Page 32 of How Much Wine Will Fix My Broken Heart?
‘You see… all I remember there are the loos because I was busy puking in them. That’s literally all I remember: the beetroot on the burgers, Paul Hogan on the telly and the monster hangovers.’
She shows me a scar on her elbow.
‘And I hope you remember that time you beat me up for saying Vegemite was far superior to Marmite.’
‘I did that?’ I say, poking at said scar. ‘God, that’s awful…’
‘On Bondi Beach, that’s when the lifeguards chased us off thinking we were a bunch of smashed yobbos. That was when I knew I liked you. I liked the spark.’
I vaguely remember that incident. I’d turned back to said lifeguards and said I’d seen them on the television and that they weren’t a patch on Hasselhoff.
‘So you didn’t think I was a drongo after that?’ I say, in a terrible Aussie accent. Her laugh seems to part the clouds. I don’t mind that sound so much any more.
‘See, you can’t have been that drunk because you remember your Aussie.’
‘I remember you calling me a flaming galah every time I fell over drunk.’
But I remember her helping me up again afterwards. I mean, she’d be laughing her tits off but her arm was always there. Just like it is now.
‘I thought you were a proper smashing bird…’ she says in British tones.
‘All right there, Mary Poppins?’
That laugh again.
‘Mates?’ she asks.
‘Mates,’ I say, my accent returning for one last time.
8
Tom, I am enclosing all the things you asked for in the package. I have not made a note of any of the customs details for Romania but I will assume that there is nothing here that will see you seized to the ground by Romanians. Apart from that ounce of cocaine, of course. I hope that made you laugh. If a customs officer is reading this, this is a joke as I’ve never taken drugs in my life.
Can you really not find teaching supplies out there? Seriously? Or was this a ploy for me to make contact with you? Highlighters? You could have just written a note and asked me how I am? Or asked your mum? Amazon? Anyway, I’ve also included some chocolate in here because I am pretty sure you won’t be able to get Wispas in Bucharest. I know you also like to teach via flash card so I included some blank ones and also some good-quality whiteboard pens because they were on offer. Yes, I’m still supremely sensible in case you thought I’d changed.
G x
Tom loved teaching. I know why he liked it. He liked the showmanship of standing in front of a classroom and making people laugh. There was something in his heart that was so determined to create change. I mocked it openly. It was the cynic in me that felt the world was too big, too broken to be mended just by one person teaching passive verbs via the power of role play. Through teaching, Tom bonded with my older sister, Beth and my parents, all teachers, and later on, when we lived together and married, I saw him turn his hand to secondary education where he became fun Mr Kennedy. He’d have me around our kitchen table with scissors and wine on a school night cutting out shapes for his recommended reading charts. He made stars out of kitchen foil. We got his large Sharpie collection out for that too. He loved his Sharpies, sometimes, I joked, more than he loved me. He never disputed that.
When I see Miss Loveday now, she brings me back to Tom. She has all that brightness and enthusiasm in her eyes; she just wants to make a difference. She has all her qualifications and pedagogy that her degrees gave her and now she’s been set on the world. Except where was the unit on having to deal with mums who don’t understand their kids are not the only kids in the world? The one that teaches you that kids are also unpredictable and occasionally ridiculous? Those are important units.
The problem with pick-up at The Downs Primary School is that as we all stand around the playground waiting for our little ones, we have a view into the classrooms to see how the day is winding down. Maya’s looks like a hurricane has just hit it, as if every stray bit of paper and rubbish has been swallowed up by a storm and spat out again. Miss Loveday is attempting to read a story to the class and I spy two kids full-on wrestling on the carpet space and another at the back staring into space, tucking into the contents of their nostrils. Ever since Meg decided to act on my behalf on the class WhatsApp group, I’ve been doing pick-up like a ninja – which sounds stealthy but means I’m currently trying to crouch next to a gazebo, half-hidden in a rowan bush.
‘I just think it’s a disgrace that our children are basically being used as practice for her teaching. What if they fall behind? It’s not fair on them.’
In the middle of the playground, Carrie preaches to those too socially confused by school politics to know any better. I wish I had something to throw at her.
‘She’s inexperienced and she’s also far too young.’
A voice joins in from the group. ‘The children seem happy enough.’
There is no discernible reply to that so I assume Carrie answers with her eyes.
‘Look at the state of that classroom.’
I can feel the bile rise in me. Thank god she never saw Tom’s classrooms. He did papier mâché once and they had to call in specialist cleaners as he put too much flour into the mix and it set into the carpet like concrete. He was messy. But fun. Children will remember fun, he said. Not sitting in quiet lines learning things by rote. I always think about what he would have been like as a parent. Christ, the mess he would have made, all in the name of fun.
‘Hiding, are we?’ It’s Helen, Isaac’s mum.
