Upstairs, the classy fur-collared mother – whose name Auriol still couldn’t remember – was gazing out of the window, no doubt admiring her family’s extensive acreage. Standing beside her, Auriol wondered whether to casually mention the need for a forest school.

‘So there’s more than one applicant here today, is there?’ the mother asked jealously. Her pronounced lower lip – it had to be cosmetically enhanced – was affecting her speech, the drawling vowels sounding almost foreign.

Auriol was thrilled that the mother might imagine places at this school were as hotly contested as her son’s alma mater (the name of which she’d also forgotten, but she knew it was one of the Cotswold preps parents put their children’s names down for at birth).

‘Oh lots!’ she lied gushily. ‘Everyone wants to be a part of Maggers. I’m practically turning parents away. Remind me, Mrs – um…’ She groped for her glasses to look at her computer screen, but the school logo had long since kicked in over her calendar meaning she’d have to look up the password in her diary again. ‘Your son is how old?’

‘Just over a year.’

‘Nothing like getting the name down early! But I thought you said…’ She copied MYP455W0RD laboriously from diary to keyboard. Aha! ‘Kester is five?’

‘Kester Forsyth probably is five.’ The woman turned back from the window, eyebrows raised, the pierced one glinting. ‘His mother’s just leaving the building.’

Auriol looked from Mrs P. Forsyth’s details on her screen to the plump-lipped usurper. The pendant on her necklace bore a big sparkly B.

‘Is this what they call a Specsavers’ moment?’ she asked in a small voice.

‘It’s what they call your lucky day that I’m here, Mrs Bullock.’

For the first time, Auriol realised that what she’d taken as a Chelsea drawl was an Irish accent. ‘And who are you?’

‘Bridget Mazur, your job applicant.’ She offered her hand and shook the Head’s firmly. ‘Hire me now and you won’t muddle up your appointments again. My synchronised diaries are things of beauty.’

‘Get her back in here, Mrs Mazur, and the job’s yours.’

‘I’m not authorised to do that.’

‘You are now.’

The phone on her desk rang with perfect theatricality. Auriol plucked it up, using her sing-song receptionist voice. ‘Compton Magna Primary School, how may I help?’

‘Auriol Bullock,’ droned the caller. Bound to be a sales rep.

‘One moment, please.’ She covered the receiver and mouthed very important call, waving the usurper outside to catch her runaway mother then, settling back and reaching for the biscuit drawer, she switched her tone to dragon. ‘Mrs Bullock speaking.’

Moments later, a packet of M&S shortbreads went flying. Ofsted would be inspecting Maggers the following morning. All thoughts of social influencers and forest school forgotten, she rang Mrs Beadle. ‘It’s a Code Red, repeat Code Red! We need to get the PTA booze out of the kitchen and COSHH to assess the barbecue gas.’

Unlike most head teachers, Auriol thrived on drama, always relishing the buzz of an inspection, like discovering a few minutes before curtain-up that a critic is in the theatre. Clicking her knuckles, she started making a list, top of which was Hire Mrs Thing as Secretary and Get Hair Done.