Audrey inspected her nails rather than meet Sam’s gaze. ‘Me and Sid sent a hoax letter from the Head – to all nine hundred and seventy-one parents.’
Oh dear God, don’t let them have created a bomb hoax. She had visions of Audrey being led away in handcuffs. Then again, if that was what it took to separate her daughter from troublemaker Sid, perhaps it wasn’t such a bad thing. Trying to stay level-headed, she asked, ‘What was in this letter?’
‘It was just a joke. We said that the school was closed until further notice because there’d been an outbreak of infectious diarrhoea caused by a fungus found in the classrooms.’ Her voice wobbled with amusement but clocking her mum’s hard stare, she soon stopped smiling. ‘How were we supposed to know people would take it seriously?’
‘How seriously are we talking?’
The corners of her mouth twitched. ‘Over half the school didn’t turn up.’
‘Audrey.’ Sam covered her face with her hands. ‘I don’t need this.’
‘Of course,’ she snapped, ‘I forgot it’s all about you. It’s always about you.’
Sam grabbed her daughter’s arm before she could stalk away. ‘I just lost my job and come home to find my daughter, what, at home for the rest of the day or longer?’
‘Suspended,’ she snapped, yanking her arm back. ‘You’ll get an email to tell you officially.’
‘Hang on a minute…Surely they didn’t send you home – they should wait until a parent collects you or at least gives permission.’ She felt her hackles rise; she wasn’t sure who she was more annoyed at – Audrey or the school.
‘I walked out.’
‘You did what?’
‘I left, and you know something? I’m glad I don’t have to go to that hellhole for two weeks. Which means I’m free from it until September. Thank god!’
‘Audrey, come back here.’ But this time she made no effort to stop her daughter stomping up the stairs. Slam, went her door. If Sam tried to talk to her now she’d have no chance, and she had a headache brewing, right behind her eyes, creeping up to her entire head. All she wanted to do was lie down in a dark room, fall asleep and wake up as though today had never happened.
She took a couple of headache tablets but going for a lie down wasn’t an option, not with her mind doing overtime. She checked her phone and sure enough the call she’d ignored was from the school. She fired up her laptop in the study, unsurprised to find their email waiting. Reading through it, the suspension would stand for two weeks, and judging by the tone, Audrey should think herself lucky it wasn’t more severe after she walked out of school today. The school suggested both she and Audrey go in for a meeting early next week to discuss a way forward. Sam knew that there wouldn’t be much point appealing the decision to exclude her either; the last time Audrey had messed up, shouting at a teacher when she was told off for not handing in her homework on time, she’d had a warning that anything else would be dealt with more harshly. Sam guessed this was the ‘anything else’.
Despite the hopelessness she felt, Sam couldn’t sit there and do nothing until a meeting next week. Audrey was supposed to be sitting her GCSEs next June so this year was important. She didn’t throw herself into her schoolwork as it was, and this latest development would only give her the go-ahead to slack off even more.
She tried to call Audrey’s form tutor but he was in a meeting; she attempted to speak to the head of year but she wasn’t available, so she resorted to an email asking whether there was any way the school would reconsider the punishment given the importance of Year Ten. Even if they lessened it to one week perhaps.
She doubted her correspondence would make any dent in their decision. She thought of all those kids and parents inconvenienced by the hoax letter and knew there would be outrage if Audrey wasn’t punished for her part in the debacle. Last term a girl had kicked another student at the top of a flight of stairs and when confronted by staff, the girl cried and was let off the looming punishment. The parent of the child who was kicked was furious; she took to social media to vent and it all got very nasty. Sam would do anything to support Audrey, but she didn’t want Audrey’s business plastered everywhere; she didn’t want her daughter judged by those who didn’t know her. Sam wanted, somehow, to find the girl she suspected was in there somewhere, the daughter who had once smiled and laughed and loved hot buttered crumpets by the fire on a winter’s evening, the six-year-old girl who’d cried when Sam told her that she’d probably want to move out of home one day and into her own house. Back then Audrey had never wanted to be apart from Sam.
Times had changed.
Audrey had never accepted her dad leaving them behind and starting a new life on the other side of the world. She blamed Sam for everything, made comments and had digs whenever she could that told Sam exactly who she thought at fault. Simon could do no wrong in Audrey’s eyes, and because he wasn’t in his daughter’s life in a big way, Sam had let the blame settle on her shoulders. She held back criticisms of Simon because she wanted Audrey to have a relationship with her dad. She never wanted to be the person who came between them because if she was, she had a funny feeling it would be her who was seen to be in the wrong and ended up losing out.
Audrey didn’t appear
