Read Online The Butterfly Effect by Julie McLaren - Free Book Online

and her delusions about singing. The rest of the set had got better and better as the evening progressed, with a great crowd at the front, dancing and cheering wildly at the end of each song. Naturally some of that was down to drink and some of it was down to pre-Christmas bonhomie, but the art of a good pub band is to maximise the goodwill in the room, so Anton said, and that’s what we did that night.
    And that wasn’t all. Richie pushed his way right up to the stage when the encore was over and caught my eye. He crooked a finger and mouthed ‘please?’ so I sat down on the edge of the stage whilst the others put down their instruments and turned off the amps. After all, a tambourine doesn’t need a lot of maintenance.
    “You were fantastic,” he said.
    “Thanks.”
    “I’m so glad I came. I nearly didn’t. I thought you might not want me to, but then I thought, oh, what the hell. I’ll hide at the back.”
    “You didn’t hide at the back though,” I replied. There was a little smile hovering around my lips and it matched the one on his.
    “No, would you have preferred me to?”
    “It’s a free country,” I said, but I was smiling properly now. I couldn’t help it.
    “Does that mean I can buy you a drink?” he said.
    I couldn’t see any reason to refuse. The others were trooping off to the bar and there was nothing to do for a while, so he bought drinks and we stood by the stage as there was still nowhere to sit. I won’t say that I had completely forgotten about Greg. I did scan the room for him from time to time, but mostly I was still on such a high that nothing could spoil it. It was only a drink and a chat, but I could tell that Richie did like me after all and, there was no denying it, I liked him too.
    Nothing more had happened. The time came to clear up, and Richie had said goodbye, see you on Monday, in a fairly casual way, but it was enough. There would be no more avoiding him in the staffroom. No more awkward moments or pinched smiles. What would be would be, but I had that warm feeling inside that told me life was good. Greg had obviously been there to see the band rather than harass me, and the fact that he had smiled so broadly simply meant there were no hard feelings. Result.
    By the time Monday came, I was still buzzing. Olga had phoned to say how well I’d done, so that was good, but in my hierarchy of things to feel happy about, Richie was number one. We can’t help the old biological drives, can we? In terms of achievements, the audience response to my song should have been way up there at the top, but the fact that Richie had come, had talked to me, had looked at me in that certain way, had kept it down at number two. The apparent resolution of the Greg problem was there at number three, slightly ahead of the rapidly approaching school holiday and the chance to relax and catch up on lost sleep. With so many things to feel happy about, even the thought of Christmas Day with my parents did not seem so bad.
    The remaining days of the term flew past. There were some difficult moments, times when I struggled to control classes that were becoming increasingly demob happy, but mostly, I coped. It was comforting to know that I was not the only one, and I was able to join in with weary conversations around the coffee machine in the knowledge that this was part of the deal. Teaching is often an uneasy truce between joy and anxiety, but as long as the joy outweighs the anxiety, you carry on. I only wish that was all I had to worry about now, whether the noise from the Year 9 class would filter out into the corridor, or whether enough of them would pass the end of term test.
    The staff Christmas party was directly after school on the last day of term. The pupils would be let out early, and then we would have an hour or so to remove all evidence of Christmas from our tutor rooms before sharing a buffet and some drinks. It was more or less obligatory to attend, as the Head liked to show his