mention that she had bagged the rather handsome Mark Brooker – the girl had definitely been punching above her weight on
that
day. This amused Kathryn, knowing that if they walked in her sensible shoes for a day and a night, they would be clamouring to escape, clawing at the flint stones until their fingernails ripped away, scrambling over the walls until knees were raw, and digging with bare, bloodied hands at the very foundations to make a tunnel. They would try anything and stop at nothing to be free of the charmed life she led.
There was something about living in a school house on school grounds in a building that was joined on to the school that meant that she never quite felt like it was hers. Which was quite right – it wasn’t. The majority of the time, Kathryn felt more like a curator or custodian than a home-maker. She took extra care of the blackened range, original window cording and parquet flooring, as if she would be judged on the state in which she kept this venerable property and the state in which she handed it back. This of course is exactly how history would have judged her, had some other more significant and somewhat more shocking event not occurred, rendering the cleanliness of her windows and their dust-free cording quite irrelevant.
The children had been young when they moved in and it had taken a while for them all to get used to the new set-up. Lydia could no longer run around ‘nudey dudey’ after her bath, not with masters and pupils dropping in unannounced. And Dominic had had to say a reluctant goodbye to his beloved pet chickens, Nugget and Kiev; the prospect of having to repeatedly retrieve them as they pecked around the cricket crease could not be countenanced. Once had been enough to cause much annoyance to the visiting Millfield eleven, who to this day were convinced it had been a clever tactic to divert and conquer.
Those youngsters were now teenagers, Lydia fifteen andDominic sixteen. Being the headmaster’s children meant that you were either extremely popular or unpopular for all the wrong reasons. Thankfully for the Brooker children, they had already been at the school for a number of years prior to their dad’s appointment as head honcho, so they were established and accepted. It also helped that they were both considered attractive by their peers. They had inherited Kathryn’s rangy physique and the striking face of their father translated very well onto those sharp, young cheekbones. They were funny, cool kids who were well liked, regardless of their parents’ status.
Mark, of course, flourished in such an environment, constantly in character and always ready to perform. He engaged in banter with the children and displayed the jovial camaraderie that made him a hit with the masters. He appeased and buttered up the parents, offering a firm handshake to the wealthy fathers and all the time in the world to discuss minutiae with the coiffed and toned mummies. He was in complete control of all he surveyed, a very happy man.
Kathryn, however, upon taking up residence in the ‘big house’, had felt her refuge diminish until it was non-existent. Earlier in Mark’s career, when they had lived in rented accommodation in Finchbury, she at least could spend the daytimes away from his obsessive gaze. Until he returned from school, there was no one to watch her, no eyes waiting to see how she did things, what she wore, what she said or ate, who she sat with, spoke to, when she arrived and when she left. Life in the head’s house was very different; the list of things that were forbidden, permitted and expected was long and ever changing. It was in this fluid environment of constant scrutiny that she existed. ‘Existed’ was the word Kathryn used when thinking about her situation – ‘lived’ would implythat she had a life, and she did not. Kathryn had no life at all.
As she scraped the breakfast detritus into the bin and loaded the plates into the dishwasher with the rest
that
day. This amused Kathryn, knowing that if they walked in her sensible shoes for a day and a night, they would be clamouring to escape, clawing at the flint stones until their fingernails ripped away, scrambling over the walls until knees were raw, and digging with bare, bloodied hands at the very foundations to make a tunnel. They would try anything and stop at nothing to be free of the charmed life she led.
There was something about living in a school house on school grounds in a building that was joined on to the school that meant that she never quite felt like it was hers. Which was quite right – it wasn’t. The majority of the time, Kathryn felt more like a curator or custodian than a home-maker. She took extra care of the blackened range, original window cording and parquet flooring, as if she would be judged on the state in which she kept this venerable property and the state in which she handed it back. This of course is exactly how history would have judged her, had some other more significant and somewhat more shocking event not occurred, rendering the cleanliness of her windows and their dust-free cording quite irrelevant.
The children had been young when they moved in and it had taken a while for them all to get used to the new set-up. Lydia could no longer run around ‘nudey dudey’ after her bath, not with masters and pupils dropping in unannounced. And Dominic had had to say a reluctant goodbye to his beloved pet chickens, Nugget and Kiev; the prospect of having to repeatedly retrieve them as they pecked around the cricket crease could not be countenanced. Once had been enough to cause much annoyance to the visiting Millfield eleven, who to this day were convinced it had been a clever tactic to divert and conquer.
Those youngsters were now teenagers, Lydia fifteen andDominic sixteen. Being the headmaster’s children meant that you were either extremely popular or unpopular for all the wrong reasons. Thankfully for the Brooker children, they had already been at the school for a number of years prior to their dad’s appointment as head honcho, so they were established and accepted. It also helped that they were both considered attractive by their peers. They had inherited Kathryn’s rangy physique and the striking face of their father translated very well onto those sharp, young cheekbones. They were funny, cool kids who were well liked, regardless of their parents’ status.
Mark, of course, flourished in such an environment, constantly in character and always ready to perform. He engaged in banter with the children and displayed the jovial camaraderie that made him a hit with the masters. He appeased and buttered up the parents, offering a firm handshake to the wealthy fathers and all the time in the world to discuss minutiae with the coiffed and toned mummies. He was in complete control of all he surveyed, a very happy man.
Kathryn, however, upon taking up residence in the ‘big house’, had felt her refuge diminish until it was non-existent. Earlier in Mark’s career, when they had lived in rented accommodation in Finchbury, she at least could spend the daytimes away from his obsessive gaze. Until he returned from school, there was no one to watch her, no eyes waiting to see how she did things, what she wore, what she said or ate, who she sat with, spoke to, when she arrived and when she left. Life in the head’s house was very different; the list of things that were forbidden, permitted and expected was long and ever changing. It was in this fluid environment of constant scrutiny that she existed. ‘Existed’ was the word Kathryn used when thinking about her situation – ‘lived’ would implythat she had a life, and she did not. Kathryn had no life at all.
As she scraped the breakfast detritus into the bin and loaded the plates into the dishwasher with the rest
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