Today we're delighted to share more of Maggie Redding's The Incident. New teacher Vida is gradually settling into her job and making friends. A chance encounter with a fellow teacher's lively family life takes her by surprise - and brings her to acknowledge discords within her own marriage.
At the end of every day Vida was glad to escape. The school served an area known for its ‘social problems’. She lived a safe distance away, in a three-bedroom, detached house which she and her husband, Peter, had purchased a year ago. He was a graphic designer and worked from home. The house had been furnished and decorated with love and care, mostly hers. The home, however, did not always provide the sanctuary she needed.
‘How was your day?’
He asked that question every afternoon, when she arrived home. As soon as she went into the living room, furnished in white and cream, a colour-scheme that only a childless couple would choose, he put a cup of tea in front of her and sat down opposite her to listen. This he saw as his duty. Little of what she told him was retained. Despite his questions, he was less than interested. She knew and accepted that. But how she yearned for support, for understanding from her husband, a real interest in her life, a huge part of it which was not shared by him! Every day, she had to fight her feelings of irritation with him.
* * *
One Friday, Kelly came in to school late. Vida met her in the staff-room, halfway through the morning. She looked fraught. They stood in the middle of the room, people milling around them, tension tangible. Kelly’s face was white except for two high spots of colour on her cheeks.
‘The car,’ she said, ‘it wouldn't start. I had to walk and get the bus, with Ben and Tim in tow. They complained all the way. We missed the first two lessons. Never mind. They’ll have to catch up.’
‘Didn't you think to get a taxi?’ Vida said.
Kelly was clearly unwilling to explain. ‘No cash,’ she said after a hesitation. ‘Two credit cards well over their limit already.’
Vida was as much distressed by Kelly's honesty as by her poverty. That a teacher, a professional person, could be in that state financially, had never occurred to her. She had made it difficult for Kelly not to explain.
‘I'm so sorry. I didn't understand. I tend to assume everyone's as well off as Peter and I are. And I'm not showing off, Kelly, just sheltered. Another time, phone me.’
‘No kids, see. You have two incomes to yourselves. We have one and a half incomes for six people. And yes, I’ll phone you if I find out in time that the car’s gone wrong. Thanks a lot.’
‘I'll give you a lift home tonight.’ Vida was eager to make amends for her lack of awareness. She headed for the door because she was already late for the next lesson.
‘Oh, you are a saint,’ said Kelly, grabbing a pile of books and rushing to the door after her.
At the end of the school day, Kelly waited in the car park, with her two boys, Ben, aged sixteen who appeared to topple off his long legs and Tim, fifteen, who was quiet. They hovered at a distance they deemed to be respectable. As Vida reached her car, Kelly came over to her.
‘Wow, Lexus. That's what two incomes and no children do for you. You lucky thing.’ She said it with a smile and no resentment. Clearly, four children were worth any car, any day. Vida dismissed an unsettling feeling about to surface in her.
Ben and Tim sauntered over trying to look as though the last thing they would ever do would be to accept a lift in a teacher’s car, even if it was a Lexus. Kelly, piles of books and her laptop on her knees, sat in the front passenger seat. The boys wriggled down on the back seat, heads as low as possible in order not to be recognised by their peers.
The Bedfords lived beyond the edge of the town, down along a lane just before the village of Milton Stanwick. With Vida’s uncertainty combined with the Friday evening traffic, the journey took well over half an hour. The house, a modern detached one with no character at all, set back from the lane in a large, vegetable garden. The situation was elevated, had views over the countryside, with fields and woodland surrounding it. Kelly invited Vida in for a cup of tea and to meet her husband, Simon.
Inside the house, the chaos could have appalled Vida had she not been able to see beyond it to identify the warmth, the sheer joy of the family together. An unsettling feeling stirred in her.
‘Sit down,’ Kelly said, brushing toys off the old-looking sofa so that they were scattered onto the floor. Two little girls, feet bare, tousled hair, gazed at Vida from a distance. One had a thumb in her mouth.
From where she sat, Vida had a view of the rear garden, lilac bushes, the vegetable plot with runner bean canes, roses tumbling over a hedge, birds gathering to a feeding table. She relaxed into the cosy lack of order, revelling in the fecundity of it. New friends, new experiences, new insights, new thoughts: her life was changing.
Because of the distance between home and work when she had been at her previous school, there had been no time or opportunity for much in the way of friendship. There had been other factors, of course, like Peter; but rather than dwell on those, she now welcomed the chance to broaden her social life.
Simon bustled in from the garden, festooned with dry washing just un-pegged from a long washing line. He immediately took on tea-making. Before Vida had developed a proper acquaintance with three-year-old Lucy and Lola, aged twelve months, a mug of tea was thrust into her hand. Kelly's husband was unlikely, being tall, large, balding but with eyes that crinkled readily in the outer corners. He had a belly covered by a floppy, faded t-shirt and wore loose shorts with sandals on his feet.
‘Don't put up with those two,’ he said, referring to Lucy and Lola, who were demanding Vida’s attention. ‘They haven't been to nursery today so they’re craving the stimulation of someone new. They've been with boring old Daddy all the time.’
‘He's not boring old Daddy,’ Kelly said. ‘Are you?’ She looked up at him.
He looked down at her with his crinkling smile. ‘You tell me,’ he said. They both laughed at some shared but secret meaning.
Vida smiled but inside, something unsettled her, causing her to hold her breath for a moment. A long time had passed since that kind of flirting had been exchanged between herself and Peter, if it ever had to any extent, were she to be honest. She was glad to focus on Lola's attempts to climb onto her lap. To enable her to lift the child, she balanced her mug of tea on a nearby bookshelf. Lola gazed at her in delight. She toyed with Vida’s earrings, touched her teeth, grabbed a handful of her carefully pinned up hair. Vida gazed in delight at Lola, too.
‘Lola, don't,’ said Simon.
‘It's all right,’ Vida said as her hair fell about her shoulders. ‘She's so lovely.’ She took the child’s tiny hand, pressing her lips against it. Soft, new, unused, the little fingers curled round her thumb. ‘She's so beautiful,’ Vida said in wonder. It had been a long time since she had been so close to a child as young as Lola. There was that feeling once more, unsettling her. She began to feel anxious to leave, to reach home.
‘We think so, don't we, Simon?’ Kelly said, sinking into a chair. ‘But in truth, she’s just like any other baby.’
Lola's hand went back to Vida’s hair, tugging it. Again Simon remonstrated. Vida smiled grimly to herself. She was used to less gentle tugging than this. She held the child against her, leaning her cheek on top of the fuzzy little head. A great emptiness welled up inside her.
‘Peter!’ she said suddenly. ‘I’ve lost count of time. He’ll be concerned if I'm very late.’
‘It's half past five,’ Simon said.
That was very late to Peter. Vida fumbled in her handbag for her phone. She always switched it off in the classroom, a good habit as an example had to be set for the pupils: there were enough problems with phones ringing and texting messages under the desks.
‘Peter, I'm on my way.’
‘Where have you been?’
She hoped Kelly and Simon could hear neither Peter’s words nor his tone.
‘I gave a lift to a colleague. Her car had broken down.’
‘Well, I hope you won't be much longer.’
‘I'm on my way.’ She snapped the phone shut. ‘I should be going. He is the anxious sort.’
As she left, Kelly came out to the car with her, explaining that the garage had said her own car would be ready the next day, which was a Saturday. The two women exchanged phone numbers. ‘Any time you're stuck,’ Vida said.
‘You and your husband, you should come round for a meal one evening,’ Kelly said.
Vida looked straight ahead of her. ‘You're very kind, Kelly. Peter is a bit of a geek, he loves his work. He doesn't socialise much but I'd love to come and visit your beautiful family on my own, especially during the school holidays.’
She drove off. Her vision was misty, her mind agitated by another stirring of that something on which she could not afford to dwell.
