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5

Charlotte

As Charlotte headed back across Brentwell, she felt better than she had done all week. It was good to have found a place to hold Grandma’s wake. Aunt Marjorie’s Tea Room looked nice. Grandma had often met friends there. It would be a good place. She smiled as she thought about the young man who had served her. He’d seemed nice.

Instead of going straight home, she walked back past Brentwell Primary. The kids had all gone home, of course, but there were still teachers in the staffroom. Charlotte went in, noticing a few strange looks from the other teachers as she sat down at her desk.

‘Is everything all right?’ asked Jennifer Stevens, who taught Year Three, and sat on the desk opposite. ‘I’m so sorry to hear about your grandmother.’

Charlotte smiled. ‘Thank you. It was a shock. I just want to get back to the routine, you know? It’ll make it easier to deal with things.’

Jennifer smiled. ‘Your kids are missing you. Bernard has been covering your class all week. I don’t think I’ve seen one of them smile. I walked past this morning and he had them drawing pictures of the weather.’

‘Wasn’t it overcast all morning?’

‘Yep. A whole lot of grey paint being used.’

‘Oh dear. We’re supposed to be well into the Christmas activities by now.’

‘He did let them watch A Christmas Carol yesterday.’

‘The Muppets version?’

Jennifer sighed. ‘No, the black and white original.’

‘He’s going to ruin them.’

‘It certainly looks like he has some Christmas nightmares in his past. You know, he wanted to skip the school tree in the gym this year. He said it would cost too much. Since taking over from Greg he’s been going on and on about budgets. I pointed out that it’s the same tree we use every year, and it won’t cost anything to get it out of the cupboard.’

‘We’ll have to share a little Christmas cheer,’ Charlotte said.

‘For sure. Maybe get into some karaoke at the staff Christmas party.’ She lifted her bag off the back of her chair. ‘I’m off now. Tom’s taking me to the new pizza place that opened last month next door to Evans’ Carpets.’

‘Have a good time,’ Charlotte said. ‘I’ll be off Monday for my grandmother’s funeral, but back at school on Tuesday. Hopefully Bernard won’t repaint my classroom in the meantime.’

‘I’ll try to hide the leftover grey paint. See you next week.’

Charlotte grabbed a few things and headed for her classroom. While Mr. Wilson hadn’t turned it into the total pit of despair that she had feared, it was looking a little neglected. Some of the fake snow on the windows had been smudged, so Charlotte retrieved the can from her drawer and resprayed it. And the corner which she had cleared out and cleaned ready for the Christmas tree was now blocked by an unused table, a stack of old textbooks and a box of toilet roll piled on top.

Concerned by Mr. Wilson’s passive-aggressive denial of Christmas, Charlotte set to work re-clearing the space so that he would see it when he took her class on Monday. Feeling in the mood to spread a little Christmas cheer, she rummaged through the Christmas decorations bag in the bottom drawer of her desk, found a little cardboard cutout elf doll that had seen better days, its legs and arms hanging crookedly from the drawing pins that acted as its joints, then hung it from the wall in the corner. Below it, she tacked a sheet of paper with a Christmas-themed border, in the middle of which she had written: Reserved for Christmas tree delivery! Yours sincerely, Mr. Elf.

Mr. Wilson would surely see the funny side, even if it didn’t look like he would.

It was dark outside now, and the classroom lights didn’t penetrate far out into the night. Charlotte pottered around for a little bit, tidying and organising, straightening chairs and tables. Only when she found an eraser and started rubbing away the pencil marks from some of the desks did she realise that she was playing avoidance; trying to get out of going home.

Even with Harry by her side, the first few days without Grandma had been tough. Daylight was manageable, but at night the world seemed to close in on her, and all she could think about was where Grandma would have been, what she would have been doing at one time or another. Cooking dinner, folding clothes, poking around in the utility room, idling around in the front garden, sometimes weeding by torchlight because, as Grandma always said, ‘I don’t care if it’s dark. It’s only five o’clock.’

Grandma had been a constant presence; the only constant presence in Charlotte’s life since Grandpa’s abrupt heart attack when she was fifteen. Charlotte would be thirty on her next birthday; Grandma had been everything for almost half her life.

Aware that soon Maud, the dour secretary, would come wandering around to complain that she wanted to go home, Charlotte headed back to the staffroom to get her things. To her surprise, in her tray was a leaflet and a pack of coupons for an upcoming magic show at Brentwell Public Theatre. She went to the school office to find Maud, who was packing up her bag and had already switched off her computer.

‘Maud, where did these come from?’

The old woman looked up. ‘Creepy guy in a cloak just showed up in a Lexus. Parked right out from there, in Mr. Wilson’s spot. Dropped them off. Free entry for kids.’

‘Oh, right. Well, it looks interesting. I’ve never heard of … what’s this man called? Ah, James Steamblack. Wow, he sounds like some kind of Victorian magician, doesn’t he?’

Maud, whose moody, dour exterior was as familiar as the muddy footprints in the entrance after football practice, suddenly grinned.