It had been a week since Alex had asked her to teach an art class, a week since she’d agreed, and in precisely three minutes twenty-four Year Six children would be coming in for their first art lesson. She was terrified. She’d spent endless evenings on her laptop, garnering ideas from the Internet, going over lesson plans. She’d spent an enjoyable afternoon with Diana Rigby, sorting through the school’s craft supplies, joking and laughing as they discarded ancient bottles of poster paint with dried-up drips down the sides, and tried every felt-tip marker in a box of five hundred to make sure they worked. Diana had seemed more cheerful; she’d told Lucy she was taking her two boys down to Manchester for the half-term break at the end of October, to see Andrew and look at properties. “I thought I should at least have a say in what flat he buys,” she’d said. “And you know, ‘if the mountain won’t come to Mohammed . . .’”
