Page 8 of Statistically Speaking
It’s not like it worked out that well then, though—or, in fact, anytime since. I have had three serious relationships in my life so far, and none of them have succeeded, obviously. I have been told, at different times and by different men, that I am “closed off,” that I “won’t allow myself to need anyone,” and that I am “an emotional cripple who makes me feel used.” That last one was especially harsh, I thought—but not so harsh that maybe a bit of me didn’t agree with him. That was eighteen months ago, and my emotionally crippled hobble to the finish line of my relationship with James was one of the reasons I moved jobs. Again.
I’ve reached the stage where logic tells me to give up. To stay single, because it clearly suits me better. I know that makes the most sense—but I am a human being, and try as I might, I don’t always feel sensible. Karim, especially, makes me feel a bit giddy, with his combination of charm and humor and that big smile of his. And any man who makes me feel a bit giddy is usually the absolute last man I will ever show that to.
“I suspect your heart is made of tougher stuff, Karim,” I respond. “You’re only interested in me because I’m a challenge, and because your sisters will hate me.”
Karim has four sisters, all of them older than him, all of them keen to see him settled down, married to a nice girl and producing some offspring. I am 100 percent sure that I am neither nice, nor girlish, nor interested in having babies.
“My sisters wouldn’t hate you,” he says quickly, stretching his arms overhead in a way that shows off his arms and torso. I suspect it was a move planned to do exactly that. I notice,but I don’t react—at least not on the outside. “But you are a challenge, I’ll give you that. Is it just me, or don’t you date at all?”
“I’m on some dating websites,” I say evasively.
“Okay. Well, I buy lottery tickets but I never win. How many people have you actually met up with from these dating sites?”
“Not a lot,” I admit. “Less than ten, I’d say.”
In reality, the answer is zero—but I’m not lying, because zero is most definitely less than ten.
“Are you worried in case they turn out to be creepy stalkers?”
“No,” I reply. “I’m worried they might turn out to be PE teachers.”
“Ha! Point to you, Miss Jones. Well, the offer is there if ever you want to take me up on it. I’m not proposing marriage, although we’d get a lot of attention in here if I did. I’m just proposing a drink, a chat, perhaps a walk on the beach followed by wild, uninhibited, and totally excellent sex.”
That last part makes me snort coffee out of my mouth in laughter, and he looks delighted with himself as I use a napkin to wipe my face clean.
“Anyway. Something to think on, yes?”
He stands up and strides away, leaving me staring after him and still damp. From the coffee. He seems to know I’m watching, and I swear he gives his tracksuit-clad backside an extra little wiggle. He is making my deliberately celibate lifestyle very difficult to be satisfied with. Being with Karim is like having a box of chocolates open on the kitchen table while you eat celery sticks.
It’s been a long, long time since I found a man as attractive as I find him—but for the time being, I am determined to staysolo. I tend to lose the people I get close to, and I’d rather have him on the periphery as an amusing flirtation than added to the list of those I’ve lost.
I shake my head and look up at the big round institutional clock on the staff room wall. There are twenty minutes to go until my first lesson of the term—second-year A level history. I am scheduled to teach a total of eighty-two students today, first and second years, across four lesson periods. We will range recklessly through time, leaping from tsarist Russia to the Tudors to the birth of the USA—though not all in one day, obviously. I am looking forward to seeing the familiar faces, at least most of them, and to meeting the first years, and to welcoming a new second-year student I know will be arriving today. Kathryn, goes by Katie, Bell is joining us from a school in Middlesex. I don’t have a form group so I don’t know much about her as yet.
I gather up my bag and head down the corridors to X12, where I will reside for most of the teaching day. This is a bustling inner-city place, offering arts and vocational courses as well as the usual range of A levels. The student common room is a mix of hormones, noise, and a lot of just-about-controlled chaos, painted in varying shades of awesome.
I chose to specialize in further education when I did my teacher training, and I’ve worked in it ever since, mainly with teenagers but sometimes with adults in the community. I told myself I liked A levels because all the kids doing them had chosen to, and nobody, in theory, should hate the subject. There’s always a bit of shuffling around at the start of term, when some pupils realize they’ve chosen three sciences but actually want to be a musical theater star or vice versa, but onthe whole, these are young people who are here willingly, and that makes a difference in their commitment levels.
But if I am grindingly honest, I also chose to teach A levels because it was as far away as I could get from teaching a class that my own given-up baby girl could be in.
Not that I ever thought she’d show up in one—I’ve moved around a lot, including an early dart to Scotland—but it felt strange, all the time, in those early days. It still does feel strange, if I let it, but I’ve become better at managing it. At hiding it.
Back then, being without her was so raw that I couldn’t hide it. I’d see mums in the shops with babies in strollers and find myself staring into them so intently that I often set off parental alarm bells before I slunk away, stinging with tears and with humiliation. As my own child grew, I became more interested in toddlers—watching two-year-olds in the park, hanging around when it was kicking-out time at the local indoor playground.
By the time I got to teacher training, I knew that she would be in primary school—and the thought of going through that “I wonder what she’s like now” torture every single day was too much for me. Teaching young adults didn’t stop me from thinking about her—but it did mean I was able to get through my workday without having a meltdown.
At least it did until last year. I’d had to be tough with myself and focus only on the pupils in my classes—it wasn’t fair to see them all as surrogates for the daughter I’d willingly given up for adoption. This term, I think it will be even harder—and that is perhaps why I was in such a bleak mood this morning.
After this term, she will be out in the world, out of even my imaginary orbit. I mean, I could be totally wrong about her doing A levels—but Geoff with a G had told me that her new parents were wonderful, supportive, skilled people themselves. That allowed me to fictionalize her life at least this far.
Next year, who knows? I’m sure I’ll come up with something new and exciting—but at least I won’t be surrounded by people of exactly the same age, day after day after day. I just have to get through this next birthday—she arrived in the world on October 3—and this next year of teaching, and then—well, who knows what? Probably more of the same. Maybe I’ll start hanging around on the university campus, in case she chose Liverpool. Maybe I’ll go on a gap year, in case I bump into her in New Zealand.
But that’s the future, and this is now, and I have a busy day. It takes me five minutes to walk to the classroom—the building is huge, a vast warren that was originally Victorian, and still retains a pretty facade with red brick and ivy and an air of learned antiquity. It’s been added on to over the decades, each extension bringing its own architectural horror.
The block that holds the history department, along with English, religious education, philosophy, politics, and general studies, was created in the 1970s—which probably tells you all you need to know about how pretty it is. My room is five doors along on the corridor, and even though I know this for certain, I still count them every single day.
The floor is a deep green linoleum decorated with scuff marks from countless shuffling feet, and the walls are lined with noticeboards that will soon be displaying posters about relevant subjects, clubs, and trips. They’re pretty bare right now but will blossom as the week goes on.
It’s still very quiet, still almost spookily serene in comparison to the vortex of sound that will descend once the bell goes and the students swirl in from the gardens, the car park, and the common room, filling the empty spaces and the silence with their conversations and backpacks and laughter, their screams and shouts, their pushing and shoving and flirting and the tumultuous sense of excitement at simply being young and alive.
