The Teacher's Secret (30 page)

But first, she thinks, she should meet them, her new neighbours. She should welcome them. This, she knows, is what neighbours do. Her mother wouldn't have hesitated for a minute. Her mother would have simply gone over, knocked on the door and invited herself in for a cup of tea. Joan doesn't have this in her, but surely she could do something. She could shout across the back fence.
Hello
, she could call out.
I'm Joan, your neighbour.
Or she could watch from her bedroom window and, when she sees them leave the house, she could leave her house too, so they would all meet on the footpath, as if by accident.

Or
, she hears her mother whisper,
you could make them a cake, Joanie.

A tray of biscuits she can manage, but baking cakes has never been her forte and Joan shakes her head at the idea.

Come on, Joanie
, her mother insists.
Nothing fancy, just a little something.

As she washes up the breakfast dishes, she manages to talk herself into it. A sultana cake, she decides, that's what she will make. So she takes out her mother's cookbook and gets started. She measures out the sultanas, whips up the butter and the sugar, adds the eggs
and the flour and she's done. Carefully, she pours the mixture into a loaf pan.

To her surprise and delight, when she pulls it out of the oven it looks absolutely beautiful.

Just a little something to welcome you to the street.
That's what she'll say.

But when, both nervous and excited, she walks next door to Mr Edwards' house and rings the doorbell—once and then again—there is no answer.

It is some time later when Joan hears a car pull up. A spark of nervousness shoots through her as she rushes to her bedroom to take a look. As she has hoped, the car parks outside Mr Edwards' house. But for a long time, the car doors stay closed until, finally, a woman gets out. She walks slowly to the house. She seems tired. Small wonder, after such a move.

And although Joan is itching to run over with the cake, she knows she can't just land on the woman's doorstep like that. Not when she's just arrived home. She'll need to give her a bit of time.

So she waits an hour before she makes her way over. But at Mr Edwards' front gate, she falters. What if she forgets what to say? What if she just stands at the door with the cake in her hand and can't manage to say a word?

She is so nervous she almost turns back. And yet she doesn't. Instead, she opens the latch on the little gate and, after such a long time, walks through it once more.

She rings the doorbell.

Nothing at first, then footsteps up the hallway. Quick footsteps, much quicker than Mr Edwards, who, for the last few years, had limped slowly to the door. And the image of Mr Edwards is so vivid
that when the door does open, she is surprised not to see him there in front of her. Confusion makes her stumble on her words. ‘Hello,' she says in a rush, her arms outstretched, ‘here's a cake.'

The young woman at the door looks completely bewildered.

I've mucked it up, Joan admonishes herself. I've mucked it all up. ‘Sorry,' she says, and her voice catches.

But the woman's eyes are gentle. ‘Hello,' she says. ‘I'm Nina—Nina Foreman.'

She is a pretty woman, Joan sees, with curly hair that falls over her shoulders. For a woman she is tall, a good foot taller than Joan, and she has a boyish body: thin, with long arms and long legs. Her face is pale and her eyes, a watery blue, have dark shadows under them.

Joan swallows before she tries again. ‘I'm Joan. I'm just next door. I thought you might like a sultana cake.'

The woman smiles as she takes the cake. ‘I love sultana cake.'

Tentatively, Joan smiles back. ‘I've heard your little girl,' she ventures.

‘My Emily?' the woman asks.

Emily, Joan thinks. So her name is Emily. It is a name she has always liked.

Over Nina's shoulder, she can see into the house and is curious to know how it looks without Mr Edwards' furniture. She would love to be asked in. Not for long, just for a cup of tea. So she hovers on the doorstep hopefully, waiting for the invitation. But instead of ushering her in, Nina Foreman excuses herself: Emily is away and she needs to use the time to get things sorted. ‘Because it's school holidays,' she explains, ‘and I'm a teacher so I need to get ready for the new term.'

A teacher, Joan thinks to herself, fancy that—her new next-door neighbour is a teacher. How wonderful! There is so much she would
like to ask her: where she teaches, what class she has, what she likes most about it. If she were a chatting sort of person, these are the things she would ask.

But Nina is edging back now—just a little step back into the doorway—so Joan steps back too.

‘I'll leave you be, then,' she says quickly as she turns to go.

Nina

She feels guilty not inviting the woman in, but the truth is she's not ready for the questions that will come up over a cup of tea and a piece of cake. Questions like:
So where has she gone, your daughter?
Or, worse still:
Where is your husband?
Better just to keep to herself.

And besides, she is tired.

The next day, she drives over to the new school to pick up a key to the classroom. The principal will be working through the holidays, that's what she's told her. So she's welcome to pop in any time.

She knocks loudly on the door of the admin building. When there is no answer, she knocks again before she tries the handle. When it turns, she pushes the door open, walks in and finds herself in an unlit hallway. ‘Hello,' she calls out tentatively, ‘hello?'

As she keeps walking, she comes to a door marked
Principal
. When she knocks on the door, a voice calls out, ‘Come in.'

Sitting behind a large desk is a very young woman. Nina baulks when she sees her. ‘Sorry,' she says, ‘I was looking for the school principal.'

The woman looks across at her. ‘I am the school principal,' she says coolly. ‘How can I help you?'

Nina tries not to look surprised. ‘I'm Nina Foreman,' she says, but it comes out too softly, so she has to clear her throat and start again. ‘I'm taking over the Year 6 class.'

‘Nina—of course—we've spoken.' The woman stands up to greet her, surprising her with a handshake that Nina somehow fumbles. She is dressed, Nina sees, not in jeans, as she is, but in tailored trousers and a button-up shirt.

‘I'm Laurie,' she says, ‘Laurie Mathews. It's good to meet you.' Reaching into her trouser pocket, she takes out a key. ‘I've been carrying this around with me all week,' she says, ‘waiting for you to come in.'

It sounds like a rebuke so Nina starts to apologise for not coming earlier. Laurie waves the apology away as she hands her the key. ‘Don't worry about it,' she says, ‘it's not like I've been anywhere else.'

The classroom is just near the hall, Laurie explains as she walks her up. When they get there, Nina finds a big smiley face stuck to the classroom door. Underneath it are the words
Welcome to 6P
. And although the foyer area leading into the classroom is empty, the classroom itself is not, and Nina is surprised to find it filled with books and paintings and artwork and handwritten projects. Even the teacher's desk, at the front of her classroom, is still covered in papers held down by a mug that says
World's Greatest Teacher
. Instead of retiring, it looks like her predecessor has simply stepped out for a moment.

‘Didn't he take anything with him?' she asks, trying to hide her dismay.

Laurie surveys the room. ‘Doesn't look like it, does it? But feel free to do what you want in here: rearrange, reconfigure, whatever you like. And anything you don't want, just throw it out.'

This is all the encouragement Nina needs: by the afternoon, the walls are bare, the ceiling is clear and the teacher's desk—her desk—is free of papers and pens and pencils. The mug is gone, too. All that's left are the children's desks, their chairs and a dirty red rug.

The rug can go, too, she thinks. And rolling it up as tightly as she can, she drags it into the foyer, props it up against the wall and pins a note to it.
Please dispose of this rug
, it says.

Without the rug, the classroom seems twice as big and she sets about rearranging the desks into clusters of four, a configuration recommended by the department to encourage teamwork and cooperative learning.

When she has finished, she sits at her desk to consider the room. Its emptiness is soothing and, for the first time, she finds herself looking forward to the new term.

She jumps to hear a voice behind her. When she turns around, she finds Laurie in the doorway. ‘Thank God you've got rid of the rug,' she says. ‘I was thinking of placing it in quarantine.'

Nina smiles. ‘You don't want it, then?'

‘I'd be scared I might catch something.'

She gives Nina the briefest of smiles before she clears her throat. ‘Do you have a minute?' she asks. ‘There're a few things I should tell you.'

What the principal tells her are things to be kept in confidence: things the rest of the staff don't know. Things about Terry Pritchard that Nina, as his replacement, really should be told. To be so trusted makes Nina feel special, but what Laurie tells her leaves her reeling.

When she has finished, Laurie gives her a lopsided smile. ‘I should have warned you it wasn't pretty. But I needed to be frank with you, because you're going to have to keep an eye on the kids.
It's what we don't know that's the real concern. There have already been some worrying signs.'

‘Among the kids?'

She nods. ‘Some inappropriate behaviours; aggression, that sort of thing. I don't want to speculate, but when it comes down to it, a leopard doesn't change its spots, does it? That's what worries me.'

The next Monday, Nina wakes with butterflies in her stomach. She needs to be there early and, carrying Emily in her arms, she hurries to the car. But Emily is too tired for such an early start and once Nina has her strapped in the car seat she immediately falls asleep again.

The childcare centre is a new one—close to Brindle, but not in Brindle—and as luck would have it, Emily is still too sleepy to put up a fight when Nina leaves. Instead, she lets herself be deposited straight into the arms of a carer whose name Nina doesn't catch.

When Nina gets to the classroom—her classroom—she is pleased to see that the rubbish has been taken away; pleased, too, that the rug is gone and the classroom has been cleaned. All that is left is the
Welcome to 6P
sign on the classroom door. Quickly she rips that down, too. The mere thought of him—of Terry Pritchard—sickens her.

The whiteboard in the classroom covers most of the front wall. In careful, rounded letters, Nina writes the date and, under it, her name. As she writes, Marina's voice fills her head:
But why are you still using his name?

That's right, she thinks. Why is she still using his name?

So she rubs out
Mrs
and replaces it with
Ms.
Then she rubs out
Foreman
and replaces it with
Stewart
.

But when she steps back to check what she has written, it is clear that there is something wrong with it. Something very wrong.

It's not her name, that's what's wrong with it. At least, it isn't her name anymore.

She's no longer Nina Stewart. It's as simple as that. She's Nina Foreman now. Despite everything, that's who she is. And even if he's not sure he wants to be her husband anymore, she's still his wife. And she has a right to his name.

So she rubs the board clean and starts again.

When the bell goes, she stays in the classroom. This is something she and Laurie have decided: that Laurie will bring the class up after rollcall.

They take longer than she has expected; so long she wonders whether there has been a misunderstanding and the class is still stranded at assembly. She is relieved, then, when she hears footsteps—no voices, just footsteps—and happy that hers is a class mindful of the need for silence when walking to the classroom. This, Laurie has told her, is a rule that is enforced throughout the school.

There is a knock on the door. ‘Hello?' Laurie calls out as she opens the door and sticks her head in.

Behind her, heads peek through the doorway. Laurie pushes them back again. ‘You boys, you can go to the end of the line for that.' Guarding the door, Laurie lets the children through one by one. With the new configuration, there is less room at the front of the classroom and when Laurie tells them to sit down, they have to squash up against each other.

My class, Nina thinks, but all they are is a blur of unfamiliar faces.

‘This is Mrs Foreman,' Laurie tells them. ‘She'll be your teacher for the rest of the year. Please welcome her to Brindle Public.'

From the floor, there is shuffling and some uncertain clapping.