Pandora (3 page)

“Ohh, there’s Aunt Mabel’s place,” exclaimed Mrs Laskaris, pointing to a neat, expensive, semi-detached house, which sat inconspicuously with its neighbours. There was a very long row of them. “We’ll be meeting aunty on Sunday. She’s invited us over for lunch. A real Sunday lunch! That’s how they do things here.”

“Yes, dear, you have mentioned that once or twice,” replied Mr Laskaris.

Pandora got the impression that her father didn’t like Aunt Mabel. She shrugged and turned her attention back to the village.

Mothers, neatly attired in blouses and long skirts, pushed old-fashioned prams or else walked while firmly holding the hands of their children. Pensioners strolled along the pavement, stopping to chat to their friends every few yards, and even the blue shape of a policeman could be seen slowly ambling around the green, casting a paternal eye on the substantial houses, expensive cars, orchards and gardens that made up the village. The sun was shining, there were no clouds in the sky and all seemed right in the world of Willowcombe Clatford.

They turned off the road that ran along the green and drove down a wide, clean street resplendent with lush trees and houses with well-maintained front gardens. They stopped outside the house at the end of the road. It was smaller than the others on the street but still larger than their old home in Lowell.

“Well,” said Mr Laskaris. “Here we are.”

“Here’s the removal van,” said Mrs Laskaris with satisfaction. “Oh, there’s St Hilda’s, your new school, at the end of the road.”

The family turned and saw an old building with a modern extension grafted on, an odd mix of solid red brick and prefabricated plastic and glass.

“Can I trust you to supervise the unloading and unpacking, Georges?” she demanded of her husband. “It’s just gone three. I can whizz the girls up to the school and introduce them to the staff, ready for Monday morning.”

“Mum!” said Pandora, rolling her eyes. “We’ll meet everyone on Monday anyway, so why make a fuss?”

“It creates a good impression,” snapped her mother in a tone which brooked no argument. She looked critically at her three daughters and wiped her handkerchief against Sarah’s cheek, despite the squirming girl’s protests.

Pandora sighed to herself. There wasn’t anything on Sarah’s face. Her mother just had to fuss.

“Come on, girls,” said Mrs Laskaris, straightening not only her coat but also her accent, adopting what her family called her
posh telephone voice
. Would she attempt to keep her telephone voice in place all the time now they were in Willowcombe Clatford?

Mrs Laskaris grabbed the twins and frogmarched them along the road, holding each hand tightly. Pandora trailed behind.

“Oh, do keep up,” scowled her mother. “And straighten yourself up. And why couldn’t you have put on a nice dress instead of those awful jeans?”

“I could hardly wear a dress to finish the packing,” replied Pandora. “It would have got dirty.”

Mrs Laskaris opened and shut her mouth a few times.

Pandora counted under her breath to see how long it took her mother to come up with a response. She could never, ever admit when she was wrong.

“You could have changed after the packing was done, before we got in the car.”

“Four seconds.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Mrs Laskaris glared in suspicion but was prevented from saying anything by their arrival at the school gates.

School was over for the day. Pandora watched with interest as the pupils streamed out of the building, some chatting, some packing items away into rucksacks, all bright and smiling and cheerful.

“Don’t they look well turned out?” demanded Mrs Laskaris, looking at the school uniform of green dress and straw boater for the girls, and dark trousers, shirt, tie and blue blazer for the boys. “Everyone in uniform, as they should be. Unlike at Lowell.”

“Most families in Lowell couldn’t afford to buy a uniform for their kids,” pointed out Pandora. “The rest just didn’t bother.”

Mrs Laskaris scowled at Pandora. Not for the first time, she had the suspicion that her eldest daughter was rather more observant than she let on.

She turned her attention back to the school children. No such issues of poverty or fecklessness seemed to be a problem at St Hilda’s. The children all looked healthy, cared for and well adjusted. Groups clustered together, chatting brightly as they left the school, smiling at their parents and eager to tell them of their day. The whole thing charmed Mrs Laskaris.

“Isn’t it nice?” she beamed. “I do like to see families together. I don’t know why you never let me pick you up from Lowell Secondary.”

Pandora tried to remember when her mother had actually offered to meet them at the school, but that way would just lead to an argument. “Nobody wanted their parents to pick them up,” she replied. “It would have meant being beaten up by the other kids.”

“You do talk some rubbish,” screeched Mrs Laskaris, her accent slipping back to pure Lowell before she caught herself.

“It’s true,” muttered Pandora but without much energy. Facts didn’t matter to her mother. Anything that disagreed with her view of the world would be
stories
or
misunderstandings
or even, on occasion,
lies
. Yet, her mother had attended Lowell Secondary when she had been a girl and things couldn’t have changed that much since her time. The school had a lousy reputation, going back years. So why look back in nostalgia at something that never existed?

“No bullies here, I’m sure,” said Mrs Laskaris, her telephone voice screwed back into place. “You’ll make lots of lovely new friends.”

This, even as a concept, was alien to Pandora and the twins. They hadn’t really had friends at the old school. No one did. It was too decayed and vicious for that. What you had, if you were lucky, was someone willing to watch your back in return for covering theirs as you stood in tight corners in the grey school yard, keeping your head down so as not to be noticed by anyone.

The twins had each other for company, but Pandora had often felt isolated and sometimes rather lonely. Maybe the new school would be different, as her mother claimed. Maybe she could make friends. She looked at a girl and her mother who happened to be walking past.

The girl smiled politely but looked a little blank. The mother smiled a little more warmly and said hello to the new family.

“Hello,” said Mrs Laskaris, ratcheting up her telephone voice to another level. “We’ve just moved in here.”

“Oh, yes, you’ll be the Laskaris family,” replied the woman, her reserve instantly gone now that she knew who the strangers were, though she stumbled a little over the name. “Mabel’s niece.”

“That’s right.” Aunt Mabel was well known in the community, and Mrs Laskaris hoped that her aunt’s standing would be reflected on her family.

“How are you settling in?” asked the woman. “I’m Mrs Harris, by the way, and this is my daughter, Helen.”

Pandora glanced at Helen, who stood with her hands folded in front of her while gazing up patiently at her mother’s face. She saw Pandora looking at her and smiled politely, but again, the smile had no real feeling behind it.
Snotty cow
, thought Pandora.

“We’ve only just arrived and I wanted the girls to see the school. And I wanted to see some of the area.”

“Oh, it’s lovely around here,” said Mrs Harris. “We’ve got a lovely butcher, a greengrocer, a corner shop, the church is Victorian, the vicar does some lovely sermons there and the woods and the green are quite lovely and the neighbours are really lovely. We all know each other well. It’s a small community, but it’s lovely.”

“Lovely,” murmured Sarah to Anne, who giggled behind her hands.

“I’m sure you’re looking forward to settling in and finding your way around,” continued Mrs Harris.

“That won’t be a problem,” smirked Mrs Laskaris in a superior manner. “I used to spend my summer holidays here, so I know the village quite well. Intimately, you might say.”

“Oh,” replied Mrs Harris uncertainly. “That’s lovely for you, I’m sure.”

Pandora, having grown bored of the conversation and embarrassed by her mother’s social-superiority complex, had been looking around at the points of interest enumerated by Mrs Harris. The church looked like it belonged in an old horror film thanks to the huge gothic spire and extensive graveyard. Her eye was drawn to something lurking in the darkest, furthest corner of the graveyard, something that seemed to flicker momentarily under a faint blue light.

“Are you all right, dear?” asked Mrs Harris.

Startled, Pandora blinked and the shifting blue light disappeared. Had she imagined it? “I thought I saw something over there.”

“Really, dear?”

“Something nasty?” asked Sarah fearfully.

“Oh, no, my dear,” laughed Mrs Harris. “There’s nothing nasty round here. Nothing bad ever happens in Willowcombe Clatford!”

Mrs Harris eventually moved on, worried that she would be late in getting dinner ready for her husband and family, leaving Mrs Laskaris to march her children to the gates of St Hilda’s. The last of the pupils had left and only one teacher remained in front of the school.

“Can I help you?” asked the man.

Pandora tried not to stare.

The twins, being younger, goggled in open astonishment.

The man was about fifty, with fluffy white hair and a grey moustache. He peered at them through rimless glasses while holding the lapels of his tweed jacket, thus revealing the leather elbow patches. He had on a patterned tank top and a bow tie, while his trousers were corduroy and his shoes a gleaming brown and white.

“Yes, um,” said Mrs Laskaris, flustered by the man. He would have been flayed alive in Lowell for looking so different to everyone else. “We’ve just moved here and the girls start school on Monday...”

“Ah, you are Mrs Laskaris,” replied the man. “I am Mr Gilchirst, the English teacher.”

“
The
English teacher?” asked Pandora.

“Well spotted,” smiled Mr Gilchirst. “Yes, this is a small school. We have but one tutor for each subject. I am, in fact, but a humble temporary teacher, filling the void left by the retirement of the previous English tutor, who dedicated her life to ensuring that no child in her class would ever be bothered by imagination.

“Your arrival has been prepared for and a suitable introduction to the school has been arranged for Monday morning,” continued Mr Gilchirst, rocking back on his feet slightly and peering at the blue sky. “Indeed, we have had several new faces starting at the school over the past few weeks. The new retail and business development park means we need to find places for many new students, while the village itself has had to adapt to the new housing development, as forced through by Councillor Sampson. How we shall fit them in I do not know, but that is the province of Miss Hill, the headmistress, who excels in such matters.”

“Is Miss Hill here now?” blurted Mrs Laskaris. “I would prefer–like to meet her.” If Mr Gilchirst was conscious of the slip he gave no sign, but instead continued to rock back and forth on his feet while smiling at something apparently three feet above their heads.

“Alas, unfortunately and regrettably, Miss Hill is attending a conference today, and I see by the empty staff car park, where alone my car awaits me, we have missed all the other teachers too. We usually stay behind to go over the day with Miss Hill, but when the cat is away the mice will undoubtedly take advantage to scamper off home early, is that not so?”

“Er, er,” said Mrs Laskaris, unable to get a word out.

Pandora grinned. She rather liked Mr Gilchirst. He didn’t seem to care what anyone thought about him.

“I do know that Miss Hill has written to you, care of your aunt, the redoubtable Miss Mabel Whitemarsh, asking the girls to be present at quarter to nine on Monday morning so that she may have a quick word before school starts. Until then, my dear Mrs Laskaris, you may as well let them run free this weekend. Monday will come soon enough.”

Pandora nodded. This was true. The weekend never seemed to last long enough, unlike the average school week, which seemed to go on forever.

“Well, er, thank you very much,” babbled Mrs Laskaris. “You’ve been very helpful and, er, helpful. Goodbye.” She almost yanked the twins off the ground as she backed away, leaving Pandora to smile and give a little wave as she followed.

Mr Gilchirst nodded back, a slight smile playing under his moustache as he locked the gates.

“He was nice,” said Pandora, catching up with her mother.

“You would think so,” snapped Mrs Laskaris as she pulled her family back to their new home.

“What does that mean?”

Mrs Laskaris was silent for a few moments before muttering, “I wonder if he’s been vetted properly by the authorities?”

“Mum! What a thing to say.”

“You can never be too sure,” said her mother darkly. “He had no wedding ring. What sort of man reaches his age without marrying?”

“He could be widowed or divorced or allergic to certain metals,” snapped Pandora. “And even if he isn’t married, what does it matter?”

“It matters a great deal, my girl. I want my children to be safe.”

“What, and you think we’re not safe around Mr Gilchirst just because he’s not married?” A sudden insight flashed across Pandora’s mind. “It’s not even that, is it? It’s the fact that he’s different! That’s why you’ve taken against him!”

“Rubbish!” snorted her mother, thereby revealing that Pandora was correct. “Right, let’s see what sort of mess your father is making of getting the furniture sorted.”

The house was in chaos. Boxes lay everywhere and furniture was placed in a haphazard manner around every room. In the middle of the chaos, Mr Laskaris was quietly establishing order.

“No, no, no!” wailed Mrs Laskaris, immediately in her element as she had something to complain about, thus placing herself in the middle of everything. “The books all have to go upstairs, except for the cookery books and the gardening books, they’re all clearly marked, that sofa should be in the other room, and why have you put the dining table in the back room?” Heedless of her husband’s protests that the back room would be far more pleasant to eat in than the front, offering as it did greater privacy and a cooler environment, Mrs Laskaris set to work organising the house and annoying both her family and the removal men.