One Plus One

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Tanzie

Twenty-six cars sat in the car park at St. Anne's. Two rows of thirteen shiny four-wheel-drives faced each other, sliding in and out of the spaces at an average angle of 41 degrees before the next in line moved in. 

Tanzie watched them as she and Mum crossed the road from the bus stop, the drivers talking illegally into phones or mouthing at bug-eyed blond babies in the rear seats. Mum lifted her chin and fiddled with her house keys in her free hand, as if they were actually her car keys and she and Tanzie just happened to have parked somewhere nearby. Mum kept glancing behind her. Tanzie guessed she was worried she was going to bump into one of her cleaning clients, who would ask what she was doing there. 

Tanzie had never been inside St. Anne's, although she'd passed it on the bus at least ten times because the National Health Service dentist was on this road. From the outside, there was just an endless hedge, trimmed to exactly 90 degrees (she wondered if the gardener used a protractor), and big trees where the branches hung low, sweeping out across the playing fields as if they were there to shelter the children below. 

The children at St. Anne's did not swing bags at each other's heads or back each other against the wall to steal lunch money. There were no weary-sounding teachers herding the teenagers into classrooms. The girls had not rolled their skirts six times over at the waistband. Not a single person was smoking. Her mother gave her hand a little squeeze. Tanzie wished she didn't look so nervous. "It's nice, isn't it, Mum?" 

She nodded. "Yes." It came out as a squeak.

"Mr. Tsvangarai told me that every single one of their sixth-formers who did maths got A or A starred. That's good, isn't it?" 

"Amazing." 

Tanzie pulled a bit at Mum's hand so they could get to the headmaster's office faster. "Do you think Norman will miss me when I'm doing the long days?" 

"The long days." 

"St. Anne's doesn't finish till six. And there's maths club on Tuesdays and Thursdays - I'd definitely want to do that." 

Her mother glanced at her. She looked really tired. She was always tired these days. She put on one of those smiles that wasn't really a smile at all, and they went in.

"Hello, Mrs. Thomas. Hello, Costanza. It's very good to meet you. Do sit down." 

The headmaster's study had a high ceiling with white plaster rosettes every twenty centimeters, and tiny rosebuds exactly halfway between them. The room was stuffed with old furniture and through a large bay window a man on a ride-on mower traveled slowly up and down a cricket pitch. On a small table somebody had laid out a tray of coffee and biscuits. You could tell they were homemade. Mum used to make the same kind before Dad left. 

Tanzie sat down on the edge of the sofa and gazed at the two men opposite. The one with the mustache smiled like the nurse did before she gave you an injection. Mum had pulled her bag onto her lap and Tanzie could see her holding her hand over the corner Norman had chewed. Her leg was jiggling. 

"This is Mr. Cruikshank. He's the head of maths. And I'm Mr. Daly. I've been head here for the past two years." 

Tanzie looked up from her biscuit. "Do you do chords?" 

"We do," Mr. Cruikshank said.

"And probability?"

"That, too."