What Was She Thinking? by Zoë Heller Read Free Book Online Page A

…”
    Sheba nodded.
    “We won Liverpool three—nil,” Bangs shouted woodenly. He made a fist and punched the air triumphantly. “Yesss.”
    “Ahh.” Sheba was now concentrating on squashing a tea bag against the side of her cup. “How satisfactory.” She spooned out the tea bag, poured in some milk.
    “That’s … that’s a lovely blouse you have on,” Bangs said. He was pointing, rather rudely, at Sheba’s chest.
    “What?” Sheba was momentarily nonplussed. She picked up a corner of her blouse, as if to remind herself of what she had on, and gazed at it skeptically. “Huh. Well, thank you.”
    “Is it new, then?” Bangs said quickly.
    “No, I’ve had it for years, actually.”
    “Yeah? Is that right? Well, it doesn’t look old at all. It’s dead nice. You should wear it more often.”
    “Oh … okay,” Sheba said, laughing.
    I had finished making my tea. Elaine Clifford and a French teacher called Michael Self approached the counter now, to prepare their instant coffee. But I remained where I was, listening with a kind of irritated fascination to the exchange between Sheba and Bangs. It amazed me that Sheba would bestow kind attention on such a cretin while ignoring me.
    “So, em—what do you think of my shirt?” Bangs was saying. He stepped back from us and, with his hands on his hips, made two twirling rotations in imitation of a fashion model. It was the kind of larky behaviour that men like him—ungainly, fundamentally without comic gift—are best advised to avoid.
    The garment for which he was seeking Sheba’s approval was a sky blue office shirt with a stiff, white collar and one large breast pocket on which a designer logo had been emblazoned. Judging from the symmetrical fold marks that scored his chest, it was a brand-new purchase.
    Sheba put down her mug and examined Bangs gravely. “Oh yes,” she said. “Lovely.” She wasn’t at all convincing. She spoke as if she were praising a child’s potato print. But Bangs responded to her approbation with undoubting, ingenuous delight. “Yeah? You like it?”
    “Yes,” Sheba said. “It’s great. Very smart.”
    “I wasn’t sure about … the collar and everything, you know. I thought it might be a bit flash for me.”
    “Oh no,” Sheba said. “It’s a great shirt.”
    I couldn’t stand it any longer. The two of them were twittering away at each other as if I didn’t exist. I groped for something
with which to reassert my presence. “Your children are educated privately, aren’t they, Sheba?” I blurted.
    Sheba leaned towards me with a smile, holding a cupped hand to her ear. “Sorry, Barbara,” she said, “what was that?”
    “I said, you send your children to private schools, don’t you?” It sounded a good deal more hostile than I had intended. There was a silence. “Isn’t that right?” I added.
    Bangs and Elaine and Michael looked at me, startled. Then all three of them smirked. At this stage, everyone on staff knew about Sheba’s two children attending private schools—the French teacher Linda Preel had got it out of her early on in the term—but no one had yet confronted her on the issue. They were all too sissy. Personally, I have no quarrel with private education. My first job in teaching was at a fee-paying school in Dumfries and, had it not been for certain personal difficulties that I experienced with staff members at that institution, I might well be teaching there still. For my simple-minded colleagues, however, private education is a sin, pure and simple. It’s up there with fur coats and fox hunting, on their all-time top ten list of Things They Reelly Reelly Disapprove Of.
    Sheba turned to me with a slightly puzzled look on her face. “Yes,” she said. “My daughter is at boarding school, actually. She was at Maitland Park Comp for a bit, but she didn’t like it there much.”
    “I see,” I said. “And your son? Has he also stated an objection to state school oiks?”
    Sheba smiled