The Teacher's Secret (22 page)

‘You went to school with my husband.'

‘Something like that,' she says, her voice rushed. ‘Come on, Paige,' she calls to her daughter, ‘we've got to get a move on.'

Nina needs to go, too. And although it's the last thing she feels like doing, she offers to walk them down to the gate. It's always good to get to know the parents. It can explain a lot. Even reading problems.

But as they walk through the playground, Sue is quiet. When, eventually, she turns to Nina, her voice is puzzled. ‘Steve didn't tell me you worked here.'

Nina is surprised by the remark. Why would he?

At the gate, they part ways: Sue and Paige head up the street while Nina walks down towards her car. She's about to open the door when she hears Marina calling.

When she turns around, her friend is hurrying towards her. ‘Nina, that woman,' she says, stopping to catch her breath. ‘That's her.'

Nina looks at her blankly. ‘What do you mean?'

‘She's the one,' Marina says. ‘She's the one I saw with Steve.'

On a better day, that would make Nina laugh. ‘No, she's not. She's Paige Peters' mum.'

But Marina is adamant. ‘She was with him. I swear it was her.'

Again Nina shakes her head. ‘It couldn't be.'

But as she drives away, she is less certain. And when she thinks back to the party she starts to worry. She shouldn't think about it. Especially not now. Not while she's driving. And not when she's about to pick up Emily. Instead, she turns the radio up high, as high as it will go, high enough to drown out every thought.

But by the time she arrives at Emily's childcare centre, her whole body is cold. Inside the centre, she keeps her head down so she won't have to talk, so she won't have to smile.

She finds Emily, who is playing in home corner, and whispers softly, ‘Let's go.'

It is a relief when, in the car, the little girl lets herself be strapped into her car seat without protesting.

It's okay, Nina counsels herself as she puts the keys into the ignition, it's okay.

But as soon as the engine starts, music shoots through the speakers, so suddenly and so loudly that Emily, terrified, begins to scream.

Her fingers clumsy, Nina struggles to turn the volume down until at last she finds the power button and the music is gone.

Emily is still screaming. Depleted, Nina leans back against the headrest. Now what?

She could get out of the car, she could go to Emily, she could cuddle her. That's what she could do.

Instead, she puts the car into gear. And as she drives off, she clears her throat and starts to sing. She sings ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm', softly first, then louder and louder and louder until she is shouting the words out, shouting them out so loudly that Emily's screams no longer penetrate. ‘Old MacDonald had a PIG,' she bellows. ‘E-i-e-i-o.'

Finally, it works. Finally, out of sheer astonishment, Emily falls silent. Then she starts laughing and soon she is laughing so hard it sounds like she is choking, her little voice straining as she cries, ‘More, Mummy, more, more.'

And so Nina gives her more. More cows and more pigs and more sheep and more chickens and more geese and more caterpillars and
more cockroaches and more worms and more ants until they are home and Nina realises that her fingers are wrapped hard around the steering wheel and she is wet under the armpits.

Once inside, it is all Nina can do to open a can of baked beans, tip the beans into Emily's favourite bowl and zap them in the microwave.

When she calls Emily over to the table, she makes an effort to sound excited. ‘Guess what I've made you for dinner?' she says. ‘Baked beans!'

Emily looks unimpressed. ‘I need noodles.'

‘But I've made you baked beans,' Nina tells her.

Emily shakes her head. ‘I really need noodles today.'

She doesn't have it in her to argue, so without a word, she covers the baked beans with cling wrap and puts them in the fridge. Then she boils water on the stove, drops a packet of two-minute noodles in it, sprinkles over the contents of the flavour sachet and serves them up.

Nina sits with Emily while she eats. As always, noodles are a messy affair: half of them make it into the little girl's mouth, the other half fall down her front. Watching on, Nina marvels at the mundanity of it all. She wonders, too, at how it can be that everything is both just as it always is and absolutely changed.

It is this thought that follows her through the evening as she bathes their daughter, dresses her, reads to her and puts her to bed.

Only then does she hear Steve's car pull up outside. As though separated by perspex, she watches him come through the door, smiling as he walks over to kiss her.

‘Dinner's ready,' she tells him.

Only once they have started eating does she ask, her tone casual, ‘Where were you today?'

Confused, he gives her a hesitant, puzzled sort of smile. ‘What do you mean?'

‘Today—where were you?'

This second time, he takes longer to reply, and his answer, when it comes, is cautious. ‘At work, babe.' And then a pause. ‘Why?'

She stops to compose herself. When she is sure she is able to continue, she says, ‘I rang your work and they said you were off sick today. But, you know, I can see that you weren't home at all today.'

She wants to wait for him to process this but she can't stop herself. ‘Are you having an affair with that Sue woman?'

He licks his lips and starts to shake his head.

‘That's not very convincing.' This is what she hears herself saying to him. Her composure, her calmness, surprises her.

Inside, a different voice is raging. A sobbing, desperate voice pleading with him to make it better, to tell her that nothing is happening, that all is well, that they are good, that things are fine.

She waits for him to deny it, to reassure her that anything she has heard is wrong, has been misinterpreted, is a mistake. She braces herself, too, for righteous anger in his denial, for indignation and fury.

She gets none of that. At first, he says nothing. He simply sits at the table, his arms on his legs, his hands clasped together, his head bowed. It is a stance that frightens her.

‘It's not like that,' he says softly.

She feels panic rising up into her throat. ‘It's not like what?'

‘It's not like that.' He raises his head and, for a brief instant, meets her eye.

She swallows. ‘So tell me what it is like.' She keeps her voice calm, sympathetic even. Later, she will see this as a mistake, this prompt to tell her everything. Everything she doesn't want to hear.

‘I had this thing for her, you know, years ago. And then, there she was again. I couldn't help it, Nina. I couldn't help it.'

He reaches over and puts his hand on hers. Rather than moving her hand away, which is what she wants to do, she lets it stay there.

Looking beyond him, past the kitchen table and over to the kitchen bench, she spies a cockroach egg case stuck to the underside of the bench. She'll need to get rid of it. That won't be hard. She could simply dislodge it with a fingernail or a knife or even the edge of a piece of paper. Really, she should do it quickly because otherwise she'll forget about it, the egg will hatch and it will be too late. But she can't do anything with his hand clamped over hers.

He starts to sob, making ugly, gulping sounds. ‘I don't know what to do,' he says. ‘I don't know what to do.'

Terry

He thought he knew Vonnie's place well. But it's one thing knowing where the bathroom is and another thing altogether remembering where she keeps the chopping board.

They won't be discharging her until Monday. That's what the doctors are saying. And that's about all he's managed to get out of Vonnie. As to the procedure itself, he's still in the dark. Women's business. That's all she had to say about it.

It was a no-brainer when she asked him to look after Bridie while she was out of action. He could have just taken the little one over to their place—that was one option—but with her school books and uniform and the rest of it, it made more sense for Michelle and him to just move in instead. It's not like they haven't done it before. The first time—it was years ago now—Bridie couldn't have been more than six, seven at a pinch. It had been a longer stretch that time. Over a week. Another stint in hospital for Vonnie, but for the life of him he can't remember what for. He can only remember how nice the time had been: how they'd taken Bridie to the movies.
That Nemo one, that's what they'd seen, the three of them.
Finding Nemo.
And gosh, it had been lovely sitting up in the picture theatre together. Ice-creams for everyone and popcorn to share; Bridie's eyes had nearly popped at the size of the bucket. Lovely. A lovely day. Even now he smiles to think back on it. They'd both felt a bit sad when the week was up and Vonnie was back again.

So it's nice to be doing it again, even if it's only for a few days.

Except now he can feel himself starting to get frustrated. He's checked the cupboards, but it's not there. It's not on the draining tray, either, and it's not in any of the drawers.

Finally, he gives up. ‘Poppet,' he calls out, ‘can you tell me where to find the chopping board?'

He doesn't have to call out twice; Bridie is quick to emerge from her bedroom. ‘Nan normally puts it on top of the microwave,' she says. The microwave, an early model—maybe the earliest model ever—sits on a corner of the kitchen bench. When he looks more closely, he sees that Bridie is right: that's exactly where the chopping board is, right there on top of the microwave.

‘Funny place to stick a chopping board,' he says. ‘I mean, say all that radiation somehow made its way up there? Think what would happen to the chopping board. It'd get completely zapped, wouldn't it?'

Terry smiles as she considers this. Gee, she looks pretty with the new glasses, he thinks.

‘I've never seen a chopping board get zapped by a microwave, Mr P,' she decides. As always, her voice is as soft as a whisper.

‘Well, Bridie, my friend, there has to be a first time for everything now, doesn't there?'

She's not sure if he's being serious so he gives her a wink to help
her out. ‘You know,' he says, ‘I had a hankering for bangers and mash tonight, something easy, being Friday night and all. What do you think?'

Bridie agrees. She likes sausages, too.

‘I was thinking,' he says, ‘that if we get a move on now, we should have it all ready by the time Mrs P gets home.'

It's an effort to remember to call her that, but Bridie won't call her Michelle, so Mrs P it is. Everyone else calls her Michelle: she's never been one to stand on ceremony, especially at the surgery. He's biased, of course, but he thinks Michelle would have to be the perfect medical receptionist. She clever, she's organised, she's nice to the patients and always seems to know when someone needs a bit of a pep-up or a bit of TLC, even if it's just a smile and a squeeze of the hand. His only gripe is that she always has to go beyond the call of duty. Like now, for example. It's already a quarter past six, long past her knock-off time, but she's still there. Some crisis or other. Yet again.
But, love
, he keeps saying to her,
you're the receptionist. Can't you leave it to the doctors to sort out their after-hours crises?
But it's like talking to a brick wall, isn't it, because whatever the circumstances, you can rest assured that Michelle will always go the extra mile. Which means they'll be eating late tonight. Late, at least, by Bridie and Vonnie's standards; they're usually done and dusted by six-thirty, and both in bed by eight.

Bridie's a good little helper in the kitchen, and she's a whiz with the peeler—even the blunt old thing Vonnie has—so he lets her take care of the potatoes while he strings the beans.

‘I thought we could catch up with your dad tomorrow.' He tries to keep his voice casual. ‘When we finish up at the hospital, that is.'

Bridie keeps peeling. ‘You mean after we visit Nan?'

He nods. ‘That's what I was thinking. I mean, we won't need to stay at the hospital long—your nan will be home in a couple of days anyway—so it'd give us the rest of the day then, wouldn't it?'

She nods but doesn't look up. ‘All right,' she says.

It's a quiet time, then, between them. It would be good to have a bit of music but there isn't a radio in the kitchen.

‘You want me to tell you a bit of a story about your dad?'

That piques her interest—he knew it would—and straightaway she looks up. Her expression, though, is guarded.

He smiles to reassure her. ‘It's a good story,' he says, ‘a funny one.'

‘About my dad?' she asks.

‘Yes,' he says, ‘it's a funny story about your dad. You want to hear it?'

She's stopped peeling now. ‘Yes,' she says, ‘I want to hear it.'

‘All right,' he says, ‘so you know I taught your dad when he was in Year 6, but did you know that I was also his housemaster?'

She shakes her head: she didn't know that.

‘He was in Bradman House—just like you are now—and in those days, I was Bradman's housemaster, and your dad, he was one of our best runners.'

This seems to surprise her. ‘Nan said he played footy.'

Terry nods. ‘That's true, but to be good at footy you've got to be a good runner as well.'

How curious it is, he thinks, the whole gene thing: that Trent's daughter should be the spitting image of him looks-wise, but nothing like him in terms of the physical know-how. And didn't he have it in spades? Quick, agile, strong, Trent was the whole package.

‘Anyway, it was the school athletics carnival and your dad, he was a red-hot sprinter—the best in Bradman, probably the best in Year 6.
So when the twelve-year-old boys were called up for the hundredmetre race, well, everyone in Bradman had their hopes set on your dad winning the race. That'd mean five points for Bradman and we needed those points to have any chance of winning the carnival. So your dad, he lines up with the rest of the kids, the starting pistol goes and he's off like a shot. I'm up by the finish line and I watch him come, faster and faster, and he's at the head of the pack. You beauty, I think. And there's only fifteen metres left, less even, when it happens.'