The Confusion of Karen Carpenter Read online

  I love my tutor group. They’re year sevens, which means they’re either eleven or twelve and this is their first year at Fountain Woods. Each tutor group takes the first and last letter of their tutor’s surname, so my group are 7CR. They’re a lovely, lively group who keep me on my toes, make me laugh and are generally at the school to learn and improve their lives. For now. I’m sure all that will change when they hit year nine. Then they’ll want to get pregnant or be drug dealers, but for the next eighteen months or so it’ll be a halcyon time.

  I have this little routine whenever I enter a classroom. I stand at the door with the wastepaper basket in my hands before letting the kids in. As they pass, if they are chewing gum, they are expected to spit it out into the bin. Bizarrely they seem to enjoy this ritual. It brings out their innate sense of competitiveness, so they like to spit any gum out as extravagantly as they can and with the utmost drama. It’s like Dancing on Ice with gobbing, but that’s pre-teens for you. I collect the gum, then return the bin under my desk, power up my electronic whiteboard and log in to the register on my laptop.

  Before I can begin calling out the names, I am inundated by several kids calling out, ‘You OK, Miss?’ and, ‘You feeling better, Miss?’

  Oh good. They think I was off before Christmas with some kind of sickness. Excellent.

  I reassure them I’m fine. ‘Heaps better. Best Christmas of my life. Ever. Loads of presents, yeah! Loads of booze, yeah!’

  ‘Loads of drugs, Miss?’

  ‘Don’t be clever, Inderjit.’

  ‘Did you, like, get off your nut, Miss?’

  ‘OK, settle down, everyone.’

  ‘Miss, was you like seriously off your face on pills, Miss?’

  I really need to get on with this register.

  Elizabeth, one of my better-behaved girls, is approaching me with an envelope.

  ‘Miss? Connor’s dad asked me to give you this, is it?’

  ‘Thanks, Elizabeth,’ I say, and rip open the envelope, not thinking, calling out to the class to settle down for registration.

  I’d not even noticed Connor wasn’t here. He never misses school, yet I didn’t even realize he was off. Is that bad?

  I glance over the letter. And then reread it.

  Oh God.

  The handwriting is neat, considering it is written by a man. It is written in fountain pen, which I find at once sweet and beguiling. No other parent I know writes absence notes in fountain pen.

  Dear Miss Carpenter,

  Sorry Connor isn’t in school today. Sadly his mum passed away last week and I am going to keep him off till the end of the week, as it’s the funeral on Friday. Hope this is OK with you. If you have any work you think he needs to do, then please call me on my mobile.

  All best wishes,

  Kevin O’Keefe

  I knew Connor’s mum was ill with cancer – she has been ill for some time – but still the information shocks me. I see a quick video montage in my mind. Connor holding his mum’s hand as she takes her final breath. Connor’s dad breaking down as the doctor says she’s gone and they can’t bring her back. Father and son eating beans on toast, missing a woman’s touch. Sombre visits to the chapel of rest. Kevin ironing Connor’s school shirt for the funeral. Family descending. Invasion of space. Men having to deal with emotions more easily associated with women.

  I realize I can’t really remember what Connor’s dad looks like. I’ve only met him once, at parents’ evening. Although he’s written lots of letters about his wife’s illness, and made lots of phone calls, I can’t really remember what his face is like. So I imagine him, in this movie version, as being played by Michael Fassbender.

  Dream on, Karen!

  I look back at the letter. The writing is smudged near the end. The word ‘mobile’ is fuzzy. I wonder if it has been smudged by Mr O’Keefe’s tears.

  The letter brings me up short.

  There was me wallowing in my own misery through the Christmas break when all along one of my students was going through the experience of losing a parent. The letter is like a slap round the face, like a sharp waft of fresh air in a stuffy room. Usually letters like this would upset me, but this one makes me feel I don’t even know I’m born. There was me thinking the worst thing ever had happened to me.

  God, Karen, get over yourself. Your boyfriend left you. So what? You have your life. Your family. Your friends.

  OK, so you also have a wedding dress you no longer need, but it doesn’t matter.

  Nobody died.

  I put the letter in my bag and look to the class and smile.

  ‘Happy New Year, 7CR!’

  And I start to call out their names.

  As I am having my lunch later, Custard Claire sidles over, her eyes aflame. I saw her earlier, when she’d offered me her sympathies about Michael leaving. She’d then quickly changed the subject, saying she had major gossip on Rochelle from the office and she’d tell me at lunchtime.

  So here I am, sat in the salad room. She sits opposite me and says, ‘Well, have you heard about Rochelle?’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘Went off up to Cornwall over Christmas. Well, you know who’s in Cornwall, duntcha?’

  I nod. ‘Her ex.’

  She nods. ‘Her ex and his fancy piece. Anyway, two days she’s gone, and guess what time she gets home?’

  I shrug, and don’t guess.

  ‘Three o’clock in the morning,’ says Claire dramatically.

  Behind her I see the new teacher standing with a tray full of food, wondering where to sit. She clocks me and moves to a table in the far corner.

  ‘No one gets home at three in the morning,’ Claire continues, ‘unless some major shit’s gone down.’

  ‘What d’you think she was doing in Cornwall?’ I ask.

  Claire shrugs. ‘Vera reckons she was after a threesome, but I reckon she went to beg him to come home, only he never.’ She shakes her head disparagingly and repeats it like it’s the most heinous thing in the world. ‘Three o’clock in the morning. I ask you. Silly bitch.’

  And I can’t help but laugh.

  Heading back from the salad room to the staffroom, I pass through the foyer. Rochelle is still typing through the lunch hour, the rat-a-tat-tat of the keys echoing round the reception area. I walk by, but she looks up, and this time she stops typing.

  ‘Karen?’ she says, a smile in her voice.

  I look over at her. ‘Hi, Rochelle,’ I say, like it is a surprise to see her there, when actually it would have been a surprise to see her anywhere but there.

  ‘I was so sorry to hear about Michael. It must be awful.’

  Bless her.

  ‘Oh. I’m OK, thanks, Rochelle, but I appreciate you saying it.’

  Rochelle smiles and returns to her typing. So I risk it.

  ‘And I was sorry to hear about . . .’ which is when I realize I don’t know her husband’s name ‘. . . your husband.’

  She looks up. Her hands freeze. ‘What about my husband?’

  She looks murderous. I immediately realize I’ve said the wrong thing.

  ‘Oh. I thought you’d . . . split up with . . . your . . . husband.’

  She smiles, shakes her head. ‘No, Karen. Some of us are able to hang on to our men. Geoffrey would never leave me.’

  Ouch. Touché!

  Again she smiles and it throws me off balance. Is she completely mad, or has Custard Claire been making things up about her?

  I go to apologize, but Rochelle butts in. ‘Did you want something? Only I’ve got exclusion letters to write.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Rochelle. I must’ve got the wrong end of the stick.’

  Rochelle’s eyes widen and she just nods sarcastically, as if to say, ‘Yes, you silly mare. Won’t make that mistake again in a hurry, will you?’

  I nod back, then hurry off to the staffroom, feeling strangely unnerved.

  The afternoon passes without incident. Well, that’s somewhat of an understatement. No afterno
on passes without incident in an ex-ILEA school. There are the usual near-violent exchanges, and actual violent exchanges; two girls call me a ‘cheeky bitch’; one boy calls me a ‘rasclart’; practically my whole media studies group find their way on to unapproved websites; plus there is an unexpected fire alarm caused by someone vandalizing the boys’ toilets by the PE block. Apart from that, it is generally a pretty quiet afternoon.

  I’m vaguely aware of a passing siren as I’m supporting in Danny’s English class, but this is a busy estate – you hear sirens all the time. Then half an hour before the end of the final period I get an email from the head popping up in my inbox marked, ‘Urgent.’

  From: Ethleen Butterly [email protected]

  To: All Staff

  Re: Emergency Staff Meeting 15.40

  Dear all,

  Please come to the staffroom immediately school finishes for an emergency staff meeting.

  Many thanks,

  Ethleen

  How odd.

  There is an excitable buzz of anticipation as we all crush ourselves into the far-too-small staffroom. I look around and see practically every member of staff there. Meetings like this are only called in extreme circumstances: a child has stabbed another; a teacher has dropped dead in the car park, that kind of thing. When Ethleen walks in without Rochelle in front of her doing her seal impression, I feel a hand of ice grip my neck. Something is seriously wrong.

  Ethleen clears her throat. ‘Thank you all for coming at such short notice,’ she says, with the warm, efficient professionalism of a young Harriet Harman. ‘I’m sorry to keep you back when you no doubt have better things to do with your time, so for that I apologize. Anyway, something happened this afternoon and I had to share it with you.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘Rochelle from the office has been arrested, for suspected murder.’

  There is an audible gasp. It dances round the room like a Mexican wave.

  ‘It transpires that recently her husband left her and moved to Cornwall.’

  ‘Cornwall?’ says Gina incredulously, like that’s a really bad move. Which is kind of missing the point, I think.

  ‘And Rochelle heard that he had met someone else. Anyway, it looks like last week Rochelle drove to Cornwall and . . . well . . . ran this woman over. So they’ve taken her in for questioning and I’m not sure she’ll be coming back.’

  Gosh.

  ‘Cornwall?’ Gina is saying again. ‘I’ve been to Cornwall.’ Like it gives her inside knowledge.

  I roll my eyes and tap my foot.

  ‘Now, obviously this is quite a newsworthy story and I’ve already had some press phoning up about it. If there are journalists at the gates, or approaching you here, or in the Who’d’ve Thought It?, please, please, please just say, “No comment.” Thank you.’ She sweeps out, leaving us all reeling.

  As we mill out, exchanging incredulous looks, I overhear some bright spark commenting, ‘Thank God I never complained about her typing.’

  FOUR

  ‘Are you going to go to the funeral?’ my best friend, Wendy, asks me that night as we share a bottle of wine in my lean-to.

  ‘The woman Rochelle ran over? I didn’t know her, and Cornwall’s such a long way.’

  ‘No, the boy in your class, his mum.’

  ‘Oh. Well, I didn’t really know her either. I mean, he only started last September and she’s been ill since before then.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Why? D’you think I should?’

  ‘I dunno. Do you want to?’

  ‘Not really, no.’

  To be honest with you, I’ve not given it much thought. I look at Wendy and know why she is here. She’s come to check that I didn’t freak out at school, that my first day was hitch-free and that going back today was the first step along the way to becoming my normal self again. My normal single self, that is.

  Why do people think I can’t cope? Am I that much of a wuss that I fall to pieces when left to live alone? Then I remember finding myself in the park last night, unable to remember getting there. I think back to forgetting that Mum is staying. Am I having some sort of breakdown? Am I in fact going mad and no one has told me? Everyone seems to be behaving as if this is the case.

  Wendy is talking about something – I’m not sure what as I’ve zoned out – and I interrupt abruptly with, ‘Wendy, do you think I am going mad?’

  She looks surprised, stares at her wine, then shakes her head. She looks back suddenly, worried. ‘Do you?’

  I shake my head, then shrug. ‘I don’t know. It’s just . . . well, you come round more than you did and . . . Mum seems to think I can’t be left alone.’

  Although she was quite happy to nip out to a Zumba class once she heard that Wendy was on her way over. I don’t even know what Zumba is.

  ‘I just came round ’cos it was your first day back at work and . . . well . . . usually you’d’ve had Michael here to chat to. About how it went. What happened. Just thought it might make you feel a bit less . . . alone.’

  She’s great, Wendy. We’ve been mates since our first day at uni together. Nearly eighteen years later she always manages to know me inside out, anticipate my needs and generally be an all-round good egg. Not sure what she gets out of our friendship, but she really has been like the proverbial rock to me. Particularly over the last few weeks.

  OK, so maybe I am not going mad. That’s good. And as my best mate she’d know. She’d be able to see the signs. Like, say I was standing in Tesco with a bowl of spaghetti on my head singing ‘I (Who Have Nothing)’ – that would not be good. And I know for certain I’ve not done that. Yet.

  ‘Why do you think Michael left me?’ I ask, sounding more like a petulant child than I mean to.

  Wendy gives a sigh as if to say, ‘It’s the million-dollar question.’

  ‘I don’t know, darling. I certainly don’t think it was your fault.’

  I’ve heard her say all this before. It still helps, though. It’s still a balm.

  ‘I guess he had his own demons.’

  ‘But not his own clothes!’ I want to say, but it feels inappropriate. She’s being nice and serious and everything a best friend should be when you ask them a proper, grown-up, serious question. Something I rarely do out of school.

  Demons. Not sure I like the sound of those. I picture Michael driving underneath the ground, dissecting London in his toilet-roll-shaped train, garden-gnome-sized devils dancing about his shoulders. Some of them even have red forked fishing rods. No. Demons are bad for anyone, never mind someone who has public safety in his hands. I shudder.

  ‘Babe,’ Wendy is saying, fixing me with one of her encouraging looks. Wendy works in telly, so she knows a thing or two about communication. Well, I say she works in telly – she is a PA to a producer at the BBC in Shepherd’s Bush. It’s still telly, though. She’s met Pam St Clement. ‘Babe, the past’s not that important. What’s important . . . is the future.’

  I nod. She’s said this before too. I realize now she’s a bit tipsy. Never mind – she’s not driving. She’s probably not eaten. Telly people probably don’t. Too busy meeting Pam St Clement and the like to worry about grabbing the odd snack.

  ‘I think,’ she continues, ‘and I know you don’t agree, but I think they’re going to be queuing round the block for you, Kagsy.’

  This too she has said before, and I still don’t agree with her. Just because Yusef at school thinks I’m the third fittest teacher doesn’t mean I can now take my pick of men. I’m about to argue with Wendy when she butts in with a swift ‘I mean, look at you. What man in his right mind wouldn’t want a dollop of what you’ve got to offer? You’re gorgeous, and funny, and clever, and witty, only you just don’t know it.’

  What man? What man wouldn’t want any of this? Michael. That’s who, Wendy. But I don’t say it. I get the feeling with Wendy that she has consigned Michael to the history bin. She speaks of him only in the past tense. In her eyes there is no hope with Michael. Michael has liter
ally been shredded.

  Whereas I am not so sure. He left unexpectedly. Ergo (yes, I know what it means now, thank you) he might reappear unexpectedly. Why shouldn’t he? If I’m as fabulous as Wendy says, why shouldn’t he? In fact, if I’m as fabulous as Wendy says, he’ll definitely be coming back. Quick, I better go and get changed!

  ‘Mark my words,’ she reiterates, ‘they’ll come crawling out of the woodwork for you.’ But then Wendy giggles and says, ‘God, I’m pissed. Sorry. I haven’t had any tea.’

  ‘Were you with Pam St Clement?’

  She looks at me like I’m mad, and I am really, to blurt that out without censoring myself.

  She shakes her head.

  ‘I could order a pizza or something,’ I suggest, although I know Mum will return soon with something frozen and something fresh.

  Fortunately Wendy looks horrified. ‘God, no. We’re all doing the Dukan at work,’ and she takes a large glug of her wine.

  ‘Dukan not be serious!’ I joke, and we both chuckle into our Pinot.

  ‘Karen, you do know I’m not friends with Pam St Clement, don’t you?’

  I nod, but she has met her.

  ‘I’ve said about two words to her, so you don’t need to go round telling people we’re best mates or anything.’

  ‘I don’t!’ I gasp, affronted, even though I do.

  ‘She came in to meet my boss and I fetched her a glass of water and that was the extent of our relationship. I have told you this.’

  I nod. Can we change the subject? Jeez. Anyone else’d be thrilled that they’d met her, not insist on downplaying it in my lean-to every time she comes round.

  I like my lean-to. Michael built it with his own bare hands. Well, his bare hands and his builder mate, Jay the Builder. It is one of the many nice things he did for me. He always said he wanted us to sit in it and listen to the rain fall on the roof while we had a takeaway and a can. It was built for romance.