to shuffle in a nonchalant manner.
Idiot girl!
She looked up at the men.
Powers and Jackson.
‘I see,’ she said cautiously before warming to the unaffected smiles the men bestowed on her, ‘I thought—’
‘I know – kinda weird to meet people christened Jackson and Powers when you’ve lived your life in a country of Johns and Henrys?’
Polly looked at the men’s shoes. Powers was wearing well-worn moccasins; Jackson had a pair of highly polished classic penny loafers. She looked up, shook her head and raised her eyebrows, obviously at herself.
‘What a twit I am, please excuse me,’ she said, while a delighted Powers mouthed ‘twit?’ with twisted eyebrows at Jackson. ‘May I cordially introduce myself? I am Polly Fenton and I am most pleased to make your acquaintance.’
Her voice came out more clipped than usual, but only she was aware of it.
Mind you, that’s probably what they’re expecting. I won’t let them down. I’ll play along.
They all shook hands anew and Jackson led Polly to her classroom.
‘I have the class next to yours,’ he reassured her, ‘so if you need me, just holler.’
‘Righty ho,’ said Polly, though she’d never used the phrase before.
‘You know how to holler, don’t you?’ growled Jackson with a wink.
FOUR
It seems wise, at this point, to introduce Megan Reilly because no doubt we’ll bear witness to much of Polly’s experience through their correspondence by letter and phone. Megan, a fellow teacher at BGS, is Polly’s closest friend. She is two years older than Polly but they started at BGS on the same day, five years ago. Megan teaches Maths. With an ‘s’. She is taller and more substantial than Polly, but that’s not hard. Though her distant Irish roots have left no trace of an accent, Megan has the dark, twirling tresses and lough-blue eyes of her Reilly ancestors. She has a slick, biting sense of humour, and the tortoiseshell spectacles she wears serve to magnify the wicked glint to her eye. She’s effortlessly glamorous without a scrape of make-up, her hair sometimes swirled on top of her head, sometimes cascading down her back and, while she merely nods at current trends, she always looks enviably stylish and expensive – in school as much as out.
‘You have this intuitive flair for layering,’ Louise Bray, head of History and a slave to fashion, told her begrudgingly as she fingered Megan’s soft, burgundy cardigan over a peach silk waistcoat worn on top of a cream linen shirt; a white cotton T-shirt just visible beneath it all and a scarf with all the above colours draped about her shoulders.
‘Regulation school colours,’ Megan explained with a shrug.
A flair for layers – bum! I just threw on whatever was clean and to hand.
Megan lives in a maisonette on the good side of Kilburn and she only ever walks to school. It is, in fact, more of a march; she covers the side streets of West Hampstead in under ten minutes, invariably jay-walks the Finchley Road at Swiss Cottage and is at school, unswervingly, at 8.15 a.m. She is always home in time for Neighbours (an obsession about which she feels neither guilt nor embarrassment), apart from Wednesdays when she plays violin in the school orchestra.
It is 8.15 a.m. Megan makes coffee in the staff room. The other teachers mill around, some in conversation, some analysing their registers, others gazing down at the netball-court-cum-playground-cum-arboretum, deciding on today’s tactics to keep their girls in order. To Megan, however, the staff room may as well have been empty. Polly’s absence was all the more stark to her because none of the other teachers appeared to notice it. Despite her universal popularity, Megan felt utterly alone without Polly and she felt her exuberance being sapped. Megan was not used to not having Polly there. Not after five years in which they’d snatched whatever spare time the school day bestowed on them to natter and laugh and share their space together. Their conversations could span school scandals, the beef crisis, cinema and Marks & Spencer ready-meals, in great detail and all in an easy five minutes. Five minutes were ample. In retrospect, they had been so precious too and the bond between the women was strong. Invariably, the topic turned, at some point and on a daily basis, to the Fyfield brothers; usually over lunch-time or an evening’s telephone call, when they could confer more leisurely. After all, Megan has borne witness to Polly’s relationship with Max from the start. She adores Max. And she has also had her eye on Dominic for some time.
It is 8.20 a.m. Megan Reilly has been charged with showing Jen Carter around school and she awaits her arrival with some suspicion. Polly’s replacement? She can’t take Polly’s place. There is no substitute. She is irreplaceable. And yet This Carter Woman has taken Polly’s place in more ways than one because of course she’s now ensconced at Polly’s place – her flat – too. Megan had phoned the previous evening to welcome Jennifer Carter but was so perturbed to discover Polly’s answering machine already boasting a new message in a transatlantic twang that she hung up and phoned Max in disgust (and dismay – having prayed hard for Dominic to answer the call).
‘That Carter Woman’s been tampering with Polly’s phone!’ she launched.
‘Hullo Megan,’ said Max, ‘how are you? Polly did leave a little yellow Post-it on the answerphone with instructions. And her permission.’
Megan chewed her thumb and decided she’d overlook the situation. But log it, all the same. ‘Has Polly phoned yet?’ she asked, ‘has she arrived, do you know?’
‘She has arrived, Meg,’ said Max pseudo-breezily, ‘I phoned the airline to check. But no, I haven’t heard from her and I don’t really expect to tonight. Long journey and everything. Hopefully tomorrow. You haven’t heard a peep, have you?’
‘No, sadly, no.’
‘You will.’
‘Will what?’
‘Hear from Polly, of course.’
‘Oh yes. I’m not used not to speaking to her daily, on the blower.’
‘She’ll have lots to tell you. She already has.’
‘Has what?’
‘Lots to tell you.’
‘Oh, undoubtedly.’
Both sighed.
‘Max, do you feel, you know – easy – about This Carter Woman living in Polly’s place? Cuddling Buster? Using the bubble bath? Fiddling about?’
‘Well,’ paused Max, ‘Polly gave her blessing. And gave me “site management responsibilities” as it were, so I’ll keep my eye on things. The Carter Woman has my number. And I have a set of keys.’
This appeased Megan.
‘How’s Dominic then? He OK?’
‘Yes,’ said Max, throwing a suggestive wink over to his brother, ‘he’s fine. Megan, we really oughtn’t to call her The Carter Woman, not before we’ve even met her. She might be perfectly OK. She’s probably very nice.’
‘But she sure ain’t Polly!’ Megan declared in pure New York.
Max fell silent.
‘Better go, Meg. Better keep the line free, just in case.’
8.30 a.m. Mrs Elms, headmistress of stereotypical St Trinian’s proportions, marched into the staff room.
‘Good morning, everybody,’ she cried, her iron-coloured curls and dark burgundy lipstick fixed until home time. ‘Here she is – locum tenens for Polly Fenton – Miss Jennifer Carter!’ and she applauded extravagantly, nudging the stranger into centre stage.
‘Actually,’