Kitabı oku: «Summer with the Country Village Vet»
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First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2017
Copyright © Zara Stoneley 2017
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Cover design by Micaela Alcaino
Zara Stoneley asserts the moral right
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available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction.
The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are
the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to
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entirely coincidental.
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ISBN: 9780008237967
Ebook Edition © June 2017
Version 2017-07-19
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Map
A Note From the Author
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Acknowledgements
Also by Zara Stoneley
About the Author
About HarperImpulse
About the Publisher
‘It takes a big heart to help shape little minds’ Author unknown
To Anne, a teacher with a big heart.
A Note from the Author
Dear Reader,
Thank you so much for picking up this copy of Summer with the Country Village Vet, I hope you enjoy your visit to Langtry Meadows with Lucy and Charlie!
This book has been waiting to be written for a long time. I’ve always loved animals (I dreamed of being a vet and following in the footsteps of James Herriot), and you may have noticed that all my books feature at least one four-legged friend. But when I started writing, one quote kept springing to mind -
‘Never work with children or animals’ W. C Fields
I can quite understand the sentiments behind these words! Both can be unpredictable, scene-stealing, mischievous, temperamental – and never quite do what we expect (or sometimes want), but don’t we love them for it? They enrich our lives and touch our hearts. Young children and animals don’t judge; they give unconditional love, they forgive, teach respect, acceptance, and loyalty. They look to us to do the right thing, to take care of them – and can sometimes give us optimism, and a reason to keep going.
In short, they give us hope – and a few tears of laughter and sadness along the way as well. Which I hope this story also does.
Happy reading!
Zara x
Prologue
Three little words with the power to take her straight back to her childhood.
Termination of employment.
Lucy Jacobs stared at the words which were shouting out so much more. Failure. Not good enough. You don’t belong here. And she was suddenly that small, abandoned child in the playground again. Unwanted. Unloved. Alone.
Swallowing down the sharp tang of bile, she blinked to clear her vision. Smoothed out the piece of paper with trembling fingers that didn’t seem to belong to her. Nothing seemed to belong to her, everything was disjointed, unreal. Even the weak, distant voice that she vaguely recognised as her own.
‘No.’ Taking a deep breath, she shook her head to dismiss the image. She wasn’t a scared child. She was a grown woman now. ‘This is a mistake.’ Slowly the world came back into focus, even though her stomach still felt empty. Hollow. ‘This has got to be a mistake. You’re kidding me?’ Her words echoed into the uncomfortable stillness of the room.
The man opposite gave the slightest shake of his head, as though it was a silly question.
She’d never liked this room, or more to the point she’d never liked him.
Nobody got sacked on a school inset day. Did they?
She blinked hard, trying to ignore the way her eyes smarted and transferred her gaze to the carefully regimented line of pens, before forcing herself to look back up at him. David Lawson. The headmaster of Starbaston Primary School.
Not looking at him would be admitting defeat.
He looked back at her through cold reptilian eyes and still didn’t say a word.
‘But I’ve just finished my new classroom display!’ It was a stupid thing to say, but the only logical thought that was penetrating her fuzzy brain. ‘Ready for tomorrow.’ Tomorrow, the first day of term.
He finally shifted in his seat, his lips thinned and he stared at her disapprovingly. Then sighed. ‘You always do plan well ahead, don’t you?’
He said it as though it was a failing. Lucy felt her back straighten and her eyes narrowed, forcing the tears back where they belonged.
The fingers of dread that had been curling themselves into a hard lump in her chest were replaced with indignation. How dare he! The display was a triumph.
Last year’s fluffy lambs and cute rabbits had led to a cotton wool and glue fiasco she never wanted to repeat. How was she supposed to know that a six year old would come up with the idea of dipping the rabbit tails into the green paint pot intended for spring grass and stick the resultant giant bogey up his nose, and every other boy in the class would copy him? No doubt when she was old and grey the smarty pants would be a great leader, probably of some union that would bring the government to its knees, or more frighteningly he could become prime minister.
She’d learned from her mistake, and this year she’d been clever. With the help of Sarah, her never tiring classroom assistant, she’d cut a flower out for every single child and gone for the theme of April showers and May flowers. They had spent most of the day stapling the petals up on the boards, awaiting the children’s smiley self-portraits to be added in the centre over the next couple of weeks.
It had been hard work. It had been a total waste of time.
She stared at the headmaster, wishing she could wiggle her nose and make him disappear. He peered back over his glasses at her, and steepled his fingers, in much the same way he did when he was faced with a Year 6 girl who thought school rules about make-up (or more precisely the lack of it) couldn’t possibly apply to the top class, or Mrs Ogden who’d said if her Storm wanted to have white hair and pierced ears what did it have to do with him?
The head didn’t understand X-Men, he didn’t understand the society he was living in, or the staff who worked so hard to give the children a chance to live a better life. He understood balance sheets, not feelings and aspirations.
‘As you know,’ he paused, politician style, circled his thumbs – which right now she had a childish urge to grab hold of and bend back – ‘we did request offers for voluntary redundancy earlier in the year, but nobody,’ the thumbs stopped moving, and he studied her as though she was at fault, ‘came forward, and so unfortunately…’
‘But you can’t… I mean, why me?’ She crossed her arms and frowned. ‘I need this job, I’ve just bought new curtains.’ Gorgeous, shimmery, floaty new curtains. And it was more than curtains: she’d bought a whole house. A house that had stretched her to the financial limit, but given her the greatest feeling of satisfaction (apart from getting all of Year 2 to sit on their bottoms and listen at the same time) ever. Ever.
‘The Ofsted inspector labelled my lesson outstanding.’ She made a valuable contribution, she worked hard.
This just couldn’t be happening.
‘You can’t sack me.’
He tutted. Actually tutted, and looked affronted. ‘We,’ that flaming ‘we’ again, as though it meant he wasn’t responsible, ‘aren’t sacking you, Lucy.’ He paused again, politician style. ‘You are being offered an excellent redundancy package.’
‘Well that’s different then.’ He nodded, missing the sarcasm. ‘So offered means I can turn it down?’ She wanted to launch herself across his tidy desk and strangle him with his fake silk tie. It might be a sackable offence, but that didn’t matter now. Did it?
He carried on smoothly, oblivious of her evil intent. ‘No, I’m sorry it doesn’t. As I’ve just explained, we did ask for volunteers, and as nobody put themselves forward we have had to make a decision. We’ve followed the correct procedure.’ There was an unspoken ‘so don’t even think about challenging the decision’.
‘I don’t care about procedures.’ It was getting close to a toss-up between losing her temper and shouting, or bursting into tears. She bit down on her lip hard. No way was she going to give him the satisfaction of seeing her collapse into a mushy mess. That would be the ultimate humiliation. Even beating the getting sacked in the first place bit. ‘I’ve got a mortgage.’
He sighed as though she was being unreasonable. ‘I am sorry, Lucy. We do understand, we all have commitments, but unfortunately we,’ why did he keep blaming ‘we’ when it was very clearly his decision? He never had liked her, ‘have to make cuts. It’s inescapable. As you know education has been hit as hard as anybody.’ She caught herself nodding in agreement, and froze back into position. ‘We have tried to do this as fairly as possible, and as the most recent addition to the staffing at the school, then I’m afraid you were the—’
‘But what about Ruth?’ It came blurting out of her mouth before she could stop herself. She really didn’t want to point the finger at anybody else, but this was her future at stake.
‘We need to balance the accounts Miss Jacobs,’ oh God, he’d reverted to calling her Miss, there was no way out of this, ‘and as Ruth is very much a junior member of staff, her salary is, how do I put this? Commensurate with her experience.’ He put his hands flat on the desk and leaned back, mission accomplished. She’d never particularly liked David Lawson, with his slightly pompous air, and sarcastic comments if anybody dared interrupt his staff meetings to offer constructive criticism, but now there was something stirring inside her that was close to loathing.
‘And my experience doesn’t count for anything? You employed me because—’
‘It’s a fine balancing act, my dear.’ Now he’d moved on to patronising, which he probably thought was consoling. ‘It’s complicated.’
‘Try me.’
‘The finances of the school are not something you should concern yourself with, Lucy.’ He shook his head. Back to calling her Lucy and adopting his avuncular uncle act.
Obviously, she was smart enough to take responsibility for developing the young minds that would be tomorrow’s leaders, scientists and all round wonderful people, but he did not consider she had the mental capacity to understand the balance sheet of a primary school. Despite the fact she had a maths degree.
‘Now, you are bound to be upset and need to let this sink in, so to avoid any unpleasantness I had somebody clear your belongings from your classroom. There’s a box at reception, I’m sure everything is in there, but if there’s anything missing please do call Elaine and she will arrange delivery.’ He stood up, smiled like a hyena about to pounce, and held out a hand. Which she automatically shook, then realised she’d conceded defeat. ‘I do wish you well Lucy, you’ve done an excellent job with your little people and another school will benefit hugely from our loss.’ He withdrew the hand, obviously relieved that his ordeal was over, and hers had just begun. He’d handed over the baton. ‘And here is a letter with the terms of your redundancy, I’m sure you’ll find it all in order. Close the door on the way out will you please.’
He’d already sat down again, his head dipped to study the papers on his desk so that he could avoid her. She’d been dismissed.
Lucy stood up and was shocked to realise her legs were trembling. Her whole body was quaking. She fumbled with the door handle, tears bubbling up and blurring her vision, her stomach churning like the sea in a storm. This wasn’t her. She didn’t do wobbly and tears in public.
She felt sick.
***
Lucy put the surprisingly small box, which represented two years of tears, tantrums and triumphs (usually the pupils, occasionally hers) at Starbaston Primary School on the kitchen table. She could scream loudly and set next doors dog off barking, or she could make a cup of tea.
The bright, modern kitchen had, until now, given her only pleasure, but now she felt flat as she switched the fast-boil kettle on and dropped a tea bag into the ‘Best Teacher’ mug that Madison, a Year 2 pupil, had presented to her last Christmas.
She stared out at the small but immaculate patch of garden, her patch with not a weed in sight, and the hollow emptiness inside her grew.
Around the edges of the neat square of grass, the crocus shouted out a bright splash of colour, goading the pale nodding heads of the snowdrops. Soon the daffodils would appear, and she’d already bought sweet pea seeds to sow with her class (the only flowers many of them would see close up) so that she could bring a few of the seedlings home and brighten up the fence that separated her garden from her neighbours.
She’d had it all planned out. She’d had her whole life planned out.
Tea slopped out of her mug as she stirred it mindlessly, the events of the last year spiralling on fast-forward in her mind, and bringing a rush of tears to her eyes.
They brimmed over and she scrubbed away angrily at them with the heel of her hand. Tea and sympathy was one thing, tea and self-pity was altogether different. Pathetic. She needed to get a grip. This was just a blip, things like this made you stronger, more determined. The failures were what made you who you were; the only people who didn’t fail were the ones that never did anything.
The garden blurred as she wrapped her hands round the mug and took a deep breath, willing the lump in her throat to go away. If she hadn’t moved to Starbaston, if she’d just settled for her old, mundane job with no job prospects she wouldn’t be jobless. But she would never have been able to buy her home either.
Buying this house had been the biggest, best, scariest thing she’d ever done. She’d only been teaching at Starbaston for a year when they’d given her the promotion they’d hinted about at the interview. She’d got home from work, re-read the letter about twenty times, let out a whoop and started looking at the estate agents. Not that she didn’t already have a good idea of the houses for sale in the area.
She’d scrimped and saved ever since she’d graduated, well even as a student, rarely going out and only buying clothes that she really needed, determined to have enough money for a deposit on a small house in her bank account ready for the day that her income level meant she could take the plunge. And she knew exactly what she wanted, and had a pretty good idea of the size of salary she needed to afford it. It would be hers. Nobody would be able to take it away. She’d never again feel like she didn’t belong.
Her friends had laughed, but Lucy knew it was the right thing for her. She’d been eight years old when life as she knew it had been ripped into shreds. When her and Mum had moved from their comfortable village home into a scruffy rented terraced house with peeling paint and neighbours who peed on the fence. She’d lost everything: her dad, her dog, her lovely room, even her best friend. She was a nobody; nobody wanted her, and she didn’t belong anywhere.
She’d wanted her home back. She’d wanted her mother how she used to be – always there when she needed her, in the playground each day with a smile when she came out of school. She’d wanted her dog, Sandy, to play with. She’d wanted her room with all her books and toys, her garden with the swing she’d sit on for hours. She’d wanted her friend Amy to sit with her under the big tree in the school playground. She’d even wanted her dad back, even though he could be cross if she made a mess, and insisted she practise the piano every day.
Instead she’d been alone.
Her mother always out, working all hours in dead-end jobs trying to make ends meet, and never having time to tidy or clean the embarrassingly messy house. She’d kept her own room tidy, because Dad liked tidy, and maybe he’d come to see them if she kept it nice. She’d dreamed that one day he would, and he’d take them home and everything would go back to normal.
He never came. Gran told her to forget him; he’d remarried. Her lovely bedroom belonged to somebody else now, and there was no going back.
Amy never replied to her letters – her mother probably wouldn’t have let her visit their scruffy new home anyway. And the kids at her new school laughed at the way she spoke and wouldn’t let her join in with their games, turning their backs on her if she ever dared pluck up the courage to edge her way over to them. She gave up in the end.
Life got better when she moved to high school and found friends. In the big impersonal city school she felt less alone, there were more people like her – struggling to find a place to belong.
But she still lived on the roughest estate, in the scruffiest house. And she promised herself that one day she would have a decent job, and a house of her own. A clean tidy home, on a clean tidy estate where she felt in control, a home that nobody could take away from her.
And the sacrifices had seemed worth it. Until now.
How could this have happened to her? She’d done everything right, she’d worked hard, she’d had a plan – and had been discarded, thrown out because she was too qualified. Too expensive.
She wiped the fresh tears away angrily. Except this time it was different. She was in control, she wasn’t some kid who had no say in the matter, and she did belong here. She did.
She fished into the box that represented her time at Starbaston and pulled out a pen pot (empty), a packet of ‘star pupil’ stickers, a box of tissues, a spare pair of tights, an assortment of plasters, notepad and then spotted a slip of paper. Which had been placed so the eagle-eyes of the headmaster’s secretary didn’t spot it.
‘Can’t believe they did this to you, don’t know how I’ll cope without you Miss Crackers. Love Sarah x’
The lump in her throat caught her unawares and Lucy crumpled up the note in her fist and hung on to it. It had been one of their many jokes, she was Miss Cream Crackers after little Jack, he of the hand-me-down uniform and mother with four inch heels and a scary cleavage, had declared on her first day at the school that ‘he could only eat them Jacobs cracker things with a lot of butter spread on them or they made him cough’ and did she make them when she got home from school?
Jokes got them through the day.
She didn’t know how she was going to cope either. The feeling inside her wasn’t just upset, it was more like grief, as though a chunk of her hopes, her future, had been torn from her heart.
The cup of tea wasn’t making her feel better. Halfway through her drink the feeling of grief had subsided, but it had been replaced with something worse.
She thought that she’d left the waves of panic behind – along with the spots, teenage crushes and worries that she’d never have friends or sex – but now they started to claw at her chest. She closed her eyes.
She just had to breathe. Steadily. In, out, the world would stop rocking, her heart wouldn’t explode, she wasn’t going to die. Everything would be fine.
She would think about this logically. Sensibly. With her eyes shut.
The redundancy money would cover the bills for a while, but she urgently needed to find another job before it ran out. There was no way she was ever, ever, going to go back to living in that horrible neighbourhood she’d been brought up in. It hadn’t been her mother’s fault that she hadn’t time to keep on top of the house or garden, and that they could never afford anything new, but Lucy wanted her life to be different.
Putting her mug of tea on the table, she flipped open her laptop. She wasn’t going to mess around, or waste another second.
She’d show David bloody Lawson. She’d get another job, a better job, a job where the headmaster wasn’t a self-satisfied arse who didn’t give a monkeys about his staff or his pupils. Blinking away the mist of unshed tears she typed two words into the browser ‘teaching vacancies’, and hit the enter key with an angry jab.
***
Lucy opened her eyes with a start. It was dark. One cheek was damp and plastered to her keyboard. She probably had an imprint of the keys on her face. She sat up slowly and blinked.
The outside security light, which must have woken her up, went off and plunged the kitchen into darkness.
She sighed and stood up, wincing as a pain shot between her shoulder blades. Her back felt stiff as a board, she had a horrible dry taste in her mouth and her hair was sticky against her cheek from either dribble or tears. Or both. So, life was going well. She’d only been jobless for a few hours and look at the state of her.
So much for the no tears strategy, she’d failed there as well. But did crying in your sleep count?
This would look better in the morning. It had to. Before falling asleep she’d looked at every conceivable (and inconceivable) teaching vacancy website and come up with a big fat zero. The trouble was, teachers were being laid off faster than they were being taken on. And even supply jobs were thin on the ground, as an increasingly large number of people (many with more experience than she had) competed for them.
She looked into the biscuit tin. My God, had she really emptied it, eaten every single one, even the broken bits? She was going to be fat as well as jobless.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow would be better. She’d be thinking clearly. She’d find a new job. She’d be back on track.
Chapter 1
Lucy slowed the car to a halt. Did the satnav really want her to turn down this road?
Turn left. Yep, it did. Turn left.
‘Okay I heard, but you’re kidding me?’ The stern voice didn’t reply, but her phone did. It buzzed. Maybe it was a last minute reprieve, the agency with a much better job offer back in civilisation.
She picked the mobile up. No reprieve, more a reminder of her old job, the challenges that came with working in a city centre school.
The life she loved.
She suppressed the groan, and smiled. Didn’t they say the positivity of a smile was reflected in your voice?
‘Hi Sarah.’ She really didn’t have time to chat, but she knew what the classroom assistant from Starbaston was like. Persistence was her middle name. If she didn’t answer now she’d be getting another call mid interview.
‘How are you doing, babe?’ Sarah’s normal sing-song happy tone was tinged with concern. Okay, so maybe her megawatt smile wasn’t having the desired effect.
‘Fine, fine.’
‘Really? Then why haven’t you rung?’
‘Well no, well yes.’ Fine was relative after all. ‘I’ve got an interview, in fact I’m just on my way.’
‘That’s fab.’ Her words hung in the silence. ‘Isn’t it?’
‘I think I’m lost.’
‘You always were crap at following directions, babe. Why aren’t you using that satnav you got?’
‘I am.’
Sarah giggled. ‘And you put the right place in and everything?’
‘I put the right place in and everything. It keeps telling me I need to turn left here for Langtry Meadows and it’s this tiny lane.’
‘Where? Lang what?’
‘Exactly.’ The back of beyond. ‘Some village not even my satnav has heard of. Oh God, I’m throwing what’s left of my life away.’
‘No, you’re not, you’re making a new one, a better one. Away from this stink hole and loser Lawson.’
‘But I don’t need a new one.’ She’d quite liked the life she already had. New house, nice car, job.
‘Yes, you do, Lucy. The old one’s gone.’ That was telling her.
‘Thanks for reminding me.’
‘You know what I mean, Loo. There’s something better out there. Believe me,’ she sighed dramatically, ‘lots of better things.’ But Sarah didn’t have a mortgage to pay, bills. She lived with her mum. ‘You’re the one that always tells me everything happens for a reason. I miss you, you idiot, but you’re better off somewhere else.’
‘I know I am Sarah.’ She gazed through the car windscreen. Right now all she could see were fields and it was making her feel uneasy. Not a lump of concrete, or even person, in sight. ‘But maybe not buried up to my armpits in cows.’ She had passed plenty of cows, and was pretty confident there’d be some in Langtry Meadows – if she ever found the place.
‘Better than being buried in this shit. We’ll be back in special measures while twat face is still busy working out which politician to invite over for dinner next.’
‘Should you call your boss twat face?’ Just talking to Sarah made her feel more positive.
‘You will never guess what he’s just spent a huge chunk of our bloody budget on.’
‘Probably not.’ Lucy glanced at her watch. ‘Not teaching staff, that’s for sure.’ She needed to get to this interview, seeing as it was actually the only thing between her and eating nothing but baked beans for a very long time.
‘A metal detector.’
‘What, for the kids to look for money?’ The parents would be battling to borrow it every weekend.
‘No, you idiot, a scanner type thing to check them on the way into school.’
‘You cannot be serious? Okay Starbaston is a bit rough, but the kids are still more into flicking paper planes than knives.’ She paused. ‘They’re kids, innocent.’ Well maybe not all that innocent. But…
‘But he doesn’t know that, does he? He’s a wanker. The man buys a frigging metal detector. In a primary school when he won’t even give us any more money for tissue paper and glue.’
‘Or teachers.’ Lucy couldn’t help adding that, and sounding bitter.
‘Aww babe, I know, he’s an arse. But that’s what I mean, there just has to be somewhere better than this.’
‘I know.’ Lucy sighed. ‘But am I ready to be buried in the countryside? I’m not brain dead, just redundant.’
Sarah giggled. ‘So it’s a proper village, in the countryside and everything?’
‘In the countryside and everything, I think.’ It looked very countryside from the picture on the website. ‘If I ever find it.’
‘You can join the WI and bake cakes.’
‘How old do you think I am you cheeky cow? Anyhow I can’t bake to save my life, watching Great British Bake Off is the nearest I get to making a cake, I kill every plant I touch—’
‘Apart from cress heads.’
‘Apart from cress heads,’ she was good at that, she could grow cress in an eggshell or on scratchy green paper towels as well as any five year old, ‘and the only time I tried to knit I ended up cross-eyed with my needles knotted together.’ She’d thrown the whole lot in the bin and wondered how on earth she’d ever thought yarn-bombing was a sensible thing.
‘So you’re not doing an escape to the country, then Loo?’
‘I’ll be planning my escape out. I’m glad you’re finding this so hilarious.’ It was cheering her up though. ‘Anyhow I haven’t got the job yet, I’m just going for an interview.’
‘You’ll get it, they’ll snap you up. You go girl.’
‘And it is just a cover job for next half-term, so you can stop imagining me in a headscarf and wellies.’
‘Spoilsport. You never know, you might meet some phwoar farmer and want to make babies with him and breed cows and stuff.’
‘Sod off Sarah.’ She was grinning, she knew she was. ‘Thanks though. I love you.’
‘Love you too, babe. Let me know how it goes.’
‘Sarah?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Don’t tell Lawson about this.’ Not that he’d even remember who she was.
Welcome to Langtry Meadows. Lucy breathed a sigh of relief as she passed the sign, and checked her watch again. She’d made it, with ten minutes to spare.
Not that it looked exactly promising. So this was it. Fields to the left, fields to the right, oh and hedges. And more fields. Shades of green she’d forgotten existed. Oh yeah, and cows.
No. Be positive. She was having a new adventure. A nice, restful temporary job while she recharged her batteries, jiggled her life plan a bit, before taking the next step.
She’d served her apprenticeship, sailed through her Newly Qualified Teacher year, been promoted and was soaring up the ranks heading for Senior Leadership Team and eventually Head and this was all just a blip.
David Lawson would have never had her on his leadership team, he hated her. So she’d had a lucky break.
A holiday in the sticks. Yep, that was how she’d have to look at it. A holiday. A six week break filled with spring flowers and chubby-faced village children.
As the road narrowed she slowed down and felt some of the tension ease away. She had to admit that the second she’d entered the village even the hedgerows seemed prettier. The green was broken up with frothy white hawthorn blossom, and the grassy verges were sprinkled with yellow, pink and violet flowers. Something inside her lifted, and all of a sudden she felt more positive.
The road narrowed slightly more, if that was possible, and then curled round to the left. She held her breath as she rounded it, gripping the steering wheel, half expecting to collide with a tractor coming the other way. But what hit her was something quite different.
Lucy leant forward until her chin was practically balanced on the steering wheel, and stared at the scene ahead.
She’d been following the winding country lane, concentrating on the road, for what seemed like miles, and now all of a sudden this had opened out in front of her, bringing an unexpected lump to her throat.
The perfect picture-postcard village green.
Ahead the road forked to the right and left, cupping the pond, green and cascading willow tree in a gentle embrace. Drawing up at the side of the road, she pulled the handbrake on and got out of her Mini, stretching out the kinks that had settled into her back and shoulders.
Right now it didn’t seem to matter that she didn’t actually want to work in the countryside. She felt like she’d slipped Alice-in-Wonderland style from her own busy life, into a different world. Except in her case it was like being thrown back to her childhood. The good bit, before it had all gone so disastrously wrong.
The happy times were just a cloudy, indistinct memory though, buried under the weight of unhappiness. And now she’d been forced back, into the type of world she’d happily avoided until now.
The narrow lanes, with high hedges and dappled shade had demanded a level of concentration which didn’t mix well with the jitters that had been building in the pit of her stomach, and if she hadn’t been so doggedly determined to make this work she would have ignored her satnav and done an abrupt U-turn back to the safety of the city. But she hadn’t, and now she wasn’t quite sure if she was happy, or wanted to curl up and cry.
She’d done a very efficient job of blanking out her early childhood and the village she’d grown up in. And now this blast from the past had knocked the wind out of her sails even more effectively than redundancy had.
When they’d moved she’d missed her home, not the village. All her friends had gradually drifted away, apart from Amy, leaving her marooned on an island made for one. They’d stopped inviting her to their parties. Dad had said she was like her mum – a city girl – and would never fit in properly, but he’d make sure she was okay. Then he’d abandoned her too.
She bit down on her lip. The week they’d left the village of Stoneyvale had been the worst of her life. She’d thought that being the only girl in the class not invited to Heather’s party had been bad. She’d run all the way home from school, then rushed up to her bedroom with Sandy, shut the door and cried into his fur until her face was all blotchy. But then it got worse. Two days later Sandy had gone, and her mother had taken her to a new, horrible place.
She could still remember that feeling in the playground. The pain in her stomach, the ache in her throat. Knowing that Dad was right. Everybody hated her.
There was a giggle and Lucy blinked, dragging her thoughts back to the present. A little girl, her arms wide like a windmill was chasing a duck across the green. A woman was watching her, and even at this distance Lucy could sense the proud smile on her face. It could have been her, once, with her own mum. Before things had changed.
Now, this gentle reminder of how it had once been was hurting far more than the gruesome thoughts that often interrupted her sleep.
She didn’t want to go back to not belonging. To being the odd one out. She wanted to be that little girl again, happy, secure.
The view misted over before her eyes and Lucy wiped her arm angrily across her face to get rid of the threatening tears, gulping down the upset that was bubbling up in her throat.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t as simple as the picture she’d painted for Sarah, the story she’d sold herself. Working in a village wasn’t on her life plan for a purpose, and it wasn’t just down to promotion opportunities. It was down to control. Being able to live the life she wanted. Going forward not back. Not feeling shunned by a close community that didn’t like outsiders.
The old familiar feeling of panic started to snake up from her stomach, wrap itself around her heart and throat, making it hard to breath. This was not the village she had been brought up in. She clenched her fists and tried to stop the trembling that was attacking her whole body. She’d gone from calm and admiring the view, to feeling agitated and out of control in seconds, which was why she never looked to the past. She had to get a grip.
All villages weren’t full of small-minded petty people. They didn’t all hate people they’d decided weren’t good enough, didn’t belong. Places like this could be restful, pleasant, not bathed in an undercurrent of foreboding. She closed her eyes, counted slowly, willing herself down. Her mother had always been on edge back then, just before they left, expecting the worst, and that fear had grabbed hold of her as well. Leaked into the corners of her life.
She’d never found out what that worst was, but whenever she thought of country life she thought of that. Unease.
Lucy wanted to jump back into her car, head back to her nice safe home and the life she’d made for herself. The anonymity of city life. But she couldn’t. It wasn’t an option right now.
She took a deep breath. It would be an option one day soon. This was just a temporary solution until she got life back on track. Which she would do. She wasn’t her mother.
This was so not why she’d qualified as a teacher though. She never wanted to relive her old idyllic life, the nice part before it all imploded. Before her dad had decided they weren’t good enough and discarded them, thrown them onto the rubbish heap. Just like her so called friends had done. Just like David Lawson had done.
She hadn’t deserved it as a kid, and she didn’t deserve it now.
Oh God, she was being ridiculous. Sense of foreboding my foot. She’d been reading far too many scary books, it was no wonder the panic attacks were coming back. She was in a perfectly nice, tranquil village where the worst that could happen was she’d get bored to death.
The loud quack made her jump. Or she might get pecked to death. A very indignant mallard looked up at her. ‘Well, I haven’t got any bread if that’s what you’re after.’
The duck tipped his head on one side, then blinked in disbelief before raising himself as high as he could, on surprisingly long legs, and shook his feathers vigorously. He settled back down onto the grass and for a moment she did feel like that long forgotten happy child again. She was sorely tempted to kick her shoes off and step onto the thick inviting carpet of green grass, to stroll over and sit beneath the soft dappled shade of the weeping willow and watch the ducks. Which was far better than collapsing in a pathetic, bubbling heap. But she couldn’t do that either. Not now.
Instead she let her gaze drift over the haphazard array of cottages, and settle on the large building at the top end of the green. Even at this distance she could tell it was a pub, which meant… she looked to the right and spotted it. An old red-brick building which was instantly recognisable as the picture on the website. Langtry Meadows Primary School.
It was nothing like the old school she vaguely remembered attending. She wiped her sweaty palms on her skirt, ignoring the slight tremble in her fingers, and took a deep breath. She could do this. It was just a job. She belonged here as much as the next person, she was a teacher now, not the child who couldn’t live up to her father’s expectations.
His words echoed in her ears, as though he was there. She couldn’t escape them. ‘It’s not real, Lucy. Nobody cares about you,’ he’d given a small sad smile, ‘they only bother with you because I’m your father. If I wasn’t here you’d see how useless you really are, just like your mother.’
She hadn’t believed him at first. But it turned out he’d been right. Her dad was always right. After they’d moved, not even her best friend Amy had said goodbye, or replied to Lucy’s letters, or come to see them in their new home. But neither had Dad. It was as if she’d never existed.
She closed her eyes and took an involuntary step backwards. Away from the green, the memories.
‘Hey!’
Lucy clasped her hand to her chest and spun round at the harsh male tone. It couldn’t be her father, not here.
‘Move.’
He was bigger than her father. Taller, stronger, and even as her brain was telling her to fight off the hand that was reaching out towards her, he was rugby tackling her, taking her with him. Sending her off balance. She flapped her arms wildly, and was pretty sure from the grunt in her ear and the sharp pain in her wrist that she’d smacked him across the head as they staggered back locked together.
‘What the—?’ There was a loud clang and she shrank back against him as a large horse (how the hell had she not heard that coming?), galloped past so close to her car that the stirrup iron caught the wing mirror of her car. She was dimly aware of the rider grappling with the reins, of a shouted apology, a whoosh of air and brief whiff of sweating horse.
Then nothing.
Lucy clung on to the arm that was wrapped around her. Her knees were trembling, in fact her whole body was shaking in sympathy with the pounding rhythm of her speeding heartbeat. She’d hated horses ever since her father had insisted she should learn to ride. They were so big. So scary. So many feet and big teeth. They could kill you and not notice. This one nearly had.
‘Ouch.’
She suddenly realised she was digging her nails into the strong forearm, gripping on for dear life. And she was leaning against the safety of the firm body behind her as if she knew him. Which was kind of awkward.
Oh God, that warm breath against her neck was doing weird things to her. She closed her eyes, which made things worse as all her senses seemed to home in on his slightly woody scent, on the fact that the well-muscled arm was part of a very firm body. It was obviously delayed shock that was making her this hyper-aware.
‘Christ you’ve got a good left hook.’ She twisted, glanced up. Mistake. Dark, concerned brown eyes were looking down straight into hers as his lips practically brushed against her cheek. Full, dry lips.
He rubbed the side of his head with his free hand, a rueful smile tugging at the corners of his generous, very-kissable, mouth.
They were practically in a clinch, well the closest she’d been to a clinch for quite some time. Oh hell. She swung back to face the front, before he realised just how close she was to actually kissing him.
She was pretty sure she made a kind of squeaky noise, and she was more than sure that she’d shoved her bum into his crotch so they were now spooned in the kind of post-sex intimate position that you just didn’t do with clothes on. Or in broad daylight with a stranger.
He froze, then leapt away from her as though he’d been stung – almost throwing her off balance again.
‘Sorry.’ His tone was nearly as clipped as his action, and when she half-turned he was studying a spot about six inches above the top of her head. ‘You were in its path. Bolting horses can run blind.’
Wow, he was tall, dizzyingly tall, and solid looking.
‘Oh.’ Suddenly light headed she bent over and rested her hands on her knees, and was shocked when he squatted down and peered up at her, studying her intently as he threaded his fingers through his mussed up hair.
‘Are you okay? Do you need to sit down?’
She blinked at the soft tone which was in total contrast to the brusque edge she’d heard seconds before.
‘Fine, I just need to get my breath.’ She tried to smile. ‘I’m not used to being almost run down by galloping horses.’ Or being grabbed by strong, attractive men. There was a bit of a shortage of them in city centre primary schools. Sexy men, and horses. Not that he was responsible for her current light headedness – that had to be the danger, the nearly being killed. The thrill…. No, not thrill. Danger. Adrenaline – that was the word she was looking for.
‘Don’t apologise. I would have a sit down if I were you, shock can have a strange effect.’
Something was having a strange effect, but she had a horrible feeling it was more to do with finding herself pressed against the groin of a man, than the risk of a trail of hoof prints being left across her body.
‘You look pale.’
She felt pale. Avoiding his gaze she glanced downwards. Bloody hell, his blood supply seemed to have redirected round his body again and headed southwards, right into the spot she’d been nestled against. She looked back up guiltily, straight into his eyes. Mistake. Maybe she was better shutting her eyes, concentrating on her own blood flow which seemed to be located solely in her heart which was still hammering away ten to the dozen.
He wasn’t reacting to her, it was a male thing. Danger turned her into a wobbly blancmange, and men into, well into, well it could just turn them on.
‘Hey.’
He was still waiting for a reply, and probably worried she was going to keel over on him. ‘I’m fine. Thank you.’ She studied his feet. Much safer than looking at his groin, or into his eyes.
‘Good.’ He stuck his hands into his pockets. He knew. The earth just had to swallow her up, whisk her away. ‘Great, well if you’re sure you’re okay, I’ll be off.’ He stepped back almost nervously. ‘Work to do.’ He was doing his best to edge past her, squeeze between her and the car. She stepped back, feeling awkward. ‘Sorry about grabbing…’
‘No problem, thanks for…’
‘Sure.’ And he spun on his heel, and was off before she could say another word.
Lucy sank down against the bonnet of her car and watched as he set off down the road, his long legs swallowing up the ground as though he couldn’t get away quickly enough. Wow. Nobody on Emmerdale looked like that, or on The Yorkshire Vet, or on Countryfile. Not that she really watched programmes like that. Home makeover programmes were more her thing.
She glanced at her watch out of habit. ‘Bloody hell.’ She’d almost forgotten what she was doing here, she was going to be late for her interview. She was never late for anything. Ducking back into her little car she started up the engine and pulled out. Following the left hand fork, she passed the Taverner’s Arms, and then pulled up outside the school that lay just beyond it.
Smoothing her hair down with a slightly shaky hand, she tucked the loose tendrils behind her ears. All she had to do was remember to breathe and be natural, confident. Everything she wasn’t feeling.
But she could do this with her eyes shut. She knew she could. Teaching in a small village school had to be easy after the day-to-day battles she’d fought in a failing city centre one.
It was fine, if she didn’t get this job there would be others.
Lucy had applied for the temporary cover position at Langtry Meadows out of a sense of desperation. She’d actually wondered how the hell she was going to be convincing in an interview. One, she didn’t want to work in a village, two she wanted to work within commuting distance of her home, and three she was over qualified for the post. But as she got out of her car and gazed in awe at the pretty primary school she realised she actually wanted this job. Maybe if she could do this, she could banish her past forever. Not just hide the hurt, but beat it down. Face up to it, and prove it no longer had a hold over her.
Which made it all the more nerve-wracking. She couldn’t ever remember feeling quite this nervous, but that was probably because all of a sudden she knew it mattered. Really mattered.
Colourful stepping stones marked a path across the playground, leading up to a doorway which had ‘Boys’ etched into the arched brickwork above. She stared up at it – wondering if she’d somehow been transported back in time – when a young woman, with cropped trousers, a floaty blouse and paint covered hands appeared on the step.
‘Hi there! You must be Lucy.’ The woman smiled. ‘Come in, come in. Oh, don’t worry about that.’ She’d followed Lucy’s gaze. ‘This school was built back in the days when they thought pre-marital hand-touching was a sin, we’ve got a girl’s entrance over there.’ She pointed to another entrance at the other end of the playground. ‘We use that for open days, and everybody dives in through this one the rest of the time. You’ll have to excuse me, I’ve been helping Reception Class with finger-painting.’ She wriggled red and yellow fingers, and Lucy felt some of the flutters disperse. Just some. ‘Mrs Potts is about somewhere, she’ll show you round while I get myself cleaned up. Good journey?’
She paused for breath and Lucy smiled back.
‘Great thanks.’ Better not to mention the wrong turnings.
‘I’m hopeless, I always get lost even with a satnav. I’m Jill by the way, classroom assistant and chief bottom wiper. I won’t shake hands – not with fingers like this. If you sign in there and grab a visitor’s badge I’ll find Liz, she’s probably gone to buy some biscuits. Best part of an interview day,’ she grinned, ‘candidates have biscuits and we get to finish them off, we usually get bourbons and cream custards, much better than the normal digestive biscuits. Ah, here she is, I’ll leave you in her capable hands, and get back to painting caterpillar pictures. Catch you later.’
Liz Potts was frighteningly capable. After checking that Lucy had signed herself in properly, and had made a note of her car registration correctly, she gathered up her bunch of keys and set off on the introductory tour of the school at a speed totally at odds with her appearance. She reminded Lucy of Mrs Tiggy-Winkle. Which could have been down to her rather rounded appearance, sharp nose, and tiny feet. Or the speed they were scuttling down the corridors at.
Lucy was being whisked through the school with a ruthless efficiency, and a nod to left and right at various classrooms which Mrs Potts seemed to consider superfluous to teaching.
‘Reception and Class 1 here on the right… and the dining room is there… this is our little library… Class 2 here, rather a big intake, it must have been a bad winter.’
‘Sorry?’ Lucy craned her neck, trying to peek inside at the children who seemed remarkably engrossed in their work.
‘Snow, a hard winter always results in a flurry of autumn births don’t you find?’
It had never occurred to Lucy, but there again there was probably less to do here than in the middle of Birmingham, which very rarely saw snow anyway.
The corridors seemed eerily quiet compared to what she’d been used to at her previous school, although that could have been partly down to the fact that it had been a modern build with thin partition walls and echoing areas between them – whereas this was a delightfully solid looking brick built affair that appeared to have been part of the village for years.
‘Er, yes, well.’ Easier to change the subject. ‘Do you have a Wi-Fi connection throughout the school?’
‘Wi-Fi?’ Mrs Potts actually paused, very briefly, so that an unprepared Lucy had to swerve, before they picked up speed again. She was more than used to chasing round after young children, and dashing round a classroom to avoid catastrophe, but it was the sheer determination of the woman as she darted down the corridors that had caught her by surprise.
‘You’ve got wireless throughout the school? An internet connection?’ Flat shoes were obviously going to be a necessity here, if she took the five week cover position.
‘Oh good heavens no, dear.’ Mrs Potts pursed her lips and shook her head dismissively. ‘That isn’t how we do things here.’
Oh hell, she’d been right. They probably wouldn’t even have interactive whiteboards. It would be old-fashioned style teaching, which was about as progressive as old fashioned granny knickers and string vests.
‘We’ve got chickens.’
Lucy came to a stop, then she had to dash after her tour guide who was steaming ahead, had flung a door open and as far as Lucy was concerned might well dive through it and disappear. ‘Chickens?’ God, she was out of breath, this was worse than Sports Day.
‘And a wonderful vegetable patch. Come along dear, I’ll show you.’ Mrs Potts glanced at her watch, her pace never faltering. ‘We are rather pushed for time as the children are waiting to interview you, they’ve been preparing all week.’
Lucy frowned, this all seemed rather over the top for a temporary post, in fact it was exactly what she expected in an interview for a permanent position. It seemed that the school took its staffing very seriously indeed. Mrs Potts had picked up speed, marching across the playground with Lucy running to keep up, to where a small patch of rather worn grass was fenced off, with what had to be a wooden chicken coop inside. ‘We do have computers in the classroom plugged in,’ she gave Lucy a stern look which suggested she didn’t approve, ‘for teaching purposes, but they can’t learn about responsibility by looking at those, can they? Now if the monitors for the day forget to shut the hens up at night, they won’t repeat that mistake again, will they?’
‘Won’t they?’ Lucy stared at the small wooden building, and a rather scraggy chicken gave her a beady once-over then proceeded to peck at the dirt.
‘Of course not.’ Mrs Potts looked at her as though she was a simpleton. ‘The fox will get them, won’t it?’ She made a cut throat gesture that looked slightly sinister, as she headed back across the playground and Lucy scurried after her.
‘It will?’ The sense that she’d entered some kind of tranquil backwater where life was idyllic started to disperse.
The drive up the M6 motorway had left her frustrated and tense (sure that she would be late, and she was never late), and then she’d lost her way twice which had left her with sweating palms and the start of a headache, but the moment she’d entered the village the stress had started to ebb away and as her shoulders had relaxed she’d eased back on the accelerator and started to appreciate the pretty flower strewn hedgerows.
By the time she’d reached the well-kept village green with its swathes of bright dancing daffodils the pounding in her temples had stopped. Momentarily.
Until she’d taken an unwanted tumble back to her childhood, before being unceremoniously tossed to the curb by a very big man. With a firm grip, tousled hair and gorgeous eyes. Oh hell, now all she needed was for him to be one of the parents and word would soon get round that she was up for a grope with any passing strangers. Not that she’d actually kissed him. Luckily. But she had rubbed herself against him. And wriggled against his crotch.
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