Belinda Missen - Lessons in Love

Excitement popped my mouth. ‘Sally!’

‘That’s me!’ she tittered, moving in for a bone-crushing hug. ‘This is wonderful. I heard you’d moved away. Are you just visiting?’

‘Nope.’ I shook my head. ‘Moved back here.’

‘Bring your husband with you? Surely, you’ve got kids now, yeah?’

I shook my head, smiled politely, and ordered a loaf of raisin bread. Ah, I thought, those lovely societal expectations of women in their mid-thirties. ‘Just me.’

‘Oh.’ Sally followed me out of the bakery and onto the sidewalk. Her curly-haired child buried himself in her neck. I didn’t blame him, that wind was awful. ‘So, what brings you back?’

‘I’m actually teaching,’ I said. ‘Term starts today at our old school, so there’s that. I’m really looking forward to it. How about you? I can see you’ve got your hands full.’

She jiggled her toddler about and smiled wistfully at him like he was the third coming of Christ. ‘Well, as for me, three kids. Barrel of laughs and fun. I married Ben Finlay.’

‘Really?’ I asked. ‘Ben, wow. That’s a name I haven’t heard in a while. Used to play football?’

‘Still does.’ She clucked her tongue. ‘Makes for a busy weekend between the kids’ swimming and his sports, but we do what we have to do, right?’

‘Speaking of things we have to do.’ I drew my sleeve back. ‘I really oughta get going. Don’t want to be late.’

‘Oh, no, no, don’t let me hold you up.’ Sally rubbed at my upper arm before reaching for her phone. ‘I tell you what. Let me get your number. We should catch up. There are so many of us old girls still around. They’d love to see you.’

‘Sure, of course, yes, that’d be great,’ I enthused. I could see that as a very fun way to spend the afternoon. Memories, a few drinks, and old friends. What could be better?

With little more than a nervous wave to see us off, we swapped numbers, promised each other we’d catch up soon and got on with our mornings. Me, with an extra spring in my step, and I suspect Sally had one, too. Her first text message came through just as I walked into the administration block at school.

‘Where’d you disappear to this morning?’ I rounded Penny’s desk and made a beeline for my pigeonhole. Already on autopilot, my brain was screaming at me for breakfast, if only I could get all my chores done first. ‘I came looking for you as I left, but you were already gone.’

‘Mission from God.’ She unrolled a coffee scroll like a snail, dangling it above her mouth. ‘Want some?’

‘No, thanks, I’ve got breakfast right here.’ I held my bag aloft. ‘Toast.’

‘Butter’s in the fridge in my pineapple tray!’ she called after me. I was already halfway to the staffroom.

With toast dripping with butter and coffee strong enough to perm my hair, I egg-and-spoon raced myself to my office, which was already lit up and waiting for me to jump into the day. My computer whirred away as I sank into my chair and took my first desperate bite of toast.

After the whirlwind that was yesterday, I don’t think I’d registered just how much of a mess my office was in. The best thing I could do for myself, I thought, was to clean and start at the top of the list. I was already behind thanks to a lack of PC access for most of yesterday, but with a list to work through, I pulled a chair up to my desk and began.

‘Let’s do this.’ I clapped and rubbed my hands together.

I didn’t look up again until I heard the first book being dropped through the returns chute. Those were the magic books that had been found during school holidays. They’d either been buried at the bottom of a backpack along with old permission slips and squashed sandwiches or hidden in the darkness under a bed. If I didn’t have to wipe mouldy banana from the insides of Dear Zoo again, I’d happily take whichever books were being offered this morning.

Like popcorn in a microwave, the closer we got to nine o’clock, the more books appeared. One at a time, and then all at once. Clap, clap, clap went the steel door on the returns chute, and I took that as my cue to get up and head outside for assembly.

Holiday exhausted children were filing into the grounds, uniforms freshly pressed and stain-free. Parents dawdled in behind them. Though they yawned through gossip, their eyes said they were secretly ecstatic that their bundles of joy were now someone else’s problem between the hours of nine and three-thirty, and that they could now enjoy their coffee while still hot.

‘Eleanor!’ Phil had appeared from the admin block, dragging a lectern along behind him like a dead body. He yanked at the cord trailing behind him, and the buzz from the public address system died. ‘What do you know about these damn things?’

What did I know about lecterns? I knew that I set them up about four times a week at the city library, in cases of public talks and author visits. Some people just loved to hear themselves speak, but my small collection of autographed books was proof that some people made sense when placed in front of a microphone.

‘We got this last term,’ he admitted. ‘At least I don’t look like Letterman delivering a monologue anymore.’

I grinned. Phil was far too nervy to ever be Letterman, but a boy could dream. I plugged in the power, swapped a cable over, and stood back as he tapped at the end of the microphone. The sound of tapping fingers echoed loudly. Success.

‘Good morning, everyone,’ his voice boomed across the school from a series of speakers dotted around buildings and grounds. Like the Pied Piper, more children raced into the quadrangle. Parents dotted themselves on seats around the edges, and teachers tried to herd their students, though it was quite like watching them try to herd cats.

I stood back on the sidelines and enjoyed the fact I didn’t have a designated class of my own.

‘Mr Blair, what did you do on your holidays?’ a voice came from behind me.

‘Well, they weren’t really holidays,’ Marcus explained. ‘I marked all of your assignments, got some new work ready for you, and then I worked for my friend Patrick.’

‘The builder?’ asked another. A small crowd of students had gathered around him, each of them eager for a sliver of his spotlight. It was a tiny push and pull, give and take of attention as they swarmed him like moths to a lamp, barely feet away from me. After yesterday, he could stay in his corner.

Marcus sat on a bench seat as his audience closed in, some of them jostling for the prime real estate of space either side of him.

‘That’s him,’ Marcus said. ‘Good memory.’

‘Did you take your dog for a walk?’ asked another.

‘Daisy went for plenty of walks down by the beach, which meant I had to wash sand out of her coat quite a bit, too.’

‘But she loves the beach.’

Marcus chuckled. ‘She does love the beach. She loves swimming while I run.’

‘Did you get pictures of her in the water?’

‘I got a few.’ Marcus was quiet for a moment. I didn’t dare look at him for fear of being drawn into the conversation. From the cooing that resulted, there were plenty of dog photos being passed around his students, who seemed to multiply in number with each new question that was asked. So did the mothers around him. ‘And that’s … yeah, that’s a house we were painting, just at the end of the main street … and, yep, that’s my mum making a cake.’

‘Did you get a girlfriend over the holidays?’

Marcus laughed. ‘They’re not like a bag of crisps. I can’t just go to the shop and pick one out.’

‘That would be easy,’ said a boy with sandy hair.

‘It would be,’ he agreed with a quick sniff. ‘But, no, I don’t have a girlfriend.’