when push came to shove, she couldn’t sell out on it
unlike the colleagues who absconded to fee-paying vistas and returned to boast about their outstanding inspection reports and dizzying position in the private school league tables
schools with rowing and equestrian clubs, lacrosse, rugby and squash teams
with Olympic-sized swimming pools and Olympic-trained sports coaches and fully-equipped theatres
who went on school trips to the Himalayas, the Pyrenees, Chile, even the Maldives to ‘study the marine life’ (oh please)
who boasted about the pleasure of teaching in a beautiful listed building that smelled of pine furniture polish rather than the overpowering blend of teenage odours, leaking urinals and industrial disinfectant (health & bloody safety!) that burned the throat and eyes
thank goodness they’d escaped the worst school in London, they’d say, making eye contact, emitting pure pity
so when are you leaving this dump, Shirley?
she did think of applying to a better-performing state school, the day after she had such a lovely dream of being a high school shooter who mowed down the entire student body at assembly (worryingly, it wasn’t a nightmare) and walked off with her machine-gun trailing the dust like a latter-day bow-legged black female Clint Eastwood
yet when she sat down in her study with an application form one night, she couldn’t get past filling in her name
Shirley King
the thought of being interviewed by a panel of strangers scrutinizing her intellect, skills, teaching philosophy (everyone had to have one these days), her personality (ha ha ha), her clothes, body language, looks (what looks?)
she imagined their rejection letters
‘Dear Mrs King,
We had an exceptionally strong field of candidates for this position and unfortunately for you we decided to make an offer to someone younger, prettier, slimmer, less experienced, more enthusiastic, gullible and pliable
as opposed to a bitter old workhorse such as yourself who should be sent out to pasture henceforth!
Yours Very Truthfully’
Shirley realized that everything she’d ever wanted, she’d achieved, which hadn’t prepared her for rejection
she got into university at a time when only the brightest kids did
she got the first teaching job she ever applied to, and enjoyed the school before it went downhill
they’d bought a family house in Peckham Rye when the area was an affordable dump, now it’s pricey and the mortgage is paid off
she’d found the husband she’d wanted when very young, sparing herself years of wondering if she’d ever find Mr Right
her parents adored Lennox from the minute he walked into their house when they were students
they said Shirley could bring him over as often as possible
her mother barely noticed her when he was present, and her history degree, which had previously elevated her status above her brothers, paled in comparison to his law degree
Lennox could do no wrong in her mother’s eyes
nor in hers, a husband as suitable now as he was when they first met, as loyal and faithful
he still did the shopping, but only cooked at weekends, they ate takeaways or readymade meals in the week, the cleaner did the housework
she still met up with friends for a meal or to see a film or for cocktails
Lennox went out on Friday nights after work to trendy Covent Garden wine bars with his younger colleagues, returned home happy and late, reeking of smoke and red wine, a greasy chin from the kebab he’d picked up on the way home from the station
he was still a solicitor, specializing in personal injury and clinical negligence, had never even tried to become a criminal barrister, too stressful and underpaid
he made the right choice
they had sex on Sunday mornings after he’d brought her coffee in bed and before they read the newspapers
it had deepened, was tender when once it was craven and athletic
they still fancied each other, after thirty-something years of lovemaking
lately he’d taken up bird-watching, filled their garden with multiple feeders suited for the small birds he loved the most – the goldfinches, blue tits, wrens and the fearless robins who hopped about low on the ground
unfortunately, dropped seeds from the feeders also attracted pigeons who liked to shit on their garden furniture and strutted about the garden like Nazi bully boys
and the mice also behaved as if they’d been invited to dine
Lennox trapped and released them in the woods a few miles away because he couldn’t bring himself to poison them
she’d warned him that at first sighting of a rat
she was going to get a hunting rifle
Lennox was a football nut, went to matches with his friends, his only real vice was watching way too much of it on TV
it was the main outlet for his feelings, it seemed to her, as she sat in the next room listening to him holler and exclaim and cheer and boo and groan at the behaviour on the pitch, especially when Leeds United were playing
he’d been a hands-on father to their two daughters Karen and Rachel who were born two years apart and became the stars of the movie of their lives
it was hard juggling work and babies, her mother, in particular, pitched in, Lennox rolled up his sleeves in the evenings and weekends, and while he wasn’t averse to changing nappies, he refused to do the bottle feed in the middle of the night
he slept undisturbed in the spare room
once the girls were weaned, he took them away for weekends at the seaside with her mother to give Shirley a much-needed break
she’d sleep a whole weekend away, grateful for her mother’s support
Amma babysat Karen and Rachel once or twice, she was usually too busy, plus Winsome was wary she’d drink or smoke around her little girls
on the other hand, when Yazz was born, Shirley became her number one babysitter, Amma took it for granted that adding a baby to Shirley’s family wouldn’t be too burdensome
it’s true that Karen and Rachel treated her like a kid sister
Yazz was a delight when she was pre-verbal, less so when she discovered the power of words
she and Lennox dutifully attended church every Sunday for five years to get their girls into the Church of England’s Grey Coat Hospital School in Westminster
an ordeal because while both of them are Christians, they’re not churchgoers
Karen is now a pharmacist, Rachel’s a computer scientist
Shirley has come far enough for a Second Generationer
her girls have already gone further.
5
Shirley’s on holiday with her parents in the retirement bungalow they built on a small patch of family land where they now live royally on British pensions
she feels another annus horribilis of a school year drain away as she sits on her favourite cane chair on the veranda
she has the latest Dorothy Koomson novel to devour by lamplight
meanwhile the moon shines over the Caribbean Sea
everyone’s asleep including Lennox on the large double bed with crisp white linen that her mother replaces twice a week
it’s good for her mother to have the family visit, it keeps her active and makes her feel wanted doing what she does best, looking after people, especially her only daughter
Shirley lives for that moment every summer when the taxi arrives at the coast and they walk down the narrow lane to her parents’ house, dragging their suitcases behind them
there it is in all its loveliness, painted rose pink and surrounded by the blossoms Winsome tends so lovingly
just as she will lovingly tend to Shirley
she has six blissful weeks ahead of her before returning to the Hellhole High School for Losers, where she’ll hand-pick more pupils to mentor
as she’s done every year since Carole left
Carole
who came from a single parent family (didn’t they all?)