Mothers & Daughters by Kate Long

over the knuckles with a ruler.’
    â€˜Oh, he’d use a ruler if he could get away with it.’ Josh mimed a slashing action. ‘He’s bad enough as it is.’
    We moved onto the bypass.
    â€˜Right, there was this one time, yeah, when he was showing us how we had to be careful with phosphorous. He had these tongs and gloves and he was making a big deal about how it burns your skin if you just touch it, like it’s really corrosive. He got this kid he really hates to come up and pass him stuff, yeah, and then he asks him to hold his hand out and sticks this lump of phosphorous right in the middle of his palm.’
    â€˜Oh good God.’
    â€˜Except it wasn’t phosphorous, it was something else, something that it didn’t matter if you touched it, dunno what, but this boy didn’t know. He just freaked: he was leaping about and screaming, shaking his hand, running to the sink, and the Hungarian was peeing himself laughing. He made all the other kids join in too.’
    â€˜That’s appalling.’
    â€˜He said it was to make sure we remembered never to touch chemicals with our bare hands.’
    â€˜Well, I think that’s disgraceful behaviour from a teacher. That boy’s parents should complain.’
    â€˜It’s not that easy, though. He’d just be even more of a git, I reckon.’
    â€˜Someone should say something.’
    The traffic was getting heavier as we came into the middle of town. Knots of children in school blazers could be seen at intervals, crowding the footpath, calling to each other.
    â€˜We had to go in once and complain about a teacher,’ I said. ‘When Jaz was in Year Nine.’
    â€˜Yeah?’
    â€˜He tried to wriggle out of it, put the blame on her. But I knew.’
    I clicked my indicator on and pulled into the side of the road, between two other parked cars. All Josh had to do from here was walk 400 yards and he’d be at the school gate.
    â€˜Never mind, hey.’ He undid his seat belt and turned to reach for his bag. ‘Come the revolution, they’ll all be up against the wall.’
    â€˜Have a nice day,’ I said to him as he climbed out.
    â€˜I won’t.’
    Which is how we always part. I watched him slouch away, then I stuck my indicator on, checked my mirror, and pulled out into the stream of traffic.
    â€˜I was thinking about Jasmine and Mr Woodhall,’ I said to Dad. The room was so quiet that I could hear the ticking of the starburst clock above the door. Dad sat in a high-backed armchair, looking like a man who might be listening. Perhaps he’d noticed Matty wasn’t there, perhaps he hadn’t. ‘Do you remember,’ I said to him, ‘that teacher who made her cry?’
    I pictured a corridor on a darkening afternoon, harvest displays, a cleaner pulling a vac out from a cupboard, some of the classrooms unlit.
I have to ask
, Mr Woodhall had said,
is there anything going on at home we should know about? She seems like a very angry little girl at the moment
. And I went,
Well, of course she’s angry! You made her share something you’d told her would be private
. He shook his head and pressed his lips together, slid Jaz’s book across for me to read.
    Dad gave a little cough, and at the same moment one of the care assistants appeared at the door to ask if I owned a V reg Astra. ‘No,’ I said. She went away.
    I said to him, ‘I feel as though I’m walking a tightrope. Ian’s got every right to see his son, but it’s saying that to Jaz. She’s still beside herself, she can’t think straight. I’m worried she’ll set up a situation—’
    Dad’s fingers flexed briefly under mine.
    â€˜And you see, if I didn’t work, I could have Matty for her all the time; she’d like that. She’s always telling me aboutother people’s parents who provide round-the-clock free childcare.’
    I