months before. Emma Carstairs would have said to Barry, she thought, that Frank and Meryl Perry were the right sort of people for the village. Barry had put work Frank's way and joked about keeping things close, in a little Mafia. The loss of the friendship hurt badly.
Meryl hadn't faced up to telling Stephen why they didn't have Sam in the car now, had made instead a poor excuse about a grown-ups' squabble. She'd have to tell him properly, but later. Probably there would be things said at school, but she couldn't yet cope with telling him the complicated truth. A van was parked beside the road, and she saw a man reaching up to hammer a sold sign across the middle of the for-sale board outside Rose Cottage.
She wondered who'd bought it and what they'd be like.
She drove fast to the school and had to brake fiercely to avoid a car pulling away from the kerb. Most of the kids were already in.
She frowned. Barry Carstairs drove a sporty Audi, provided by his building-suppliers company. It was parked outside the school gate, three vehicles ahead of her. Barry never did the school-run. She kissed Stephen, and pushed open his door. The child ran through the playground gate towards the door of the main building, where he was stopped by Mr. Archer, the deputy head. He had one hand on the child's shoulder, and with the other he was waving her to come to him.
Several of those who didn't have jobs with regular hours helped with the painting, the reading and the lunches of the nursery class. She knew Mr. Archer, a little ferret of a man, and the talk was that he was slyly bitter at being ignored for the headship. She saw Stephen try to pull away from him, as the bell went inside. Archer's fist, clenched in the material of Stephen's anorak, restrained him. She stamped across the playground.
He didn't look her in the face.
'Mrs. Kemp would like to see you, Mrs. Perry.'
'Why are you holding Stephen like that?'
He looked at the ground, then at the sky.
'If you could go, please, to Mrs. Kemp's office.'
'Why are you preventing Stephen from joining his class?'
'It will all be explained, Mrs. Perry. They're waiting for you.'
'You're making Stephen late for class.'
'He'll be in the common room I'll be with him.'
Kids knew. They always knew first. Stephen's face was blank. At home last night, he'd worked really hard at his writing, was proud of it, before he'd pulled out his lorries and the men had come to his room. His exercise was in his satchel with his lunch. She told him, ignored the ferret, that she'd sort it out, and fast. She stormed down the corridor, didn't knock, pushed her way into Mrs. Kemp's office.
From the door, her eyes roved over the faces. There was Mrs. Kemp, trim and grey-haired, the head-teacher; Bellamy, overweight and everybody's friend, the self-appointed organizer of the PTA; Barry Carstairs, the smart- suited businessman who was going places, the chairman of the governors; and a woman with fiercely bobbed hair and a severe black trouser-suit. The men were either side of the women, and they were all huddled close against the legs of the desk.
The head-teacher's voice piped at her, 'Thank you for coming in, Mrs. Perry. Please sit down.'
'Why am I here?'
'Just sit down, Mrs. Perry, please. You'll know everyone here, except Miss Smythe from the county's education department.'
She remained standing.
'What's going on?'
The head-teacher fixed her with a glance.
'I am afraid I have something difficult to tell you.'
'What?'
Bellamy grunted, 'It's pretty obvious, Mrs. Perry, after yesterday afternoon.'
'What's obvious?'
Carstairs tried to look sombre.
'There was a very disturbing ii vident affecting the school yesterday, Meryl, which cannot be ignored.'
Her child, with the ferret's hand on his anorak, knew. Stephen was in the common room, and would be scared half out of his wits. She stood her ground, and glowered.
'So, which of you's queuing to use the knife?'
'That's not called-for. We have a responsibility-' 'It's a responsibility we're not ignoring.'
Barry Carstairs didn't look at her. He was playing with a pencil and he'd scribbled words on a pad, as if he didn't trust himself without notes.
'This isn't easy for us. As chairman of the governors, after consultations with our head-teacher and bearing in mind the feelings of the parents' representative, I have taken a most serious decision. Yesterday, your husband came to the school to collect Stephen. He was, we now know, accompanied by an armed bodyguard. It was not his intention that the presence of the bodyguard should be known, and that was an act of deceit. The bodyguard, after a grossly irresponsible incident with his pistol an incident that could have led to the gun firing in a crowded playground in the head-teacher's hearing, spoke to the local police after she, quite rightly, had called them. I~ his explanation to the local police, he spoke of a threat to your husband that necessitates his constant protection from terrorist attack. We feel, after very careful consideration, that a threat to your husband represents, also, a threat against your husband's family-' 'You're blathering, Barry. Why don't you say what you mean?'
Carstairs pushed aside his notes. There was a curl of anger at his lips.
'I was trying to do it the decent way. What Frank's done, what's in his sordid past, I don't know and I don't care. What matters is that his family is exposed to bombs and guns, in our school. The children and staff here are all threatened by terrorists. Their safety is paramount. Stephen, as much as his stepfather or his mother, could be a target. If he is a target, then everyone at this school is a target. He's out, he's no longer welcome here.'
'You can't do that, not to a child.'
The woman, Miss Smythe, leaned forward to intervene, and spoke with a low, intense voice.
'We can do it, Mrs. Perry, and we are doing it. My department, after full consideration of the facts, has decided to back the governors' recommendation. We're foursquare behind them. As soon as is practical we will communicate with you on proposals for alternative education for Stephen, but I can't say when that will be. A thought, Mrs. Perry. Is it possible for Stephen to move away, stay with an uninvolved relative, and attend school elsewhere?'
'It is not. We are together, a family.'
'Then he'll have to sit at home,' Carstairs said.
'I'm sure Mrs. Kemp'll loan you some books but he's not coming back here.'
'You are despicable. You are, Barry Carstairs, always have been, a second-rate rat, always will be.'
'As of now, Stephen is no longer a pupil at this school. Take him home.'
'And Frank thought of you, and your stupid wife, as a friend.'
'Your problems aren't ours, they don't concern us, get off back home. And when you get home you should call for a removal van and take your problems away. You're pariahs, you're not wanted.'
There was so much she could have said. Meryl thought, in that moment, that weeping and pleading would have shamed her. She eyed them with contempt and none of them could meet her gaze. Once before she had been through the business of shame, and she would not go there again. No begging, no cringing, not then and not now. Nine years before, she had resigned from the haulage business where she worked the logistics computer, four months after the Christmas party. Hadn't been drunk, incapable, before that party, or since. Too drunk, too incapable, to know which of the men had done it. It could have been any of the thirty-eight drivers, twelve loaders, three managers and two directors. She would have needed DNA testing to learn which was the father of the embryo baby. She turned. Living with Frank, loving him, bringing up her child together had erased the shame. She left them behind her, the silence clinging in the room, and strode down the corridor to fetch her son from the common room.
They would be watching her from the head-teacher's office as she led the child back across the empty playground towards the car, their faces would be pressed against the glass. She had shown them defiance, but by the time she reached the car the pain and the despair hit her.
