The Playgroup by Janey Fraser

Author:Janey Fraser
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781448134519
Publisher: Random House

Chapter 30

HE WAS MORE than ready for half-term, thought Joe as he sorted out his desk, placing a copy of his email reply to Gemma about the nativity play in his Finished file. In comparison with Di’s desk in the office next door, his own looked smugly neat and tidy.

Almost too neat and tidy, he thought suddenly. Di’s desk, with her own special mug bearing a flowery D initial and her tin of Highland shortbread biscuits, was certainly more inviting than his own, with its neatly stacked files and sharpened pencils in the brown plastic container.

Joe felt a sense of unease crawl through him. He hadn’t been himself since last month’s Parents’ Social, and the thought of Ed turning up out of the blue like that – not to mention his fainting fit – still brought him out in a cold sweat. He’d have liked to think that everyone had forgotten about it by now, but something told him that in a school where even the minutiae such as skimmed-milk sell-by dates were examined in detail, the arrival of a glamorous ex-wife would not be bypassed in a hurry.

‘Joe?’ Beryl put her head round the door. ‘May I have a word before you go?’

His initial reaction was to tell her that actually this wasn’t very convenient. After all, he’d brought his weekend bag in this morning, intending to take advantage of school ending at lunchtime so he could shoot straight off to Mike and Lynette’s immediately school finished. But then he remembered Brian’s advice. ‘Go with them, lad. They’ve been there longer than you and they don’t all talk rubbish. Some of them – yes. But not all.’

So, forcing himself to look as though a meeting after hours with the head was exactly what he wanted, he followed Beryl into her office.

‘Please.’ Beryl indicated the seat on the other side of her desk, which bore a cluster of photographs showing her with a small child of about three. Joe looked away, feeling the usual chill that ran down his spine whenever he saw pictures of kids who were that age.

Meanwhile, Beryl was taking off her spectacles, wiping them on her pale blue cardigan and then putting them on again. She seemed nervous. What was up?

‘This isn’t going to be easy, Joe,’ she said softly.

A spark of alarm went through him. That was exactly the phrase he used to start off with at the bank when he’d had to let someone go.

With difficulty, he flashed her one of the smiles that he’d been working on in front of the bathroom mirror ever since Brian had suggested that a grin or two might make him seem less severe in the classroom.

‘What’s the problem, Beryl?’

He used her first name intentionally, just as he’d been taught by Psychology Management on the fourteenth floor. It made the speaker seem more in control, because he had ownership of the other person’s name.

Beryl sighed. ‘You see this photograph?’

There was no getting out of it.

Clenching his fists by his sides, Joe made himself look at the blond boy cuddling up to Beryl in the frame.

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