‘Well, I’ll sing that then,’ said Kacey, mollified.
Superhead looked slightly askance at me and I trembled pleasurably beneath the weight of that severe brow. Should I have forced Kacey to sing words she wasn’t comfortable with?
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Though there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being a lesbian, as you know perfectly well.’
‘I know that, Miss. Just wanted to be clear. I mean, Maria’s straight anyway, innit, or none of this killing and stuff would have happened to begin with. Thought it might be confusing for the audience.’
Well saved, Kacey. Superhead’s brow unfurrowed and he began directing people to their places for her song.
‘I feel pretty,’ she sang with such a magnificent glottal stop that I had to remind her she was playing a Hispanic girl, not Eliza Doolittle.
‘Are you a lesbian, miss?’ asked Yousef from 11JG.
‘No way, man,’ Lanh answered him, ‘cos, like, Mr Sim’s balling her, innit?’
‘Get out,’ growled Superhead. ‘Come back when you can show a bit more respect.’
They slouched off while I died a thousand deaths. Now Superhead would think that Gareth and I were still an item. Not that it mattered, I supposed. Kacey and her girlfriends twirled around the imaginary fabric store, dancing with imaginary dummies, and Superhead moved closer until he was able to talk to me without being heard by the kids.
‘Are you off anywhere this half-term?’
‘Me? No. How about you?’
‘Off to London tomorrow. Family visit. Look, do you have time for a drink after the rehearsal? Bit of a wind down?’
I looked up at him, needing to see what his face looked like when he asked me out. It looked like a normal face, handsome but normal. He wasn’t anxious for my reply. It was merely a friendly request. I wasn’t sure whether that was good or bad.
‘Yeah, that’d be nice,’ I said, striking a balance between nonchalance and biting-off-of-hand. At least, I hoped so.
‘Good. Not the local, though, eh?’
‘They don’t let you in without Pompey dots.’
He laughed at my reference to the favoured local hardman tattoo.
‘Somewhere south of Albert Road then?’
‘Perfect.’
‘So is that where you’re from then? London?’ I asked, once he had set down a wine spritzer for me and a real ale for him at a pleasant pub with a roaring fire just off the main drag.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I suppose you know I was at a school in Camberwell before coming here?’
‘Oh, we all heard the stories. From lawless no-go area to top of the league tables in three years. Very impressive. You can already see that St Sebastian’s is starting to pull itself up by the bootstraps too. I got all the way from the canteen to the staff room without having to break up a single fight yesterday.’
He smiled, gratified no doubt by my blatant fangirling.
‘It’s a challenge, but I like challenges,’ he said.
‘Hence trying to get the kids into musical theatre,’ I said. ‘Shall we go for opera next term?’
Oh God, don’t look at me like that!It was a kind of indulgent, avuncular look, but there was something else in it, an interest that was just keen enough to make my heart constrict as if bound in rubber bands.
‘We need more teachers like you on the staff,’ he said. ‘Positive. Interested in the children as individuals. Fostering high expectations.’
I was too flattered to speak.