The Teacher's Secret (14 page)

Steve spreads out his arms. ‘I'll give you a lift home, Suzi Q. I'll take you home.'

Looking up, Sue struggles to focus. ‘You can't drive, Stevie Wonder,' she says. ‘You're blind.'

And she laughs so hard she starts to cough. She's still laughing as Nina opens the car door for her then walks back around to get into the driver's seat.

When they get to Sue's house, she has a couple of false starts before she manages to get herself out of the car. Once she is out, she leans into the front passenger seat. ‘See you round, Stevie Wonder,' she says, her words slurring. ‘And you too, Mrs Stevie.'

Steve throws his head and his arms back and laughs like he's never heard anything funnier. ‘For sure, Suzi Q. For sure.'

Sue chuckles as she raises her hand to her head in some sort of salute. Nina looks over at Steve and, sure enough, he's saluting her right back.

Sue takes a step towards the kerb then stumbles. She'll end up on the road, Nina thinks to herself. So she puts the car in park, turns off the engine and gets out. Gritting her teeth, Nina takes the woman by the arm and leads her up to the door. A sensor light floods the front porch.

‘Where are your keys?' Nina asks.

Sue peers at her. ‘You got them?'

‘How about I have a look in your handbag?' Nina suggests.

And so, like an obedient child, Sue lifts up her handbag to show Nina. It's a large bag filled with stuff: pens and chip packets and tissues and tampons and make-up and loose change. When Sue shakes the bag, they both hear a jangling sound. Sue gives a satisfied murmur. ‘There they are,' she announces. With a grimace, Nina sinks her hand into the bottom of the bag and fishes around until she finds some keys.

‘That's them,' Sue tells her, leaning forward until she loses balance and has to press a hand against the front door to steady herself.

‘Which one?' asks Nina, holding the keys up in front of her face.

Sue frowns at them. ‘I think,' she says indistinctly, ‘I think it's a gold one.'

There are three gold keys on the keyring. The second one fits, and once Nina has opened the door, she passes Sue the keys and leaves her there.

When she gets back to the car, Steve is asleep, his head slung back, mouth open. Nina tries not to look at him as she starts the car and drives them home.

Terry

The blinds are still drawn, so he turns his head to listen. When he doesn't hear anything, he's pleased. Nothing worse than a rained-out swimming carnival. Then again, maybe there is. The cock-up they had two years back, now that was worse than a hailstorm. All the kids—the whole lot of them—lined up to be bussed to the carnival. An hour later, they were still there, with not a bus in sight. Belinda had forgotten to confirm with the bus company. Booked the buses, she'd done that all right; all she'd forgotten was the phone call to say it was going ahead. Poor little Belinda was beside herself. Crying—no, sobbing—over it. Devastated.

Ever since, Terry's been booking the buses—and confirming the bloody buses—as well as organising the rest of the carnival. Not that he minds. Truth be told, he loves it.

Now he pulls on his dressing-gown, heads for the kitchen and switches on the radio. And, praise the heavens, it's the weather forecast he's after: sunny and twenty-five. Perfect.

The buses are there on time and by 9.45, a sea of kids are sitting up in the grandstand, poolside. Terry switches on the megaphone and hopes for the best. It's the same bloody megaphone he's been using for the past fifteen years, and it's a bugger of a thing. He's lost count of the number of kids who've missed their races because they couldn't hear what was being said over the static. If they don't get a new one by next year, he'll bloody well fork out for it himself.

But for now, Tania's trying to quieten them all down.
Hands on heads
, she mimes,
on shoulders, on knees, on ears, on lips
over and over again until the kids are so busy following her they stop talking.

Dropping his arm so the megaphone hangs down by his side, Terry sidles up to her mid-routine. ‘Stick a finger up each nostril and see what they do then.'

Her mouth twitches. ‘How about you call the first race instead, smart-arse?'

Terry claps his hand to his mouth. ‘I think Acting Principal Mathews would agree that this is not the sort of language we like to hear at Brindle Public.'

‘You know what?' she whispers back, hands on her head, shoulders, waist. ‘I'm not sure Acting Principal Mathews would agree with anything you have to say, Mr P.'

Terry takes a bow. ‘Thank you, Ms Rossi. I'll take that as a compliment.'

Hands back on her shoulders, Tania flicks him a smile. ‘Eight-year-old boys' freestyle, please.'

Terry raises the megaphone back up to his lips. ‘First call for eight-year-old boys' freestyle—that's eight-year-old boys' freestyle. Please report to the marshalling area.'

By 11.30, he's ready for a break, so he hands the megaphone to Tania and does a walk through the grandstand to check on the kids. Up the back, Jade is sucking on a Chupa Chup. Below them, Tania's voice is just audible. ‘Eleven-year-old girls' fifty-metre freestyle. Eleven-year-old girls' fifty-metre freestyle.'

Terry steps over a bundle of school bags so he can sit beside Jade. ‘Come on, love,' he says, ‘this is your big chance.'

Jade has another suck of her Chupa Chup before she takes it out of her mouth to have a good look at it. She's sucked it right down into the shape of a tiny brown football. Now she's looking up at him with half-closed eyes, her eyelashes long and dark and, by the looks of it, set in place with mascara. Today her lips are full, too, full and shiny. Must be the lip gloss, he thinks.

‘Big chance for what, Mr P?'

‘Big chance to do something for your house.'

She cocks her head on an angle. ‘Well, I've been cheering, Mr P.'

Terry stifles a smile. ‘I'm not talking about cheering, Jade, I'm talking about competing. In the carnival. To get points for your house.'

‘Reckon I'm in with a chance for age champion, Mr P?'

She's that dry she could be twenty-five. ‘Participation, Jade, that's what I'm talking about. A point for every race you swim in. Jump in the water and there's your point.'

She gives him a half-smile. ‘That true, Mr P? I jump in the water, get straight out and I still get my point?'

‘Uh-huh. That'll get you a house point. But if you want to earn yourself two class points, you'll need to do a bit more. For the class points, you need to jump in, get to the end of the pool—I don't care how you do it—and get out.'

Elsie is sitting a couple of rows further down. At the mention of class points, she swivels around to face them. ‘Two class points, Mr P, just for going in it?' She's got her lunch box on her lap and she's trying to pull open a packet of chips.

Terry shoots a finger at her. ‘That's right, Elsie. Long as you go in the race, you get your two points. Go in five races and you've got enough points for a lucky dip.' With that, Elsie lets the chips fall back into her lunch box. ‘And, Elsie,' he says, dropping his voice, ‘I don't mind telling you, just yesterday I topped up the lucky dip box with some really great prizes.'

Elsie's eyes are wide and trusting. He could tell her he bought an elephant from the zoo and she'd still believe him.

Jade stretches her legs out in front of her. They are long, golden brown and covered in little blonde hairs. Not a blemish on them. ‘Bet they're lame, Mr P. The prizes. Bet they're all those lame Lego packs.' Terry makes a clicking noise with his tongue. ‘Wrong,' he says, ‘no lame Lego packs. Just a whole lot of terrific surprises.'

This has Elsie almost clapping in delight. ‘How many, Mr P? How many prizes are in there?'

Terry lowers his voice to a whisper. ‘A carload, Elsie. A carload.'

He's got them both for a moment then; even Jade has straightened up. ‘A carload, Mr P?'

‘Maybe that's overstating it, Jade, but you get my drift, don't you?'

Jade shakes her head but now she's laughing, so he knows he's got her.

He watches her pull down her denim shorts and take off her little T-shirt. Stripped of them, she's left wearing nothing but a string bikini, the fabric shiny and golden, like the wrapper of a Crunchie bar. She's so clearly not a child anymore: high, round breasts pull at
the tiny triangles of her top, leaving a dividing line along the middle of her chest. Her waist, too, has narrowed and her hips are curved now, the skin pressing against the tiny ribbon that joins her little pants together. It's happened so quickly, he thinks yet again, quickly enough for her swimming costume to have suddenly become too small. Even if the shade is beautiful on her lovely brown body.

As she walks over to the marshalling area, goggles over her wrist like a loose bracelet, he keeps his eye on her, marvelling at the confidence of her walk: head high, shoulders back, chest out. Her hips, it seems, have not only given her a new shape, but a new walk too. It's an understated sashay: to the right, to the left, to the right, to the left. Too little to be provocative, too much to go unnoticed.

Elsie has also stripped down to her swimmers. Hers, too, are last year's: a blue pair of racers sun-bleached from navy to mid-blue, the elastic stretched so that the bottom of them droops down and her breasts poke out of them like little cones. Strange to think of Elsie's body forging ahead as her mind struggles to keep up. She searches in her bag until she comes out with a swimming cap. It's a thin plastic one and she has trouble getting it on. He lets her wrestle with it for a couple of minutes before he calls down to her. ‘Do you want me to help you?'

Nodding like an eager toddler, she steps heavily across the three rows that separate them until she is standing in front of Terry, the edge of her cap pulled across her forehead, the rest of it flopping down to one side.

Terry pulls the cap off and, using both hands, stretches it out so it will fit over her head. Wisps of hair stick up at the side of her face and, gently, he slips them back with his finger.

‘How's that, Elsie?'

The girl smiles as Terry steps back to take a look at her. The cap makes her head look like a big round ball and, together with her belly, the effect is of a Babushka doll. She'll be at the mercy of them all, he thinks. They'll all be laughing at her as hard as they can. Hopefully, she'll be oblivious to it. Hopefully, she'll be so focused on the bloody carload of lucky dip prizes she won't notice.

‘Off you go now, Elsie,' he says, his voice tender, ‘show me what you've got.'

Still smiling, Elsie turns back to Terry and, pressing the side of her face into his stomach, wraps her arms around him. He rubs her back with his hand and, although he knows he should gently disentangle her, lets her stay there, right up against him. ‘Thanks, Mr P,' she says, her voice muffled.

‘Looking good, Elsie,' he says softly before he gives her a tap. ‘You'd better get up there now.'

Her tread is heavy and awkward as she steps down the concrete stairs that divide the seat rows. When she reaches the last step, she gives a clumsy jump. Still smiling she turns back to Terry to check that he hasn't missed it: that he's watched her jumping down. He gives her a wave to show that he's seen it all. She returns the wave and, with a happy lumbering skip, runs to catch up to Jade.

Across a couple of rows, Bridie is sitting quietly by herself. ‘That goes for you, too, Bridie,' Terry tells her. ‘You can follow them over to the marshalling area.' At the mention of her name, Bridie's head bobs up. ‘Huh?'

‘Eleven-year-old girls, Bridie—that's you.'

She shakes her head. ‘I'm not swimming, Mr P.'

‘Why not, Bridie? You got scarlet fever or something?'

Again she shakes her head. ‘Because of my glasses. Nan said I'm not to take them off. Because I'll lose them and she'll have to pay two hundred and fifty dollars for another pair. And that's too much. And I can't swim in them.'