“Mrs Reddington?” one girl interrupted at least three times during the first lesson. “Mrs Reddington, my mummy says I should ask you lots of questions so you remember me. Can I ask you a question please?”
“Mrs Reddington, you’re so pretty,” blushed another, a dark-haired, caramel-skinned boy already possessing a cheeky charm.
“Mrs Greenington,” dared a third, easily coerced into apology by the slightest lift of Veronica’s left eyebrow.
There was only one child who unsettled her. Sheathed in a halo of wilful, auburn curls, and freckled in glorious splashes across her cheeks, Amelia Beckham stood well under four foot, quiet unless spoken to, at which point a smile would spread infectiously into her speech so that even the most exacting of her peers would listen. From the first minute, Veronica could not take her eyes off her. The girl was seated near the front of the class and paid keen attention, raising her hand every time a question was asked, or wrinkling her brow earnestly if she didn’t have an answer. She was lovely, exactly the kind of child Veronica could imagine having herself. But she didn’t know why she felt such a magnetic pull towards her.
At break time, Veronica skimmed through some of the children’s books and noted that Amelia was neither at the top nor the bottom of the class. She was not one of the children that the PE teacher had told her was especially athletic, nor one that the singing teacher had said would soon enough be on the radio. Peeking through the classroom window, she saw that she was not the best or worst at cartwheels in the playground, nor the funniest, nor naughtiest, nor the most or least popular. But there was something about her. She was one of only three children in Year 2 to have already moved on to Year 3 reading books, but Veronica didn’t think that was it. And it was only at the end of the day when the parents lined up at the door – she had decided on hellos and handshakes – that Veronica finally put two and two together and realised why Amelia had affected her so strangely.
“Sarah?”
Sarah Beckham, née Johnson, stood, clearly stunned, just outside the classroom door. Aside from the elegantly cut suit, and the hair that was a few shades lighter and far more manicured than when they’d last met, Veronica could have been looking at the exact same girl she’d known twenty-two years earlier. Her jaw was a little sharper than it had been, she was, as age dictated, significantly taller, a few faint lines dotted her complexion, and she had finally got the hang of make-up, but her essence was unchanged. There was no mistaking it.
“Sarah Johnson?”
“Beckham, now,” Sarah replied, finding her voice through the surprise. “Veronica.”
“I can’t believe you’re here.” Despite first-day protocol, Veronica pulled Sarah into a fierce hug, ignoring the slight awkwardness in Sarah’s returning arms, and the curious eyes of the onlooking parents. “We were best friends when we were twelve,” Veronica told them. Then to Sarah, “It’s been what, more than twenty years?”
Sarah nodded. “I can’t believe you’re Amelia’s teacher. You teach now?”
“I do.”
“Wow.” Sarah shook her head as she took this in, her blonde-brown bob flapping endearingly against her chin.
“And you?” probed Veronica. “You have a child.”
“Two actually. My son’s at home.”
“Typical.”
“Typical?”
“Leaving the boy at home. You always were a feminist.”
“He’s eighteen months,” said Sarah quickly. But already one of the other parents in the queue had laughed. Another smiled, impatiently, and at least three more strained their necks forward in an effort to hear the conversation and not be left out of any potential judging of, or bonding with, the new teacher.
Veronica wanted to bond. Talking to Sarah was all at once like rediscovering a forgotten but favourite taste, teasing her tongue with familiar and delectable flavour. And the confident girl Veronica had once been, oblivious to things like life and miscarriages, the child who had once basked in Sarah’s friendship, was bubbling gleefully to the surface. Veronica heard her in the slightly impudent words tripping out of her mouth. She felt her resurgence, just out of grasp. Within her grasp, she placed her hand on Sarah’s, and leaned out of the classroom to the queue of parents. “Apologies, everyone.” Then keeping hold of her friend’s hand, she called Amelia to come to her mother. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said. “It’s so lovely to find you here.”
“Actually, my husband will be picking up tomorrow,” Sarah replied as she enveloped Amelia in a comfortable hug. “David usually does the pick-up, but Mondays are my day.”
“Oh? What do you do then?” Veronica queried, feeling herself inexplicably prickling, her unease returning, as though Sarah’s failure to show up on the school run was somehow a rejection of her.
“I’m a lawyer.”
“Oh. Right. Unsurprising.”
“Really? Why?”
“Well you always liked rules, didn’t you?”
The same mother who had laughed earlier, laughed again, and Veronica smiled at her, enjoying the fleeting sense of command, wondering where the slight barbs in her speech were coming from. Sarah furrowed her brow. She did this the same way Amelia did, the same way, Veronica now remembered, she always used to. Sarah began to usher Amelia away from the door to make room for the next parent, but Veronica touched her arm again. “Dinner then. This week. I’ll get your number from the office.”
Sarah smiled and nodded agreeably, though, Veronica noticed, it was with not quite total enthusiasm, as she shepherded her daughter away.
Veronica didn’t leave the school campus until well after five o’clock. Ordinarily, she supposed, she could be gone by four, but she’d had a short meeting with the headmaster to debrief about her first day, and besides, wanted some time to explore the classroom alone. On the wall hung photographs of each of her new Year 2s, and she tried to put names to faces. Managing sixteen out of twenty, she lingered for a moment on Amelia’s, and then spent a few minutes memorising the four that had eluded her. Names learned, she walked slowly around the room, looking at each of the pieces of work on the wall, noting which children had exceptionally neat handwriting, and which seemed in need of development. She stood for an especially long time in front of the collage of self-portraits, attempting to see past the precision of paint, or lack of it, and through to the more important clues of self-perception. On the cycle home she pondered further the enigma of one very pale-skinned boy painting himself a deep brown, the oddity of one face that had been fashioned as almost entirely mouth, and Amelia’s creation, which included every freckle, every red curl, and a meticulously accurate depiction of both shape and colour of the eyes and mouth, revealing that the girl saw herself almost exactly as she was, and suggested she was just as straight-shooting as her mother.
Veronica was still thinking about this when she saw him – the boy from next door. She was mid locking up her bike, carefully threading the cord through both railing and wheel, when something in her periphery caught her attention and she looked up to see him standing on the other side of the street, looking at her. He had not yet crossed over, and she watched as he pretended to notice something of interest on the pavement. Veronica lingered. Even in the day’s flurry of new pupils, and new parents, and then the surprise of Sarah, the noises of the previous night had not stopped echoing in her mind, scratching just below the surface, like the itch beneath her skin. More than once that day she had thought about the uneasiness of this boy. More than once she had thought about the baby crying. More than once she had wondered whether the woman was okay. Just once, her father’s friend in Oman had intruded again into her mind…