Emily Watson stood trembling before the headmistress, crumpled payslips clenched in her fist. “Miss Finch, please! Don’t sack me! I’ve two kids, the mortgage! I swear I’ll fix it!”
“Mrs. Watson,” Roberta Finch replied coolly, “you falsified your degree certificate. That’s a very serious breach of professional—”
“I was going to finish it! Honest!” Emily burst out, tears suddenly tracing paths down her cheeks. “Just one year left at the Institute! Give me a chance?”
The headmistress of Eastborough Primary regarded the young woman. Emily had taught there three years. The children adored her, parents praised her. But rules were rules.
“Fine. You have one month to present the genuine article. Otherwise…”
“Thank you! Thank you ever so much!” Emily bolted for the door, then spun back. “How… how did you know?”
“County Education audit. Spot check. Your details didn’t quite tally.”
Emily fled the office, nearly bowling over Albert Pendlebury, the PE master. A tall, grey-haired man of fifty-five steadied her elbow. “Everything alright, Mrs. Watson? You’re as pale as unwashed laundry!”
“Oh, Mr. Pendlebury,” she sniffled, “it’s hopeless! They’re sacking me!”
“Sacking you? Whatever for?”
Emily floundered. The truth felt mortifying. Albert was fiercely principled, reputation spotless, been at the school twenty years. “My paperwork… faulty. Apparently.”
“Faulty? How? Perhaps I can help?”
She looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes. Albert had always been kindly, almost fatherly – offering sweets, asking after her kids. Since the divorce, Emily had missed that simple male support terribly.
“My degree… There’s a problem with my degree.”
“Lost, is it?”
“Yes,” Emily lied, seizing the excuse. “Lost in the move. Duplicates take ages, such dreadful bureaucracy.”
Albert thoughtfully scratched his chin. “Where did you study? Which year?”
“The London Institute of Education,” Emily lied smoothly. In truth, she’d only managed three years before marriage, babies, and life got in the way.
“Funny thing,” Albert mused. “I know the archivist there. Simon Pettigrew. We were students together. Perhaps he could speed things up? What name? Maiden or married?”
Emily felt the quicksand of her lie deepening. “Maiden. Emily Watson. Nee Hastings.”
“Splendid. I’ll have a word with Simon. See what strings I can twang.”
“You’re… you’re too kind,” Emily whispered. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“Nonsense! All in a day’s work for colleagues.”
At home, Emily paced the kitchen like a ferret demoted to field mouse. Seven-year-old Harry wrestled with sums, five-year-old Sophie orchestrated a tea party for dolls in the corner.
“Mum? Why are you crying?” Harry glanced up.
“Just knackered, love. Long day.”
“Dad coming?”
“No, Harry. Dad lives elsewhere now, remember?”
Her heart squeezed. For them, she’d forged the certificate. She needed work – decent pay, school perks, that precious social package.
The next day, Albert found her at break.
“Mrs. Watson. Spoke to Simon Pettigrew. He checked the archives.”
Emily’s stomach lurched. “And?”
“Odd business. No Emily Hastings in the graduate lists. Wrong year? Or faculty?”
The floor felt unstable. Quick! Think! “Know what, Mr. Pendlebury? Probably my mistake. Post-divorce fog, dreadful memory. Maybe it was Manchester Metropolitan? I’ll remember and tell you.”
“Course, don’t fret. Brain fog after a shock is perfectly normal.”
His look of genuine concern twisted her guilt. Albert was a widower, wife lost to cancer three years prior. No children. Rumour had it he’d taken it terribly, gone off for a lone hiking holiday in the Highlands to cope.
“Mr. Pendlebury… could I buy you lunch? To say thanks?”
“Oh, Mrs. Watson! No need to spend brass.”
“Please. You’re being so awfully decent. I barely know you beyond that whistle and tracksuit.” Albert hesitated. “Well… perhaps the school canteen? Their shepherd’s pie’s surprisingly edible.”
Over shepherd’s pie (which *was* surprisingly edible), they chatted. Albert confessed to being a keen fisherman, devouring history books, and pottering about his Yorkshire Dales cottage most weekends. Lived alone in his two-bed flat. Cooked for himself.
“How *do* you manage? Must be a slog alone with the youngsters?”
“Managing,” Emily sighed. “Harry helps with Sophie. He’s grown-up now.”
“Ex-husband pays upkeep?”
“Supposed to. Sporadically. Always ‘between jobs’ or some such.”
Albert frowned. “Disgraceful. Walks out, won’t pony up for his own bairns.”
“Life, I suppose.”
“Look, Mrs. Watson… hope you don’t mind if I pop by ask how you are? Seems you’re carrying a heavy load.”
“Wouldn’t mind at all. Quite nice, actually, knowing someone cares.”
From then on, Albert sought her out daily – checking in, bringing windfall apples from his cottage for the kids. Emily felt his kindness like a warm blanket, simultaneously prickled by the ever-growing thorn of her deceit.
A week later, he circled back.
“Any luck remembering the university?”
“Mr. Pendlebury… I need to confess,” she blurted, gathering courage. “I fear you’ll think the worst.”
“What is it?”
“I… never finished my degree. Married third year. Babies. Then he left, had to work. I faked the certificate. Horrible, I know! But the children needed feeding!”
Albert was silent for an age. Emily couldn’t look up.
“You mean… you fed me claptrap all this time?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
“Mrs. Watson, forgery is deadly serious…”
“I *know*!” she cried. “God, I know what I’ve done! But what choice? Tiny kids, skint, everywhere said ‘no degree, no job’!”
Albert sighed deeply.
“But… you *can* learn? Brains are in order?”
“I think so! Always did well. And I’m good with the children, you’ve seen.”
“Seen. You’re a fine teacher. That much is genuine.” He paused, lost in thought. “Here’s a thought. I’ll loan you the dosh. Finish your degree remotely. Get the real McCoy. Meantime, we tell Miss Finch the paperwork’s stuck in some civil service quagmire.”
Emily stared.
“Loan me… but *why*? I deceived you!”
“Because…” He faltered. “I don’t want you flattened. And your kids… they’re good eggs.”
“But paying you back could take forever…”
“No rush. Back when you can.”
Tears threatened. “Thank you. You’re saving our skins.”
“Stuff and nonsense. Just… no more fibs, right?”
“Right,” she nodded, smiling properly for the first time in weeks.
Albert sorted her re-en
And as the music swirled around them, Emily realised that sometimes the most unexpected beginnings—like forgetting to mention that tiny little fib about her university credentials to her now-husband—could indeed lead to finding true happiness in the end, truth be told.
