But this time people were staring at them because she and Winsome were by far the oldest people in the refectory.
Winsome swallowed a mouthful of curry and pulled a face. ‘I must say, I felt a bit sorry for Gavin Miller,’ she said.
‘Why?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. I can see what she meant about them being ill suited. It doesn’t sound as if he would have been at all comfortable with a woman like her.’
‘It just goes to show you, Winsome, it’s not always just a matter of having interests in common.’
‘I think I already knew that. I had a boyfriend once, back in Jamaica. Met him at church. Everyone said he was a nice boy and came from a good family. We both enjoyed Bible studies and cricket.’
‘You?’ said Annie, almost choking on her curry. ‘Cricket?’
Winsome smiled. ‘And why not? It’s practically a religion where I come from. If you can’t beat them, join them. And I was a pretty good off-spinner, if I say so myself.’
‘You played, too? Wonders never cease.’
‘I got Brian Lara out first ball in a charity game.’
‘He must have been knocking on a bit by then.’
‘No, he wasn’t.’
‘Just teasing. Anyway, this boy?’
‘William, his name was. His father was a minister.’
‘So what was the problem?’
‘Well, we did have a lot in common and everything, but... well. He picked his nose.’
‘He what?’
‘I told you. He picked his nose.’
‘And for that you dumped him?’
‘Would you go out with a boy who picked his nose? It’s a sign of poor hygiene, and poor hygiene means bad character, which in turn hints at moral bankruptcy.’
Annie thought of some of the boys, and men, she’d been out with and shook her head slowly. If all they’d done wrong was pick their noses she would have had a much easier time of things. ‘Winsome, I’m certainly glad I don’t have to worry about coming up to your standards.’
Winsome gave her a puzzled glance. ‘Anyway, he tried to put his hand up my dress, too. So there. I was right about him.’ She pushed her tray away and folded her arms. A few seconds passed, then she looked at her plate. ‘That was terrible,’ she said, and started laughing.
Annie laughed, too. ‘I heartily agree. But let’s get back to Dayle Snider. She was pretty quick to condemn Gavin Miller, don’t you think?’
‘Clearly Gavin Miller had problems with women,’ said Winsome. ‘I don’t like to pass judgement without full knowledge of the facts, but from what I’ve heard, I would have to agree that a man like him — timid, weak, frustrated, but lustful — might well have tried to get his own way with a girl by devious means. It wouldn’t be the first time a man’s done something like that.’
‘Well, it lost him his job,’ said Annie.
‘Quite rightly. You can’t have people like that in contact with the young and vulnerable.’
Annie felt a presence hovering over them and turned to see a man in an open-neck checked shirt and baggy chinos. He was in his mid-fifties, she guessed, hair thinning at the front and far too long at the back, plastered down by some sort of gel. He was wearing a Celtic cross on a heavy silver chain around his neck, and a gold earring dangled from his left ear. On the whole, Annie was suspicious of men who wore jewellery, and she hated men with earrings on sight. She didn’t know why; she just did.
‘Jim Cooper,’ he said, sitting down in the free plastic orange chair and offering his hand. Annie shook it first, then Winsome. ‘I didn’t think you were students,’ he went on. ‘Not that we don’t accept mature students here, of course.’
Well, thought Annie, here’s a man who knows how to ingratiate himself with you right off the bat. She imagined he and Gavin Miller might have been comparable in their lack of social graces and general appeal to the opposite sex. Maybe Cooper didn’t pick his nose, though Annie wouldn’t have been surprised if he did, but she bet he was the sort who would stick his hand up your dress on a first date. It was a snap judgement, of course, the kind that got her into trouble far too often, but sometimes a woman just knew. So far, Eastvale College wasn’t doing terribly well in the ‘best place to find a man in Eastvale’ stakes. And then there was the earring. She would have to work hard at maintaining a polite front throughout the interview.
Along with Cooper had come a new influx of students anxious to sample the vegetarian curry, and the noise level was making it difficult to hear. ‘Do you have an office or somewhere quieter we could go?’ Annie asked Cooper.
He glanced around the refectory. ‘Yes, I suppose it is a bit of a racket, isn’t it? Funny how you get used to such things. My office is about the size of an airing cupboard, but if you’re not up for a game of sardines, there’s a staff coffee lounge where we should be able to get a bit of peace and quiet. And a decent cup of coffee.’
‘The lounge will do nicely,’ said Annie.
They walked out of the canteen and across a busy square into another three-storey concrete monstrosity. Towards the back was the staff lounge, and Cooper turned out to be right. It was practically deserted, decorated in soft, muted colours, with vertical fabric blinds and padded sofas and armchairs. They each got a coffee from the machine and took a corner table. Annie’s armchair was lumpy and badly angled, however, and nowhere near as comfortable as it had appeared. She had been far more comfortable in the moulded plastic orange chair in the canteen.
‘I’m afraid I don’t have very long,’ said Cooper, checking the time. ‘I have another class at two. Communications.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Winsome.
‘Mostly it’s a matter of teaching parts of speech and sentence structure to people who don’t speak English,’ Cooper said, ‘but it’s actually meant to cover the whole gamut of human communication, how we think, and what it all means. Trouble is, most of the students don’t think.’
‘All of them?’ Winsome asked.
‘No. Not all,’ Cooper conceded. ‘You do get the occasional one who stands out.’
‘Was Kayleigh Vernon one of them?’ Annie asked.
Cooper’s eyes narrowed. ‘You go straight for the jugular, don’t you? As a matter of fact, there were only two things about Kayleigh Vernon that stood out, and I’m sure you can guess what they are.’
Annie gritted her teeth. ‘So she was no genius,’ she managed to grind out.
‘You could say that. Average. Uninspired and uninspiring, except to thoughts of idle lust on a summer’s afternoon. Definitely second-rate material, intellectually speaking.’
‘And this test that she failed?’
‘Wasn’t the first or the last. Oh, she managed to scrape through in the end with a good enough diploma to get her a job as a tea-girl in a film studio, or some such job, if she was lucky.’
‘Is that what she’s doing?’
‘No idea. I’ve no more interest in them once they leave.’