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THIRTEEN

Suzie

I used to have a friend who worked in the City, some bigwig in accountancy and corporate bollocks, and she used to talk about how at the end of a financial year, they would all literally live in the office.

They’d order in food, lay down sofa cushions on the floor and just stay in that space until the job was done.

The way she spoke about it always sounded horrific, until I became a teacher and that became my reality for the majority of the academic year.

I love how people think that as soon as the bells goes we skip out with the kids, hand-in-hand, head to our cars and drive home in time for a four o’clock gameshow and a cup of tea.

The reality of modern teaching is that we’re usually here late.

We occasionally bring work home with us but the truth is it litters our brains, our hard drives and it never leaves us because it is more than just a job; it’s young people and as much you don’t want to admit it out loud, you care about them, you want them to do well.

I watch now as the microwave in the small kitchenette in modern foreign languages circulates with its familiar hum.

New start, new school, and my mission this year was to not let work follow me home.

We get it done here, even if that means staying a bit later, though the dark has settled outside, half the lights in the school are off and there are only a handful of vehicles in the staff car park.

The microwave pings and I open the door, looking longingly at my ham and mushroom tagliatelle in its pale green plastic container.

This is a monster marking evening and I have email admin to sort too, so I have come prepared, I have brought food, snacks, I’ve kicked off my ankle boots to walk around in my UGG slippers and also in some sort of act of womanly rebellion, I have taken off my bra and popped on a hoodie.

If I am going to do this right, I am going to be comfortable.

I pop my pasta into a bowl and carry it back to my classroom.

I should have brought a dressing gown but then they’d have caught me on CCTV and they’d have had to do a welfare check for my mental health.

I get back to my classroom. It’s been a long afternoon of meetings, data entry and lesson planning and now this is the final piece of the puzzle.

I look at the clock. It’s five thirty-two.

I’m going to give myself one hour. I put on my headphones, crack open a can of Rio, take a sip and go to process my personal emails first. I really need to unsubscribe from mailing lists, don’t I?

I’ve won something on the lottery though.

I click on the link. I’ve won ￡1. Whoop-de-doo.

As soon as I see Paul’s name, I sigh, my shoulders slumping, and I pause until my eyes go fizzy and I have to look away.

Isn’t it strange that I used to see his name on my phone or email and melt with excitement.

Now, it’s like a fly hovering over a picnic.

Seriously, piss off and find someone else to bother.

That said, I have to admire Paul’s persistence.

At first, he would send text messages that got progressively longer, ones where you’d have to press ‘read more’ and then spend an eternity scrolling down.

They then turned into emails. Paul is no wordsmith so it was just long vague apologies where one minute, he’d say how sorry he was, the next he’d try to blame me for the relationship ending, gaslighting me into thinking that I was at fault, that I’d imagined it all.

It was all desperate words from a desperate man because I think he thought he had time to talk me down, to balance his affair alongside our life and have it all.

It all came crashing down pretty quickly when I found out, when I ran, when I left him.

I click on the email.

Suzie,

No ‘Dear’ to start it all off. Alright then.

We can’t go on like this, can we? Before anything, we were friends and I don’t think this is how friends treat each other.

Why are you being like this? I don’t know what to do with a lot of things here.

Shall I sell them? You have Vinted? Maybe you should sell them?

I still love you. I think we should at least try and give this another go. I’ve said sorry.

I wince a little at just how terrible he is at emoting in the form of words.

Not that I need long reams of poetry from him, admitting what an idiot he is and how I’m the love of his life, but it’s how he can go from Vinted to sorry in one mere sentence.

You could have at least written a poem about that:

Can we sell stuff on Vinted?

So we can be minted?

I maybe should have hinted,

That I was a twat.

I’m sorry about that.

I really am in the wrong career. I should have been a rapper or a greetings card writer.

I feel nothing when I read his messages now.

I used to dread getting them but they’re just a way for him to manipulate me and have the final word, make me feel some element of guilt for what’s happening.

Well, you know what, Paul. No. Your feelings in the aftermath will never be my responsibility.

I don’t know what else I can do to make you forgive me. Your mum would hate that this is happening.

I stop reading. Don’t you dare make reference to my mum.

Ever. She’d have hated you for this. She’d have thrown you in the sea.

I move the message to the folder where all the other ones sit.

The last one was a particularly lovelorn note where he told me he went to a bench on the pier and cried the other day because he saw a seagull and it reminded him of the time one stole a doughnut out of my hand and it was the funniest thing ever. Romance, right there.

It’s a good feeling to know that any hold Paul had over my feelings is diminishing, that he has zero power in this situation, so much so that I toast myself, holding my tin of Rio in the air.

Well done, Suzie. Paul is becoming a memory, a dot in the distance the more time passes, and I made that happen.

My mum would actually love that that is happening.

Actually, do you know what this needs? This needs me to get up out of this chair and leave my pasta for a short while.

This deserves a dance. At least a light sway, because this is what Chappell Roan on my Spotify playlist and this moment deserve.

I get up and sway around my desk, smiling to myself and singing along softly.

Then I turn and see a figure standing in the doorway.

I jump out of my bloody skin and shriek.

‘What the…!’ Fizzy tropical drink flies through the air and on to the carpet and I jump in a strange configuration that looks like I’m fighting with the air. ‘Charlie?’

He also leaps back to hear me screaming and then stands there with a faint look of horror in his face. I pull off my headphones. Oh. That could be the fact I’ve chosen to wear slippers at school. He processes my appearance, eyes creased with confusion, maybe even pity.

‘Have you…’ he mumbles, ‘…moved into your classroom?’

‘Oh…no. I just like to be comfortable when I’m marking,’ I say, trying to normalise my madness completely. I look over and see my bra hanging off a school chair and hope he hasn’t clocked it.

‘Marking…that’s what this is. Oh, please don’t stop on my account,’ he says. I notice him looking at my dinner, my purple pens lined up in a row ready to mark. There is a look of amusement on his face that he’s caught me in the act and it makes me blush.

‘Why are you here?’ I ask.

‘I left my wallet in my classroom,’ he tells me. ‘I saw your light on and heard movement so I thought I would come and say hello.’

‘Hello,’ I tell him. This isn’t fair. You get to see some slummy dishevelled version of me whereas you’ve gone home. You don’t even look tired, just effortlessly cool in a hoodie and trainers, that twinkle in his eye shining through. Damn you.

‘Marking?’ he asks.

‘Year 11 speaking assessment prep.’

‘Snap. Except I do mine at home. Sitting down. With a pen,’ he jokes.

I laugh and turn down the music. ‘Can you not tell people you saw me in here? I’m a little embarrassed.’

He scoffs quietly to himself. ‘Well, unlike some, I am very discreet.’

I pause for a moment as he says that, curious. ‘Was that a dig?’

He stands there wondering whether to engage in this conversation. ‘It seems that a lot of the staffroom know quite a lot about me…us…’

I shake my head, mortified. ‘Well, it was never my intention to be gossipy. I was confused. Beth knew quite a lot already,’ I say, hoping he can read my authenticity.

‘I know how staffrooms work. I don’t mind it when you talk about me but just not my family, that’s all.’

I don’t reply but just study his intensity, that sense of protectiveness which shows the depths of his character and is wildly attractive.

‘I’m sorry.’ He smiles and continues to look at me, nodding. ‘And to talk about us was wrong too. I mean, there’s nothing to really say, is there?’

‘Ouch,’ he replies, feigning pain, holding a hand to his heart.

I half laugh. ‘I think we both know that something’s…lacking here.’ Nope, that’s made it worse. ‘That’s the wrong word…Not you lacking, just both of us…’ I need to stop talking in teacher talk. Inadequate, special measures, below standards.

He nods slowly. ‘I get you. Maybe it’s the universe telling us we had our moment in Mallorca.

It was always going to be impossible to recreate that,’ he says plainly.

And as he says the words out loud, I understand completely but I can’t help but feel my heart deflate.

I remember when I found out about Paul. That felt like someone had ripped my heart out of my chest and stamped on it with a heavy boot.

This feels like a heart swollen with hope, with curiosity and we’ve pierced a small hole in it so it all seeps out slowly.