What Happens Now

‘Finally, could I have a volunteer for someone to help Mrs O’Raraty with Harry Potter Club on Wednesday afternoon?’

Mike winked back at me and I stifled a laugh with my hand, turning it into a cough. He was always late and the Tube was always the excuse but the truth was that he was hung-over and slept through his snooze button. This meant he always looked crumpled – creased shirt, scuffed shoes, curls of hair springing out from his head at odd angles, as if he’d slept on it while wet. I winked back.

‘Miss Bailey, how kind of you to volunteer,’ said Miss Montague from the front. ‘Please could you liaise directly with Mrs O’Raraty as to what she needs you to do.’

Shit.

I nodded.

‘And that’s everything from me. So I suggest we all get on with our day. Unless there’s anything else?’ said Miss Montague, gazing out at her teachers like Napoleon about to send troops into battle.

Silence.

‘Very good,’ she said, and the room started moving again.

Mike hurried over to Steph and me. A pillow crease was still imprinted on his cheek.

‘Either of you got any Nurofen? My head feels like it’s about to fall off and I’ve got to give a Year 6 his French horn lesson,’ he said.

‘No, sorry,’ I said.

‘Go see Matron,’ said Steph. ‘She’ll have some.’

‘She told me off last week. Said it wasn’t her job to hand out painkillers like sweets. Mad old bag.’

‘Well you’ll have to have a coffee and get on with it then. Come on, let’s get going. The sooner we start the sooner it’s over,’ said Steph, getting to her feet.

Roman took the number of my class to nine. Small class sizes at St Lancelot’s was one of the reasons that parents paid £8,420 a term (extras and uniform not included) for their sons to come here. It meant that the pupils were supposedly lavished with attention by the teachers and our teaching assistants, although my teaching assistant this year was a dim 18-year-old called Fergus who got the job because Miss Montague is his aunt and he apparently needed to ‘get something on his CV’ during his gap year.

Only one week into the school year, I had mentally relegated Fergus to the same level of intelligence and ability as the 5-year-olds. He arrived late every morning, made more mess at the art table than any of the boys, constantly checked his phone in the classroom (phones were forbidden there, ‘only visible in the staffroom’ was the rule) and took extremely long loo breaks.

Still, the boys were mostly cherubic (it was like teaching a litter of puppies every day), and Fergus’s uselessness hadn’t mattered a great deal. Yet.

The four British boys sounded as if they could have stepped straight from the pages of an Oscar Wilde play – George, Arthur, Cosmo and Phineas (although I’d got off lightly because Steph had a Ptolemy in her class this year). Plus Dmitri the son of the Russians; Achilles, the Greek prince; Hunter, the son of two Americans who wanted him to go to Harvard, and Vikram, who hadn’t acclimatized to London yet and had arrived at school every morning, his teeth chattering, wearing three coats.

Because the classes were so tiny at St Lancelot’s, the parents (or nannies, or bodyguards) of the boys brought them to their classrooms every morning, instead of dropping them at the gate. Or to Nelson, as my classroom was called, since Captain Bower had named them all after British military heroes. Other class names included Wellington, Marlborough, Kitchener and Steph taught Allenby, Year 8.

A couple of years ago, one mother had said this was distasteful and launched an impassioned discussion about the classroom names on Mumsnet. But when this came to Miss Montague’s attention, she sent an email to all parents saying if they didn’t like the school traditions, they were welcome to take their sons elsewhere. Nobody did. Nobody ever gave up a place at St Lancelot’s because their boys were guaranteed to go on to Eton, Harrow, St Paul’s or Westminster. Really, wherever the parents wanted.

That morning, the boys started arriving as usual from around 8.30.

‘Hi, George, did you have a nice weekend? Pop your bag on your desk.’

‘Hunter, hello, I could hear you coming down the corridor. Did you have magic beans for breakfast?’

‘Vikram, quick, come inside and warm up.’ This went on for a few minutes as I waved to various nannies.

Then Roman appeared in the doorway, or at least who I took to be Roman because I didn’t recognize him. I squatted down and held my hand out. ‘Hello, you must be Roman.’ He frowned at my hand and didn’t take it.

‘I’m not allowed to talk to strangers,’ he said, kicking the heel of his shoe repeatedly against the carpet.

‘Roman!’ said a woman hurrying in behind him in suede ankle boots and sunglasses. ‘I’m so sorry, I think he’s nervous.’

‘Of course,’ I said, standing up. ‘You must be Mrs Walker.’

She nodded and we shook hands. ‘Miss Bailey?’

‘Exactly.’ She looked like many of the other St Lancelot mothers – expensive. She had a yellow diamond the size of a raspberry on her right hand and long, shiny hair which I suspected wasn’t all her own.

‘Great. Can we just have a word…’ She gestured to the corner of the classroom away from the door.

‘Sure, er, Fergus?’ He had just arrived, wafting cigarette smoke around the classroom. ‘Can you man the door?’

‘Yah, no problem,’ he replied.

In the corner, Mrs Walker talked in a hushed voice: ‘I just wanted to triple-check the privacy issue. I know Miss Montague said there’s a strict no mobile phone policy. It’s just that I don’t want any photos of Roman to leak and we can’t move him again.’

‘Not a problem,’ I said smoothly. ‘I’m sure Miss Montague has already told you but we have several high-profile pupils here and security is our first priority.’

‘Fabulous,’ she said. ‘OK, gotta run. Bye, sweetie. Be good.’ And without even kissing her son goodbye, she trotted out on her suede boots.

I turned back to Roman and smiled brightly. ‘Let’s get you to your desk.’

By Wednesday, not only had I not heard from Max (even though the ticks had finally gone blue), I’d also got thrush. I realized this while sitting in the staff loos that lunchtime because my vagina felt like it was on fire, and not in a good way. Terrific, I thought grimly, standing and pulling my knickers up. I’d have to nip to Boots for some Canesten. I absolutely couldn’t teach anything about the Pyramids this afternoon with this level of itchiness going on in my pants.

When I got to Boots, there was a queue of people taking for ever to discuss their Nicorette and their sleeping problems. And then, finally, when I got to the front of the queue, the pharmacist seemed deaf.

‘Could I have some Canesten please?’ I said quietly. Almost a whisper.

‘I’m sorry, dear?’ said the elderly man in his lab coat, leaning towards me.

‘Some Canesten,’ I hissed, slightly louder. I pointed behind him at the boxes of it.

‘Oh, right you are,’ he said, turning round to look. Then, bellowing so that everyone in Boots could hear, he said: ‘The Canesten Combi or just the cream? Or just the pill?’

‘The combi,’ I whispered, glancing over my shoulder to see a snake of people behind me. I hoped they were all buying embarrassing items too. I hoped they were all buying Anusol for their piles.

‘Here you go,’ he said, slowly picking a box, slowly turning back to the till, slowly scanning it. ‘Would you like a bag?’

‘No thanks,’ I said, snatching it and shoving it into my pocket.

I went straight back to the staff bathrooms, pulled my knickers down again – Christ, the INTENSE itchiness – unscrewed the lid on the little tube and rubbed it in. ‘Aaaaaaah,’ I sighed audibly as I felt the cream’s soothing effect immediately kick in, forgetting that there was someone in the cubicle next to me.

When I stepped outside the cubicle to wash my hands, it transpired that the person in the cubicle next to me was Miss Montague. I quickly dropped the Canesten back into my pocket.

‘Hello,’ I squeaked, our eyes meeting in the mirror in front of us.

‘Afternoon, Miss Bailey,’ she said, raising her eyebrows at me. ‘Everything all right?’

‘Mmm, all good.’

But the cream still hadn’t helped much by the time Harry Potter Club rolled round at 4.30 that afternoon, so I spent an hour trying to help boys of varying ages try to design their own broomstick while crossing my legs back and forth to try and take the pressure off things down there.

I didn’t have time to go home between school and Walt’s exhibition on Friday evening so I had to go straight there. I hate doing that. For a night out, I feel like you need to go home, wash your hair, put on a clean pair of pants and reapply make-up to transform into weekend mode. I wanted to get drunk tonight. I was in that sort of mood.

Max was clearly not going to text, which made me sad. And gloomy about my dating antennae. I knew we’d had a good time. A great time. So I didn’t understand the silence. Maybe it was the shagging him on the first date thing? Maybe the old rules did still apply? Depressing.

I caught the Tube to Green Park and walked down Piccadilly towards a pub in Shepherd’s Market to meet Jess. In the evening dusk, the former red-light district still had a raffish air. Several pubs, a few cramped restaurants with tables that over-spilled to the pavement outside and the unmistakable whiff of London drains.

I saw her standing outside the pub, a bottle of wine in a cooler between her feet. She was smiling and chatting to a tall man in a black polo neck and a leather jacket. One of the art crowd, I decided, walking towards them. Either that or a trained assassin.

‘Hiya,’ I said, giving her a hug.

‘Hi, babe, here you go,’ she said, picking up an empty glass at her feet and filling it with wine. ‘And meet Alexi. He’s coming to the party too. Alexi, this is Lil. My best pal. Knows literally nothing about art. No offence, love.’

‘None taken,’ I said, reaching for the wine glass from her.

‘Lil, sensational to meet you,’ said Alexi, whereupon I went for a handshake and he went for a kiss on the cheek, so we did both and I then pulled back, awkwardly.

I thought sensational was over-egging it a bit. Was he high?

‘How do you guys know each other?’ I asked, before tipping back my wine glass. Ah, that first mouthful on a Friday evening.

‘We don’t,’ said Jess. ‘I met him at the bar and we realized we were both going to the opening.’ She smiled at Alexi and reached behind her neck to pull her hair over one shoulder. Oh dear. I recognized that flush on her face. She fancied this tall, dark stranger who was wearing a polo neck even though it was a balmy Friday evening in September. I glanced from Jess to Alexi. She and I had very different taste. Jess was into beautiful men – slim, delicate, arty men. The sorts you saw drifting about Rome or Florence in drainpipe jeans, who existed on tiny coffees and rolled cigarettes. Not for me. I’d never fancied a man with skinnier thighs than me.

‘Rrrrrright,’ I said, slowly. ‘And Alexi, how do you know Walt?’

‘Old friend from art school,’ he said, scratching his chin.

‘You’re an artist?’

He shook his head. ‘A collector.’

As Jess said, I knew little about art. If you asked me, most Picassos looked like they’d been drawn by a 4-year-old with a packet of Crayola. But collecting meant Alexi had money, no? Rubbish collecting was a job. Art collecting was less of a job, more a hobby for rich people.

‘What sort of thing do you collect?’

Alexi shrugged in his leather jacket. ‘I’m interested in young artists, but it can be any medium. Paint, graphics, installations. So long as I feel something towards it. A reaction. Something visceral, you know?’ At this, he curled his right hand into a fist and held it up to his chest, beating it against his heart.

‘Mmm,’ I replied vaguely into my glass of wine. I went to gallery openings every now and then with Jess and the only thing I felt at them was hunger because there was always plenty of wine but no snacks.

‘I think you’ll love this show,’ Jess said to Alexi, eyelashes fluttering like a baby gazelle’s. Christ. I wondered if she’d told Alexi she knew Walt because she was dating him.

Alexi smiled back at her. ‘I’m excited about seeing it.’

I felt like a pawn in a game of foreplay. ‘What is it?’ I asked. ‘I mean, who’s the exhibition by?’

‘A young artist called Daniel,’ said Jess. ‘From the Ukraine. So his work is quite intense. Twisted.’

‘He uses light to show darkness and darkness to show light,’ added Alexi.

‘Exactly,’ said Jess, gazing at Alexi with such admiration it was as if he’d just announced he’d discovered the secret to everlasting life.

‘Sounds cheerful.’

‘Oh, come on, misery guts,’ said Jess, digging me in the ribs with an elbow. ‘I take it no word from you-know-who then?’

‘Nope,’ I said, grimacing at her. ‘But it’s all right. Onwards and sideways, as Mum says.’

‘He’s an idiot, in that case, and there’ll be millions more,’ said Jess, before turning to Alexi. ‘Lil had a date last weekend but he hasn’t texted her.’

I wasn’t sure I wanted Alexi knowing about my love life, but too late.

‘Lil, I can’t believe it,’ said Alexi, smoothly. ‘I’m sorry. You liked him?’

I sighed. ‘Yeah. He was interesting. And it was my first date in ages. But I reckon if you haven’t heard from someone in five days that’s probably a bad sign, right? You’re a man. If you guys want to see someone again you let them know, no?’ I hoped my tone didn’t come across as desperate.

Alexi looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘Normally, yes. But without knowing the details it’s quite hard to say. Sometimes we can be just as complicated as women.’

‘Fiiiiiinally, a man who admits it,’ said Jess, laughing.

Oh God. If there was one thing that Jess liked more than a skinny man who was into art and tight trousers, it was a complicated, skinny man.

‘What about you, Alexi?’ I said. ‘You single?’

‘Ha.’ He grimaced and ran a hand through his hair. ‘It’s complicated for me, too.’

Course it was. This was a disaster. Poor, innocent Walt, I thought, who was probably this second pouring wine into plastic cups and brushing down his neatly ironed chinos ahead of the opening. He didn’t stand a chance.

Walt’s gallery was a few minutes away on a little street off Piccadilly. ‘Walter de Winter’ said a sign hanging outside it. By the time we arrived, people were already overflowing on to the pavement outside the gallery, under the sign, plastic cups of white wine in hand. It looked like a circus gathering. A woman with bright purple hair stood talking to a man in a tartan jacket with a large dog asleep at his feet. Behind them was a man wearing a cravat over a T-shirt and a panama hat, deep in conversation with a lady who’d come dressed entirely in black lace. One man, standing with his back to us, had the world ‘REAL’ tattooed across his neck.

‘Alexi!’ shouted someone, so he said he’d come and find us in a minute and slunk his way through the crowd.

‘Let’s find Walt,’ said Jess, so I followed her inside the gallery where I spotted him, just as I’d suspected, in chinos, a sensible blazer and suede loafers, standing in front of a large canvas, gesturing to a lady with cherry-coloured lipstick beside him. We snuck up behind him and stood silently, not wanting to interrupt.

The canvas was entirely black, so far as I could see. As black as a blackboard. It was like looking out through a window into the night. No colour whatsoever.

‘And you can see here,’ said Walt, sweeping his hand across the bottom left-hand corner of the canvas. ‘He intensifies the drama. There’s a sense of heightened emotions, of fury, of anger and despair which is juxtaposed with here, where the mood changes.’ Walt stopped and waved his hand towards the top of the canvas, which was exactly as black as the lower half. ‘It’s calmer, it’s lighter, there’s less chaos. So really what he’s revealing is a true picture of mental anguish. Black and violent at times, but at other moments, far less disturbed.’

The lady with the vibrant lipstick nodded. ‘Hmmm,’ she said. ‘Eeet ees fascinating.’ And then she squinted at a small label beside the canvas. ‘Let me haff a look at the others and decide, but I like thees very much.’

‘Absolutely, take your time. Would you like another drink?’ said Walt, gesturing at her empty glass.

She shook her head and handed him her glass as if he was a waiter. ‘Marvellous,’ he said. ‘Like I said, take your time.’

She wobbled off on her heels and Walt turned to us, his face beaming at the sight of Jess.

‘Hello, you two. Wonderful you could both come. Have you got drinks?’ He leant forward to kiss Jess, then me.

‘Nope, only just got here,’ said Jess. ‘We met your friend Alexi in the pub beforehand.’

‘Oh, Alexi’s here, that’s tremendous news,’ said Walt. ‘I should go and say hello, but will you two be all right?’

‘Yes, yes, course, go and mingle. Chat up the punters,’ said Jess. ‘Don’t worry about us.’

He kissed her on the cheek again and headed towards the door as Jess reached for two glasses of wine from a passing waiter.

She gave one to me and I raised my eyebrows at her.

‘What?’

‘Don’t what me. Poor Walt. I saw the way you were looking at Alexi.’

Jess bit her lip. ‘Oh, Lil. Trouble is, Walt’s too nice. I mean, look at him!’ We turned to watch Walt through the front of the gallery where he was clasping Alexi in a hug. Then Walt released him and stood gesticulating madly with his hands, grinning like a madman.

‘I get it,’ I said, turning back to her. ‘He’s nice but…’

‘Too nice,’ said Jess. ‘In no way do I want to rip that blazer off his back. And Alexi is more my type.’

We looked back through the window. Alexi was rolling a cigarette while Walt held his packet of tobacco.

‘Yeah, he looks dangerous.’

‘Right?’ she said, grinning at me. And then her face fell. ‘Oh, but I’m sorry about Max. He’s not good enough. And I reckon explorers must be selfish fuckers anyway. All that time at extreme temperatures. Can’t be good for you.’

‘I guess,’ I said, shrugging. ‘It’s just weird because I thought we really got on. But, I’m fine. Honestly.’

‘Tosser,’ said Jess. ‘Come on, let’s have another drink. Then I want to talk to Alexi again.’ She glanced back through the window at him.

‘Oi,’ I said, waving my hand in front of her face. ‘Focus. Come on, why don’t you tell me about these terrible paintings?’

Waking up the next morning, I knew something bad had happened. I could sense it. I opened my eyes and felt a few moments of bewilderment as my brain groped for information. Why this lurking sense of guilt?

I reached out my hand for my bedside table. And at least my phone was in its usual… Oh. No, it wasn’t. Fuck. Where was my phone? Why wasn’t it charging on my bedside table? Astonishing, the panic this can induce in a fully-grown woman. No phone! I sat bolt upright in my bed and saw my phone lying on my bed beside my pillow. And then I remembered what I’d done. I remembered why there was something niggling at me. A little voice in my head that was whispering ‘Shame.’ A sinking feeling. Already half-knowing what I’d see, I opened WhatsApp. Yep, well done, Lil. I’d sent Max a message last night at… 2.03 a.m. Brilliant.

I read it back, feeling sick.

The message started ‘Just to say,’ which was a bad beginning because it already sounded hectoring. People start sentences with ‘Just to say’ when they’re annoyed about something but are trying to sound laid back about it.

‘Just to say, I think you’re a dick.’

‘Just to say, I never liked your mother in the first place.’

‘Just to say, I hate you and I never want to see you again.’

My intention at 2.03 a.m. was clearly to sound calm. And yet, the underlying vibe was fury. Just to say, last Saturday was my first date in six months, I’d written, which made me groan out loud in bed because it managed to sound cross and tragic at the same time. Quite a skill, that.

I read on, my stomach sinking further at each word. Just to say, last Saturday was my first date in six months. Which was kind of a big deal for me. And I know you’re busy climbing mountains or whatever but I think it’s polite to reply to messages from people you’ve shagged. X

FUCK’S SAKE, LIL, TELL IT TO A THERAPIST. TELL IT TO JESS. TELL IT TO GRACE. TELL IT TO THE MAN WHO SERVES YOU COFFEE IN THE PORTUGUESE CAFE. JUST DON’T TELL IT TO MAX.

The single ‘X’ was a hilariously mental touch too. The subtext, basically, was ‘I’m furious and want to rant at you, but I’m also going to try and sound normal by rounding off this message as if we’re mates.’

There was no reply, obviously. And he’d read it at… 7.22 this morning. I rolled over on to my front and screamed into my pillow. That was it. I’d disgraced myself. I’d become one of those people you worry about becoming. We knew it was in all of us, this propensity to be a psycho, but the trick was to try and stop it slipping out. To maintain the façade of sanity until you’d been with someone for, what, six months? A year? Only then could you start absolutely losing it over things – their inability to pick up socks, their stubble shavings scattered across the basin like iron filings, when they liked a random girl’s photo on Instagram.

What you absolutely shouldn’t do is hint at any sort of lunacy after one date. Not that there would be another date with Max. I knew that for sure now. I wouldn’t blame him if he stayed safely up that unpronounceable mountain. And somehow, this pitiful scenario felt worse because Max was famous. As if he’d be sitting round the campfire or wherever they sat on the mountains, joking about it with his climbing pals. He probably had this all the time, groupies sending him desperate messages.

I roared into my pillow again. How had this happened? We’d been at the gallery for a couple of hours, I remembered that. Then we went to a pub round the corner. Then? I supposed I’d had one too many glasses of wine. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. I was livid with myself. And I felt a hot sense of shame sweep through me. I was literally never having sex again.

Chapter Three

IT WAS THREE WEEKS later, on the train home to Norfolk, that I developed an inkling. Or maybe the word ‘inkling’ is too strong. It suggests that I knew what was coming, which I didn’t, despite what certain people claimed later. But it was on the train that the possibility presented itself in my head and, milliseconds later, my body responded by convulsing with fear. Shit. What if? Nah, couldn’t be. And yet? What if?

It was all thanks to Jess, who’d decided to come home with me for the weekend because she said she wanted to escape London for the ‘wilds’ of the country. This seemed ambitious considering we were off to stay in my parents’ semi in Castleton, but Jess had overly romantic ideas about life. She was late to Liverpool Street that Saturday morning so I picked up our tickets and dithered for ten minutes in Caffè Nero wondering whether I could stomach a Danish. I felt sick, which was weird, because I hadn’t been out drinking last night. I stood in front of the glass cabinet frowning to myself. What did I have for supper? I remembered. My ‘special’ pesto pasta – pasta, couple of spoonfuls of pesto and a few peas – the ‘special’ element of this gourmet dinner – lobbed in from a bag in the freezer so I could tell myself I was getting one of my five a day. But it didn’t contain anything sinister, so why did I feel vommy, as if saliva was pooling at the back of my throat?