Head Count Read online

  Head Count

  JUDITH CUTLER

  For Chance to Shine

  With thanks for all they do to give young people the

  lifelong love of cricket my father gave me

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  BY JUDITH CUTLER

  COPYRIGHT

  CHAPTER ONE

  I’d seen kids like that a thousand times on TV. Thin – emaciated really. Heads crawling with lice. Dirty. Not just grubby because they’d been playing outdoors. Filthy. Some of them ill. Some dressed in the remains of a parent’s idea of best clothes. Some with little bundles. Some with nothing. Some even with something tattooed on their wrists. But here? In the Garden of England?

  So there I was, head over heels, if you’ll forgive my occupational pun, in a very thorny hedge, with plenty of time to reflect on my summer holiday so far.

  Everyone knows that schoolteachers are an overpaid, idle lot, enjoying all sorts of fringe benefits, including enormously long holidays during which they do nothing but doss around. Meanwhile, parents have to scurry round in search of expensive and elusive childcare unless they are lucky enough to take a holiday that is hugely overpriced simply because it’s not in term time.

  On the other side of the school fence, you might hear different facts. One of which, sadly, is that when the longed-for breaks finally arrive, the first thing the average teacher does is succumb to an evil virus that takes at least a week to shake off – by which time you should probably be starting your preparation for the next academic year.

  The bug is no respecter of persons either. It doesn’t knock on the head teacher’s door and slink away when it’s told she’s too busy.

  Not in my case, anyway.

  I lost my voice on the last day of term. Perhaps people thought it was because I was so choked up at the transfer of some of my lovely pupils to the wicked world of secondary education. It might well have been. They were moving from a tiny school with only a hundred or so pupils to the giant world of a full-sized secondary – whether it was co-ed or single sex, a grammar or an academy, they would cease to be big fish in a tiny pond and become the smallest of minnows. If I had wept, I’d have tried to swallow my tears, for the sake of the kids and, let’s face it, my dignity. But swallowing anything was a pretty painful option, and remained so long after the last child had waved goodbye.

  All through the rest of the day. And the day after. Which was interesting, because I’d been roped in to act as Wrayford Cricket Club’s substitute umpire, the regular one having succumbed to an attack of gout, which trumped my laryngitis.

  Wrayford were playing St Luke’s Bay, down in the south of the county. The ground was in a lovely setting with the sea one way and wooded hills another. The village itself was small, but its harbour bulged with vessels of all shapes and sizes. There were a few working boats, but most were chic yachts that looked as if they didn’t really want to get their keels wet, any more than their owners would want their hair windswept.

  The Bay team had produced county players in the past, and were already contributing girls to the Kent under-19 women’s team. So the match promised to be a good contest, and we had all signed up for a fish supper at a proper old-fashioned chippie, which had so far resisted attempts to gentrify it. There was also a good pub next door, according to Ed van Boolen, the captain.

  Tall, broad-shouldered and blonde, with the bluest eyes in the world, Ed ought to have been a Viking. He’d actually come from the Netherlands. He’d arrived in the UK in his teens with his sister, both intending to study fruit growing. She’d married and given up on the idea – I had a feeling they were no longer in touch – and he’d turned instead to landscape gardening and cricket, in whichever order. The Netherlands were a growing presence on the international cricket scene; Ed was the driving force of Wrayford CC. We’d had a lot to do with each other ever since I’d persuaded the governors to let the cricket club use the school playing field. I insisted it would benefit everyone: club, village and school. The club wouldn’t have to close down, the village would have the social fun of a few fund-raising events, and the kids would get year-round coaching instead of the short burst that the wonderful Chance to Shine cricket charity provided. Yes, the club members involved would get the relevant background checks. Win, win, win, as far as I could see. The children didn’t just have role models, but next year would get the chance to play in the under-twelve team Ed and the club were now planning. I had my eye on a girl I was sure would become a founder member.

  And rumour had it that Ed had his eye on me, which was good for my ego, at least.

  He’d hired three minibuses for the players and supporters to take us down to St Luke’s Bay. We’d be dropped off one by one outside our own front doors in case any of us were too relaxed, as it were, to manage the stroll from a central point.

  As it happened, we never made it to the chippie or to the pub because the captain of the Bay team, Marcus Baker, had organised a barbecue for us all, all the more generous in light of their eight-wicket defeat. Marcus’s house was halfway up the steep hill to the north-east of the harbour; apart from a patio bigger than the whole of my garden, a lawn the size of a tennis court dropped towards a low wall overlooking the bay. Tonight the sunset was spectacular. The food smelt as good as only the open air can make it, and the drink was free-flowing. But by now I could hardly do more than sip iced water. My head throbbed in time with the loud music; my eyes found even the fairy lights dazzling; I could no longer attempt to join in any conversation. Then one of the Bay’s players, extremely drunk already, started jabbing me in the chest, complaining about a leg-before-wicket decision I’d made. He’d argued at the time, with a lot of obscene words to emphasise his point. And another short, equally unacceptable gesture had ended his tirade as his fellow batsman, mouthing his apologies to me, propelled him off the square towards the boundary.

  I shook my head: ‘Come on, Dennis, what’s played on the pitch stays on the pitch,’ I whispered.

  ‘I could have bloody killed you!’

  The Bay umpire and another Bay player appeared, telling him it was time he left. He did, but not quietly. A couple of people came to offer their apologies. All I could do was smile pacifically, all the time longing for nothing more than paracetamol and my bed, with no one but Nosey the Bear for company, thank you very much.

  But I had to wait for the minibus home: if I tried to call a cab someone would insist on driving me, which would break up an otherwise friendly party. So I looked for somewhere nice and quiet. Soon I found myself down by the back wall. Chunks of a poem I thought I’d forgotten years ago came unbidden to my mind as I leant heavily on the stonework and looked out towards the harbour:

  The sea is calm tonight.

  The tide is full, the moon lies fair


  Upon the straits; on the French coast the light

  Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,

  Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.

  … sweet is the night-air!

  It was certainly sweet for a couple entwined in the shadows to my right. I would have averted my gaze from any lovers’ private moment but was even swifter with this pair: not for anything would anyone learn from me that the giant of an opening bowler was snogging the wicketkeeper, whom I had rebuked only five hours ago for the foulest mouthed macho sledging I’d ever heard.

  I turned my attention to the sea,

  … the long line of spray

  Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land …

  The sea, or rather the inlet, was full of life in the descending dusk. All the boats were lit up, either from the cabin spaces or with what I dimly remembered were called riding lights. So I was surprised when one vessel slipped in in complete darkness, mooring out of my line of sight. As I peered round I was joined by our host, who asked abruptly why I was out on my own, and what was I staring at.

  He stood rather closer than I expected to follow the line of my finger as I pointed. ‘Just someone driving without lights,’ I rasped.

  He ignored my comment – might not even have heard it. Hardly moving away, he waved the bottles he held in his right hand. His own glass was in his left: it was very elegant, more at home on a candlelit dinner party than in the chaos of a big al fresco bash. Bravely he put it on the wall. It wobbled once but stayed put. ‘Another drink?’ I shook my head. ‘No thanks.’

  He topped up his glass with red wine. ‘You’ve lost your voice completely? Really? We should have argued more with your decisions, shouldn’t we! Though, to be honest, I thought you were very fair. Even when you awarded five penalty runs against us when the ball hit the helmet our wicketkeeper should have stowed somewhere safe. Very good all round.’ He didn’t even add ‘For a woman’. He raised his glass in a silent toast. I responded with mine, mouthing painful thanks.

  I couldn’t work out why he bothered to stay with me, but he did, sipping his wine. Each time he wiped the glass rim with a tissue before drinking again. He might have been sharing a communion chalice except that there was no one there except me. The silence deepened. I was supposed to do something, wasn’t I? Interact. Utter polite nothings. He was a pleasant enough young man, after all, but fairly nondescript in appearance – there was nothing to mark him out as a keen sportsman who’d once hoped to play at county level. I had an idea he was something in the family firm of lawyers, which would explain the size of his house and garden. Sadly his wife looked as if she’d been dipped in a bucketful of resentful unhappiness, and every time I’d heard her speak it was to complain about something – from the sugar-high children who refused to go to bed, to the smelly dog stealing burgers out of guests’ buns and the fact that one of the minibus drivers had gone AWOL. Marcus, on the other hand, seemed serene enough, even if he must have been spitting tacks at being run out by his partner Toby something-or-other when he’d been on the verge of his first fifty of the season.

  ‘I’m sorry about your half-century,’ I growled.

  He put his ear close to my mouth. I repeated what I’d said.

  ‘Shit happens. But I’ll put the little bugger in to field at very short square leg next match. See how he likes that.’

  Yes. The most dangerous place on the field. I hoped Toby would wear adequate protection but couldn’t say it. All I could manage was a wry smile of agreement. The burning pain in my throat was spreading through my sinuses and lungs.

  The silence returned.

  Another boat was moving about unlit – this one was leaving the harbour.

  ‘Where ignorant armies clash by night,’ I gasped meaninglessly – and fainted into, someone told me later, his arms.

  By Monday morning I’d tried everything the Sainsbury’s pharmacist had to offer, though she warned me she was sure that I only had a virus, which no antibiotics would touch. Otherwise I would have been pleading, presumably via text messages, for an appointment with the local GP. As it was, I resigned myself to salt-water gargles, silent communion with Nosey, the teddy bear that had come into my life a few months ago, and an indolence quite foreign to me.

  I should have enjoyed myself in my latest temporary home, normally a holiday cottage, which was equipped to the highest standards. I could bask in either the tiny walled garden or the chic living area, working my way through a year’s worth of unread books. Sadly and bizarrely, reading made my throat worse – even the silent reading I always encouraged when playtimes were too wet for the pupils to go outside. I felt too weak to start packing up for the move to my new home in the village, knowing that in any case it was in such a poor state that until essential work like repairs to the roof and drains, the installation of a new kitchen and a new bathroom and total redecoration had made it habitable, there was little point anyway. And now rumour had it that some do-gooder was applying to get it listed. Just what I needed when I’d run to earth the only house in the area I could afford – thanks to my long-awaited divorce settlement and to a major change in my employment conditions thought to merit a respectable pay rise.

  Fortunately my new landlord, Brian Dawes, the chair of the school governors, promised to let me stay as long as necessary. Furthermore, he was charging me at the low-season rate, which he could easily have tripled in the summer. Possibly he sensed that being generous to me would enhance his reputation in the village. But he didn’t demur when I suggested that at the very least I should pay the weekly cleaner’s bills.

  Even though I was living on the outskirts of the village, news of my illness soon spread: a couple of wild-flower posies appeared on my doorstep, soon followed by soups of various sorts, some more successful than others. The things that brought the biggest smile to my face were the get-well cards crafted, perhaps lovingly and certainly proudly, by some of my pupils. There was also a mauve teddy bear, which Nosey eyed with disdain, and, from the cricket club, a canvas carrier bag containing a litre of whisky, a jar of local honey and a net of organic unwaxed lemons. A bunch of late sweet peas from Ed himself arrived late one evening too.

  After a week of inertia and too much television, I found myself feeling better – though still silent. My new psychotherapist thought it might be something to do with being too angry at or even too upset by recent events to be able to speak. My own theory was a bit homespun, of course, but one shared by the GP to whom I’d had at last to report: that my throat, battered by all the end-of-term activity, had succumbed more heavily than most to what was a decidedly nasty bug doing the rounds in the south of England. So rest, gentle exercise – and no antibiotics. There was no reason to lurk self-pityingly indoors, he said, now my fever had subsided. Canterbury cricket week was coming up any day now. I smiled my approval: Dr Mike Evans and his practice had been generous in sponsoring the school Kwik Cricket team. Meanwhile, he asked, why didn’t I take advantage of my silent state? Why not buy a bike and explore the countryside?

  Mouth agape, I pointed to my chest. Me, cycle?

  He nodded, playing his trump card: ‘Two legs good; two wheels better.’

  I couldn’t argue, could I? Firstly, I was still in Trappist mode. Secondly, I had to applaud his literary allusion.

  One place within cycling distance would be my new school. No, I wasn’t leaving the one in Wrayford, but gaining another, in Wray Episcopi. It was tinier than mine with fewer than eighty pupils on roll, and, as its head teacher had retired, was threatened with closure – unless some kind fellow head could be bribed to take it on in addition to their duties at their own school. Kind – or ambitious. Unwilling to identify my motives, I quickly established that this would involve appointing deputy heads and freeing the head from teaching duties. Sadly teaching was what I enjoyed most about the job – but getting on the property ladder was important, so I was prepared to trade it. And, perhaps simply on geographical grounds, I got the post.


  There had been a lot of negotiations: we might have been discussing the merger of two multinationals. I’d wanted the unions involved from day one: the rights of the teachers, my colleagues, on whom I would have to depend totally, were as important as saving local authority money, despite the swingeing cuts. The only male teacher at Wray Episcopi opted for voluntary redundancy, on the grounds that teaching wasn’t what it used to be and he wanted to live long enough to enjoy his retirement. No one could argue with that, but I drew the line at recruiting a young, untried replacement. Being trained was one thing; knowing the job inside out was another. The latest statistics showed that new recruits to the profession generally stuck it out for only three years. So I wanted someone battle-hardened, even though that would make a bigger dent in my staffing budget. I was also quite keen to recruit a man, to give the boys a role model since all the other staff at Wray Episcopi were women. On the other hand, I would really have liked my deputy there to be a woman, to balance Tom, my deputy at Wrayford. But I wouldn’t get any deputy till Christmas at the earliest, given notice periods, unless I could snap up one who’d been made redundant and wouldn’t mind a bit of rural downsizing.

  At last the job descriptions were drawn up, and advertisements placed. All I had to do now was watch and wait – and pray I could make myself heard, in every sense, at the interviews.

  After the overwrought garrulity of the school, in one way I enjoyed the enforced quiet. In another I loathed it. I discovered I was more sociable than I’d realised: I wouldn’t have had much of a career as a contemplative nun. I missed my elbows-on-bar gossips with Diane, the landlady of the Jolly Cricketers, who had sent me some magical ice cream, assuring me when I texted my thanks that she was simply using me as a guinea pig to test her new machine. She might even have been serious.

  With only the birds and loud agricultural machinery for company, then, I followed Mike Evans’ advice. I bought a bike. I bought a helmet. I bought a hi-vis waistcoat. I bought gloves. What I found I couldn’t do was go the whole Lycra-wearing hog. I saw the point, I really did, but I wasn’t into that sort of statement. Overstatement, in my case. Any athletic skills I had had always involved keeping my feet on the ground, or at least running and jumping around on it. So, with everyday trainers on my feet and clad in old jeans and tops, I got on the saddle, waving a dubious Nosey goodbye. At first I confined myself to nice, secluded, dedicated cycle paths, even if that meant hoisting the bike on to the car – yes, I’d bought a bike rack too – and driving there. Gradually I progressed to country lanes, but I soon learnt that these might not be as idyllic as you’d think – learnt the hard way, too.