and I’ve been living there for eighteen months. I had to get my appointment book out of my pocket and read the address out to them, with my hand trembling so much I could hardly make out the words. They must have thought I was mad.
TWO
I had reached “E” in the register; E for Damian Everatt, a skinny little boy with huge spectacles taped together at one hinge, waxy ears, an anxious gappy mouth, and scabby knees from where the other boys pushed him over in the playground.
“Yes, miss,” he whispered, as Pauline Douglas pushed her head round the already open classroom door.
“Can I have a quick word, Zoe?” she said. I stood up, smoothing my dress anxiously, and joined her. There was a welcome through-breeze in the corridor, though I noticed that a bead of sweat was trickling down Pauline’s carefully powdered face, and her normally crisp graying hair was damp at her temples. “I’ve had a call from a journalist on the
“What’s that?”
“A local paper. They want to talk to you about your heroics.”
“What? Oh, that. It’s…”
“There was mention of a melon.”
“Ah yes, well you see…”
“They want to send a photographer, too. Quiet!” This last to the circle of children fidgeting on the floor behind us.
“I’m sorry they bothered you. Just tell them to go away.”
“Not at all,” Pauline said firmly. “I’ve arranged for them to come round at ten forty-five, during break time.”
“Are you sure?” I looked at her dubiously.
“It might be good publicity.” She looked over my shoulder. “Is that it?”
I looked round at the huge green-striped fruit, innocent on the shelf behind us.
“That’s the one.”
“You must be stronger than you look. All right, I’ll see you later.”
I sat down again, picked up the register.
“Where were we? Yes. Kadijah.”
“Yes, miss.”
The journalist was middle-aged and short and fat, with hairs growing out of his nostrils and sprouting up behind his shirt collar. Never quite got the name, which was embarrassing as he was so aware of mine. Bob something, I think. His face was a dark shade of red, and wide circles of sweat stained his armpits. When he wrote, little shreds of shorthand in a tatty notebook, his plump fist kept slipping down the pen. The photographer who accompanied him looked about seventeen; cropped dark hair, an earring in one ear, jeans so tight I kept thinking that when he squatted on the floor with his camera they would split. All the time Bob was asking me questions, the photographer wandered round the classroom, staring at me from different angles through the camera lens. I’d tidied my hair and put on a bit of makeup before they arrived. Louise had insisted on it, pushing me into the staff cloakroom and coming after me with a brush in her hand. Now I wished I’d made a bit more effort. I sat there in my old cream dress with its crooked hem. They made me uncomfortable.
“What thoughts went through your head before you decided to hit him?”
“I just did it. Without thinking.”
“So you didn’t feel scared?”
“No. I didn’t really have time.”
He was scribbling away in his notebook. I had a feeling that I should be making cleverer, more amusing comments about what had happened.
“Where do you come from? Haratounian’s a strange name for a blond girl like you.”
“A village near Sheffield.”
“So you’re new to London.” He didn’t wait for me to reply. “And you teach nursery children, do you?”
“Reception, it’s called…”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-three.”
“Mmm.” He looked at me musingly, like someone assessing an unpromising item of stock at an agricultural auction. “How much do you weigh?”
“What? About seven and a half stone, I think.”
“Seven stone,” he said, chuckling. “Fantastic. And he was a big chap, wasn’t he?” He sucked his pen. “Do you think society would be a better place if everybody got involved the way you did?”
“Well, I don’t really know.” I fumbled for some sort of coherent statement. “I mean, what if the melon had missed? Or if it had hit the wrong person?”
Zoe Haratounian, spokeswoman on behalf of inarticulate youth. He frowned and didn’t even make a pretense of writing down what I’d said.
“How does it feel to be a heroine?”
Up to then it had been amusing in a way, but now I felt a little irritated. But of course I couldn’t put it into words that made any sense.
“It just happened,” I said. “I don’t want to set myself up as anything. Do you know if the woman who was mugged is okay?”
“Fine, just a couple of cracked ribs and she’ll need some new teeth.”
“I think we’ll take her with the melon.” It was the boy-photographer.
Bob nodded.
“Yes, that’s the story.”
He pulled the fruit off the shelf and staggered across with it.
“Blimey,” he said, lowering it onto my lap. “No wonder you took him out. Now look at me, chin up a bit. Give us a smile, darling. You won, didn’t you? Lovely.”
I smiled until the smile puckered on my face. Through the doorway I saw Louise staring in, grinning wildly. A giggle grew in my chest.
Next he wanted the melon and me with the children. I did my impersonation of a prim Victorian schoolmarm but it turned out that Pauline had already agreed. The photographer suggested cutting it up. It was a deep, luscious pink, paler at the rind, with polished black pips and a smell of fibrous coolness. I cut it into thirty-two wedges; one for each child and one for me. They stood round me on the sweltering concrete playground, holding their melon and smiling for the camera. All together now. One, two, three, cheese.
The local paper came out on Friday and I was on the front page. The photograph of me was huge; I was surrounded by children and slices of melon. MISS HEROINE AND THE MELON. Not very snappy. Daryl had a finger up his nose and Rose’s skirt was tucked into her knickers, but otherwise it was all right. Pauline seemed pleased. She pinned the piece on the notice board by the foyer, where the children gradually defaced it, and then she told me that a national paper had rung, interested in following up the story. She had provisionally set up an interview and another photo opportunity for the lunch break. I could miss the staff meeting. If that was all right with me, of course. She had asked the school secretary to buy another melon.
I thought that would be the end of it. I was bewildered by the way a story can gather its own momentum. I could hardly recognize the woman on an inside page of the
