Page 29 of The One Plus One
‘He’s about as likely to start a fight as the Dalai bloodyLama. We’re talking about a boy who can’t put a duvet in its cover without worrying it might hurt someone.’
‘We can only act on the evidence, madam.’ His flat tone said he had heard it all before.
The Fishers, she thought, as she slammed down the phone. With their reputation, she’d be lucky if a single person ‘remembered’ what they’d seen.
For a moment Jess let her head fall into her hands. They would never let up. And it would be Tanzie next, once she started secondary school. She would be a prime target with her maths and her oddness and her total lack of guile. The thought of it made her go cold. She thought about Marty’s sledgehammer in the garage. She thought about how it would feel to walk down to the Fishers’ house and –
The phone rang. She snatched it up. ‘What now? Are you going to tell me he beat himself up too? Is that it?’
‘Mrs Thomas?’
She blinked.
‘Mrs Thomas? It’s Mr Tsvangarai.’
‘Oh. Mr Tsvangarai, I’m sorry. It – it’s not a great time –’ She held out her hand in front of her. It was shaking.
‘I’m sorry to call you so late but it’s a matter of some urgency. I have discovered something of interest. It’s called a Maths Olympiad.’ He spoke the words carefully.
‘A what?’
‘It’s a new thing, in Scotland, for gifted students. A maths competition. And we still have time to enter Tanzie.’
‘A maths competition?’ Jess closed her eyes. ‘Youknow, that’s really nice, Mr Tsvangarai, but we have quite a lot going on here right now and I don’t think I –’
‘Mrs Thomas. Hear me out. The prizes are five hundred pounds, a thousand pounds and five thousand pounds. Five thousand pounds. If she won, you’d have at least the first year of your St Anne’s school fees sorted out.’
‘Say that again?’
He repeated it. Jess sat down on the chair, as he explained in greater depth.
‘This is an actual thing?’
‘It is an actual thing.’
‘And you really think she could do it?’
‘There is a category especially for her age group. I cannot see how she could fail.’
Five thousand pounds, a voice sang in her head.Enough to get her through at least the first year.
‘What’s the catch?’
‘No catch. Well, you have to do advanced maths, obviously. But I can’t see that this would be a problem for Tanzie.’
She stood up and sat down again.
‘And of course you would have to travel to Scotland.’
‘Details, Mr Tsvangarai. Details.’ Her head was spinning. ‘This is for real, right? This isn’t a joke?’
‘I am not a funny man, Mrs Thomas.’
‘Fuck. FUCK. Mr Tsvangarai, you are an absolute beauty.’
She could hear his embarrassed laugh. She thought he was less embarrassed by her swearing than that she wasprobably the first woman ever to have called him a beauty.
‘So…what do we do now?’
