The Learning Curve (43 page)

Claire took another chocolate and then looked at Nicky. ‘God, Nick,’ she said. ‘You’ve gone white. Say something.’

Nicky shook her head. ‘I can’t think of anything nasty enough,’ she whispered.

When they finished counting, Nicky asked Claire to take the amount to Mark while she went to wait for her in the silent, dark car. She couldn’t face anyone. She didn’t want to go home; she just wanted to be there now. She wanted to be knocked unconscious until she was in bed.

She sped up towards the hall door, hoping no one would call her name. She had gone beyond the point of no return and was seconds away from crying. It was probably the drink, but she didn’t know it was possible to feel hate this powerfully. She hated Rob for not hating Amanda, or at least pretending to and not standing up for her about being a career woman. She hated Amanda for saying those things in front of Miss James. She hated Miss James for making her and Rob compete. And for always smiling and being in such a bloody good mood all the time – what pills was that woman on? She hated her for pretending that she didn’t know how much work went into everything. She hated Pete for always making jokes the whole bloody time. She hated Claire for being so honest all bloody evening. And she hated Mark for looking keen on her in public and yet being so unreadable to her.

As she walked down the empty, darkened corridor,
heading towards the exit, her tears started coming. She sniffed loudly and let out a choked sob, its echo ringing out past the wall display of the solar system. Just as she opened the school’s entrance to the playground, she heard the door from the hall behind her swing open into the corridor. Someone wasn’t far behind. She sped up. She didn’t want any of them to see her like this. By the time she was halfway across she was sober. She’d already got Claire’s car key out of her bag. She ran a little of the way until she reached the path. The gentle curve of the lamp-posts at the side of the path and fairy lights in the conifers always made the path look like a fairy grotto at night, but as the sound of the footsteps behind Nicky stopped, indicating that whoever was behind her had now also reached the squidgy tarmac too, she didn’t care. As soon as Claire’s car hove into view, she pointed her key at the car and started clicking desperately, nearly sobbing with frustration when nothing happened, like a desperate radar-wielding
Star Trek
extra. Finally she heard the loud click of the car doors unlocking. She sped up and yanked at the passenger door. It didn’t open and she almost pulled her back out. She’d forgotten the child-safety lock. The person behind her was catching up. Frantically, she pressed the car key again. The person behind her was now gaining. Suddenly, with a tiny little click, the passenger door unlocked. Now she could hear the footsteps again, which meant the person was in the car park. It sounded like a woman. If it was Amanda, there was every chance she’d hit her and then keep on hitting.

She pulled open the car door and just as she was about to jump in, she heard Miss James sing out her name. She moaned silently, wiped her face fast, smiled and turned to
face her boss.

‘Congratulations!’ trilled Miss James. ‘Well done, my dear.’ Her voice was an octave higher than usual, her arms stretched towards her. ‘What a wonderful, wonderful evening! You should be very, very, very, very,
very
proud of yourself.’

Nicky tried not to burst into tears. ‘Thank you,’ she squeaked. ‘Glad you enjoyed it.’

‘Enjoy it?
Enjoy
it! I loved it.
Loved
it! Adored every minute of it! So funny! The lemonade! Genius!’ She burst into laughter, before suddenly going serious and pointing at Nicky. ‘You clearly have superb organisational skills.’

‘Yes. It was fun organising it.’

‘And you can clearly work well as one of a team.’

‘I’d like to think so. It was a good team as well,’ breathed Nicky, her hand on the door handle.

‘Of course!’ agreed Miss James, nodding. ‘Indubiterbibbly.’

‘Mm.’

Miss James just wasn’t getting the hint. Instead, to Nicky’s horror, she even leant in closer, swaying softly like a conifer in the breeze, her eyes so near that Nicky could see the reds of them. Then she whispered very, very loudly, ‘That young Miss Taylor!’ She widened her eyes. ‘She’s a little turn-up for the books, isn’t she?’

‘Oh?’ mumbled Nicky, dreading the worst. ‘H-how do you mean?’

Miss James gave her a big wink, which involved her entire body and made her look like she was trying to prevent middle-aged leakage. ‘My dear,’ she confided, ‘the girl’s a
completely conniving cow.’ She tapped her nose, missed, and almost poked herself in the eye. Then she squeezed Nicky’s arm and finally left her in peace.

‘RIGHT,’ BEGAN CLAIRE,
from across Nicky’s dining-room table. ‘Now then, Miss Hobbs –’

‘She doesn’t call me Miss Hobbs,’ interrupted Nicky.

Claire shot her a look over her glasses. ‘Excuse me,’ she said shortly, ‘this is meant to be a role-play.’

‘Well, there’s no point in doing a role-play if it’s not convincing,’ said Nicky. ‘She doesn’t call me Miss Hobbs.’

‘What does she call you? Nicky?’

‘“My dear”. “Dear girl”.’ Nicky tried to think of some more.

Claire frowned. ‘Doesn’t sound very professional. What does she call Rob?’ she asked drily. ‘“Boss”?’

Nicky shut her eyes. ‘Just begin the interview.’

Claire coughed. ‘Well, my dear,’ she began again, ‘what qualities do you think you can bring to this job?’

The practice interview went well. During it, Nicky was forced to reorganise a few key answers and devise a method for remembering everything, which entailed a combination of mnemonics and imaginary headlines. After three hours and much repetition, she thought her brain might dissolve.

‘What time is the interview?’ asked Claire.

‘Eight.’

‘What time is Rob’s?’

‘Seven.’

‘Hmm.’

Nicky sighed. ‘Don’t ever tell me what that “hmm” means.’

‘No, I just –’

‘I don’t want to hear it.’

‘– think you’ve got longer to sleep in –’

‘Hah!’

‘– or prepare.’

Nicky rubbed her eyes. She knew she couldn’t possibly prepare for another question. She’d even thought of a compelling answer for what she’d do if she got pregnant, apart from ‘sell my story of immaculate conception to the press’.

She’d thought through and round every possible angle that Miss James might pursue in tomorrow’s interview. In fact, she’d thought of every single aspect of this job. And the more she’d thought about it, the more she knew she wanted it. And the more she wanted it, the more nervous she got. Her stomach was so full of nerves there was no room for anything else in it, least of all food. She hadn’t eaten any dinner. At 11 p.m., just after Claire had left, she forced some toast and tea down her throat but had to leave most of it.

She slept well, which is to say, she didn’t wake up all night. But she dreamt terribly. She had her recurring exam nightmare, where she was doing A-levels and had just discovered she had to do Maths instead of English and Classics. Her best friend (Marianne Sunderland – two boys, one surgeon husband, own beachwear catalogue business) was trying to help her but could only speak Chinese.

When Nicky woke, her cheeks were damp. She looked at her clock just as its alarm went off. She listened to Radio 4 as she got ready for her interview, just in case Miss James surprised her and asked her something topical. When she got into her car and tuned in again, she realised that she hadn’t heard a single word. She didn’t even know who today’s presenters were. She changed the channel to Classic FM, but it was adverts mostly for digital radios and she didn’t want one. She couldn’t even listen to this one properly. She turned it off and decided to role-play another interview. By the time she arrived at school, her lower inner lip was shredded and her stomach was concrete.

She sat in her car, steadying her breath. When her mobile phone bleeped with a text message, she smiled immediately. She took it out and read it.

Brk a leg. Preferably Rob’s. Ally x

For a full minute, she envied Ally her late mornings and stress-free days. And then, after the minute was over, she got out of her car and smoothed down her smart interview skirt.

She walked up the path and studied the numbers and alphabet on the ground. If she got the job, she’d get them repainted. And possibly change the G-gnu for a G-goat.

Five minutes later, she stood in the silent staffroom blinking up at the clock. Half past seven. Rob had been in there for half an hour. She had half an hour to kill. Her body shivered, as if someone had just walked over her grave. Her hands were freezing. She decided, for want of anything else to do, to boil the kettle even though she didn’t want tea or coffee. Then she decided to redo her make-up, and when the kettle boiled before she was halfway through, she just stopped and looked at it, mascara wand in hand.

Sitting there like that, she asked herself why she was quite this nervous. She had had job interviews before. She had passed a lifetime’s worth of exams. She picked up her mirror again. She brought it closer to her face and stared at the delicate, precisely parallel lines beginning their journey down the soft skin from the outer corner of her eyes to the tip of her cheekbones.

‘Hiya. How are you?’ came Mark’s voice from the door.

She almost dropped the mirror.

‘OK, thanks,’ she answered. Her lips were now quivering with cold.

He walked into the staffroom and she thought he might bend down to hug her, but he just stopped short of reaching that far. ‘You’ll be fine,’ he said.

Nicky’s eyes darted past him as the staffroom door opened. When Ned appeared, there was a stunned silence. Ned almost turned round and walked back out again, then seemingly thought better of it, stayed – that is, he tried to shrink into nothingness where he stood – and whispered hello.

When they said hello back, he nodded. He continued nodding all the way to his locker.

‘You’re in early,’ said Nicky, for want of anything better to say.

He gave a little start and half turned to her, his face looking worryingly like the face of someone who’d just shat himself. Which was well within the realms of possibility.

When Amanda came in, he looked like he’d just done it again. Nicky sympathised.

‘Ooooh!’ laughed Amanda, looking from Ned to Nicky and back again. ‘Of course! It’s today, isn’t it? I forgot! So! Are we all ready, then?’

There was a moment of sudden communal understanding. Nicky looked at Ned. He nodded a bit more, eyes firmly on the floor. She wanted to be able to speak. Then Amanda turned to Ned, who was now even paler than Nicky.

‘What time’s yours?’ she asked him.

Ned could barely bring himself to look at Nicky. He managed a turn of the head, but that was as far as he could do. His eyes skimmed the floor as his mouth did an impersonation of a smile. The skin round his lips was hospital-green.

‘It was my wife’s –’ he began.

‘No!’ said Nicky. ‘You don’t need to explain. Good luck, Ned. Go for it!’

‘So!’ Mark turned to Amanda. ‘What time’s yours?’

Amanda laughed. ‘I’m not going for it!’ she said. ‘God, I’m not remotely ambitious.’

Ned excused himself. Probably to change his trousers, thought Nicky. As he walked past her, she said, more to him than Amanda, ‘There’s nothing wrong with a bit of ambition.’

Ned shut the door behind him. Nicky could feel Mark looking at her. She wanted very much to look back at him, but knew that Amanda was looking and that she’d probably cry.

‘Good luck,’ she heard him say lightly.

‘Thanks,’ she replied.

He strode across the room, opened the door and stepped back as Rob appeared before them all. The two men nodded a greeting to each other, and as Mark left, Rob entered, grinning at Amanda and Nicky.

‘Well?’ asked Amanda. ‘How was it? Don’t keep us in suspense! Was it OK?’

He blew out air through tight lips and shrugged. Behind him, Miss James popped her head round the door and smiled.

‘Hello, team!’ she said and then looked at Nicky. ‘Are you ready, my dear?’

Nicky picked up her case and followed Miss James to her office. As she walked past Mark’s office, she heard his door quietly click shut. She carried on walking behind Miss James.

Behind the bursar’s door, Mark was making a rather delicate phone call. As he waited for someone to answer, he paced the floor.

‘Fortune Green Senior School?’ came the receptionist’s voice at the other end.

‘Hello,’ he said. ‘It’s Mark Samuels here, I’m returning Mr Davies’s call from yesterday.’

‘Ah yes, hello.’ Her smile was audible over the phone. ‘The Headmaster’s free now,’ said his receptionist. ‘I’ll put you through.’

Miss James stood back at the door to her office and let Nicky go in before her. Nicky gave a respectful smile to Miss James’s shoes as she passed them. Miss James shut the door quietly behind them. The first thing Nicky saw was a governor sitting in an extra chair behind Miss James desk, to her right. He looked like a thin, kindly Father Christmas, except slightly older. He had a white beard and the most mesmerising white furry eyebrows that jumped up, like two terriers whose owners had just come home, every time he smiled.

‘This is Mr Godfrey-Smythe,’ introduced Miss James. ‘Nicky Hobbs, our other Joint Deputy Head.’

Nicky put forward her hand, determined to give him a confident handshake that spoke of kindness, warmth and empathy, yet firmness and discipline. Smiling, with jumping eyebrows, he took her hand in his and vibrated it sideways for a moment.

‘Right, well,’ said Miss James as she sat down at her desk, ‘I suppose we’d better get started, hadn’t we?’

Nicky nodded and licked her lipstick. She crossed her legs and held her hands in her lap. She gave Miss James – and Mr Godfrey-Smythe – a broad, warm smile. She breathed deeply and slowly. She had a headache.

Miss James propped her glasses on her nose, picked up the top application form and glanced at it, holding it away from her face. No smile. Nicky looked at her face without its smile. There were such deep lines from the corners of her nose to her chin that they looked drawn on. Her lips were surprisingly thin. Miss James suddenly banged the form down on her desk and looked up at her.