The leaves were coming out on the little silver birch tree by the gate, and there was a smell of new shoots and cut grass and freshly turned soiclass="underline" the promise of summer.
She took a deep breath of it.
Surely Beckie was happy?
She seemed happy, didn’t she?
This problem at school – it was probably just a blip, as Neil said. Beckie had always been such a good child that any bad behaviour was always going to be magnified, to seem a much bigger deal than it would have been in any other child.
No one was perfect, as Neil kept saying.
But it was just so hard to believe that she’d done it.
Beckie?
Their Beckie? Their sweet little girl, their popular, easy, laid-back little girl who made friends effortlessly wherever she went, who had so many invitations to birthday parties it was getting to be a logistical nightmare? Their Beckie, held up by other parents as an example to their own kids?
When Flora had arrived in the playground yesterday afternoon, the headmistress, Mrs Jenner, had come over and asked if she could have ‘a quick word’. Flora had gone with her quite happily to the little office overlooking the playing field at the back of the school. It hadn’t even crossed her mind that Beckie could be in any sort of trouble.
Mrs Jenner had sat down at her desk and waved Flora to one of the comfortable chairs in front of it. Flora had still been relaxed, reflecting that there was something not right about a headmistress who looked younger, rather than older, than her actual age. Mrs Jenner, who was in her early sixties according to one of the other mums, wore a bright cerise blouse under her fitted jacket, which was low enough to show cleavage. Her hair was a tumble of honey curls on her shoulders.
She looked Flora straight in the eye, as she’d presumably been instructed to do on some training course or other, and said, ‘I’m afraid it seems Beckie has been bullying another girl.’
Flora had repeated, stupidly, ‘Bullying another girl?’
‘I’m afraid so. I witnessed her hitting Edith myself. Beckie has denied it, but I saw her with my own eyes.’ She gestured at the window, from which there was a view of the playing field with its miniature goal posts.
‘Edith?’ Flora couldn’t remember an Edith.
‘When I spoke to her, Edith at first refused to admit there was a problem but then broke down and revealed that Beckie has been bullying her for some time. Physically, and in other ways. Beckie has told the other girls not to play with Edith. She makes fun of her and encourages the others to do so too. She has instigated a particularly cruel ruse which involves getting two or three other girls to pretend to Edith that they now want to be her friends, not Beckie’s, and are going to play with her, and then, at a signal from Beckie, they run away at top speed. Poor Edith falls for it every time. She tries to run after them, and then they all turn and shout insults at her and laugh. Some of the name-calling has been disablist, although Edith isn’t technically disabled, just… a bit uncoordinated. Spastic, mong, et cetera.’ She said the awful words in a brisk, businesslike tone that somehow made them all the worse.
Flora felt the room recede and fade.
Mrs Jenner’s voice was very faint, and then suddenly very loud.
‘Mrs Parry?’
There were grey spots in front of her eyes.
And then Mrs Jenner was round the desk and pushing Flora’s head down past her knees, pushing a plastic cup of water into her hand.
Flora found herself repeating weakly: ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’
She brought the cup to her lips and gulped at the lukewarm, synthetic-tasting water.
‘Now, Mrs Parry,’ Mrs Jenner said briskly, like a nurse would speak to a difficult patient. ‘There’s no need to work yourself up.’ How pathetic, she was probably thinking. No wonder Beckie’s out of control. ‘It’s really nothing to worry about – children can be very cruel to each other, you know, and this sort of thing will happen from time to time. I’ve known far worse, believe me. I’m sure we can nip it in the bud.’ And Flora felt a quick pat on her back. A little rub between her shoulder blades.
‘But…’ She sat up and looked into the other woman’s bright blue, heavily mascara-ed eyes. There was a big clump of mascara sticking together several of the upper lashes of her right eye, like the lashes were melting, like this was a face in some surreal dream, melting away as soon as you got up close. ‘Are you sure?’
This wasn’t Beckie. It just wasn’t.
Beckie was so good with children with problems; so kind. At break and lunchtime, she and her friends always passed by the Buddy Bench, where children could sit to indicate they needed a ‘buddy’, and asked whoever was there if they wanted to join them.
Mrs Jenner nodded, and retreated once more behind the desk.
‘I’ve spoken to Beckie, of course, myself. She’s unrepentant. She denies that she’s been bullying Edith – says it’s Edith who’s the problem and “everyone hates her”. A common justification, I’m afraid. She maintains that people run away from Edith because they hate her.’
‘I’m sorry, I’m just –’ Flora gulped down more water. ‘I’m having a really hard time believing that Beckie would do that.’
‘I realise it’s a shock. We’re all very surprised. Beckie has always been a pleasure to have in the school. There hasn’t been anything… Any problems at home…?’ And the bright blue eyes scanned Flora up and down.
Flora could only shake her head as all the statistics gleaned from furtive late-night Googling flashed through her mind, about schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and their age of onset and possible triggers. Was that what this was? Was this her nightmare coming to pass? Was this the monster Beckie carried inside her, in her genes, awakening, stretching and yawning and flexing its muscles, because of something Flora had done? Something she’d done to trigger it?
Of course not.
As bullying went, this was pretty mild, really. Every child went through phases of being naughty, difficult, acting out. As Mrs Jenner had said, this wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. And it could be nipped in the bud in this ‘mediation discussion’ she was talking about, asking Flora if Monday after school would be convenient.
‘Yes, of course,’ Flora had said. ‘Of course. Monday would be fine. Obviously, we’ll make sure – we’ll make sure Beckie stops it. That she stops bullying this poor girl. Poor Edith.’
When they’d got home, Flora had chosen her moment to broach the subject with Beckie. They’d got out Beckie’s favourite jigsaw, featuring a litter of Labrador puppies, and knelt opposite each other at the coffee table in the family room to work on it.
When she’d gently told Beckie what Mrs Jenner had said about her being unkind to Edith, Beckie had looked from the piece of puzzle she was holding to Flora’s face in indignation. ‘It’s not my fault Edith’s horrible.’
‘Oh Beckie. I’m sure she isn’t “horrible”. And even if she was, that’s no excuse for bullying.’
‘But I didn’t bully her! She’s twisting it all round, Mum. I’ve never hit her.’
‘Beckie, Mrs Jenner saw you.’
‘But I was just pushing her away after she tried to hit me!’
Oh God.
‘So you’re saying Edith is bullying you?’
‘No! No one’s bullying anyone, Mum. Edith is just so stupid and horrible that she spoils everything.’