Page 112 of Bare
'Neil. Come in.'
'Do you have ten minutes.'
'I have fifteen if you need them. Sit down. Are you well.'
'Yes. I am well. I am here because I want to tell you something in person before you hear it from anybody else. There are two things.'
'Go on.'
'I'm in a relationship with a man. Another teacher. Rory Cavanaugh. The relationship began after the mural project started. I want you to know from me and not from anyone else.'
Mrs Webb put down her pen at the wordman. She did not pick it up again.
'Thank you for telling me, Neil.'
'There is a second thing.' He had rehearsed this one harder. 'I know what happened to Mark Holbrook. I was here then. I saw what the governing body did not stop. I have never raised it. I am raising it now because I need to know, before I go any further, that if a parent rings this school to complain about me because of who I am in a relationship with, the parent will be told, politely, that they are raising a matter which is not a matter.'
Mrs Webb was quiet for about three seconds. In the economy of a head's office, three seconds of silence was a long time.
'Neil.'
'Yes.'
'I need to say three things and I need you to let me say them in order. Are you going to let me say them in order.'
'Yes.'
'One. Mark Holbrook should not have left this school. I was deputy then. I was in two of those meetings. I should have broken the room I was in. I did not break the room. I have carried that for eleven years and I carry it now. If you want to know what I have done with it, the answer is: I have spent eleven years making sure I am a head who would break the room now. That is the short version. The long version we can have over a coffee at some point if you want it.'
Neil said nothing. Which was the correct response.
'Two. I am the head of this school. My door is open on the subject of your relationship, or not open, as you prefer. It is none of my business unless it becomes a safeguarding matter, and it is not going to become a safeguarding matter because the person you are in a relationship with is a freelance artist who has completed his contract with this school and is not in a position of authority over any pupil. I am telling you this in advance because I want you to know that if a parent rings this school to complain about you, that parent will be told, politely, by me personally, that they are raising a matter which is not a matter. Which is not a hypothetical. Howard Prentice rang me four weeks ago. I suspect you knew, Sue is Sue, and in case you did not: the call was brief, the call was handled, the call is logged, and the call will not be the subject of any correspondence to the governing body because Mr Prentice has had a chance to think about what he was saying and has elected, wisely, not to say it again. I did not tell you at the time because I did not need you to carry it. I am telling you now because I want you to understand that thing two, when I said it, was already a thing I had done, not a thing I was promising.'
'Three.' Mrs Webb leaned forward. 'Some point in the next term I would like to invite the two of you to a small supper at my house. My husband teaches secondary geography and has a very dull cellar of wines he bought on holiday in the Loire in 1994. He would like to bore you about them. I would like him to have the opportunity.'
Neil looked at her. Mrs Webb, fifty-nine, two children grown, a husband who taught secondary geography, a cellar of dull wines from the Loire. The concreteness of the invitation hit him like a hand on the sternum.
'Thank you.'
'Don't thank me for doing my job, Neil. You can thank me for thing three if you like, but thing one and thing two are just the job.'
He laughed. He did not expect to laugh in this office today.
'Is there anything else.'
'No. That was it. That was all of it.'
'Good. Go and teach your second period. I believe you have Year 9 and An Inspector Calls.'
'Yes.'
'Good luck. I find the Birlings improve with age. The audience, not the play.'
He stood up. Walked to the door. Stopped with his hand on the frame.
'Mrs Webb.'
'Yes.'
