Hiya Folks. A rehearsed line, a new name, another uniform: the company’s charcoal suit and natty mauve scarf. But it was definitely her. The company must have been her father’s, which would explain the mystery of how she’d acquired a job at all. As soon as she spoke I remembered her voice: like a baby’s voice, breathy, dropping letters from her words. I remembered wondering whether it was an attempt to be cute, that voice, or worse – an attempt to be sexy. It rankled when I taught her; it rankled with me now.

Pete was already narrowing his eyes, scrutinising her.

‘You must be Mr Ford,’ she said. She closed her mouth and smiled with it and let her gaze drift back to me.

Cilla wasn’t stupid, exactly, and nor was she ugly. There were plenty of ugly, stupid girls who got through their schooldays just fine. Cilla was off. She had a musty smell, like a forgotten shoe dusted with mildew. She played the recorder, an instrument that everyone else – including the music teachers – regarded as a toy. She did nothing to extract or conceal the whiteheads that mushroomed along her hairline.

But the school, a private girls’ school, was genteel. No-one was openly unkind to Cilla, no-one called her names. Instead, stories circulated: she had let a tampon rot inside her and nearly died of toxic shock. She had licked a kidney that she was supposed to be dissecting. And so she seemed not only odd, but unclean, possibly contagious, and the other girls avoided her with the instinct that makes herd animals avoid any of their number too sick or small or deformed to survive. I didn’t blame them. I felt it too, the urge to take a step back from her, to try not to breathe in the air she exhaled, or touch her hand or her hair by accident.

And here I was, shaking that hand, trying to ignore the desire I felt to wipe my palm on my jeans.

A quick assessment told me that in the decade since I’d seen her she had grown taller, but not by much; had filled out, but not by much. Her bra was slack, and she had the loose-fleshed look of someone who does nothing to maintain their muscle tone.

If this sounds cruel, I suppose it’s because what they say about gym teachers is true: we are cruel. Had I felt a certain pleasure seeing someone pitch a ball into Cilla’s doughy, unformed body? Did I enjoy watching her noodly arms shake as they tried and failed to climb a rope? Yes, and yes. But I was not motivated by a particular sadism towards Cilla. I was angry with any girl who couldn’t wheeze her way through a single lap, or complete an entire push-up.