not spent a year in the same place since you qualified!’
Fanny said, ‘Yes. Well. As I was explaining—’
‘Do you envisage spending longer than a year at Fiddleford?’
‘Certainly I do. I envisage spending many years here, helping to establish and nurture a learning culture and environment which—’
‘Mind you, that’s probably just as well, of course,’ he interrupted, ignoring her reply. ‘Because the government says it’s given us this time to improve. Ha. When we all know perfectly well –’ he glanced around at his fellow board members, who were all suddenly staring very hard at their notes, ‘what they’re actually giving us is this time not to improve. Isn’t that right? So they can feel quite justified in closing the ruddy place down. Thereby saving themselves a great deal of money. And frankly, Miss Flynn, with our track record I can’t say I blame them…Had you thought of that possibility, Miss Flynn?’
Fanny blinked. Of course she had.
‘Which gets you off pretty much scot-free, if I’m not mistaken. To continue your –’ he glanced down at her CV once again, ‘really – admirably adventurous life, as per before. With a short but impressive stint as a head teacher under your belt thrown in. Isn’t that right, Miss Flynn?’
And all she could do was blink, and blink again. ‘That’s not true,’ she said eventually, but she was blushing because of course, in a way, when he put it like that…
In the end Mrs Thomas (for fear of losing their one and only candidate) intervened to shut him up. Fanny, full of relief, and also guilt, threw the General a shamefaced sideways glance and caught him scowling at the outgoing headmistress with such intent ferocity that for most of the rest of the interview she’d had to struggle very hard not to laugh.
So Fanny remembers the General with a mixture of awe, annoyance and some affectionate respect. More to the point she knows all about the beautiful, businesslike daughter-in-law Jo Maxwell McDonald, and her ravishingly attractive husband Charlie, because she has read about them in magazines. Since opening their famous Retreat a few years ago Charlie and Jo have both become minor celebrities themselves.
Anyway, Fanny isn’t used to speaking to people she’s read about in newspapers. She’s a little disconcerted. ‘Hello, new neighbour,’ she says goofily. ‘How lovely. Thank you.’
‘That is Fanny Flynn, isn’t it?’ Jo says briskly. ‘Our new head teacher? Is that Fanny Flynn?’
‘Yes. Sorry. Being silly. Yes, this is Fanny.’
‘Only I thought it might all be terribly chaotic, since you’ve just arrived, and I wondered if you might like a bit of lunch…Plus I’ve got a small proposition to put to you. Hope you don’t mind.’
‘Ooh. Very intriguing!’ Immediately Fanny pictures herself tipping up at the famous Manor, still in her worn-out combats and dirty trainers, her shaggy mop of curly hair unwashed for over a week. She imagines sitting down to eat at an enormous mahogany dining table; Fanny Flynn (and Brute of course), Jo and Charlie Maxwell McDonald – and whichever glamorous, wicked celebrities they have staying up there today.
But then she looks around her at the peeling wallpaper. She notices the skirting board at her feet is sprouting mushrooms. ‘I’d love to, and I’d love to hear your proposition, whatever it may be, but really I can’t, not today,’ she says sadly. ‘There’s so much to do in here, and term starts tomorrow. I really ought to—’
‘Plus actually, while you’re on the line, I should remind you about the limbo evening on Friday night. You’ve heard about it, haven’t you?’
‘The limbo evening? No. I must admit—’
‘That’s what was worrying me, you see. I put a thing through your door but perhaps you haven’t had time—It’s in the village hall. Mrs Hooper – you’ll meet her, she lives at the post office – she’s brought in a man all the way from Exeter to teach us, and I’m terrified no one’s going to turn up.’
‘Oh, I’ll come,’ Fanny says cheerfully. ‘Why not? What time does it start?’
‘Six thirty. Very early. Everything starts terribly early in Fiddleford, God knows why.’
‘Keeps us out of the pub, I suppose.’
‘Hmm?’
‘Nothing.’
‘In any case, it should be a good opportunity for you to—’ But her children’s playful yells have by now reached a pitch which even their highly focused mother can no longer ignore. ‘Oh God, hang on a moment—’
Fanny peers at her crop of mushrooms and listens idly while Jo, with stirring management skills, brokers a moment’s silence from her two-and-a-half-year-old twins.
‘Sorry, Fanny.’ She comes back to the telephone. ‘Where was I?’
‘A good opportunity, I think.’
‘Exactly. It’s such a good opportunity for you to meet people. Tickets are only £3 and you have to bring your own drink, but don’t worry about that because we’ll be bringing plenty. And £1 goes towards repairing the disabled ramp in the churchyard. So it’s all in a good cause. What are you up to right now? Shall I come and fetch you in the car? You won’t want to run the gauntlet of that horrible wolf-pack at the gate, and lunch is more or less on the table. Why don’t I come down and pick you up?’
‘No, really, Jo. I can’t—’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. It’s no trouble at all. I’ll be down in three minutes. And it’s vegetarian, by the way. It’s always vegetarian with the children. Obviously. So no need to worry about that!’
There are no wicked celebrities in Fiddleford Manor’s worn and welcoming old kitchen that day; only the two rumbustious children and the elegantly jean-clad Jo, looking just as she does in the magazines, Fanny thinks. Possibly slightly better. She is long, lean and fit, clear eyed and clear skinned, and her sunkissed, clean brown hair is cut into a perfectly understated short, shaggy bob. She makes Fanny feel short, and as though she ought to have taken that bath this morning.
‘No one else? Only us?’ Fanny asks, peering hopefully round the corner of the door. But Jo explains (and she is infuriatingly discreet about who’s staying) that Retreat guests usually pay extra to eat in a private dining room at Grey McShane’s Gatehouse Restaurant at the bottom of the drive. ‘Thank goodness!’ she laughs. ‘In the early days we never had any privacy at all!’
So while Fanny sits at the large oak table pushing saltfree kidney-bean salad from one side of her plate to the other and feeling dirty, there are only the twins to distract Jo from providing an uninterrupted run-down of who’s who in the village.
‘So,’ asks Jo with a malicious glint in her eye, ‘what do you make of your new landlord, Mr Guppy?’
Fanny’s met Ian Guppy only once, back in March, when he showed her round the cottage. He is tiny – hardly
