The Secret Letter. Kerry Barrett
‘She’s here!’ she sang. ‘Lizzie’s here!’
The garden was full of people, chatting and laughing, but as Pippa made her announcement, they all fell silent and as one they turned and stared at me. I felt sick. I’d not wanted to arrive with a huge fanfare, like this.
‘Hello,’ I squeaked. ‘Hi.’
Everyone chorused hellos and Paula rushed up to us and gave me a hug that surprised me.
‘So pleased you could make it,’ she said. ‘Come and meet everyone. Pippa, can you get Lizzie a drink?’
My head spinning, I took the glass Pippa handed me and drained it without even looking at the contents.
‘So, Pippa you’ve met,’ Paula said. ‘And her best friend is Emma, who’s our school secretary. She keeps us all organised. They both went to Elm Heath Primary together – isn’t that lovely?’
‘Lovely,’ I echoed.
I could hear Grant’s mocking voice in my head. He’d roll his eyes at the thought of people growing up here, marrying their childhood sweetheart, and staying put. ‘It’s so English,’ he’d say with a sort of superior chuckle. ‘So white, straight … vanilla.’
I thought of Broadway Common School where we had kids speaking more than thirty languages, celebrated every festival going, worked hard to include the kids with two dads in Mother’s Day and the ones with two mums in Father’s Day, and I wondered if I’d miss that diversity.
‘This is Nate – Mr Welsh – who teaches years five and six,’ she said introducing a man about the same age as Pippa and Emma, who’d no doubt gone to school with them too.
I shook his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ I said.
Nate stifled a yawn. ‘God, I’m sorry,’ he said in horror. ‘That was so rude.’
Paula looked at him with genuine affection. ‘Nate’s a new dad,’ she said.
‘Congratulations.’ I smiled at him. ‘Is your wife here?’
Nate looked at me with a hint of mischief in his eyes. ‘My husband Marc is over there with our baby, Leia,’ he said.
I turned to see an athletic man, a bit older than Nate, expertly bouncing a baby on his knee, while holding a bottle of beer and chatting to another man.
I screwed my face up. ‘Sorry,’ I whispered, feeling a tiny flush of triumph. Ha, Grant! I thought. Village life is interesting.
Nate chuckled. ‘Don’t be. It must be hard for you coming from London where people aren’t as liberal.’
He was joking, I thought. But I blushed anyway.
Nate introduced me to another teacher – Celeste – who was a dead ringer for a young Michelle Obama, right down to the enviable upper arms. I slid my own bingo wings into my cardie as I spoke to her, feeling self-conscious and not just about letting myself believe that everyone in Elm Heath was a boring stereotype.
Paula’s husband Chris was on the barbecue and their daughter Chloe, who was in sixth form, handed out drinks. It was all very pleasant, just a bit – overwhelming. Trying to make a good impression on so many new people was hard work.
Needing a moment to myself, I slunk across the garden to an empty deckchair and sat down. To my left, Paula’s husband Chris was flipping burgers. He was engaged in what seemed to me to be a fairly heated discussion with the man who’d been talking to Nate’s handsome husband. The other man was shorter, stockier, and more dishevelled than Marc, but also very attractive in his own way.
Both Chris and the other man looked quite cross and I was intrigued. I leaned slightly to the side and tried to eavesdrop on their conversation.
‘I think you’re being unrealistic,’ Chris was saying. ‘Idealistic.’
The other man frowned. He looked worried. ‘I thought perhaps, I could just see it as business …’
‘Are you the new headmistress?’ a voice at my elbow said, interrupting my earwigging. I turned to see a small girl – year three, I guessed with my expert eye – with a gap-toothed smile and wonky bunches.
‘I am,’ I said.
She fixed me with a serious stare. ‘Are you a nice headmistress or a strict headmistress?’
I thought about it. ‘Could I be both?’
‘S’pose.’
‘Then I will be both.’
‘You don’t look like a headmistress.’
‘Why not?’
‘You look like a mummy.’
I smiled, a genuine, not-nervous smile. ‘Do I look like your mummy?’
‘My mummy is dead.’
I stopped smiling. ‘I’m sorry.’
The little girl grinned at me. ‘I have a daddy.’
‘That’s nice.’
I shifted awkwardly in my seat. Obviously, I considered myself to be good with kids, but I was off my game this evening and this small child was unsettling me.
‘What is your name?’ she asked.
‘Ms Armstrong. What’s yours?’
‘Cara,’ she said, frowning. ‘What is Mizzzzzzz?’
‘It’s a title, like Mrs or Miss.’
Cara shook her head, her lopsided bunches bouncing. ‘I think you’re getting muddled,’ she said kindly, patting my hand. ‘Miss means you haven’t got a husband or a wife, and Mrs means you have. Mizzzzzz is just pretend. Do you have a husband or a wife?’
I swallowed. ‘No, I don’t have a husband.’
‘Do you have a wife?’
‘No.’
She nodded. ‘Then you are a Miss,’ she said, speaking clearly like I was elderly and hard of hearing. ‘MISS.’
‘Cara, are you being a nuisance?’
The attractive man who’d been talking to Chris was standing in front of us. He flashed me a smile and for a split second I felt a flicker of interest and not just in his conversation. He was wearing a rumpled T-shirt and jeans and his hair was sticking up, but there was something about him that I liked.
‘I’m chatting to MISS Armstrong,’ Cara said. ‘She is the new headmistress and she is nice and also strict and she doesn’t have a husband or a wife.’
I felt myself flush as the man raised an eyebrow at me. ‘Strict, eh?’
Urgh. ‘I have my moments,’ I said. Where on earth did that come from? Was I flirting?
The man put his hand on Cara’s head. ‘We need to go, angel,’ he said. ‘It’s late.’
‘But Daddy, it’s a party.’
‘And now it’s finished.’
Cara rolled her eyes and I couldn’t help but chuckle.
‘Nice to meet you, MISS Armstrong,’ the man said. ‘I’m Danny Kinsella, by the way.’
‘Are you a teacher?’ I said, running through the list of names Pippa had bombarded me with in my head.
‘God no. Just a friend of Paula and Chris.’
‘And a daddy,’ Cara said.
He smiled down at her. ‘And a daddy.’
‘See you at school then, Miss Armstrong.’
He waved at me, and he and Cara wandered off down the