Chapter 17

SEVENTEEN

Three months later

Zoe

‘And some wonderful news from one of our ex-students, Gabe Osho, who recently got signed by the Fulham Academy. Congratulations to him on embarking on this very exciting journey.'

There is the sound of applause in this large hall, a few boys who I suspect were asleep during this assembly on the importance of resilience, come alive to hear Gabe's name and the mention of something football related. I smile to myself, looking for Gabe in the room. He did it. He comes and finds me on Mondays, and we have a working lunch and sometimes go through algebra together, but the boy was seen, and is giving it a go, and I feel so incredibly proud.

‘Please can we attempt to leave this hall in an orderly manner, Mrs Swift's form first please.' Oh, that's me. I may have also drifted off in that assembly on resilience, but I at least was clever enough to fix my gaze at the board and nod every so often. I don't think these assemblies have changed much since I was in school but at least they don't make us sing together anymore and at least I get a chair to sit on. My form rise from their seats and head over to the door as I follow them. One of them comes up next to me. Hayley. She's in Year Eleven now and I've seen this one through from when she first arrived at this school with knee-high socks and a giant rucksack to now, where her tights are full of holes and her eyebrows are threaded and microbladed to perfection. I could measure angles with those.

‘Did you have a good Christmas, Miss?' she asks me.

‘I did, thank you.' I stayed at home, ate my weight in cheese and binge watched three box sets. She doesn't need to hear that. I look down trying to work out if she's wearing a skirt. ‘Did you read the new school rules on make-up? We want you girls to aim for discretion.'

‘You're funny, Miss.'

I'm not but I guess that's how I present my authority in this school.

‘I'm just saying, I knew you when you used to come in here with nothing on your face and you were just as beautiful then.'

She pouts and blows me a kiss.

‘What have you got next?' I ask her.

‘History but Miss Perkins is away,' she says, fist pumping the air. ‘Just a shame that fit sub isn't here anymore. Is it true he left?'

‘Mr Damon? Yeah. He left at Christmas. You guys must have scared him off.' Was that convincing enough? I can't quite tell. He did leave and it splintered my heart into a million little pieces, but he gave it until Christmas and last thing I heard, he's heading off to Borneo soon. He took the job. It was the right thing to do, the only thing to do, it really was.

‘Did they replace him?'

They did. They replaced him with a lady called Magda who has an angular Brigitte Nielsen look to her and who the kids have nicknamed ‘Mother Russia.' ‘They have. Just be nice, yeah? Attempt to do some work with whoever covers a class.'

Hayley laughs. ‘You know me too well, Miss.'

‘Unfortunately, I do,' I say mockingly.

‘I love your earrings, Miss. What are they? Are they paperclips?'

I nod. ‘Have a good day, lovely.'

I continue to walk within this sea of children as the hall slowly starts to vacate. The mixture of young people still amuses me. I think it's seeing their evolution from bright-eyed nervous newbies to rage-filled hormonal dragons to older, wiser, cooler kids in the space of five years that always intrigues, that always makes me realise the importance of my job. Just get them through the labyrinth that is school, get them out of here safely.

I suddenly feel a presence next to me.

‘Mrs Swift. Happy New Year.'

Ed. I like how Ed never uses our first names in school. He's sensible and proper, and I see him almost having to adjust himself out of school as well.

‘Mr Rogers. Happy New Year. Ready to take on the Spring Term?'

‘Always… I have period one off, though.'

‘Same. Coffee?'

‘I made cake.'

‘Then how could I refuse?'

We walk up the stairs to the staff room. I don't think Ed is mad at me after what happened with his friend. Mia was a little more vocal in her disappointment that it didn't work out, but Ed took a step back, maybe anticipating the obstacles ahead of us if we were meant to be a couple. As we enter the staff room, I see a staff member from the site team packing away the Christmas tree. I want to suggest we at least keep it up so its sparkles can get us through January. Ed walks over to the kitchenette, turning on the kettle, and gets a Tupperware box full of impeccably iced sponge squares. I sigh to see it all.

‘Mia is so lucky, you know.'

‘I know. Keep reminding her of this,' he tells me as he places a square on a plate and hands it to me with a fork and small napkin. This is why you should keep him, Mia; the man thinks ahead to know we may need napkins. Men like that are rare. He makes our tea and then comes over to sit down.

‘I need to tell you something. I've not said this to anyone, but I thought you might like to know.' At first, I think he's going to tell me something about Jack and I feel my whole body lurch forward in response. ‘Mia's pregnant.'

A smile spreads across my face, a wonderfully happy feeling surging through me. I put my plate down and throw my arms around him. ‘Ed, that's brilliant news. I'm so happy for both of you.' Caught unawares as he's still holding on to his cake, he returns the embrace. ‘How far along?'

‘Not long so please don't tell anyone. We're waiting on a scan. We found out on New Year's Day, and I haven't known who to tell so I just needed to share it with someone.'

‘Well then, I am honoured.' I sense him sitting straight up, possibly still in shock from the news as he keeps looking around, unable to process it. It's only the fifth of January so this is all very new. ‘Did you have questions?'

‘Well, I am a biology teacher, so I know how it happened at least and I teach a module on foetal growth so…'

I laugh, returning to my cake. ‘I meant other questions that perhaps you can't research in a textbook? I had my kids many moons ago, though. Perhaps Beth is a better resource these days on parenthood.'

‘I'm petrified, Zoe,' he says, spurting out his words bluntly.

‘Why?' I say, smiling.

‘Because I love Mia so much. I'm a worrier. I want her to be OK. I want the baby to be OK. I don't know if I'll be any good at this. I've not been around a lot of kids. I've only had cats.'

I smirk a little. ‘Ed. You're around at least a thousand kids every day.'

‘But they're big kids. This is something small that I'll have to grow myself.'

I love how he makes the baby sound like a houseplant, though am slightly saddened how that makes me think of Jack. Jack and his plants, eh? I take Ed's hand and wrap it in mine. ‘Ed, you've said it yourself, you love Mia completely. You already care for that baby even though it's the size of a baked bean. You worry because that's a manifestation of all your love, all your care. I can't think of two people who are in safer hands.'

He takes a deep breath, some visible emotion welling up in him. He tries to keep it from showing by stuffing his mouth full of cake.

‘You're going to have to make Mia so much cake. I hope you're ready,' I joke.

‘Cake? I'm thinking ahead to the labour. She's going to be a nightmare,' he says plainly, and we both laugh. ‘This is natural, right? To feel like this?'

I nod, smiling. ‘I'd be worried if you weren't.'

‘Well, I'm glad I told you. You felt like the right person to tell.'

‘You've not told anyone else?' For some reason, I think of Jack in this first instance.

‘You're kind. You'd know how to turn that worry around. Just keep it to yourself. If Mia knows that you know then she'll kill me.'

‘She wouldn't.'

‘But she would.'

I smile and take another mouthful of cake, the hit of coconut suddenly making me realise something. ‘Ed, is this the cake you made for your wedding?'

He nods. ‘I can't lie, I thought I'd make it for you to cheer you up.'

‘To get me through these January blues, eh?' I say, smiling. He's a thoughtful being like that and his brilliant news and this cake will help, for sure.

‘Well, that, but also because of what's happening today. You know, right?'

‘Know what?'

Ed's face looks sad that I wouldn't have known. ‘Jack. He's leaving today. He flies out to Borneo tonight.'

I get home early that afternoon, from school gate straight to front door. Naturally, all the teachers wanted to celebrate first days back with a drink in the pub, but I worried it would remind me too much of Jack. Jack is leaving. I always knew this. Mia told me this before Christmas but ever since Ed told me that today was the day in the staff room, the news has fractured my heart a little. He will soon be over on the other side of the world, there will be huge amounts of land and sea between us. Not a chance to bump into him in the supermarket or through Mia and Ed. Just him jetting off on new adventures, meeting new people whilst I stay here. Landlocked. I do want this for him, though, I always will.

‘Hello!' I shout into the hallway as I open the front door. So much has changed in the last month. Brian and I sat down with solicitors and this house now belongs to me. We won't sell it, but he'll buy his own place. We're still chatting about custody and slowly rethreading our lives. Every day, we move into something more civil, coming round to our new sense of normal. I don't think it will ever be a final destination, it'll always be a journey. I don't think Lottie helped by wrapping up a potato and giving it to her dad for Christmas but the initial wounds from our break-up are healing. The air sits cold and stale in the house and I see a school bag at the bottom of the stairs, a pair of shoes kicked off that sit in the middle of the floor. Well, Dylan made it home at least.

‘Dylan?' I shout.

I hear a door creak open. ‘MUM! SOMETHING CAME FOR YOU ! I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH IT!'

I mean, he could come downstairs and tell me that to my face. I don't shout back. I kick his shoes to a corner so no one will trip over them, grappling with my school bags and winter coat. When I get to the kitchen, I put everything down, turning on the lights and the kettle. No doubt, if Dylan didn't know what to do with it, it's most likely something that needs laundering or a letter from school that needs my attention. I open the door to the utility cupboard. Nothing. I take a mug out of the cupboard to make myself a cup of tea, have a look in the fridge and walk around our downstairs space. It's then I see it. It's a plant, a small tree sitting by the fireplace. It's wrapped impeccably in brown paper and string with a card sitting on its branches. I stare at it for a few moments. I know who it's from so much so that I'm almost too scared to approach it. I walk over, bending down to carry it and put it on the coffee table. You needed to just leave so my heart could let you go, so I could know I'd done the right thing. The right thing was to let you go. My fingers run along the envelope before tearing it open to find a plain white postcard.

Zoe,

It's believed silver birch trees symbolise new beginnings, rebirth. In harsh conditions and when forests have been damaged, they grow these trees to renew the earth, to offer resilience and protection. I hope it'll offer you shade, protection and be a thing of beauty for years to come. It will no doubt flourish and grow because it has you.

Love, always - Jack x

Jack

‘So you're basically telling me you can't be arsed to pay for storage so you're gifting me all your winter clothes?' Ben asks me. ‘What if you come back? Do I have to give them back to you?'

Ben looks down at my bed marvelling at my packing system. There is no order here. It's Borneo so I figured I just needed shorts, t-shirts, pants. Go light, go easy. I just hadn't accounted for the nine years of crap that I had accumulated since university. Ben tuts at me. He knows I had two months, including the Christmas break, to sort all of this out but I wouldn't be me without a touch of last-minute spontaneity in my bones. It was why I went to Sarah three weeks after the deadline to ask her if there was still a job on the table. I was lucky it was still there.

‘Frank!' he says, as he peers his head around the door.

‘I would like to gift you all of these things,' I say, pointing towards the desk in my room. It's a tennis racquet, a screwdriver set, and three rolls of Christmas wrapping paper. ‘You can also take any coat you want.'

‘What about the box of paper clips?' he asks me.

I look down at them, throwing them in my suitcase. ‘Oh, I'm afraid they're coming with me.'

They both enter the room, sifting through this very last-minute jumble sale that is my life. Frank picks up a jumper and holds it to his face, smelling it.

‘Frank, I didn't realise you loved me so,' I joke.

He pulls a face at me, but poor Frank has not taken the news of me leaving too well. Ben and I were his first housemates since leaving home. I think he sensed that even though we took the piss out of him constantly, we were fiercely protective of him, too.

‘If you're ever out that way, you will come and see me, right?' I gesture to Frank as he goes through some of my old toiletries. He picks up a toiletry set that was my Secret Santa at school before I left. ‘Both of you will, yeah?'

‘Mate, that's the beauty of friends who move abroad. The perfect excuse for holidays,' Ben replies. He comes over to embrace me, and we usher Frank over to join in.

‘My next housemates will likely be mosquitoes,' I tell them.

‘I need to make a small prick joke now, don't I?' Ben says.

‘Don't cheapen Jack's leaving by making jokes about his penis,' Frank says.

And we all laugh, which is a relief. He's getting the banter, finally.

‘Is that why you kept a ruler under the bathroom sink?' Frank asks. Ben doubles over laughing.

‘I kept that to help unplug the shower,' I tell them, which is the truth.

‘Yeah, whatever,' Ben says. ‘Make sure you wash that ruler before you use it, Frank.'

I shake my head at them as they continue to rummage through my belongings.

‘Oooh, hangers!' Frank says, distracted, and heads over to the wardrobe. Frank has a work colleague lined up to move in next week, but I hope that we can all agree that I will be forever missed. I reach over to a folder on my bed, stuffed to the brim with visas and travel documents, looking around this small space I called home for a while. Downstairs, I hear the patter of tiny feet running down the hallway.

‘JACK?' Dom's voice thunders up the stairs. ‘WE'RE HERE!'

I figured. I leave Ben and Frank to continue scavenging and head down to see Barney and George have run straight into the living room and found Frank's PS4 almost immediately, like homing pigeons. ‘Lads, shoes off the sofa, yeah?' I say, popping my head through the door. I head down to the kitchen where I find Dom staring at the alarming number of sockets that seem to be held together by gaffer tape.

‘Is that safe?' he asks.

‘Who knows?'

‘Have we got time for a cuppa?'

‘Always.'

I turn on the kettle and he takes a seat, balancing at my wobbly kitchen table. If Frank has not taken my leaving well, I'm not quite sure what emotion I'm getting from Dom. It seems to be some sort of push-and-pull feeling where he can't wait for me to leave but every time I hold him in an embrace, I'm not sure he wants to let me go.

‘So, have you thought about bringing the boys over to see me in the summer?' I ask him.

He laughs. ‘Those boys on a thirteen-hour flight and living in a treehouse? I'm not sure that's a holiday!'

‘They would have so much fun. Or you could dump them with me, and I'd find you a nice island resort next door?' I tell him.

‘That could work.' He smiles, pointing at me.

I make the tea, bringing it over, and we both hear the boys roaring next door. ‘Facetimes and Christmas, yeah?'

‘Of course. I mean, you love our Facetimes from the supermarket, no?' he jokes.

I don't think he quite realises it'll be those little inane calls which will make me miss them less. ‘By the time I get back, they'll be all facial hair, hormones, proper deep grunting voices.'

Dom mimics how he thinks they may sound. ‘Then just like that, they'll turn into you.' I punch him playfully. ‘I can think of worse things.'

I laugh under my breath. We quietly sip at our tea.

Dom looks down at the table, his face tense with emotion. ‘I never thanked you enough for all you've done for me and the boys. You gave us a lot of your time.'

‘You make it sound like a chore – it wasn't. I have good memories. Remember that time when they were babies and we took George to the doctor because we didn't think a baby should shit with that much force…'

‘Or volume,' Dom laughs. ‘God, the kid was like a sewer. The doctor thought we were mad. Yes, Mr Damon – this is what babies do. They shit like the clappers.'

We both laugh to think about those exact words the doctor told us. We were two blokes absolutely winging it, but we made it. Those children are alive. They are absolutely rubbish at football, but we kept them alive, and they're happy and curious about the world.

‘I mean, I'll come back and see you guys. You know that, right?' I tell him.

‘You know, you don't have to… right?' he answers.

I look at him slightly affronted.

‘I mean, pop in and keep in touch. I won't mind a postcard to know you're alive but just keep moving, yes? Live…' he says, his words weighted with emotion. ‘Don't look back wondering how we're doing.'

I don't know how to answer him, so I just punch his arm again.

‘I'll expect you to fly back when I need a babysitter, though. Actually, I've got a date coming up with the school-run mum. Finally.'

‘Did she ever get a picture of your dick?' I ask.

‘She did. That selfie stick you got me for Christmas was very handy.'

I choke a bit on my tea. The boy will be fine. I hope.

‘Speaking of gifts, did Zoe get your tree?' he asks me.

Zoe and I didn't exchange gifts at Christmas. It didn't feel right, so I worked out my leave at school quietly and left Griffin Road Comprehensive without much fanfare, spending the Christmas period with the boys eating my weight in cheese and binge-watching box sets. However, I realised I needed a final gesture. Dom teased me mercilessly that the tree was almost too romantic. No other man would ever stand a chance. But it felt like the right thing to do. I didn't want the last gift I got her to be a pair of paperclip earrings I got for a fiver from Etsy. It still hurts to say her name, to think of the very sudden way that it all ended, but at least she'll know that I wanted to end things on a positive note. I shrug my shoulders. ‘Courier said it was delivered but I haven't had anything from her.'

‘I'm sorry that never quite worked out,' Dom says quietly.

‘Yeah,' I say, picking at a peeling part of our kitchen table, trying to mask how devastating that really was, thinking of the weeks after it ended where I felt like I'd been punched but was still lying flat out, completely blindsided by it. ‘I just really liked her, you know?'

‘I know. I think she really liked you, too, you know?' Dom tells me. He looks into space, trying to recall something. ‘You know, when we bumped into her at football, she said some things. I've been trying to piece it together. But bottom line, I think she never wanted to hurt you, she just wanted what was best for you. You are fucking marvellous, you know that, right?'

‘We know that, it doesn't need to be said out loud,' I joke.

He laughs. ‘To be fair, she was very nice and actually very pretty. She didn't know that, though, did she?'

‘What do you mean?' I ask.

‘She didn't think that about herself. With the whole bad husband thing, I just got a feeling that she never backed herself.'

‘Pretty accurate, really.' I think back to someone who would just quietly swerve compliments, who never realised how amazing she really was and that still makes me sad. I hope she works that out one day.

The boys suddenly run through the door, Barney jumping straight into my lap. I inhale the top of his head, gripping my arms around him. George opens cupboards on the hunt for snacks.

‘Uncle Jack, I will miss you,' he says and my heart stings for a small moment.

‘We can Facetime any time you want. I don't know what my phone reception will be like, but I'll try.'

‘Deal. Could you get Dad to get us phones to do that?' he asks.

Ten years old. Wow. Dom sits there shaking his head.

‘Well, they're not phones but I did get you some gifts,' I say, reaching in a nearby cupboard.

‘Is it that puppy you promised us?' asks George, jumping up and down, clapping his hands. The colour drains from Dom's face. If it's a bloody puppy, I likely won't get my lift to the airport.

‘No, it's better.' The boys open the bag and inside are three of the biggest Nerf guns you've even seen. The boys react with roars and cheers and when I say ‘boys' I mean Dom as well. They all compare models, and those boys hang off their dad, talking about how much fun they're going to have. I hope so. I really do.