Stepping over the unscrewed parts of drawers, I grab the toothpaste from the bathroom and squirt a blob into my mouth. Blue stains of red wine sit on my bottom lip.
The doorbell rings again.
Please, please, please don’t be Trish and John.
‘Hello!’ a couple sing in chorus as I open the door.
God, they look so freshly scrubbed. Their cheeks are rosy. It’s the couple who live in the second-floor flat. They’ve been out walking, and they’re wearing matching hiking boots and designer raincoats. They must have driven out to Kent this morning at the crack of dawn. They make me feel revolting. I don’t even know what time it is.
‘How are you settling in?’ the fella, Giles, asks.
‘Good,’ I say. Well, what else can I say? ‘Manic.’
‘I bet,’ Ingrid says. She’s Norwegian and her skin is so flawless I can’t imagine she’s ever ingested anything processed. Ever. ‘Is Jack home?’
They don’t know.
Okay, I should’ve known they didn’t know by the tone of their arrival, asking how I’m settling in, but it’s only just dawned on me. They don’t know. And it’s going to be up to me to tell them.
‘Building a chest of drawers,’ I lie.
Giles and Ingrid cock their heads to the side and look past me into the hallway, at the obvious chaos of weekend DIY. I point at Ingrid and release some sort of weird grunt.
‘Ikea,’ I say.
‘That is Swedish,’ Ingrid reminds me.
Giles waves his hands. ‘No need to bother Jack – we just wanted to let you both know that we’re getting our bathroom refitted next week so it might be a bit noisy. The builders will need to go around the back of the house to check some plumbing so if you see any strangers in the garden, don’t be alarmed.’
He finds this really amusing. Maybe I would too, on another day, in a previous life. Giles looks so together; so clean; so innocent: I can’t imagine anything could get near him to break him. He’s probably got some sort of sensible insurance policy to protect himself from anything bad ever happening.
‘No probs,’ I say.
‘Anyway, we must have you both over for a cuppa some time,’ Giles says. ‘Or perhaps something a little stronger?’
‘Or pasta?’ Ingrid says.
‘Or pasta,’ I repeat.
‘We bought a new hanging basket, by the way,’ Giles adds. ‘For the front of the house.’
‘Lovely,’ I say. ‘Thanks.’
‘Oh, it’s no trouble. No trouble at all. Shame the weather’s taken a turn for the worse, eh?’
‘Has it?’ I look upwards to the thick, white sky.
‘Been chilly again, like spring for the past couple of days,’ Giles tuts.
‘He is so obsessed with the weather,’ Ingrid says.
‘Aren’t we all?’ I say, aware of my massive contradiction.
And fuck me. I’m still wearing Jack’s giant bloody parka.
I bid them goodbye, mimicking their pure politeness. When I close the door, I touch the blue stain on my lower lip. Ingrid’s natural blonde locks have also reminded me of my roots, all dark and mousey and threatening.
Why didn’t I tell them?
Because it didn’t seem appropriate. Like I’d be interfering.
I close the curtains to stop the outside glare reflecting on the telly, and I have a long, long flick through everything Netflix has to offer. There’s still two more drawers to build, but I imagine Jack lying beside me. We watch a film about a high school misfit with the ability to move mountains, literally. We drift in and out of some sort of drunken sleep.
A message alert shakes me awake.
Dear Chloe, I hope you’re keeping well. I got your number from Jack’s phone. The funeral is taking place next Friday. Regards, Trish Carmichael.
I wonder if she’s read the exchanges between him and me over the past few months. As perverse as this might sound, I hope so. It’ll prove we weren’t ‘just shagging’, as she so bluntly put it.
7
On Monday, I go to see my department head and ask for compassionate leave for the funeral. When she asks me who passed away, I tell her a friend. She says sorry, and I’m granted time off. I suppose you’re wondering why I never told her it was my boyfriend, but come on – she would’ve questioned how, why and when, and I don’t have concrete answers. Unless I’ve missed it, the local news has reported nothing and I can’t bring myself to call Jack’s family. They might call me Clare. Besides, I lied about being sick last week when it happened. I’m new to this school, remember. I don’t want to be thought of as a liability.
Except I am.
Year Ten are preparing for their mocks and all I can do is put them into groups, telling them to devise ‘whatever they like’. I spend the double period going back and forth to the staff toilets trying to pull myself together. Luckily, the kids don’t seem to notice.
At lunchtime, I’m cornered entering the drama hall.
‘Miss, Miss, can I audition for the musical?’ asks the lad, confident. Perhaps Year Eight. He flashes a brace-dressed smile and despite a baby-soft jawline, he reeks of aftershave.
‘What’s your name?’ I ask.
‘Jonah Matthews, Miss.’
‘You know today’s the recalls, Jonah. The main auditions were last week.’
‘Please, Miss. Please?’
‘Fine. Grab your lunch and come back in ten minutes.’
‘AH, FANKS, MISS!’
‘Pronounce your “TH”, Jonah. You can’t be an actor if you don’t work hard on your articulation.’
‘Sure fing, Miss,’ he winks at me. He actually winks at me. ‘Fank you. I mean, TH-ank you. Can I bring my girlfriend, Miss?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘We’ve got too many girls already.’
‘That’s sexist. Give her a chance.’
‘It’s not sexist, Jonah – your girlfriend missed out.’
‘Well, I fink it’s sexist, Miss. Unless you fancy me, Miss. Are you jealous?’
‘Jonah Matthews get your lunch now before I put you on detention.’
God, that’s exhausted me. I ache.
Gathering the recalled students into a circle, I assign Layla Birch to lead a warm-up game of Zip, Zap, Boing. This means I can sit in the corner on a plastic chair drawing doodles, pretending to be doing something important like marking essays or counting names on a register. I let the game go on much longer than necessary, telling myself that it’s cool because I’m still waiting for Si – Mr Sullivan, the music teacher and brainchild behind this musical – to show up.
I say ‘brainchild’; I jest.
He’s written this musical himself, a story of a starlet arriving in the big city without a dime (yep, a dime) in her pocket but a heart full of dreams. I know, I know. The music will be mashups of famous show tunes and obscure songs that only true fans of Broadway will know, mixed in with some current music – you know, to ‘keep it real’.
Layla Birch is politely calling my name.
‘Are we going to start soon?’ she asks.
I look up from my impressively shaded biro drawing of a Venus fly trap and see that Layla has ended the warmup game and got everybody to sit cross-legged in the circle: focused, ready. They even have their eyes closed.