.

brimming with thwarted urges. ‘So the thing is,’ she continues, ‘unless we all decide to make a massive effort—’

      ‘And my mum says it’s disgusting as well, because I know what your name is, and it’s disgusting. Your name’s Fanny.’

      Fanny smiles. ‘And what’s your name?’ she asks. There is something vaguely familiar about him.

      ‘Never mind what my name is. I tell you it ain’t John Thomas! At least I ain’t called penis!’

      A wave of uncertain laughter.

      ‘That’s very fanny,’ she nods. More laughter. ‘You are a fanny boy. Well done.’ She’s made a similar joke at every school she’s ever worked at. ‘We were talking about how a lot of influential people think this school is utterly useless and that unless we can prove them wrong, it may one day have to be closed down,’ Fanny continues. ‘Aren’t you interested in that? Wouldn’t you like to see the school close down for ever?’

      ‘Of course I would.’

      ‘Well, if you sit down and shut up you might get a few hints on how to bring it about.’

      Fanny doesn’t show her astonishment when he sits. She’s good at that. Instead she leans forward. ‘Basically,’ she says conspiratorially, and without missing a beat, ‘for those of us who want it not to close, this is the plan…’

      They wait.

      ‘John Thomas, you should pay attention of course, because you’ll be wanting to do the opposite…’

      That first morning goes well, she thinks. In spite of the local radio reporter who pitched up at break demanding to speak to her, claiming Jo Maxwell McDonald had assured him it would be OK. (Fanny finally agreed. She dispatched him with a harmless little interview, and managed, or so she believed, to make herself sound relatively professional. Incredibly professional actually, since every time the reporter had referred to Fiddleford’s ‘head teacher’, she’d had to pause for a millisecond to work out who the hell he was talking about.) In any case the interview went out live, so she didn’t have to suffer the discomfort of listening to it.

      Her children, all seventeen who made up her class (and what a luxury that was!) seem bright, and for the most part, gratifyingly energised by the prospect of joining forces to save the school. They have peppered their morning’s lessons with suggestions on ways to keep the place open.

      Having kicked off with some sensible maths problems, and gazed, while they counted quietly on fingers and thumbs, around her barren white classroom, Fanny had suddenly burst out, ‘Oh, it’s horrible in here!’

      There was a moment of astonished silence. They stared at her, and at her dog, vacantly wagging its tail against the leg of her desk. And laughed.

      ‘Isn’t it, though? Don’t you think? It’s like an operating theatre. We’ll all drop dead from boredom if we sit in here a moment longer. What shall we do to brighten the place up?’

      There followed a passionate class discussion, after which she set them to making a frieze of Fiddleford, an enormous one, with each pupil painting a part of the village they liked best.

      It had been lovely. A lovely morning. Now her first lunch-hour is drawing to an end and she’s gazing out of the window of her tiny, upstairs office feeling unusually pleased with herself. She can see her pupils racing around in the sunny playing fields, and beyond the children the village of Fiddleford nestling around its church – and beyond the village, the river and the cedar tree rising majestically from the Manor Retreat park. It’s beautiful; the way the English country is meant to look.

      She finds herself daring to wonder if this new job might indeed turn out to be the new beginning she has been hoping for. A possibility, she realises with a start, which had never seriously occurred to her until now. But she likes this little school, the pretty village, the good-looking neighbours, her tiny ivy-covered cottage…It is a peculiarly happy moment, immediately interrupted by a feeble tap on her office door.

      ‘Come in, come in!’ she cries bravely, since she’s already caught a whiff of Lemsip and knows perfectly well who to expect. ‘Hello, Mr White – Robert!’ she smiles. There are little red marks around the edges of his nostrils. He looks pale and stubborn and intolerably self-pitying. ‘Feeling any better? You look much better!’

      Robert feels robbed of many things as he turns the corner into her office: robbed of this room and that desk, robbed of her salary, robbed of her job, and above all, above everything else, robbed of his right to spend the morning in bed. So he says nothing. He wraps his two hands around the hot mug of Lemsip, hunches his shoulders and regretfully shakes his head.

      ‘Sit yourself down!’ says Fanny, jumping up and pulling out a second chair.

      With the two of them and Brute in the room, it’s a struggle to make enough space. Robert stands by, shivering and watching, while Fanny heaves a battered filing cabinet to one side. ‘I’m glad you came, actually,’ she pants, ‘I wanted to talk about the walls. Why are they so bare? Why is there nothing on your classroom walls?’

      He’s not interested in walls. ‘The fact is, Miss Flynn—’

      ‘For heaven’s sake, call me Fanny.’

      The chair prepared, Robert carefully lowers himself on to it. ‘The fact is, Fanny…’

      Fanny has turned her own chair away from her desk so she can face him. It leaves them without any space at all. They both shuffle their bodies backwards, but the chairs, her desk, the filing cabinets are jammed together. There is absolutely no room for manoeuvre.

      ‘Oops,’ says Fanny, laughing, ‘sorry. Bit of a squash! Perhaps we’d be better off standing?’

      ‘Standing? Where?’ asks Robert facetiously. He has her knees trapped between his long bony legs and it’s nice. It’s nice. Besides which he has a cold. He’s not feeling very well. So he stays put. ‘Fanny, as you know, the last thing I want is for you to get an impression that I’m letting you down,’ he says, ‘but I have to tell you I’m feeling pretty dreadful. I’m almost certain I’ve got a temperature. I really ought to be in bed.’

      Without thinking, as if he were one of her pupils, Fanny leans over and puts a hand to his forehead. ‘You don’t feel like you have a temperature,’ she says. ‘Perhaps you’re just hot. Why don’t you take one of your jerseys off?’

      She glances at his face, flashes him a brief, busy smile. And for one ghastly second their eyes lock. Fanny looks away. But it’s too late.

      There it is in the room between them: a tiny spark, the smallest flicker – it’s not attraction (certainly not on Fanny’s part), only a faint, disturbing recognition of their different genders. Fanny drops her hand at once. She stands up and tries, as elegantly as possible, and with minimal contact, to create some kind of gulf between them.

      She has to clamber over his bony thighs.

      ‘Bother,’ she says irritably, nearly treading on Brute with her free foot and then having to grasp hold of Robert’s shoulder to recover balance. ‘It really is bloody cramped in here. I’m going to open the window.’

      Robert watches her confusion with sly enjoyment and doesn’t bother to help. ‘I’m ever so sorry, Fanny,’ he says. ‘But you know what it’s like with these colds…’ He smiles at her, keeping the pink lips closed.

      ‘I do,’ snaps Fanny, free at last, grasping the window latch in relief. She opens the window, turns back to him with a forced smile of sympathy. ‘Bloody awful. You poor thing. But couldn’t you just hang on until school finishes? And then after school you can go straight to bed and you’ll probably feel so much better in the morning…’

      Outside, Tracey Guppy, the nineteen-year-old caretaker/dinner lady, rings her bell. Lunch-break is over.

      Robert looks quietly at his hands.

      ‘Please,