One good thing, p.9
One Good Thing, page 9
‘This is a total waste of time.’
‘Oh.’
‘I don’t need a tutor.’
She glares defiantly at me across the salt and pepper, as if willing me to challenge her.
‘Not according to your parents.’
Her jaw sets, but she doesn’t argue. I look down at my notes.
‘I understand you’re studying Macbeth and Wuthering Heights.’
‘If you say so.’
When teaching, I often think of the opening line of A Tale of Two Cities: ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.’ I swear Charles Dickens must have had teenagers in mind when he wrote that. They can be wonderful, but oh God, they can equally be awful.
‘So how are you liking those?’ I persevere.
‘They’re OK,’ she replies, dismissing two of the most important works in literature with a mere shrug of her shoulders.
‘I just moved here from London, so it’s exciting to be in actual Brontë country.’ I try to galvanize her with my own enthusiasm. ‘We could visit the parsonage where Emily lived and wrote, see her inspiration at first hand.’ I smile brightly. ‘Is that something you’d be interesting in doing?’
‘Not really.’
The trick with teenagers is not to take it personally.
‘So what are you interested in?’
She averts her eyes, choosing instead to stare at the sugar packets. She picks one up and begins tearing at the corners.
‘Stuff that matters.’
‘And this doesn’t?’
She looks up at me then, her dark eyes flashing.
‘What have books and plays, written hundreds of years ago, got to do with what’s happening today?’
‘Well, from where I’m sitting, I’d say the universal themes of love and death, and joy and tragedy, are still pretty relevant.’
She seems caught off-balance by my reply. ‘But what about climate change?’ she argues, quickly finding her voice. ‘What about the threat to our wildlife, and women’s rights and how black lives matter?’
‘Well, Shakespeare is all about human nature and the world at large. You might not realize it, but his stories and ideas shape and influence who we are, even today.’
As I look across at Maya I’m reminded of that confused teenager inside me once, struggling to make sense of anything and finding salvation within the pages of books loaned from my local library.
‘Look at all the popular phrases we use. Do you know that you’re quoting Shakespeare when you say, “cruel to be kind”, “a brave new world” or “the lady doth protest too much”,’ I add, smiling.
But just as quickly as I have her attention, I lose it again. With a bored expression, she pulls her phone out of her pocket and begins scrolling.
‘OK, well, I can see this isn’t going to work.’ I shut my notebook. ‘You’re right: it’s a waste of both of our times, and your parents’ money.’
‘Told you,’ she mumbles, kicking the table leg with her trainers.
‘And if you don’t mind, I’d rather you didn’t do that. My dog won’t like it.’
As if on cue, Harry gives a nervous little bark from underneath the table.
‘Dog?’
Abruptly her expression changes and she quickly scrapes her chair back, ducking her body underneath the table to take a look.
‘Oh, wow, look at you – you’re gorgeous.’
Instantly dropping to her knees on the floor, she begins fussing over Harry.
‘He can be quite nervous.’
‘It’s OK – I volunteer at the local rescue, I’m used to the shy ones . . . But you don’t seem that shy, do you?’ she coos, smiling.
The transformation is remarkable.
‘Wait a moment . . .’ She stops tickling Harry to look up at me. ‘I remember this dog.’
‘And I remember you,’ I say, as it suddenly registers. ‘From the car park: you were collecting money for the charity.’
‘That’ll be me.’ She grins proudly and her whole face lights up.
‘You’re the reason I adopted Harry.’
‘I am?’ She looks pleased, then frowns, knitting her perfect eyebrows together. ‘Hang on, were you the woman who said you weren’t a dog person?’
I smile. ‘Yes, that was me.’
‘So what happened?’
‘I saw Harry and changed my mind.’
There’s a pause as she takes this in.
‘I suppose we could try one lesson.’ She shrugs. ‘See how it goes?’
‘OK,’ I nod casually, but I want to punch the air. ‘Let’s see how it goes.’
Text Message: Ajay, Car Rental Man
Good news. Accounts have finally responded regarding your deposit and the refund was actioned this morning, so it should be in your account by the end of the day. An extra £25 has been added as a gesture of goodwill. I want to extend my apologies regarding this matter and hope this conclusion is satisfactory.
Furthermore, on a personal note, I wondered if you would you like go for a drink with an officious jobsworth twat sometime?
Ajay x
Only a Number
‘You’ve been asked on a date!’
It’s Friday evening and I’m on the sofa again in front of the fire. I’ve ordered some logs from a local delivery place and started making the effort of having a fire every night. I wouldn’t go to the trouble just for me, but I know Harry likes to warm himself in front of it. Plus I’ve discovered a certain satisfaction that never came with simply flicking a switch on the gas fire in London.
‘Don’t be so ridiculous!’
‘Why is it ridiculous to go on a date?’
‘It’s a drink, not a date.’
I’m on the phone to Naomi, while nursing a glass of wine. It’s not even six o’clock yet, but I’m taking the approach that it’s six o’clock somewhere. Harry’s already zonked out for the night. I think about how Friday nights in London used to involve dinner in a restaurant, meeting friends for drinks or tickets to the theatre. It feels like another lifetime.
‘What’s the difference?’ she demands.
‘A date is between two people who could potentially be in a relationship. A drink can be between anyone.’
‘Is that an actual dictionary definition?’
Curling my feet up underneath me on the sofa, I take a large mouthful of wine and slosh it around my teeth like mouthwash. I don’t know why I feel so thrown. It’s only a text.
‘Well, no, but . . .’
‘But nothing!’ Naomi sounds triumphant. ‘Besides, you two could potentially be in a relationship.’
‘Now you’re really being ridiculous.’
I’m beginning to regret telling Naomi. I’m still not convinced it’s not a joke.
‘Didn’t you hear the bit where I told you he’s only in his twenties?’
‘Yes. So?’
In the background I can hear the familiar noise and bustle of the city I called home for so many years. Naomi must be on her daily commute home on the bus, just like I used to do. I feel a strange mixture of homesickness and disconnection. I look across at Harry, dozing contentedly by the fire. At least I’m doing something right.
‘I’m twice his age.’
‘No, you’re not – that would make you . . .’ she quickly does the maths, ‘fifty-eight and you’re only forty-five,’ she points out.
I’m not sure when we got to prefix forty-five with only, but I let that slide.
‘He’s still far too young for me.’
‘It didn’t seem to bother your ex-husband.’
‘Is that supposed to make me feel better?’
‘Sorry,’ Naomi sighs, ‘but what I’m trying to say is that no one cares about age gaps any more. Look at Madonna.’
I look at myself, lolling on the sofa in the bombsite that is my living room, with a bottle of wine. ‘Trust me, I’m hardly Madonna.’
When I was married I never used to give my age much thought. Apart from moaning about the odd wrinkle, I was grateful to leave behind my angst-ridden twenties and thirties. Relieved that all the uncertainty was behind me. Oh, how naive I was. Now, after the events of the past year, I’m supremely conscious of it. Going through my divorce felt like being in one of those time-lapse videos where you start out young and end up feeling about a hundred years old.
‘You know what I mean,’ Naomi is saying now. She sounds frustrated, and I suddenly feel guilty.
‘I do, and I’m sorry: you’re being sweet and I’m being grumpy. It’s just, well, even if Ajay was asking me out on a date’ – merely saying the words out loud seems vaguely ludicrous – ‘I don’t want to go. Not with him, or anyone. And it’s not that he’s too young, or because I’m too old, it’s because there’s no point. I was married to someone for ten years and now it’s over. I don’t want another relationship. I don’t want to go through all that again. That’s it. I’m done!’
I take a declarative swig of wine.
‘But did you fancy him?’
‘Naomi!’ I gasp. ‘Didn’t you listen to anything I said?’
‘Liv, sweetie, you’re divorced, not dead. And you’re not done until they’re lowering your coffin into the ground—’ She breaks off. ‘Hang on, this is my stop.’
There’s the beeping sound of the doors opening and I can hear Naomi getting off the bus, ‘Excuse me’-ing her way through the other passengers, the noise of traffic and rain on wet tarmac, wheezing brakes and the rumbling engine as the number seventy-two pulls away.
‘Liv, can I ask you something?’
‘Not if you want to know the answer.’ I attempt a joke at my own expense. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that when everything falls apart, it shakes the very foundations of your own judgement. You realize you can’t be certain of anything.
‘Why did you leave London and move two and hundred and fifty miles away?’
I don’t know what I was expecting her to ask, but it wasn’t this.
‘You know why.’
I think about all the lunchtimes and breaks she spent with me in the staffroom over the past year, being the supportive girlfriend.
‘Humour me,’ she persists, her footsteps loud on the pavement.
‘I wanted to run away from everything,’ I say simply. ‘I wanted to disappear. To leave it all behind and make a new life for myself.’
‘Exactly.’ Naomi sounds slightly out of breath from the briskness of her walk. ‘So what’s the point of moving halfway across the country if you’re going to take your old self and fears with you? If you’re not going to take a few risks, try something new? You might as well have stayed here, in that case.’
I listen, feeling slightly defensive.
‘You’re wasting an amazing opportunity, Liv. How many people get the chance to cast off everything from their old life and start over?’
‘But that’s just the thing,’ I protest. ‘I didn’t want to start over. I liked my old life.’
‘I know you did.’ Naomi’s voice is sympathetic. ‘But there’s no point looking back. You’re not going that way.’
I fall silent. She’s right. Of course she’s right. And yet . . .
‘I’m scared,’ I hear myself say quietly.
‘It’s good to be scared. If you aren’t scared, you’re not doing it right.
‘Doing what?’
‘Life.’
There’s a pause on the other end of the phone and I gaze at the ribbons of flame making shapes in the fireplace, letting her words sink in.
‘We need to do the things that scare us – that get us out of our comfort zone. That’s how you know you’re alive.’
‘I wish I had your confidence.’
‘I get scared too. Remember when I was pregnant with Ellie? I frightened myself to death most nights, lying awake, thinking about the future, about being a single mum . . . but I also knew I had no choice, because the alternative of never being a mum was even more terrifying.’
I think back to all those talks we had in the staffroom together when she’d made the decision to go ahead. She was so determined, so brave, so open about it all; and yet sometimes I’d catch a glimpse of how scared she really was.
‘Mummy!’
There’s a girlish cry in the background.
‘You’re busy. I’ll let you go – say hi to Ellie for me.’
‘OK, but I’m not letting you off the hook. You can’t sit in that cottage by yourself all day and night.’
‘I’m not, I’ve got Harry to keep my company.’
‘A dog isn’t going to keep you warm at night.’
‘Actually that’s where you’re wrong.’ I glance over at Harry snoozing by the fire and think about our nightly bedtime routine. ‘Anyway, I wouldn’t know what to text back.’ I dismiss the situation. ‘It’s been so long since anyone asked me out for a drink, I’m completely out of practice.’
‘Oh, that bit’s easy,’ replies Naomi cheerfully. ‘Just say yes.’
Back to the Future
Of course, I didn’t always feel like this.
Back in my thirties I was desperate to meet someone. I wasn’t done; I hadn’t even started. I’d been single for a while, after another short-lived romance with yet another man who didn’t want to commit to a proper relationship. London was full of such men. Good fun, easy-going, confused thirty-somethings who weren’t ready or not there yet. And, like most women in their early thirties, I finally grew tired of going nowhere except the pub, and wanted more.
David promised to give me more. Divorced with a young son, he was more mature, more driven and more serious about me. We met online and for our first date he took me to see a play in the West End, followed by dinner in a swanky restaurant, where he expertly navigated the wine menu and asked me questions about myself. Used to dates with men where I made small talk over a pint and a packet of crisps, this was a revelation.
And it didn’t stop there. For Valentine’s Day he sent the most beautiful bouquet to the staffroom. For my birthday it was a five-star hotel in Vienna and tickets to the ballet. While summer was spent in London because of his heavy workload, it was a London that I had never experienced before: one of evenings spent at gallery openings, rooftop bars in private members’ clubs, open-air opera in Holland Park.
I was completely swept off my feet. David was good-looking and successful and I couldn’t quite believe he was interested in an impoverished supply teacher with henna-red hair and a student loan that she still hadn’t managed to pay off. It turned out I wasn’t the only one.
Born into a wealthy middle-class family, David grew up on a sprawling country estate that had been in his family for generations. When he first took me to meet his parents, I remember giving his mum a hug when she offered to take my coat. I was so nervous, and I thought she was lovely.
Only it turned out that wasn’t his mum; it was Lydia, the housekeeper. Well, how was I to know? I’d never met a housekeeper before. I didn’t even know they existed, except in Downton Abbey.
His mother, on the other hand, was polite but cold, and didn’t hide her disapproval. Still I was undeterred. So what if we had different backgrounds? Everyone knows opposites attract, and we couldn’t have been more opposite. A Range Rover-driving, golf-playing, Harley Street dentist and an incense-burning, disco-dancing, comprehensive-school teacher in possession of her own Oyster card.
Nor could we have been more attracted to each other.
‘I could stay in bed with you all day.’
‘So let’s stay in bed.’
It was one morning, soon after we’d met. I’d taken to staying over at his flat most nights, rather than at my house-share.
‘What about my pupils and your patients?’
‘This is more important.’
‘Tell that to the poor sod with toothache.’
He laughed. David had a great laugh. He would throw back his head and really commit to a laugh. I’ve always been attracted to people who laugh out loud when watching something funny on TV, or in response to a joke. Envious of those big belly-laughs that seem to erupt effortlessly and confidently out of nowhere. My sense of humour feels more discerning, more self-conscious. I’m laughing on the inside, I always used to protest, whenever David would tease me about it.
‘It’s their own fault – people need to floss more.’
‘I love it when you talk dirty to me,’ I grinned.
Still laughing, he rolled on top of me, pinning me down.
‘Hey!’ I pretended to protest. ‘You’re going to make us both late.’
‘I rather like getting into trouble with you.’
‘I’m the teacher – I’m supposed to set a good example.’
‘You know this was a boyhood fantasy?’
‘What? Being late for work?’
‘Sleeping with a teacher.’
We were dancing with words; back and forth, it was our form of foreplay.
‘I thought you went to a boys’ boarding school and all the teachers were men.’
Reaching for my hands, he interlaced his fingers through mine and pressed them into the pillow.
‘Didn’t I ever tell you about Miss Laurent, our French teacher?’
‘Non.’
Then he said something to me in French that I didn’t understand, but I didn’t need a translation. I knew how he made me feel, and that was enough. I was like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz when her world turned Technicolor, and I couldn’t have been happier.
Years later I would come to realize what most wives realize about their husbands: that the men we fall in love with aren’t wizards; once we get to see behind the curtain, we discover human beings with fallibilities and fears like the rest of us. But in the beginning I was in awe of David. Nothing seemed to faze him. He approached life with a sense of ownership, instead of something to be scared of. He rarely apologized, whereas my default setting was always ‘Sorry’, even when it was someone else bashing into me on the Tube.
He was competitive, even at Scrabble, and would use two-letter words with triple-letter scores that I, as an English teacher, still have a sneaking suspicion don’t exist.
