‘True as I’m standing here,’ Rose told me. ‘ “That’ll be Harry Tompkins’s’ she said. “He had a tooth fall out a couple of weeks ago and his class get changed for PE in the music room. He’ll have no doubt left it behind.” ’

‘And was she right?’

‘She was.’

‘Wow,’ I gasped, ‘that’s some kind of amazing.’

Beamish was walking up and down, cleaning the floor with a massive sweeping contraption which opened up scissor like and had a sort of elongated mop head.

‘Standard sweeping technique,’ he winked with a swagger, ‘all in the caretakers’ handbook of efficient cleaning.’

‘Not you, you idiot,’ I laughed and he pretended to look offended. ‘I was talking about Mrs Anderson being amazing, not you.’

‘Oh well now,’ he said, making one last lunge into the nearest corner, ‘she really is amazing. I couldn’t even hope to compete with her levels of brilliance. What’s she done now?’

‘Glove identification procedure,’ I said, mimicking him. ‘All in the efficient school receptionist’s manual.’

‘She wrote that,’ Beamish laughed.

‘You’re a hotel receptionist, aren’t you, Hattie?’ asked Rose.

‘I was until I was made redundant.’

‘You don’t fancy a move into education, do you?’

‘No way,’ I told her. ‘I couldn’t hold a candle to your Mrs A. I couldn’t cope with all that early morning parental pressure.’

‘I think Rose was meaning a move into the classroom, Hattie,’ said Beamish. ‘And I still think that should be your next move too. I believe I might have mentioned it before.’

He had of course and I had managed to successfully sideline the suggestion, but now Rose looked poised to join in too.

‘I’m there already, aren’t I?’ I joked, looking about me.

‘I mean permanently,’ said Beamish seriously. ‘You’re wasted working in a hotel. You should forget about management training and look for a job in a school.’

‘After I’ve moved to Abu Dhabi you mean,’ I reminded him.

‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘why not?’

‘I’m not sure how things like that work out there,’ I told him. ‘I’ve hardly got a wealth of educational experience or teaching qualifications to draw on and I daresay it’s nowhere near as easy as you’re suggesting.’

‘Then perhaps you should find out,’ said Rose, moving to stand next to him. ‘You’re a natural in the classroom, Hattie, and it would be a real shame to let a talent like yours go to waste.’

‘That it would,’ Beamish wholeheartedly agreed. ‘That it would.’

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

After the school fair Dolly was desperate to get the decorations up in the cottage, and as Beamish was going to be putting her spare tree back in the loft, he kindly offered to get down the rest of the boxes so we could set to work that weekend.