you go home. We'll get it all sorted.'

She's not appeased. ‘But what am I going to say to Nan?' Her eyes have filled now and he's scared stiff she's going to cry.

‘Nothing, Bridie. You won't have to say anything. I'll do everything.' Placing a hand on each of her arms, he swivels her around so they are face to face. ‘I promise, Bridie.'

It's mayhem trying to get them onto the buses and back to school in time for pick-up. Especially when eighty percent of them are hyped up on jelly pythons from the pool kiosk.

Once they're all aboard, Helen and Tania take charge of the school roll so he can finally sit down. He's already thrown his bag on the front window seat to bags it and now he can properly claim it. A bit of quiet, that's what he needs: eyes out the window, watching the world go by. At least until there's some fracas behind him.

But when he returns to his seat, his bag has been moved to the aisle seat and Laurie has planted herself by the window. He feels his body sag in disappointment and has to suppress the urge to reach over and yank her out of the seat. Instead, he lifts his bag off the aisle seat and, cradling it in his lap, reluctantly sits down beside her.

‘Pretty successful swimming carnival, all in all,' she says. It's a pronouncement rather than a question and he sees no need to reply. He just looks at his hands and hopes that's all she has to say. ‘Lucky the rain held off,' she continues. He nods, but he can't understand
why she's making an effort all of a sudden. In any case, he's ticked off about the seat so she's going to be pushing it to get any chitchat out of him today.

Still she keeps on yakking. He waits for her to bring up the fiasco with Bridie but that, at least, seems to have gone clean out of her mind. She's more interested in banning the kids from going to the pool kiosk next year. Not because of the junk food, mind you, but to stop the kids from wandering into the out-of-bounds area beside the men's change rooms. ‘You've always got to be on the lookout,' she says.

He's not with her. ‘On the lookout for what?'

She lowers her voice so he can scarcely hear her. ‘Paedophiles.'

The corners of his mouth twitch. ‘What, at the swimming carnival? The place was empty apart from all of us.'

‘You can't be too careful.'

‘I didn't see a soul, Laurie, not one person. Apart from the lifeguards and the canteen ladies.'

‘Systems, Terry,' she says, and her voice is severe. ‘We need to be systematic about the kids' safety.'

By God, he thinks, she's a humourless bloody specimen. But he nods and murmurs, ‘Systems, yep,' then hopes to hell she'll shut up for the rest of the trip.

The moment the bus pulls up outside the school, all the kids are itching to get out. Quick as a flash, Terry is on his feet as he eyeballs his way down each of the rows. ‘Brindle Public students,' he says, his voice rising up from his diaphragm, ‘remember their manners at all times. And when Brindle Public students are on a bus they wait quietly in their seats until they are told otherwise.'

There is reshuffling as the kids sit back and Terry waits for the noise to subside before he continues, his voice still booming. ‘That's more like it, Brindle Public. Yes, that's much more like it.'

Row by row, he guides the children out of the bus. When Bridie passes him, he taps her on the shoulder to remind her to wait for him by the school gate.

And sure enough, when he gets off, she's waiting there, face pinched. Putting his arm around her, he gives her a squeeze and bends down to whisper in her ear. ‘Let's go get you some new glasses.'

Bridie wants to sit in the front seat. She's over ten, and legally that's okay, but it's still safer in the back, doesn't matter how old you are, so that's where Terry puts her. The only drawback is that it's hard to have a conversation when one of you is driving and the other one's sitting in the back seat, so it's a quiet trip. But that's all right. Quiet can be good.

He scores a park close to the optometrist, which is lucky, because it's getting congested in Raleigh these days. Eyes On You, that's what Angelo's shop is called. Terry hates it. What's wrong with something simple and to the point, like Angelo's Optometrist?

As soon as they're inside, Angelo comes over to greet them. His is a vigorous handshake. ‘Long time,' he says, squeezing Terry's fingers together. He has a big Italian face and his hair, always jet black and curly, is starting to get some grey in it. ‘So what can I do for you? Anything you ask, I'll do it for you, my friend.'

Terry looks solemn. ‘The thing is, Angelo, we've got a bit of an emergency on our hands.' From his bag, he pulls out his beach towel and unrolls it to reveal Bridie's broken spectacles.

He hands the broken pieces to Angelo. ‘Any chance of fixing them?'

Angelo pushed the severed arm up against the rest of the frame. ‘It's not looking good,' he says. ‘I could try sticking it but the hinge won't work so the arm won't bend. And I couldn't guarantee it wouldn't snap off again.'

Bridie blinks hard but Terry is happy with the news. ‘Perfect,' he says, ‘because what we've really come for is a new pair of glasses. We only need to keep the old ones going until the new ones are ready.' He turns to Bridie. ‘Purple still your favourite colour?'

When she nods, he selects all the purple frames on display and lays them out in front of her. Tentatively, she picks out a metal pair with pink and lavender sides. When she puts them on, he gives a low whistle. ‘Well, aren't they something?'

Her mouth curves up into a smile. ‘I like them,' she whispers.

Terry squats down so he's at eye level with her. ‘So why don't we get them, then?'

He parks outside the house and before he's even put the hand brake on, Bridie is out, half running, half walking to the door, one hand pressed against the side of her old glasses. The house, he notices, has been recently painted and this reassures him. It's a mushroom sort of colour, but she's left the windowsills white. A nice combination.

He follows Bridie up the pathway then stays behind as she rings the doorbell to be let in. Straightaway the door opens, and there's Vonnie.