My Secret Lover

times.
    Then there’s not enough room to open
the driver door, so I have to squeeze across to the passenger side, and my
extra long and rather chic jersey skirt is all twisted round my knees. I have
to unwind myself like a telephone flex before I can walk.
    The more time I spend reciting Fern’s
bloody affirmations, the more hassled and stressed I become, and in any case is
Fern a good advisor given the fact that she hasn’t even noticed that Robbie is
practising his kick-boxing in the line-up which she’s doing because I’m late,
silly cow!
    ‘Thanks, Fern, you’re wonderful,’ I
tell her.
     
    At the school gate, Ethan is standing
with his father refusing to come in.
    Ethan has forgotten his lunch box.
    ‘Sorry,’ says his father, ‘but my
wife’s unwell. She usually does all this. Can I drop it in later?’
    ‘Before lunch, Dad,’ says Ethan.
    ‘Nothing serious, I hope?’
    I was only making conversation but
his face mutates from flustered to stricken and I wish I’d never asked.
    ‘Sorry about the paint, by the way.
In Ethan’s hair.’
    He’s just staring at me.
    ‘Blue paint in hair, yellow on
jumper?’ I say.
    ‘My gran picked me up yesterday. She
washed them,’ Ethan explains.
    So, absolutely no need for me to have
mentioned it at all.
    ‘How did he get paint in his hair?’
says his father, connecting at last.
    ‘Something to do with my wand,’ says
Ethan.
    ‘No harm done, anyway!’ I say,
tinning the child round by his shoulders.
    ‘There was an owl on our roof this
morning,’ Ethan tells me as we run in together.
    I shiver. I seem to remember my
mother telling me once that owls in the day time are bad omens, but, knowing
Ethan, it was probably a pigeon.
     
    ‘Miss, Robbie just kissed Gwyneth!’
    Geri races up to me as we enter the
classroom.
    ‘Don’t tell tales, Geri.’
    ‘But he DID.’
    ‘Robbie?’
    ‘It’s a free country,’ he says.
    ‘Yes, but you mustn’t kiss anyone who
doesn’t want to be kissed.’
    I can’t get into another discussion
about benefits accruing from responsibility. Last time I heard myself sounding
just like Tony Blair.
    ‘She wanted it.’
    Gwyneth smiles.
    ‘No kissing in school,’ I tell them,
firmly.
    ‘Not even if we get married?’ says
Robbie.
    The thing I love about Year One is
that they know so much, and so little at the same time.
    ‘Kissing’s against school rules,’ I
say, gently.
    ‘What about blow jobs?’ says Dean.
    ‘That is not a very good start to the
day, is it?’
    ‘My brother says it is.’
    ‘Are you married, Miss?’ asks Ethan.
    ‘No, Ethan, I’m not.’
    ‘I’ll marry you,’ he says.
    ‘I’ll bear that in mind.’
    I’ve had seven proposals since I
started teaching Year One.
    ‘Marriage is just another word for
prison, isn’t it, Miss?’ says Nicole.
    ‘No way would I marry you, Miss,’
says Robbie.
    ‘Oh, really? Why’s that?’
    ‘Because you smell.’
    That’s rich from a champion farter.
    ‘My mum sometimes smells like you,
Miss,’ says Nicole consolingly.
    I nip into the materials cupboard and
sniff my armpits. I can’t possibly smell this soon after a shower? I think he
means my breath. Even though I’ve consumed a whole box of Tic Tacs for breakfast,
my mouth still has the sourness of alcohol and pepperoni.
    I wonder if Nicole’s mum is drinking
because step dad 3 is back or because he’s gone again.
    ‘Are you having a ciggie, Miss,’ asks
Geri.
    ‘No.’
    ‘Can I remind you all,’ I say, as I
come out with an armful of paper, ‘that children are not allowed in the
materials cupboard.’
    ‘Miss?’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Forgotten.’
    Some of them just like putting their
hands in the air whether they’ve got a question or not.
    ‘Miss?’
    I hate the word Miss. Especially with
a hangover. It makes me think of Misanthropy, Mistake, and particularly, Miss
Goodman, who is the portrait in my mental attic. The woman I will turn into if
I don’t get married.
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Are we wrapping up presents?’
    ‘No. We’re not wrapping presents. We
are investigating different kinds of paper.’
    I get them to sit in a circle and I
put all the paper in the middle.
    ‘Can anyone think of some words to
describe paper? Robbie, leave it alone for the moment.’
    ‘Toilet roll, Miss.’
    ‘Yes, that’s a type of paper. Can you
think of some words that tell us what toilet paper looks like, or feels like.
You can feel it later, Robbie.’
    Too late. There is now a streamer