‘It’s the breathing techniques Mr Sullivan teaches,’ Layla assures me. ‘They help with nerves and anxiety.’
She’s brilliant, Layla Birch. I’ve only been at this school a few weeks, covering for a teacher on maternity leave, and admittedly I’m not great with names, but Layla Birch stood out to me from the word go. Attentive, keen and passionate about drama, she’s dyslexic but is determined to excel. And she will. She’s got that spark – one that can’t be taught.
‘Sorry, sorry, sorry,’ Si Sullivan runs into the drama hall, flapping.
He heads straight for the piano, making an absolute meal of laying out his sheet music.
‘Thank goodness the show isn’t until October,’ he reassures us all; but frankly, he lost the room on his first ‘sorry’. Breathing techniques ended with a group sigh, and heightened chatter has since broken out.
I leave it in Si’s flappy hands to regain control. I’m fixating on the word ‘October’. October. Oct …
Thank goodness the show isn’t until …
October.
That’s one, two, three … four months away. Half term.
‘It’ll fly by,’ Jack had said to me, recently. A week ago, maybe. ‘Vietnam. October.’
‘Seems a shame we can’t go this summer though,’ I’d said. ‘I’ve got six weeks off.’
The true crime documentary was on pause while I made a cuppa and Jack laid his wet socks on the radiator in the lounge. The heating wasn’t on – it wasn’t cold enough – but it’s how he hung his washing out to dry regardless, whenever it was raining.
‘I can’t take time off during this project,’ Jack went on. ‘It’s our biggest client and the deadline is end of August. I’ll get bank holiday off, though. We could go camping. Dorset, maybe?’
‘So I’ve got to wait ’til almost the end of the school hols to go camping? In this country?’ I’d glanced towards the garden, to the rain lashing down outside.
‘Not necessarily, darlin’. You can still go abroad if you want, just without me.’
I’d squeezed the teabag against the side of the mug with a spoon, turning the milky tea orange. If this were some other early relationship, I would’ve been cautious of seeming needy; worried about giving off the air that I couldn’t possibly have a life beyond my fella. But not with Jack. We hadn’t played any mind games or stuck to the sweepingly generic rules to keep each other keen. We were keen. And not ashamed to show it.
‘No, I’ll save me money,’ I’d said, tossing the teaspoon into the sink.
‘For Vietnam? In October? Avec moi?’
‘Yes, yes, and oui.’
‘Trust me. It’ll fly by,’ Jack had said again, and I believed him.
‘What did you say, Miss Roscoe?’ Si asks me, lifting his chin above the piano.
The drama hall is in silence and when I look up from my doodles, all eyes are on me.
I smile. We must be ready to start. A few sniggers waft over and some kids give me that look, as if I’ve just started dad-dancing in the nude. My smile remains fixed, but I’m confused.
‘You said something,’ Si says, and he cups his ear with his hand.
‘I didn’t,’ I tell him.
‘You did.’
‘No, I didn’t—’
‘You did, Miss,’ Layla says, her frustration apparent. ‘You said, “It’ll fly by”.’
‘I did?’ I ask.
Layla nods, as do some others.
Oh, God.
I try to wrench myself back to the present, but I can’t stop thinking about Jack. I realise how right he had been. Okay, we weren’t going on a big holiday for four months. But so what? In that time I’d be settling into the flat, exploring London, making dinner, going out for dinner, drinking in pub beer gardens, hitting a few festivals at the weekends, meeting old friends, making new friends, and of course, going to our Kit’s wedding, all with Jack. I think of the fridge. Our plans. Jack wanted to teach me how to ski. Me! Ski! Of course the time would fly by. Everything I’ve just listed sounds like pure heaven – the best four months I could possibly imagine. And fuck me, forgive me for using a big old cliché, but time flies when you’re having fun, doesn’t it?
Si and the students are still looking at me, waiting for an explanation.
‘I was just warning you all,’ I say, forced authority in my voice. ‘Mr Sullivan mentioned that the show isn’t until October, but don’t be fooled. It’ll fly by.’
Layla closes her eyes, dramatically taking my words fully on board. Si slams the piano with his elbow and grabs his throat with one hand, pretending to be strangled.
‘Aggghh! You’ve scared me to death, Miss Roscoe!’ he screeches.
One kid, a little Year Seven girl, finds this funny. But it’s her and her alone, and when she realises, she slaps her hands across her mouth, mortified.
A restless energy has returned.
‘FOCUS,’ I yell, ‘or there won’t be any auditions and I’ll allocate parts willy-nilly.’
Shit. Can’t believe I just said ‘willy-nilly’.
I don’t want to be here. I shouldn’t be here. Why the hell am I here? Why?
I take a deep breath.
When I arrive home, Jack’s smell will hit me. His fat thumbprint on the bathroom mirror will take me by surprise. His drawer will invite me to choose a t-shirt I can wear to sleep in on the sofa. That’s why I’m here – to have those precious snippets to look forward to.
Jonah Matthews appears with his whole crew. ‘Are we on time, Miss?’
He’s brought his girlfriend regardless of what I said, presuming his girlfriend is the one almost twice his height with an intimidating stare and a lip piercing.
‘Right, let’s get started,’ I say.
Si bashes out a chirpy eight bars of generic cheesy musical theatre. I’m not sure I have the energy to see this through – even walking towards the piano makes my legs ache.
‘Everything okay, Miss Roscoe?’ Si asks, a rhetorical question if ever there was one.
I give one, bold nod.
‘Layla Birch,’ I say, returning to my Venus fly trap doodle. ‘You’re up first.’
*
After school, I pick up a decent bottle of wine from the Sainbury’s Local. The auditions went well. A few dodgy performances and, unexpectedly, Layla Birch messed up her lyrics, but on the whole, I was impressed.
As I open the front door, I stumble upon a package.
It’s soft, small enough to get through the letterbox.
I pick it up and read who it’s addressed to.
Miss Chloe Roscoe (and Jack!)
I recognise the writing.
Fishing out the contents, I feel the soft cotton between my thumb and fingers. It’s the beige gingham cushion covers, two of them, all ready to slip onto plain square cushions and add a bit of home from home. If Jack were here, oh how we’d laugh. I’d insist we didn’t use them, but Jack would disagree. He’d love how much I hate them. He’d make poor Rudolf redundant just to revel in this moment for as long as possible, winding me up to the point of me admitting that, fine, I can learn to like them. I slump against the radiator and squeeze the gingham so hard that I wouldn’t be surprised if it bled. The handwritten note accompanying the package has fallen beside me on the floor.