فصل هفتم

“Well, seems it’s goodbye for now,” Jack said. He stood at the barrier to the station, holding my bag in one hand, his other outstretched. I took it and shook it. There was oil deeply ground in around the nails from yesterday, but his skin was clean and warm, and the odd intimacy of the contact gave me a little shiver I couldn’t explain.

“Nice to meet you,” I said, a little awkwardly, and then, with a feeling that I might as well because I’d regret it if I didn’t, I added, a little rashly, “Sorry I didn’t get to meet Bill. Or . . . or Jean.” “Jean?” Jack said, looking a little puzzled. “She’s not about much in the day. Goes home to her dad.”

“Is she . . . is she young, then?”

“No!” He gave that grin again, the sides of his mouth curving into an expression of such beguiling amusement that I felt my own mouth curve in helpless sympathy, even though I didn’t really understand the joke. “She’s fifty if she’s a day, maybe more, though I’d never dare ask her age. No, she’s a—what’s the word. A carer. Her father lives down in the village; he has Alzheimer’s, I think. He can’t be left alone for more than an hour or two. She comes up in the morning before he’s awake and then again first thing in the afternoon. Does the dishes and that.” “Oh!” I felt my face flush, and I smiled, absurdly, and gave a little laugh. “Oh, I see. I thought . . . never mind. It doesn’t matter.” I did not have time to analyze the relief I felt, but it gave me a strange sense of being off-balance, struck by something I had not expected to encounter.

“Well, good to meet you, Rowan.”

“Good to meet you too—Jack.” The name came off my tongue a little awkwardly, and I blushed again. Up the valley I heard the sound of the approaching train. “Goodbye.” “Goodbye.” He held out the case, and I took it, still echoing his curving, beguiling smile, and began to walk to the platform, giving myself a stern injunction not to look back. When at last the train had drawn in and I had climbed aboard and settled myself in a carriage, I did risk one last glance out the window, to where he had been standing. But he was gone. And so, as the train pulled out of the station, my last glimpse of Carn Bridge was of an empty platform, crisply clean and sun-soaked, awaiting my return.

Back in London, I prepared myself for an agonizing wait. Very soon, Sandra had said. But what did that mean? She’d clearly liked me—unless I was deluding myself. But I’d done enough interviews to be able to pinpoint the feeling in the air as I left. In recent months I’d experienced both the triumph of having done myself justice and the furious disappointment of having let myself down. I’d felt much closer to the first one on the train back down to London.

Did they have other people to interview? She had seemed so very desperate to have someone start soon, and she must know that every day that ticked past without me giving notice was a day I couldn’t work for her. But what if one of the other candidates could start immediately . . . ?

Given Sandra’s emphasis on very soon, I had dared to hope for something on my phone by the time I got home, but there was nothing that evening, nor the next day when I left for work. We had to leave our phones turned off in our lockers at Little Nippers, so I resigned myself to a long morning, listening to Janine rattling on about her boring boyfriend and bossing Hayley and me about, while all the time my head was elsewhere.

My lunch shift wasn’t until one, but when the clock ticked over I hastily finished the nappy I was changing and stood up, handing the baby to Hayley.

“Sorry, Hales, can you take him? I’ve got an emergency I need to sort out.”

I pulled off the plastic disposable apron and virtually ran to the staff room. There, I grabbed my bag from my locker and escaped out the back entrance, into the little concrete yard—far away from the gaze of the children and parents—that we used for smoking, phone calls, and other activities that we weren’t supposed to do on clock. It seemed to take an age for the phone to switch on and go through the endless start-up screen—but at last the lock screen came up, and I typed in my passcode with shaking fingers and pressed refresh on my emails, reaching as I did for my necklace, my fingers tracing the loops and ridges as the messages downloaded.

One . . . two . . . three came through . . . all either spam or completely unimportant, and I felt my heart sink—until I noticed the little icon in the corner of the screen. I had a message.

My stomach was turning over and over, and I felt a kind of fluttering nausea as I dialed into voice mail and waited impatiently through the automated prompts. If this didn’t work out . . . If this didn’t work out . . .

The truth was, I didn’t know what I’d do if it didn’t work out. And before I could finish the thought there was a beep and I heard Sandra’s clipped plummy accent, sounding tinny through the little speaker.

“Oh, hello, Rowan. Sorry not to speak to you in person—I expect you’re at work. Well, I’m delighted to say that I’ve discussed it with Bill and we’d be happy to offer you the job if you can start on June seventeenth at the absolute latest, earlier if you can. I realize that we didn’t discuss the exact terms and the bonus I mentioned in the letter. The plan would be for us to issue you with an allowance of a thousand pounds a month, with the remainder of the salary to come at year-end in the form of a completion bonus. I hope that’s acceptable—I realize it’s a little unconventional, but given you’ll be living with us you won’t have many day-to-day expenses. If you could let me know as soon as possible if you’d like to accept, and oh, yes, lovely to meet you the other day. I was very impressed with how the children warmed to you, particularly Maddie. She’s not always the easiest child, and—well, I’m rambling, so I’d better cut this short, but we’d be happy to have you on board. Looking forward to hearing back from you.” There was a click, and the message ended.

For a minute I couldn’t move. I just stood there, the phone in my hand, gaping at the screen. And then a huge rush of exhilaration raced through me, and I found I was dancing, hopping in circles, punching the air and grinning like a lunatic.

“Bloody hell, what’s got into you?” a smoke-roughened voice said over my shoulder, and I turned, still grinning, to see Janine leaning against the door, a cigarette in one hand, lighter in the other.

“What’s got into me?” I said, hugging myself, full of a glee I couldn’t even try to suppress. “I’ll tell you what’s got into me, Janine. I’ve got a new job.” “Well . . .” Janine’s expression as she flicked open the lighter was a little sour. “You needn’t look so triumphant about it.” “Oh, come on, you’re as fed up with Val as I am. She’s screwing us all, and you know it. Ten percent she put up fees last year, and us assistants are barely getting minimum wage. She can’t keep blaming the recession forever.” “You’re just pissed off that I got made head of the baby room,” Janine said. She took a drag of her cigarette, and then offered me the packet. I was trying to give up to improve my asthma (well, officially I had given up) but her words had hit home, and so I took one and lit it slowly, more as a way of giving myself time to rearrange my expression than because I actually wanted to smoke. I had been pissed off that she’d got promoted, when honestly I thought I had the better shot. I’d applied thinking I was a shoo-in—and the shock when the position had gone to Janine had been like a punch to the gut. But as Val had said at the time, there were two candidates and only one job. There was nothing she could do about that. Still, it had rankled, particularly when Janine had begun throwing her weight around and issuing orders in that grating drawl.

“Well, it doesn’t matter now,” I said, handing the lighter back with a sweet smile and exhaling the smoke. “Onwards and upwards, eh?” The slightly patronizing smile she gave made me add, a little maliciously, “Very much upwards, in fact.” “What do you mean?” Janine said. She narrowed her eyes. “Are we talking more than thirty K?”

I made a rising movement with my hand, and her eyes widened.

“Forty? Fifty grand?”

“And it’s residential,” I said smugly, watching her jaw drop. She shook her head.

“You’re having me on.”

“I’m not.” Suddenly I didn’t need the cigarette anymore. I took a final drag, then dropped it to join the mush of dead butts in the yard and ground it out under my heel. “Thanks for the fag. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to phone up and accept a job.” I dialed Sandra’s number, listening as it rang, and then clicked through to voice mail. In a way I was relieved, I didn’t want to get grilled about my start date in front of Janine. If she knew it was a make-or-break condition, she might well tell Val, who could deliberately make life difficult for me.

“Oh, hi, Sandra,” I said, when the beep had sounded. “Thanks so much for your message, I’m thrilled, and I’d be delighted to accept. I need to sort a few things out this end but I’ll email you about the start date. I’m sure it won’t be a problem. And . . . well, thanks, I guess! I’ll be in touch. Let me know if there’s anything you need from me to get the ball rolling.” And then I hung up.