and eight.’
He burst out laughing.
‘It’s not really funny,’ Sidonie remarked reproachfully. ‘Their English improved dramatically as it happened.’
‘I don’t quite see the connection,’ he said, still grinning.
‘It’s simple.’ She looked surprised. ‘We would only have a game if everyone had done their homework and concentrated properly in the lesson.’
‘Quite simple,’ he marvelled. ‘But the school didn’t approve?’
Sidonie sighed again. ‘They said I could be turning them into compulsive gamblers.’
‘What a prospect—you might have been better with Snap and Happy Families.’
Sidonie shrugged. That’s another of my contentions that they didn’t agree with—I think children are often a lot brighter than they’re given credit for.’
‘Well, I agree with you there, but you didn’t actually use money—or did you?’
‘Oh, no, we used broad beans.’
He grinned and offered her an olive.
‘Thanks.’ She bit into it reflectively. ‘So.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘So? Your teaching experience sounds not only limited but disastrous yet you were quite sure you would get this job—forgive me but that sounds a bit rash.’
‘It was,’ Sidonie agreed gloomily. ‘But I really wanted to get out of Melbourne and...’ She trailed off and sipped some more wine.
‘What are these over-qualifications you have?’
She brightened. ‘A BA—I actually majored in English Literature—and a Bachelor of Science.’
‘I’m impressed,’ Mike Brennan murmured. ‘But it seems a rather unusual combination.’
‘Unfortunately—’ Sidonie looked wry ‘—I’m rather unusual. If you must know I quite often feel a bit of a freak and never more so than today,’ she added with a grimace. ‘But I can assure you it’s possible to be interested in science and arts.’
‘I do apologise, I didn’t mean to sound patronising,’ he said gravely. ‘Perhaps you should pursue the scientific side—career-wise, that is—rather than the educational side.’
‘I was,’ she said briefly.
‘So?’
‘I was bored to tears,’ she said solemnly.
‘That doesn’t—does that make sense in light of what you’ve just told me?’ he queried wryly.
‘Probably not.’ She drained her glass. ‘It all rather goes back to my father, who died fairly recently. He was a nuclear physicist, you see, and he could never understand why mechanics was my forte. And when I wanted to get out of the laboratory and actually work among motorbikes and so on—they really fascinate me mechanically—he got very upset. He said it was no job for a girl, which was really strange because he’d always treated me as a son until then.’ She blinked away a tear. ‘So I stayed on, well, with just that one stint teaching—he didn’t mind that—until he died. I do beg your pardon.’ She drew a hanky from her pocket and blew her nose. ‘I’m normally not in the least emotional.’
Mike Brennan said thoughtfully, ‘Losing your father and your boyfriend can be emotional experiences, I should imagine. But what’s stopping you working with motorbikes now?’
Sidonie twisted her hanky. ‘Everyone I approached laughed at me.’
Mike Brennan laughed himself. ‘I wonder why?’ he murmured and poured her another glass of wine.
Sidonie looked down at herself. ‘I know why,’ she said with gentle melancholy and reflected that if one glass of wine made her feel this sorry for herself she ought not to have any more, but it was oddly comforting to be able to be so honest. ‘There just doesn’t seem to be a role in life for me.’
‘At—twenty or so...’ he hazarded, ‘I wouldn’t regard it as a blight on your life yet.’
‘Twenty-three,’ Sidonie said drily, ‘and that’s the kind of facile thing people say but I do assure you it’s no help at all.’
He looked at her thoughtfully, not in least perturbed by her intended slight, apparently, then he said idly, ‘Could I make a less facile suggestion? Don’t wear your hair like that, throw away those clothes—and life might just surprise you, Sidonie Hill.’
‘Ah,’ Sidonie responded. ‘No, it wouldn’t. It’s still the same me, you see. Just as you would probably be highly uncomfortable in anything other than shorts and a T-shirt, and with a decent haircut, I wouldn’t be any less me. And if you were implying that men might be tempted to take more of an interest in me were I to do those things you suggested—two points.’ She gestured and reached for her glass. ‘Life might certainly surprise me but would it actually improve? I wonder—’
He broke in with a half-smile, ‘Why shouldn’t it? Or do you have something against men finding you attractive?’
‘Not the right man, no.’ It was her turn to look faintly quizzical. ‘They don’t seem to be too thick on the ground, however. But you know, it’s not so much men—or the lack of them—that bothers me. It’s—this lack of purpose, not being able to find the right job, the right niche. That’s what really bothers me.’
‘On the other hand, is that not why you left Melbourne? Because of your failed—relationship?’
Sidonie frowned. ‘Well, obviously it was one reason. It’s not very pleasant to be thrown over for another woman; I can’t deny that it made a bit of a dent in my self-esteem but I’ve got the feeling it might not have worked anyway.’
‘And why is that?’ Mike Brennan queried with a straight face.
Sidonie chewed her lip. ‘I know it sounds odd and what I really mean is this, I think...’ She paused. ‘We were good friends and perhaps we confused that with being in love. It was certainly all very nice and comfortable but when he fell in love with this other girl it sort of dawned on me that there’d been no real passion in our relationship. No heart-stirring stuff, no feeling breathlessly happy and not wanting to be away from each other for a moment. Which is how he felt about her,’ she said ruefully. ‘And of course I was then led to wonder whether I was capable of inducing that kind of thing in a man. It’s not always a help to be interested in the kind of things I am, from a man’s point of view, I’m beginning to perceive. I think, speaking very generally, of course, men still prefer women to be very feminine.’
‘And you don’t think you are?’ Mike Brennan said in a totally deadpan way.
‘Not outwardly,’ Sidonie replied, her brow furrowed as she concentrated. ‘Take my choice in clothes for one thing—I’m really happiest in a pair of overalls so I never bother much about them and when I do I never get it right. I have a lot of trouble with my hair, I—’ But
