‘Ready?’ Kelly says to Jen when she arrives home. He’s standing in their kitchen, trainers and parka on, a smile on his face. He doesn’t notice her misty eyes.
‘For …’
‘Parents’ evening?’ he says, a question in his voice. Henry VIII is winding his way around Kelly’s feet.
Parents’ evening.
Perhaps it’s this. Perhaps this is why she’s skipped back more than one day. Like Andy said. This must be an opportunity, of some kind or other. She remembers dreading this but, tonight, she feels ignited by it. Bring it on, let me notice the thing, let me figure this out, and let it end.
‘Sure,’ she says brightly. ‘Yeah, forgot.’
‘I wish,’ he says. ‘Let’s just not go.’ Kelly hates these sorts of things too, though for different reasons, his relating to the Establishment. The last time, she took a selfie of them in the car, wanting to put it on Facebook, and he stopped her.
He holds the door open for her now. ‘How was the office?’
Jen looks down at her jeans and T-shirt. ‘Yeah – had a meeting with an old client, second divorce,’ she says glibly as they leave, as though she does much repeat business. Kelly doesn’t seem to mind enough to ask.
The school hall is set up with tables spaced so evenly it looks like something from the military. At each one sits a teacher, two empty plastic
chairs in front of them. Jen thinks of Todd, at home alone, playing Xbox, unknowingly waiting for his arrest for possession of a knife he might not even have.
The first time she lived this evening, all of the reports were glowing, to her relief. Mr Adams, the physics teacher, described Todd as a joy. Jen had been distracted by work, she remembers, considering what to do about Gina’s divorce, and how to convince her to allow her soon-to-be-ex access to their children, but that single word had pierced through the membrane of busyness, and she’d grinned as Kelly said drily, ‘Just like his parents.’
Jen is sitting here opposite the same man now. The hall is brightly lit, the floors shining.
Jen and Kelly sent Todd here, to a good comprehensive. They didn’t want Todd to go to private school, to become part of the institution. They settled on this, Burleigh Secondary School, a place full of well-meaning teachers but with terrible, dated classrooms and grotesque bathrooms. Sometimes, today in particular, Jen wishes they’d chosen somewhere else, someplace
where a parents’ evening would provide Nespresso coffees and comfy chairs. But, as Kelly had once said, ‘He’ll get decked later in life if he
spends his formative years in a choir singing hymns with a load of knobs.’ ‘Yes, sharp, engaged,’ Mr Adams is saying. Jen’s attention is firmly on
him. He’s an avuncular sort of man, big ears, white hair, a kind face. He has a cold, smells distinctively sweet; the scent of Olbas oil on a handkerchief. She missed this last time. It doesn’t matter, but she still missed it. Along with what else?
‘Anything we should know about?’
Mr Adams looks up in surprise. ‘Like what?’
‘Is he – you know, hanging out with anybody new, working less hard, doing anything out of character?’
‘Perhaps lacking common sense at times in the lab.’
Kelly laughs softly under his breath, the first noise he’s made since they arrived here, her introverted husband. He reaches for Jen’s hand, fiddling with her wedding ring. After this session with Mr Adams, he will go to the table serving tea and coffee, get them two teas, but drop one. The absurdity of this knowledge.
‘Oh, but the brightest minds are,’ Mr Adams says. ‘Honestly, he’s a joy.’ Jen’s heart is full of sunbeams for the second time. You can never hear enough that your children are good. Especially not now.
They scrape their chairs back and walk over to the trestle table along the back. Jen debates taking the tea from Kelly before he drops it. She watches his hands.
‘These things are so fucking pointless,’ he says to her under his breath as he faffs with teabags. ‘So dystopian. Like being in some sort of crazy evaluation system.’
‘I know,’ Jen says, passing him the milk. ‘Judgement ahoy.’
Kelly smiles a pained sort of smile at her. How long until we can leave?
‘How long until we can leave?’
‘Soon,’ she promises him. ‘Do you think he is a good kid?’ she asks. ‘Honestly.’
‘Huh?’
‘Do you think we’re out of the woods? You know – teenagers going astray.’
‘Not Todd going astray?’ a voice says at Jen’s shoulder.
She turns around and there’s Pauline, in a bright purple dress and a cloud of perfume. ‘Who knows?’ Jen says with a sigh. She’d forgotten this interaction. Totally forgotten that they met here.
Kelly wanders off in the direction of the bathroom. Pauline raises her eyebrows. ‘Wonder if your husband hates me,’ she says. ‘He always disappears.’
‘He hates everyone.’
Pauline laughs. ‘How’s Todd, then?’
‘I don’t know,’ Jen says to Pauline. ‘I think we’re heading towards some – some rebellion.’
‘Connor’s teacher just said he’s not handing in any homework,’ Pauline says.
‘None?’ Jen says, thinking: Is this relevant? This small piece of information, so small Pauline obviously forgets to relay it in a few days’ time when Jen asks.
‘Who knows? Teenage boys. Laws unto themselves,’ Pauline says. ‘Theo’s the only one with an unblemished record. Right – geography calls. Prayers appreciated.’
Jen touches her shoulder as she leaves. Kelly comes back, resumes making the tea. As he passes it to Jen, it falls straight on to the floor, an eruption of beige liquid, teabag and all. Jen stares at it bubbling away there.
They see Mr Sampson next, Todd’s form tutor. He looks barely older than Todd. Side-parted dark hair, a kind of eager-to-please expression.
‘All good,’ he says quickly, crisply, while Jen sips the tea. She thinks suddenly, horribly, of what Mr Sampson will say in the future. The day after the crime, the day after that. Day Plus One. Day Plus Two. Each one an equal and opposite reaction to Day Minus One, Day Minus Two. ‘Good kid, never knew he’d have it in him,’ he will say sadly. Jen can just see it now.
‘Must’ve been unhappy in some way.’
‘You’ve not noticed anything?’ Jen asks Mr Sampson now. ‘Perhaps he is ever so slightly more withdrawn?’
‘Is he? He’s not – he’s not involved in anything, is he?’ she asks. ‘Anything – I don’t know … I sometimes wonder if he’s gone off the rails a bit.’
Kelly turns to her in surprise, but Jen isn’t focusing on him. Mr Sampson is hesitating, just a little. ‘No,’ he says, but it contains an invisible ellipsis that streams out into the air after he’s finished speaking. He sips a coffee.
He winces as he swallows. ‘No,’ he says again, more firmly this time, but he doesn’t meet Jen’s eyes.
