Katy Carter Keeps a Secret Read online

  Let’s try again.

  Alexi drew her into his arms and she felt the silken heat of his flesh as he pulled her into a burning kiss. The press of his…

  Of his… his…

  I chew my biro. Meat? Sausage? Baguette?

  Oh Lord. Have I spent too much time eating Ollie’s lovely cooking and not nearly enough having wild and crazy sex? Will I ever be able to fix the cottage roof so that my boyfriend can finally get a good night’s sleep and remember that there’s more to do in bed than fall unconscious?

  I push the papers back into the folder and heave a sigh of relief when I see it’s lunchtime in five minutes. Time to finish the lesson, scoop up the paper aeroplanes and make my students tuck in their shirts. In a moment I’ll be hotfooting it to the school canteen to try to grab my lunch before being trampled by the hungry teen stampede, and then I’ll be enjoying a welcome coffee in the staffroom.

  Alexi and his sausage will just have to wait until later on.

  Chapter 2

  One of the best things about being a supply teacher at Tregowan Comp, apart from the obvious joy of educating young minds and exploring my subject, is the macaroni cheese served in the school canteen. Sometimes the only thing that gets me through a double period of bottom-set Year Eleven English without hurling myself out of the window and onto the chewing-gum-freckled concrete below is holding out for a dish of piping hot pasta with gooey cheese on the top. Occasionally I really push the boat out and have chips too, and then the day doesn’t seem so bad, not even when Luke Harries tells me to eff off or Bryan Kay (aged sixteen) calls his mummy to come and beat me up because I’m cruel enough to suggest he actually takes his head off the desk for two minutes and does some coursework. Sorry to disillusion you, Jamie Oliver, but junk food really does make everything better – and if you had to do my job you’d be guzzling Turkey Twizzlers by morning break, trust me.

  Luckily no education secretary has yet twigged that teachers are easily placated by a free bun or a good lunch, and as I weave my way through the corridor crush – my plate held high to avoid being taken out by monster rucksacks and flailing elbows – all is well in my world. I’ve jumped to the front of the lunch queue and grabbed my food without sustaining a serious injury, coffee will be brewing in the staffroom, and then I’ve got an easy afternoon covering an art lesson. I love covering art lessons! Kids listen to their iPods and splash paint about with total concentration while I get on with my own work, which today means writing some X-rated action for Alexi and Lucinda. With some stodgy calories inside me and another read-through of the notes, I’m sure I’ll get there. I don’t actually need to be having mind-blowing sex myself to write about it, do I? That’s what imaginations are for. After all, Tolkien wasn’t a hobbit and I’m pretty sure J K Rowling isn’t a wizard.

  Yes, I’m feeling so much more positive about this sample chapter, and that’s before I’ve even eaten my lunch.

  Throb Publishing, prepare to be amazed!

  “That looks good!” Lucy Tyler, one of the English teachers, peers longingly at my lunch as I settle myself into a saggy chair and prepare to tuck in. “I’m starving. I wish I wasn’t having salad.”

  Lucy is perpetually on a diet and, like me, has the willpower of a very weak-willpowered gnat. As she gazes down sadly at her Tupperware tub of limp green leaves, I can’t help but notice that the small coffee table between us is littered with sweet wrappers. Seeing me look, she turns pink.

  “Rob from IT sent them over. He said they were for all of us because it’s a special day.”

  Rob from IT has had a crush on Lucy for just about forever. Cue lots of blushing (him) and hair twiddling (her, not him, since he’s one of those guys who shaves his head and thinks it fools everyone into not noticing he’s going bald). It’s really quite romantic, in a just get on with it kind of way. Their eyes meet across the crowded staffroom, him sitting with the geeky IT crowd and her with the cool and sassy English teachers, just like Romeo and Juliet at the Montagues’ party. Sometimes they might bump into each other at the photocopier, or maybe their hands will brush when they reach for the same worksheet on teacher training days, but neither dares cross the acres of scratchy blue school carpet to declare their love. So longing looks and shared pedagogy is as far as it goes…

  Hmm. Not quite the loin-grinding and nipple-hardening detail that Throb are asking me to produce, but it’s sweet nonetheless. Maybe teacher romance is the next big thing? Snogging in the staffroom? Passion in the PE office? I make a mental note to jot some ideas down once lunch is over. Ollie’s a teacher too, so maybe he could help me with some practical research? All in the name of literature, of course, which means he can’t plead being too tired.

  That’s genius! I can hardly wait to get home and—

  Well, yes. That.

  Lucy’s staring at me. “Are you all right, Katy? Your eyes have gone all weird and your mouth’s hanging open.”

  I yank myself out of my steamy-novel planning and back into the present. I feel quite hot and bothered, and I don’t think it’s from the molten lava temperature of my macaroni cheese either.

  “I’m fine. I was just thinking about the chocolates. But what’s Rob on about, saying it’s a special day?”

  She turns even pinker. “It’s Valentine’s Day.”

  You know that dream where you suddenly find yourself naked in the middle of the high street? Well, I have a very similar feeling right now.

  Oh. My. God.

  Call myself a romantic novelist?

  I’ve totally forgotten Valentine’s Day!

  No, that’s not quite right. I haven’t totally forgotten Valentine’s Day. Like Christmas and Halloween and the ever so slightly schizophrenic Easter, it’s hardwired into my consciousness thanks to an endless barrage of adverts. And at this time of year the supermarket shelves are filled with so many hearts it’s tricky to know whether you’re in Tesco or a cardio ward. So on some level I’d known that Valentine’s Day was almost upon me; it’s just that lately I haven’t been able to think about anything else except having to produce this flipping sample chapter in record time. It’s how I get when I’m writing.

  And now I’ve missed Valentine’s Day? Poor, poor Ollie! What must he think? I know it was still dark when he left this morning, and I think I kissed him goodbye (although I might have just rolled over and gone back to sleep), but how could I have let him drive to Plymouth without saying a big Valentine’s I love you?

  Hold on. Did he wish me happy Valentine’s Day? Was there a card or present left somewhere for me to find? Is he right now waiting for his mobile to beep with a huge thank you from me? Or maybe there’s a dozen red roses in the sitting room that I didn’t notice because I slept through the alarm again and only just escaped getting marked late for school myself?

  I fish my phone out of my bag in case I’ve missed a call from him. I sent a text at break time and usually he replies. Aha! I knew it. There’s a text.

  Ring later x

  A ring! Is that a cryptic comment or what? Does he mean he’s going to call me or does he mean more? He loves to play word games and he knows how my mind works. Some people might call it jumping to conclusions but they don’t know Ollie like I do.

  And I may have been hinting just a little bit…

  Let’s look at that text again and deconstruct it.

  Ring later

  Ring. Later.

  There’s a deeper meaning to this. I should know. I’m an English teacher. I spend all day analysing this kind of thing. What if he’s left a ring for me to find when I get home?

  He might have done! He really might! I bet that’s what he means!

  Years ago when we first got together, Ollie said he wanted us to get married and not mess about wasting time. He said we knew each other so well that there was no need to wait. I’d totally agreed because I loved him and knew there and then that there would never be anyone else. As far as I was concerned we were technically engaged and all I needed was a ring
. So I waited.

  And waited.

  And waited a bit more.

  And waited even a bit more than that, but still no ring.

  You know when you’re introduced to somebody and don’t take their name in properly and then for ever afterwards you can’t ask again for fear of seeming rude? Well, that’s the kind of situation I’m in with getting engaged properly. I daren’t keep asking because it will sound dead pushy, and everyone knows guys like to do things according to their own timing, don’t they? Besides, we’ve been so busy with sorting the house and paying off student debts and the general day-to-day busyness of living that the wedding thing has gone right to the bottom of the list. I know Ollie hasn’t forgotten though, because he would never have said it if he didn’t mean it. He’ll be waiting for the right time – and what better time than Valentine’s Day?

  My imagination is really up and running now. Desert Orchid has nothing on me. I know it’s totally unfeminist, and my parents would be bitterly disappointed in me (“Marriage is just so bourgeois, Katy!”), but I would really, really like to get married.

  There. I’ve said it. Embarrassing or what? So not cool or twenty-first century or feminist. I’m supposed to want to be an astronaut or a nuclear physicist or prime minister or something like that, not harbour secret dreams of white dresses, bridesmaids and glittery diamond rings.

  I know my mother would roll her eyes and make some remark about slavery to patriarchy (which is pretty ironic, since I don’t think my father has done any of his own ironing since about 1979), but the truth is I don’t like heights, I’m rubbish at science, and the House of Commons is far too similar to the school playground for my liking. I’d just like to be Mrs Oliver Burrows.

  (And a bestselling novelist, of course.)

  Anyway, I think I’ve kept my thoughts on all this pretty much to myself. In an age when experimenting with gender, sexuality and even cable ties is the norm, it feels as though the last and biggest taboo of all is wanting to get married.

  Did I say married?

  Shush!

  Not so loud, Katy!

  Seriously, when I paid for my latest copy of Brides magazine yesterday, I couldn’t have felt more self-conscious if I’d been buying hard-core porn. As I passed my money over I muttered, “It’s for a friend”, then shoved the magazine in my bag as fast as possible. As soon as I was home I hid it in the drawer where I keep my Tampax and all the other girl-specific stuff Ol’s never likely to root through when hunting for a spanner or something. My credit card statements live there too now, since he busted me by finding them under the sink. Anyway, so far so good. I don’t want to look desperate or for him to feel under any pressure. When Ol proposes properly (and I’m sure he will one day soon because, leaky roof and quiet love life aside, we really have had a brilliant five years together) I don’t want him to feel railroaded into it. I actually think I’ve done a good job of not looking too needy or too desperate; any hints I drop are so subtle Ollie probably doesn’t even notice them. The couple of times I have accidentally left wedding magazines lying about he’s used them as coasters and I don’t think he even realised what they were.

  Subliminal and subtle. That’s the best way.

  I just wish it wasn’t so slow.

  But now my hopes are sky high because it’s Valentine’s Day, Ol’s said nothing and I’m one hundred percent certain he’s planning something amazing.

  “Katy! I said are you all right?”

  Lucy’s voice, fully trained in the art of silencing thirty teenagers at fifty paces, rips me out of a very pleasant daydream where Ol is slipping a gorgeous diamond ring onto my finger (and not one from a Haribo packet like he once threatened) and saying all the romantic things that he’s been waiting five years to say. It’s pretty depressing to find myself in the staffroom, surrounded by the detritus of a tub of Miniature Heroes and a plate of congealing macaroni cheese.

  “Fine! Fine!” I say quickly.

  “You haven’t touched your lunch.” Lucy’s eyeing up my food the way teenage girls eye up Harry Styles. It’s weird but I’m so excited at the thought of what’s going to happen when I get home this evening that my appetite’s totally vanished.

  “Do you know what? I don’t think I want it after all. You have it,” I say, and Lucy’s forking up the macaroni cheese even before I’ve finished speaking.

  “You must eat something,” she says through a huge mouthful. “Have a chocolate.”

  My hand hovers over a miniature Flake. I shouldn’t really stuff my face with sweets though, if I’m going to be squeezing into a wedding dress any time soon.

  “One won’t hurt,” Lucy adds.

  “Bloody hell!” exclaims a voice from the coffee machine. “You’re not still scoffing sweets are you, Luce? Thought you said you were on a diet?”

  Steph, our Head of English, weaves her way through the heaving staffroom and slops a stained coffee mug onto the table, liberally coating Lucy’s marking, before hurling herself into a chair. Pushing her long hair back from her face, she helps herself to a mini Crunchie and munches furiously.

  “I’m starving! What moron decided to move lunchtime to one-fifteen? I was almost gnawing my desk.”

  “The later lunchtime is better for the students,” Lucy says piously. “They learn more consistently in the mornings. It’s all about accelerated learning.”

  Steph helps herself to another chocolate. “Bugger the students. What about me? And Katy. She looks bloody awful. What’s happened? Just found out you’re covering bottom-set Year Seven art this afternoon? They painted the last supply teacher blue and chased him out of the room with the lino-cutting knives. Ha! Ha!”

  Bollocks. That’s the exact class I have this afternoon. Goodbye quiet hour with Alexi and Lucinda, and hello Lord of the Flies with paint. Just my luck.

  “Katy forgot Valentine’s Day,” Lucy tells Steph, who raises her eyebrows.

  “You’re a disgrace, woman. How dare you neglect the lovely Mr Burrows? I’ve a good mind to steal him away from you.”

  “Get in the queue,” Lucy sighs. “I saw him before you.”

  “Hello, people? I am here,” I say. “Me. Katy Carter? Ollie’s girlfriend?”

  “Did you hear something?” Steph asks Lucy, who shakes her head. And then they cackle like something out of Macbeth.

  I raise my eyes to the suspended ceiling. My colleagues are staunch members of the Ollie Burrows Fan Club and, in spite of the fact that I am the founder member thank you very much, they never miss a chance to tell me how wonderful my boyfriend is. As if I didn’t know! Everyone adores Ollie, from Sasha our dog to my parents to the grumpy woman in the petrol station who can just about grunt when I go in but is all smiles for Ol. He’s got that special magic: everything from his twinkly toffee eyes to his cute smile to his personality is gorgeous, and people just love him.

  I love him.

  Anyway, before he headed off to Plymouth to become a very serious Head of English, Ollie worked at Tregowan Comp and he was popular with everyone – from the dinner ladies who gave him extra-big portions to the hardest kids and even Steph, who for all her talk about little sods and buggers is one of the most dedicated teachers I’ve ever come across. When Ollie left the school it was like somebody had died, and even though I’m sometimes drafted in on supply to fill the gaps I know I’m a very poor second.

  Even a year on since he left, Steph’s still mourning Ollie’s departure. She and Lucy are talking now about what a fantastic job he’s doing in his new school. I’m sure he is too (he certainly works hard enough), but I can’t help thinking life was more fun when he worked here and was home by five most evenings, and when the extent of his ambition was going out to grab a kebab. Nevertheless, I arrange my face into an I totally agree expression and nod sagely. A couple of times I check my phone, just in case, but no such luck.

  Maybe he’s waiting for me to find the engagement ring and call him?

  Yes! I bet that’s it! Come on, three-thir
ty! I have to get home!

  “Is Carolyn Miles still Deputy Head at St Jude’s?” Steph is asking, unwrapping her fifth chocolate and ignoring the look of panic on Lucy’s face. “Blonde? Scarily efficient? Drives a red convertible?”

  “The one who looks like a model?” Lucy pushes the empty pasta plate aside and grabs a handful of sweets while she still has the chance. “I met her on a course once. She scared the life out of me.”

  Lucy isn’t alone. I’ve met Carolyn Miles a few times and she scares the life out of me too. Tall, slim and blonde, she’s like some data-crunching senior management Bond villainess, and whenever our paths cross I feel like I’ve been sent to her office for a stern telling off. Ollie works very closely with her, but that doesn’t worry me because I know he loves me and Carolyn is my total opposite so, ha! She doesn’t stand a chance.

  I hope…

  “Wouldn’t want her working with my boyfriend,” says Steph.

  “You don’t have a boyfriend,” Lucy points out.

  Steph shrugs. “Well if I did have one, especially one as lush as Ollie, then. No way would I want him working with Carolyn. From what I’ve heard, all her male colleagues end up joining the Miles High Club!”

  I’m hoping this is a joke but even if it is, I’m not laughing. I’m trying to come up with a mature and sensible retort (other than sod off, Steph) when the end-of-break bell sounds. Not one member of staff stirs – apart from Lucy, who sweeps up her books, shrugs her bag onto her shoulder and scurries out. Outside, I watch the kids moving as slowly as it’s possible for teenagers to move. As one they chew and swear their way across the campus. Well, there’s no putting it off any longer; death by art class it is.

  I really hope I make it home in one piece. I can hardly wait to find my engagement ring, and I’ve had a brilliant idea about what I can do to prove to Ollie just how much I love him too.

  This is going to be the best Valentine’s Day ever, I just know it!