Bed of Roses. Daisy Waugh

might move away, which he does not.

      Silence. The gentle tinkle of Mrs Haywood stirring coffee. The passing of air through Robert’s agitated nostrils. The squelching of tuna and watercress between Linda Tardy’s teeth.

      It is Linda Tardy who notices the article first.

      ‘Oh, my gracious Lord!’ she screams, making Mrs Haywood jump. ‘Fanny! Mrs Haywood! Robert! Everyone! Fanny, you’re famous! We’re all famous! LOOK AT THIS! This was—Oh, Robert, we were THERE! Fanny took her shirt off and—It’s such a shame you didn’t come; I know it’s a journey for you but my goodness, look what you missed! What does it say?’

      Robert watches Fanny’s face as she glances up from Private Eye and slowly registers what is laid out before her.

      ‘Oops,’ she says. She lets out a sigh. ‘Oh, dear.’

      ‘I’m so sorry, Fanny, to be “the messenger”,’ Robert murmurs softly, ‘only I thought you would probably want to see…’

      ‘What does it say?’ demands Linda Tardy impatiently, trying to nudge Robert out of the way.

      ‘Bloody hell,’ mutters Fanny. She takes the newspaper and stands up. ‘Robert, I think you’d better take assembly this morning. It looks like I need to make a few calls.’

      But as she speaks the telephone rings (as, in fact, it will continue to do incessantly now, for the rest of the morning; something about that picture has awoken the snake in every prude and pervert in the county). Robert doesn’t notice the telephone at first, he’s too busy watching Fanny. Unfortunately, the handset is on the window sill beside his elbow and no one else can get to it.

      ‘Pick it up then!’ says Mrs Haywood.

      ‘Mmm? Oh!’ He picks it up. ‘Fiddleford Primary,’ he snaps, his eyes fixed on Fanny, watching her as she digests the ribald picture caption at the bottom of the page. ‘Pardon?’ He frowns. ‘No. This is Fiddleford Primary School. I think you’ve got the wrong number…Who? I can’t hear you properly. You’re sounding—Fanny Flynn? Oh,’ he looks hesitant, ‘I’m not sure. Who may I say is calling?’

      In a rush of irritation – she’s not sure if it’s with the gloating Robert or with herself – she reaches across and snatches the receiver.

      ‘Fanny Flynn here,’ she says briskly.

      She hears breathing. Panting.

      Fanny Flynn used to do shifts on her university student helpline. Unlike Robert she knows at once what she is hearing. She ought to hang up, but she can’t. Something’s frozen.

      Panting. And then her name.

      Still, it doesn’t sound like him. It isn’t him. And yet somehow—

      ‘Say something, Fanny.’ And then nothing. Breathing. A long sigh. ‘I’ve written you a poem, Miss Flynn. Want to hear it?’

      ‘Fuck off,’ she says at last, ‘or I’ll call the police.’ She slams down the receiver, and without looking left or right, heads straight for the door.

      The telephone starts ringing again at once.

      ‘Don’t answer it,’ she says blandly. ‘Nobody answer the telephone this morning, please. OK? Let this stupid thing blow over. And I’m sorry, everyone, about my terrible language.’ She leaves the room in such a hurry that Brute is caught in the staff room behind her.

      Alone at her desk, the first thing she does is to call Louis. Again. She hasn’t heard a word from him since he headed back to London on Sunday and she’s lost count of the number of messages she’s left. She imagines he’s already swallowed up in some new bloody ‘love’ marathon, since Louis is always falling in love, and it makes her wretched to think about it, even more wretched than she was before.

      Louis’s answering service picks up, as always, and this time Fanny hangs up without bothering to leave a message. The bell goes for the start of lessons but she doesn’t react to it. She sits there, feeling sick. Was it him? She doesn’t know. She can’t even remember what he sounds like any more. Was it him? She doesn’t know. But it might have been.

      Half an hour later Robert follows her to her office. The school telephone has been ringing solidly, and though he isn’t entirely clear what happened back in the staff room earlier, it had been disconcerting enough, annoyingly, to ruin his enjoyment of the scene. He taps on her door, waits, and when she doesn’t answer, lets himself in anyway.

      Fanny is sitting behind her desk, as before. She looks exhausted; pasty, tiny, vulnerable, unhappy. He feels, in spite of himself, a surge of pity for her. She doesn’t look up, or invite him to sit down, so he rests his bottom against the radiator on the wall directly opposite her, and waits.

      He clears his throat. ‘Are you OK, Fanny?’

      ‘I’m fine,’ she says, glancing up at last, sending him a feeble smile. ‘I’m fine. Sorry. Sorry not to er—’

      ‘The kids are missing you. Lessons began quarter of an hour ago.’

      ‘Yes, I know. I’m coming down in a minute. Could you—’

      ‘Mrs Tardy’s in with them.’

      ‘Oh, good. Good. I’ll be down in one minute.’

      He sighs, a sigh full of teacherly, mature forbearing. ‘Fanny, are you going to tell me what’s going on?’

      ‘Nothing’s going on. You can see what’s going on. That silly picture.’ She stops, shrugs. ‘You know how it is. Lonely people out there. They get the wrong idea.’

      It takes him a moment to work out what she is implying. ‘Ah, of course,’ he says slowly, ‘how very disagreeable.’ A tiny flash of vexation that he hadn’t worked it out before, and then he imagines it: the strange man, the photograph, Fanny listening. He feels faintly aroused. ‘Well, I suppose you’re always going to get these specimens, aren’t you. They see these sort of images in the paper and they take them as an invitation…’

      Fanny doesn’t say anything. The room feels small with Robert in it, talking confidingly about things she’d so much prefer never to discuss with him. People wanking over her. She feels claustrophobic. She wishes he’d leave her alone.

      ‘Perhaps we should call the police?’ he says.

      ‘No.’

      ‘Well, Fanny, it’s obviously upset you…’

      ‘No. Robert—’ She stops, forces herself to smile again. ‘I’m fine. Forget it. So, anyway, you came to see me. What did you want? How can I help? Actually, I’m glad you came, because I’ve really been wanting to ask you about Scarlett.’

      ‘Scarlett?’ He looks confused.

      ‘You know Scarlett. Little disabled Scarlett, with the thick specs.’ Fanny speaks quickly, keen to move the conversation on. ‘Scarlett Mozely. Only she won’t show me any work and there are no notes. Mrs Haywood can’t find any notes and I’m wondering—’

      ‘Fanny, excuse me, but I return to work to discover photographs of our new head teacher in her bra and panties all over the press and you’re talking to me about—’

      ‘I wasn’t in my “panties”,’ she snaps. ‘Don’t get carried away.’

      ‘The telephone hasn’t stopped ringing all morning. You’re hiding away in your office here, refusing to pick it up, refusing to come to class. It’s hardly the way—It’s hardly a very good example.’

      ‘I know.’ She sighs. ‘I know it isn’t. And I’m sorry. Give me two minutes—’

      ‘What were you doing in your bra and panties, anyway?’ he persists. ‘In front of everyone! What are the kids supposed to think? More to the point what is the Local Authority supposed to think? They’re seeing