Strictly Love. Julia Williams

him.

      ‘Well, you're hardly likely to win Mr Universe, are you?’

      They glared at each other for a second.

      ‘Are you coming next door for a drink?’ Mark and Emily came up. Emily looked flushed and pretty. Her slimness accentuated Katie's curves. Katie wasn't normally the jealous type, but suddenly, next to Emily, she felt like a walrus.

      ‘No, I don't think I am,’ said Katie. ‘It's time I was off.’

      ‘Me too,’ said Emily. ‘I've got an early start in the morning.’

      ‘Will we see you ladies here again next week?’ Rob asked.

      It was all Katie and Emily could do to keep straight faces. He was so ridiculously pompous. Despite her irritation, Katie realised it was hard to stay cross with someone who was clearly so deluded about his charms.

      ‘Maybe,’ said Katie. ‘We'll have to see.’

      ‘So you're not dancing again?’ It was clear from the look on his face that this was not the answer Rob was expecting. He looked like a disappointed spaniel.

      ‘Depends who's asking,’ said Katie in an outrageously flirty, mischievous manner, before she and Emily made a bolt for it, laughing like demons.

      ‘I think that went well,’ said Rob, watching them go.

      ‘And you've worked that out how?’ said Mark. ‘They‘ve both just left. And they were laughing at us.’

      ‘Sure sign they fancy us. Besides, you know my motto,’ said Rob, touching his nose with a conspiratorial grin. ‘Expect the unexpected. Don't you worry, they'll be back. Like I said, they're gagging for it. I can tell.’

      * * *

      ‘How dare he!’ Katie was still apparently brooding on Rob's words about her weight the next day when Emily rang her to see if she'd calmed down yet. ‘I mean, obviously I don't care what that idiot Rob thinks, but – first Charlie told me I'd put on weight and now that prat says I've got fat thighs. I must be enormous.’

      Emily made soothing noises down the phone while glancing anxiously at her watch. She had a mountain of stuff to shift before the end of the day, and having rung her soap star and discovered what she'd actually said about the black girl she was meant to be sharing a room with on Love Shack was somewhat worse than even the papers had inferred, Emily had a feeling she might be up all night sorting out the mess. She really didn't have time for a long chat. But Katie always listened to her troubles, so it seemed mean not to do the same. The problem was, Katie had spent so long at home, she'd forgotten what it was like to be in a busy workplace and not have time to make personal calls. Emily looked across the corridor at her boss's office. In a moment, she felt sure that Mel would be on her like a ton of bricks for chatting during office time.

      ‘Liar,’ said Katie. ‘Thanks for humouring your best friend. I do know I have to lose some weight. But it's not as if he's God's gift, is it?’

      ‘Hardly,’ said Emily.

      ‘Mind you, his friend was nice,’ said Katie. ‘You looked very cosy together.’

      ‘We were not, as you put it, cosy,’ said Emily. ‘Besides, I've got Callum. Why would I look elsewhere?’

      ‘Why indeed?’ said Katie with just the barest hint of irony.

      ‘Oh shut up,’ said Emily. ‘Look, I've got to go, Mel is exiting her office and heading my way. So the burning questions is: are we going again next week?’

      ‘I'll let you know,’ said Katie, and put the phone down.

      Katie stared out of the window at her neatly ordered garden. Why had she let Rob get under her skin? Was it because he'd said the same thing as Charlie had about her weight? Or was there something more to it? She shook her head. Thinking about it was a waste of energy. She had a house to clean, a baby to feed, children to pick up from school and dinner to cook. Besides, Charlie was going to be home on Friday, which gave her the perfect opportunity to have a romantic evening in with him. Time she got on and started planning it properly.

      Rob wound up his Year Ten lesson on Hitler. Sometimes it felt like the only subject he taught was the Second World War. A whole generation of children were growing up to whom history simply meant the Tudors and Hitler. Oh, and the slave trade. It made him despair.

      ‘Got a hot date tonight, sir?’ Matt Sadler, one of Rob's more irritating students, piped up in the kerfuffle that followed the end of the lesson.

      ‘None of your business,’ said Rob, picking up his books.

      ‘Ooh, are you sure?’ Matt was one of those who just wouldn't leave it alone. He nudged one of his mates and whispered something they both clearly found funny. ‘Only my mate's sister fancies you.’

      ‘Well she's clearly a woman of taste,’ said Rob, resisting the urge to throw a piece of chalk at him. When Rob had been at school, that's what his Maths teacher, Mr Coombs, would have done. But in these more touchy-feely times, should Rob even contemplate doing something that might cause a moment's misery to one of his charges, he'd end up explaining himself before some snotty tribunal. So instead he swept out of the classroom, ignoring the wolf-whistles and giggles that followed his departure.

      Rob shivered. However irritating the likes of Matt Sadler might be, he would never dream of actually throwing the chalk. In the old days, the days when he was a student teacher and he and Suzie had been together, he would have been much more reckless. But that was then and this was now.

      Suzie. He hadn't thought about her in years. Maybe Mark was right. That Levellers song in the pub the other night – “Fifteen Years”, wasn't it? – should be their theme tune. He was going to end up a sad, lonely old drunk, sobbing into his pint.

      Rob entered the staffroom feeling a bit odd. He wasn't normally this introspective, what had got into him this morning? What he needed was half an hour's sit down and a cup of coffee. He was actually gasping for a fag, but the whole school was now a smoke-free zone. Soon he'd be joining his Year Eights behind the bike sheds.

      Rob made himself a coffee and sat down in an uncomfortable ancient chair shoved in the corner of the staffroom. Thanks to Matt he was too late to join in with the conversations already in progress. Not that he felt much like chatting with the twittering women who ran Modern Languages and spent most of their breaks moaning about how unfair it was that the PE department were always trying to muscle in on their lesson time. And he'd had one too many conversations about the latest views on the Big Bang theory with Andy Peacock, head of Physics, just recently.

      In the good old days, when he'd first started teaching, you wouldn't have been able to see from one end of the room to the other through the fug of smoke. Now, of course, the diehards like him were among the two per cent of the population made to feel like pariahs.

      He leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes for a moment. Katie's face floated in front of him. How odd was that? Why was he thinking about her? Her and her fat thighs. He tried to dismiss her from his thoughts, but Katie's face stubbornly refused to go away. Then it came to him.

      Katie reminded him of Suzie. Granted, Katie was much plumper, but there was something about her that was so like Suzie it made him wince. Perhaps it was her fair hair – or her petite form. Maybe it was that bright, joyous laugh. Suzie had laughed like that. She had been full of fun and life and joie de vivre. Until that day. Then all the light and love had gone out of her. Gone out of them. Rob tried not to think about all that any more. But damn it, Katie had brought it back.

      This would never do. Rob picked up a Guardian someone had left lying around. It wasn't like him to be so anal. And it didn't get him anywhere. Besides, he'd left all that stuff behind a long time ago. He turned to the crossword and had a go at that instead. Much better than dwelling on the past.

      Mark was whistling as he entered the surgery that morning.

      ‘You're cheerful today,’ Diana greeted him.

      Ah,