Notes On A Scandal

The bitter, cynical and lonely Barbara Covett is a tough and conservative teacher near to retirement that is loathed by her colleagues and students. In the loneliness of her apartment, she spends her spare time writing her journal, taking care of her old cat Portia and missing her special friend Jennifer Dodd. When Sheba Hart joins the high-school as the new art teacher, Barbara dedicates her attention to the newcomer, writing sharp and unpleasant comments about her behavior and clothes. When Barbara helps Sheba in a difficult situation with two students, the grateful Sheba invites her to have lunch with her family. Sheba introduces her husband and former professor Richard Hart, who is about twenty years older than she; her rebellious teenager daughter Polly; and her son Ben that has Down's Syndrome. Barbara becomes close to Sheba, but when she accidentally discovers that Sheba is having an affair with the fifteen year-old student Steven Connolly, Barbara sees the chance to manipulate and get closer to Sheba, hiding the secret from the school headmaster. When Portia dies and Sheba does not stay with Barbara in the veterinary office to see Ben in a theater play, Barbara plots a Machiavellian revenge against Sheba, creating a scandal and consequent turmoil in their lives.

Barbara Covett teaches history in an inner city high school in London. She has contempt for most people in her life, including most of her colleagues and her students. She believes they, in turn, see her as what she calls "the battle-ax": someone who they don't much like, but at least respect, especially as an authority figure. She leads a solitary life, her confidantes being her cat Portia and her diary, to which she confesses all. She is keeping what she believes is a secret about her life. Close to retirement, Barbara is re-energized when Sheba Hart is hired as the school's new art teacher, Sheba who has only recently returned to the workforce. Sheba is in many ways the antithesis of Barbara: relatively young, pretty, popular with both the students and her colleagues, but not being able to instill any discipline among her students. On the surface, Sheba has a happy life, which includes an older husband, and two children, her youngest, Ben, who has Down Syndrome. But underlying the surface, Sheba feels unfulfilled, which is fostered in part by an uncaring mother. Unknown to Sheba or anyone else, Barbara has chosen her as her current focus of life. Their relationship, which is initially cordial, changes when Barbara catches Sheba in an illegal indiscretion. Again unknown to Sheba, Barbara decides to use this information to get out of Sheba what she ultimately wants in life.

Barbara Covett is a veteran and cynical schoolteacher who is close to retirement. She is barely tolerated by her less brilliant and acerbic colleagues who know nothing about her private life which consists mainly of taking care of Portia, her aging cat, and spending countless hours alone. The only means she has found to take the edge off her desperate loneliness is writing in her journal. When Sheba Hart, a younger, attractive woman, joins the faculty as an art teacher, Barbara watches her from afar and has nothing but caustic things to say in her diary about her clothing and her care-free manner. Despite her disdain for this woman, Barbara finds herself reaching out to her. Sheba responds by inviting her to dinner at her house to meet Sheba's lecturer husband, who is twenty years her senior, and their two children, a sexy and rebellious 16-year-old daughter and a younger boy with Downs Syndrome. Instead of opening herself to these people, Barbara immediately sees them as competition to be beaten in the battle for Sheba's attention. Later, when Barbara discovers her new friend in a classroom having sex with Steven, a 15-year-old from the school who has artistic talent; she realizes that knowledge of this secret gives her power over Sheba which she can use for her own purposes. Barbara promises to not tell anyone but insists that the affair must end immediately. Sheba says she will but finds herself drawn back to the boy again and again. Sheba seems uneasy with Barbara's friendship and is appalled when she discovers the older woman might have a sexual interest in her. The tenuous relationship between the two women reaches a crisis point when Barbara's cat is dying and she asks Sheba to go with her to the vet. She chooses to go with her family to see their son in a play instead. In revenge, Barbara sets in motion the scandal that will rock both their lives in ways they never imagined.