The Home Corner Read online

  It was very hot now, even hotter than it had been in the Portakabin. On the other side of the windows the sky had turned a dark blueish grey, and the fluorescent lights above our heads were the kind that hummed, low but constant, until within a short while your head started to hurt. From some loudspeakers set up on the other side of the classroom a song was emerging. It was Barry Manilow singing ‘Could It Be Magic?’ I recognised it from discos and wedding receptions; I remembered it being played at my cousin Kirsty’s wedding. Nobody was listening to it really, though. Mrs Baxter was zoning out by the window, reading some leaflet about ballet classes she’d picked up from somewhere. Sitting in a little group at my feet, Solly and Topaz were discussing the cakes they were going to buy after the magic show, and Jamie and Aziz were fighting over a plastic hippo. And I just sat on my chair and felt like the person I’d been trying not to be all year: a girl in the wrong place, a girl who’d been waiting and waiting for the right place and might continue to wait, maybe for the rest of her life.

  Then somebody said something.

  Somebody whose voice I did not recognise leaned over to me and said, ‘Excuse me, Miss McKenzie.’

  I looked up. And it was Mrs Ellis. Oh God, it was Mrs Ellis! She’d walked into the room without me even noticing, and now she was standing beside my chair, her white trench coat failing to button across the bump of her baby.

  ‘Would your lot like some song sheets?’ she asked. ‘Because I think we’re supposed to be singing a song before the show starts . . .’

  And my heart flipped like a frog. I opened my mouth, but no words came out. Mrs Ellis smiled briefly, a little quizzically, and I could smell the Polo mint she had in her mouth.

  ‘. . . you see, I just noticed’, she continued, ‘that your lot don’t have any song sheets.’

  ‘No, they don’t,’ I said.

  Which was all I could manage.

  ‘Here you are, then,’ she added, offering me some yellow sheets of paper.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. Oh, and this was not the place to meet her! The place to tell her what I knew! I hadn’t envisaged an encounter like this! Not here! It was not meant to be here, in Room C, waiting for Magic Bob to start his tricks!

  ‘Do you think the children will actually be able to read all these verses?’ Mrs Ellis said. ‘I mean, Emily’s still struggling with magic “E”. Let alone’, she added, ‘Magic Bob . . .’

  I was aware of the blood rushing up to my cheeks. I suppose it was just the way she seemed so bright, so upbeat, that made me feel so upset. Guilty almost – as if I’d been the one skulking around the woods with her husband.

  I peered down at the song sheet I was clutching. It was ‘Peter Rabbit Had a Fly Upon His Nose’.

  ‘I hate this song,’ I said. I just said it. Honest and true.

  ‘Do you?’ Mrs Ellis asked, surprised. ‘It was always one of Miss Ford’s favourites, I remember.’

  My heart thudded.

  ‘Was it?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Mrs Ellis. ‘Miss Ford loved this one.’

  ‘Really? Did she?’

  And I tried hard not to summon up the image of Miss Ford standing on that woodland path with Mrs Ellis’s husband, but it would not go away, it would not erase itself from my mind. And I knew that I was going to have to tell her; I would at least have to begin, whatever Mrs Crieff had said. Now or never: speak your truth quietly and clearly . . . I cleared my throat and began.

  ‘Mrs Ellis,’ I said, amazed at the joviality of my own voice, ‘there was actually something, to do with Miss Ford, in fact – that I . . . well, that I . . . I’m not sure if you already . . . but I feel perhaps you . . .’

  ‘It’s OK, Miss McKenzie,’ she said, putting her hand on my arm. ‘I know.’

  ‘Oh’

  ‘Yes. I already know.’

  ‘Ah’

  We looked at each other. She was smiling, but there were tears in her eyes. They’d flooded in suddenly, as if she’d just tipped a whole bottle of Optrex into them.

  ‘Emily told me,’ she said. ‘Last night. When she came home. She told me all about that little encounter. But it’s absolutely fine,’ she continued, levelly. ‘It explains a lot of things. She’s done me a favour, in fact.’

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Right.’

  ‘We’ll be moving out, of course,’ she continued, looking right at me, as if to confirm this fact. ‘Me and Emily and the baby. We’ll have to wait till the baby’s born, of course, and then we’re moving out. It’s not their fault – Emily’s and the baby’s – that they’ve got a father like that.’

  I could feel the heat galloping across my face.

  ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Well, I . . .’

  – but now there was an abrupt increase of volume in the room, and someone else was speaking.

  ‘Magic Bob’s coming out the cupboard,’ shrieked Ruby Simpson. ‘Magic Bob’s coming out the cupboard!’

  And I turned in the direction she was pointing, and there he was. There was Magic Bob. He’d sprung out of Mr Temple’s stationery cupboard with a peculiar kind of flourish – with a flash and a bang and a puff of smoke. And he had a rabbit in a hat. A white rabbit sitting in a black top hat, very still and solid-looking.

  ‘Oh,’ I said. And I actually laughed.

  Because it was quite an apparition. It was a very large rabbit. It seemed, in a peculiar way, almost larger than Magic Bob. Its eyelashes were as ethereal as frost, as strange as a photographic negative, and its eyes were exactly the same pink, it occurred to me, as my disastrous hair. It was looking around the room with something like disbelief, its fat little nose twitching. And I couldn’t possibly continue, now, with all the serious things I’d planned to say to Mrs Ellis.

  ‘It’s just occurred to me, you ought to have my seat!’ I burst out to her instead, my heart thudding so hard I was amazed it couldn’t be heard by everyone else in the room. ‘What’, I added, ‘am I thinking of?’

  Because if Mrs Ellis could be level-headed about her husband having an affair with Susan Ford than I supposed I would have to be. It was what being an adult seemed to be about – it was about being sensible and not overreacting. Everything could be explained, it seemed. Everything could be glossed over in some way, or made respectable. And in any case I knew that pregnancy could make you feel pretty tired; unwilling to take on any more than you had to. I’d been tired, and I’d been pregnant for less than a month. I certainly shouldn’t be the one with the chair. ‘Please take my seat, Mrs Ellis,’ I said, feeling an urge to get away now; to move, at least. ‘Or let me find you another seat. Because it looks as if the show might be going on for a while . . .’

  And without waiting for her to answer I stood up and rushed forward to look for a chair. Though who would willingly sit in a Portakabin on a summer’s day to watch a show like Magic Bob’s, I wondered, as I looked around. Surely not many people would do that, unless they were being paid to, or felt obliged in some way. People like us, I supposed: mothers and classroom assistants.

  ‘Thanks,’ Mrs Ellis said, when I returned with a chair.

  ‘That’s OK.’

  And she sat down. It was ridiculous, the subject we were not discussing. But we weren’t.

  ‘Can you all see? Can you all see who I’ve got in my hat?’ Magic Bob queried.

  Nobody replied.

  ‘Who wants to know what she’s called, then?’ he persisted, tetchily.

  ‘Whitey?’ suggested Jade from her little space on the carpet.

  ‘Bunny?’ said Zac.

  ‘Bugs?’ said Eve.

  ‘No!’ Magic Bob retorted. ‘Not Whitey, not Bunny and not . . . Bugs. Her name, in fact, is Beauty. And the thing about Beauty is, she does whatever I tell her. Don’t you, Beauty? Look at the children, Beauty.’

  We all watched as the rabbit shifted its position a little in the top hat and turned its face towards us in a rather bored fashion.

  ‘And now look at me, Beauty,’ continued Magic Bob. The rab
bit slowly turned back and regarded him. ‘Isn’t she a good girl, children?’ he said, hunting around in his left pocket for something – some prop from his collection of tricks.

  And this, I think, was the moment when things began to alter. When a kind of unwinding began to happen. It was something to do with the rabbit, I think; it was to do with the rabbit, and with what Mrs Ellis said next.

  ‘Miss McKenzie,’ she whispered, turning in her seat to look up at me. ‘There was actually something I’ve been meaning to ask you, in fact . . .’

  ‘Oh yes?’ I said in my sensible voice, my voice of mature discretion. ‘What’s that?’

  Mrs Ellis regarded me.

  ‘Were you ever’, she said, ‘a pupil at Rose Hill Primary?’

  My heart jumped.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Is your first name Luisa?’ she said. ‘And did you use to go to Rose Hill Primary about ten years ago?’

  I could hardly understand for a moment what she was saying. I didn’t see how she could have any connection with my life as a child who’d once attended Rose Hill Primary. And now I could almost see myself, as if looking down from a height: there I was, floating, puzzled, a few feet above the rest of the room. There I was, there in Room C – Miss McKenzie but not Miss McKenzie! Nineteen years old and five at the same time!

  ‘I am Luisa, yes . . .’ I said cautiously. ‘And I did go to . . .’

  ‘I knew it was you!’ she exclaimed. ‘Ever since you started working here I’ve been racking my brains and thinking, Where do I know Miss McKenzie from?’

  Something in my memory started to shift; some vague haze that had hovered like a sea haar ever since I’d begun at St Luke’s and first seen Mrs Ellis in the playground.

  ‘Ah, but you don’t remember me!’ Mrs Ellis smiled.

  And the haze cleared and something lifted, something moved into focus, and I knew who she was. She was Miss Gazall! She was my first teacher! She was the woman who’d pinned the ‘Well Done’ sticker on my jumper!

  ‘Miss Gazall!’ I said, which was all I could manage.

  ‘. . . and now Beauty’s coming round to see you all,’ Magic Bob was droning away on the other side of the room. He’d begun parading the rabbit about, walking up and down the neat rows of crossed and outstretched legs, propelling the hat and its occupant around in a kind of low arc near the children’s faces. ‘Do you want to say hello to Beauty? Do you want to say hello to Beauty?’ Because this was evidently part of his act – to introduce something nice before taking it away again. That seemed to be the magic of it. And as he came near Mrs Ellis I saw her placing her hands over the bump of her unborn child.

  My nose had begun to run now for some reason, so I quickly wiped it against my sleeve. My eyes would probably be pink, too, I suspected, pink to match the rabbit’s eyes, as well as my own hair. I suspected I looked quite a mess. I didn’t know what to say. But I would have to say something. So before my confidence ran out completely, I leaned towards Mrs Ellis again. Miss Gazall. I think I was planning to whisper something to her about bravery; about how much I admired her refusal to break down, and what a courageous woman I thought she was. But the words that actually came out of my mouth were,

  ‘Mrs Ellis, you were the person who inspired me to paint.’

  She looked up at me, bemused.

  ‘I just have this really vivid memory, you see,’ I continued, flushing, ‘of standing in front of this painting easel when I was about five . . .’

  (‘. . . Beauty’s going to say goodbye now, everyone,’ Magic Bob was boring on in the corner of the room. ‘Say bye bye to Beauty . . .’)

  ‘. . . and wearing this artist’s smock, and of you handing me this paintbrush and saying . . .’

  ‘Really, love?’ Mrs Ellis interrupted, the small smile on her face growing wider, as if she was recollecting the happier, more creative days we’d both once inhabited: those ars longa, vita brevis days. ‘Oh no,’ she said, ‘I don’t think that would have been me, Luisa. That would have been someone else, if you’re remembering the painting sessions. That person you’re thinking of,’ she said, ‘would maybe have been your mum.’

  I stared.

  ‘Sorry?’ I said.

  ‘Yes, I bet that’s your mum you’re remembering. Because she used to be one of the parent helpers, didn’t she? Or maybe you don’t remember. But she used to come in on Friday mornings to help out with the painting. I was always off on Fridays. And painting was a Friday-​morning thing.’

  *

  Something caught my eye, and I looked up. Magic Bob had conjured up a blue silk scarf from somewhere, and now he was in the process of flinging it over the rabbit. I saw the rabbit turn briefly in the top hat, blink and twitch its nose. ‘Hey presto!’ Magic Bob proclaimed, and there was a silence as the scarf floated down. And when he took it away, Beauty was no longer there. Beauty had gone. And something felt as if it was falling over inside my head; something was crashing and scattering like skittles. And I knew that I was going to have to leave, then; that my time at St Luke’s was up. Time was altering, accelerating like some departing train, and if I didn’t run and catch up with it, jump into it, it would just proceed without me. And I would be stuck indefinitely, living someone else’s life. Living the life of Miss McKenzie, classroom helper.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Mrs Ellis said, peering at me with concern. My face must have been pretty blotchy by this time, I suppose, my eyes puffed up and sore-looking.

  ‘The thing is,’ I heard myself saying, ‘I think I must have some sort of . . . allergy to the rabbit. I have an allergy, you see to . . . I mean, what happens is, my eyes just start to . . ’

  – and I turned ninety degrees and began to crash my way across the rows of outstretched legs, and towards the door.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said as I went, aware of all the children peering up at me. ‘If I could just . . . squeeze past, Zac . . .’ I added, springing over the triangle of Zac’s bent knees, hopping across an abandoned tambourine and a basket full of Lego, ploughing noisily straight through the Quiet Corner and finally, finally, reaching the door. ‘Excuse me,’ I said to the room at large, and I put my hand on the door handle, pulled it down and opened the door.

  Turning for a second, I glanced back into the room. Mrs Ellis was sitting there, seven months gone, her future already a date in her head. And Mrs Baxter was still by the window on the other side of the room with the leaflet about ballet classes on her lap. ‘Where are you going?’ she mouthed at me, a look of utter bafflement on her face. But it was too late not to carry on.

  ‘Is somebody leaving?’ huffed Magic Bob, standing there with a long chain now of fabric sausages. ‘Well, don’t mind me!’

  ‘No, I won’t,’ I retorted – because I’d always wanted to do that, to leave a horrible man on a high, sarcastic note – and I pulled the door wide open, stepped through, and closed it behind me. And then I started to run.

  *

  We were not far from the assembly hall, and as I ran along the corridor I could hear the older children beginning to sing. They had been practising this particular song for weeks: I knew this from the glum way Mr Temple had spoken about it in the staffroom. ‘It’s a bloody dirge,’ he’d said once. It was supposed to be a song to celebrate our year at school, and to praise the wonderful jamboree Mrs Crieff had organised. But really, it did sound a lot more like a dirge.‘The seasons’s work is over . . .’ I could hear them droning as I got nearer:

  The summer days are near,

  And now we meet together

  To sing our goodbyes here.

  Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye . . .

  It was a song from a long time ago, one I’d sung myself once at primary school – one which my mother might have sung, too, it occurred to me – when we’d been sure of the world and our place in it.

  With pleasant thoughts at parting

  For friends both large and small,

  With wishes bright and loving

  We’ll say goodbye to
all.

  Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye . . .

  I turned left and headed down the corridor leading towards the staffroom. On either side of me I saw pictures that had not yet been taken down off the walls. Images of cats and birds and people; of cars and trees and houses and castles. We Love Painting Pictures, announced one by a girl called Chloe Davies, a pupil in Mr Temple’s class. It showed a tree, a zebra, a cloud, a trumpet, a cat and the Eiffel Tower, and it had been hanging there all the time I’d been at St Luke’s. I had never really looked at it. But now, as I glanced up, I saw how lovely it was, what a beautiful collection of things it contained.

  The staffroom was where I’d left my coat and bag. I ran on towards it past the kitchens and their smell of Milton’s and dank dishcloths, past a flash of steel pans and copper colanders and a row of hairnets hanging drably, dutifully, on pegs. I ran on, puffy-eyed, along the glazed walls of the library, past the gym hall and the space where Mrs Crieff’s newly funded gym horse was going to stand, past all the piled-up rubbery crash mats and the stilled climbing ropes and the varnished wooden frames that reached a kind of nonsensical impasse at the ceiling. I headed past Mrs Regan’s office with its permanent aura of Cona coffee and its filing cabinets and goggle-eyed pom-poms, past the janitor’s office with its mops and brooms and floor polishes, the medical room with its disturbing clown wallpaper and tins of plasters and its metal bed on wheels, past Mrs Crieff’s office, the sign on the door still declaring her to be IN despite the fact that I knew her to be out, at that very moment, standing on the stage and singing into the microphone. Then I reached the end of the corridor. I went to the staffroom doors and pulled them open – wrong one first so that they made a great clattering noise – and burst in.

  The staffroom was empty. Almost silent. A radiator, unseasonably switched on beneath a window, made a ticking noise. A tap dripped slow drops of water into a sink. From the distance I heard the double doors opening in the assembly hall and the sound of a child’s footsteps making a flat pattering sound on the corridor floor. The patter of size-one feet. And for a moment I heard Mrs Crieff’s voice: she had gone up onto the stage at the end of the song to give a little talk. She was saying something about cooperation and hard work. About enterprise and team efforts and the school’s motto, Veritas et Fidelis.