The Secretary

by Zoe Lea

  I had no idea if it would work, no idea if it would cause any trouble.

  Upload a picture? Yes. Add a message? Yes.

  Hunts are for Cunts

  I uploaded my picture.

  And this one lives here:

  And then I typed in her home address.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  HMP ROSSETFUL PRISON, CHESHIRE

  3 AUGUST

  I met with them yesterday. The officer said it would be therapeutic, but it wasn’t. It was far from any kind of therapy. I honestly now don’t know why I agreed to it. I think I hoped it might make me feel better, but it’s made me feel so much worse. To see them. Crying. Holding on to one another, their child gone. Dead and looking at me with such pleading.

  ‘We forgive you,’ the mother said. ‘We came here to tell you that we forgive you.’

  How I wanted to scream at them that they were forgiving the wrong person! That they should be talking to you and not me, but instead I found myself crying with them. I seemed to soak up their emotions as if I’ d lost a child myself, as if I could relate to their loss.

  And, afterwards, back in my cell, it occurred to me that I have grief. I have loss that can be identified with theirs. I was a child once, an innocent. I ran about and laughed and screamed with joy, and that is gone from me now. All those memories, everything, tainted because of what you did. How can I even think of myself in those terms after what has happened? I used to think fondly of my childhood, look back and smile, but since being in here I’ve found myself searching through my memories for clues.

  Secrets and foreshadowing of what was to come. I want to know what I did wrong, how I became involved in all this, because as much as you are to blame for what happened, it’s me who is locked in here. I must look at the part I played in it all, I know I’m not completely innocent.

  But when I met with them, it was the first time I realised that I’ve lost that child I once was. I’ve lost all those happy memories, so perhaps, as I shook my head with those poor parents and let tears drip from my eyes, I was crying for the child in me that has been lost.

  I want to be able to tell you, like those brave parents told me, that I forgive you, but I can’t. I’ve tried, I’ve really, really tried. I must need to be religious, or a better person, but I can’t forgive you if you won’t admit your crime. At least visit me. Come here and talk to me, about anything. We don’t need to go over that. Let’s talk like we used to. Before. Visit me and we’ll talk about television shows, weather, current affairs. Come see me so I can start to forgive you. Come here so I can get over this hurt, this rage, because this silence from you is killing me.

  TWENTY-SIX

  The thing about working in a school is that you become institutionalised. You don’t realise it’s happened until you find yourself looking at the calendar and it suddenly dawns on you that you’re living your life in accordance with term dates. It doesn’t matter if you’re a parent or not, in school you think about Christmas at the beginning of a school year, summer holidays are on your mind from Easter and the whole year is measured in six- and eight-week blocks. You are counting down continually to the next holiday.

  It was two weeks before half term. After the car incident, we’d been visited by the police. They had taken statements, told us the damage to my car was being investigated, that they would keep us updated, but the upshot was unless they could arrest and charge someone, there was nothing more they could do.

  I was given the numbers of Victim Support and the Citizens Advice and told to wait. Wait. While my life unravelled. I had a crime reference number and nothing else, apart from a large bill from the garage and a second visit from the police, this time accusing me of harassing Ashley Simmons.

  ‘You visited her office,’ they looked at their notes, ‘we have witnesses that you were aggressive. Abusive.’

  ‘I was hardly abusive.’ I shook my head in disbelief. ‘I was angry. I’d just found out that she’s helping my ex-husband and her friend had done that to my car.’

  The officer raised an eyebrow. ‘We have your accusations on file regarding the damage to your car but, as yet, no evidence.’

  ‘Evidence.’ I let out a scoff. ‘We both know who did it, but you’re not doing anything.’

  They paused a moment while they looked at their notes again.

  ‘We’re advising you keep away from Ashley Simmons and her place of work, also that of Janine Walker. We’ve had several complaints. Someone has been posting up private details on a public forum and it’s currently under investigation. And Ashley Simmons has requested we talk to you about—’

  ‘Oh, this is rich,’ I’d interrupted, ‘they’re accusing me now? Telling me to stay away from them? They need to stay away from me!’

  They’d looked at each other then and I’d seen something in that look, something that was dismissive. Something that said they thought I might be responsible for the damage to my car, that I was sending myself my own cakes filled with excrement, that I might be doing it all. That I was lying. And that’s when I knew exactly what I was up against and I felt weak with it. Weak and frightened because I was trying, really trying. I was surprising myself with how hard I was becoming and doing alarming things in the hope that it would stop, and yet it still all seemed to be slipping away from me.

  Sam didn’t want to return to school because of everything that was going on. He was scared and I could understand that. It was a struggle for us both, but now my car was fixed, back from the garage and repaired, my mother had a doctor’s appointment and couldn’t look after him, and he needed to go to school. I really needed him in his lessons. I’d lied about why he was absent but now I needed him in. I needed us to return to our routine. If I wanted to keep him, to stop the madness that Will had started, then I had to fight back. I had to appear as if I was in control.

  ‘Please,’ I said gently, ‘please, Sam, I have to get to work. You have to get to school.’

  I was sat outside his bedroom door, Sam on the other side. He’d barricaded himself in, pushing his bed up against the door. He’d never done anything like this before and I was thrown a little. Usually he went into his room and hung onto the door handle to prevent me from entering, but now he’d realised he was strong enough to move his bed and that was much more effective. I took a deep breath, tried to swallow down my mounting panic.

  ‘Sam,’ I tried again, ‘just let me in. I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to. I just want to talk.’

  ‘Liar,’ he said, but I was glad he was talking, even if he was calling me names. ‘You’ll make me go back and I won’t. I’m not going. Toby’s there and he’s got a knife.’

  ‘Toby’s not got a knife, no one is allowed to take knives into school—’

  ‘I’m not going. I’m staying here.’

  ‘Open the door, sweetheart,’ I said, ‘please. Let’s just talk about it. How about I get us both a chocolate biscuit?’

  I waited for an answer, and when he didn’t speak I tried again.

  ‘I wasn’t going to say, but I guess this is the right time to tell you –’ I waited a moment, hoping he’d take the bait ‘– but there’s a whole tub of chocolate fudge ice cream in the freezer. Come out and I’ll go get the tub. I’ll make you a deal: you come out and talk to me, just talk, and you can eat the ice cream for as long as we’re talking.’

  It was seven-thirty. I should be on my way, arriving at school in fifteen minutes, Sam going into the breakfast club. We would be late. But better late than never.

  ‘A whole tub?’

  I smiled. His voice was small, frightened.

  ‘Untouched,’ I told him. ‘I got it for you. For a treat at the weekend, but I suppose I can let you have a bit now. Have we got a deal?’

  He was quiet for a moment. ‘Deal.’

  We sat at the top of the stairs, two spoons, the tub of chocolate fudge ice cream between us.

  ‘You know I have to go to work,’ I told him, as we dug our spoons in and lic
ked the ice cream. ‘I have to work to get paid so that we can stay in this house.’

  He nodded. ‘I’m not saying that you don’t have to go, just that I don’t want to.’

  ‘Sam, you know Nanna can’t come today and you know I can’t leave you on your own.’

  We were both quiet, Sam digging his spoon in to get some more of the hard ice cream.

  ‘I’m old enough.’

  ‘You’re eight.’

  ‘I’m big enough,’

  I nodded. ‘You are, but that still doesn’t make it right.’

  He was silent a moment. Then, ‘I could come with you. I could hide in your office, under the desk. No one would know I was there.’

  I suppressed a smile. ‘People would know,’ I said gently, ‘and besides, you’d be bored. It’d be much better for you in the classroom. You like some of what you do in there, I know you do. You like reading and drawing.’

  Sam had gone quiet as I spoke, thoughtfully licking his spoon.

  ‘And Ryan, you like Ryan and he’ll be there.’

  He stopped licking and waited a moment. ‘The thing is, Mummy,’ he said, ‘is that I do like some things about school, but Toby spoils it all.’ He looked up then and put his small hand up to stop me from speaking. I’d been about to tell him that I had a meeting with John about it that very morning, but he stopped me. ‘I know you’ve tried, Mummy, I know you’ve spoken to Miss Gleason and Mr Cartwright, and when you do, Toby stops for a little bit, but then he starts again. Only the next time it’s worse because he’s blaming me for him being told off. And then he came here and did that to your car … ’

  ‘Sam –’ I put my hand on his arm ‘– we’ve been over this. That wasn’t Toby, it was a silly woman that I know.’

  He shrugged, shook his head. ‘I’ve just had enough,’ he said in a small voice, and I nodded, put my arm around him, squeezed him.

  ‘I know,’ I said, and to my surprise, tears blotted my vision. They came upon me unexpectedly and I had to wipe them away with the heel of my hand before Sam saw. ‘I know, we’ve both had enough.’

  I held him for a moment longer, then let him get back to his ice cream. He’d calmed down; he always did when he was eating. The red puce on his cheeks had simmered to a light pink and his eyes, although red and watery, were no longer wide with fear.

  I finally got Sam into school an hour later by agreeing with him.

  He’d had enough. I’d had enough. We just wanted it to stop.

  Poppy’s face kept on coming back to me from that day at the market, when I’d tried to justify why I was late, me bubbling over, explaining all that was going on, all the drama, and what she’d said: I’m just trying to sell a few pots of jam here.

  Same here! I wanted to shout that morning as I dropped Sam off in class and lied to Lisa about why we were late. Same here, I thought as I went into John’s office, asked him if I could have a meeting with him as a parent and not as school secretary. We were just trying to get on with our lives, like Poppy. We didn’t need all the drama. We weren’t asking much. Bloody hell, we weren’t asking for much at all, just the chance to go about our day without fear. That wasn’t an awful lot, was it?

  ‘Here’s the thing,’ John said, after I’d explained how Sam was feeling. ‘Toby is waiting to be assessed, we think he’s on the spectrum, but –’ he raised his hands ‘– I’m no specialist! But I hear the signs are there. The parents know, they brought it to our attention. We’re waiting to have him assessed.’ He looked at me over his glasses. ‘That, by the way, is completely confidential. I only tell you so you can see what position it puts us, as a school, in.’

  ‘I’m not sure I understand,’ I said. ‘The fact that Toby may or may not be on the spectrum isn’t why I asked to talk to you. I’m telling you about his bullying behaviour towards my son.’

  ‘And that’s on record,’ said John, tapping the desk in front of him. ‘But if it should be that Toby has a medical condition then you have to see that he is very vulnerable … ’

  ‘Vulnerable?’ My voice came out shrill. ‘You’re saying that Toby, the bully, is vulnerable?’

  ‘I’m saying that it’s not all black and white.’ He breathed out heavily through his nose. ‘I’ve spoken to Toby, to his parents, and yes, they do admit that there is a troubled relationship with Toby and Sam, but they were quite adamant that it wasn’t all Toby … ’

  ‘Hang on a minute … ’

  ‘Toby can’t express himself, he isn’t as articulate as Sam, and Miss Gleason did say—’

  ‘Miss Gleason has no idea,’ I spat out, and he recoiled a little at the force of my words. ‘Toby is making my son’s life hell in this school. Sam is terrified of him. Toby has been telling him that he has a knife, that he’s going to “slash” him –’ John went to speak but I held my finger up ‘– and the school has done, is doing, nothing. And now you’re telling me it’s Sam’s fault?’

  ‘Ruth –’ John’s voice was an octave deeper than normal, it was the voice I heard him use on students when they were out of line ‘– we take every matter of bullying extremely seriously. There is something being done about it. Toby is awaiting assessment and Miss Gleason is monitoring the situation. We’ve spoken to Toby’s parents about it, and now I’m speaking to you about it. Talk to Sam, see if he’s not doing the same to Toby … ’

  I opened my mouth but John sat forward, his expression stopping me.

  ‘Sam is a big lad,’ he told me, ‘twice the size of the other boys in there. He’s not as defenceless as he would have you think. I’ve spoken to him, seen him. I know he can handle himself.’

  ‘John –’ I was swallowing back the rage as I spoke, my words coming out strangled with the effort ‘– I’m his mother, I think I know more about my son than you, and I know he’s terrified. There are days when he’s even too terrified to come into school! He is not the bully here, he is the one being bullied! I’ll take this to the governors if I have to. To the council, anyone who’ll listen.’ I stopped and swallowed; John’s face was intense. ‘I’m just at my wits’ end here,’ I told him. ‘I need help. We need help.’

  After a moment, John nodded solemnly. Stayed quiet. I squeezed my hands into fists, bit the inside of my cheek from saying anything further. I couldn’t shout, scream or call him a liar. This man was my boss after all. After a moment he reached across the desk and gave my hand a quick squeeze.

  ‘I understand,’ he said finally. ‘I understand your concerns, Ruth. It seems this might be a little more serious than I first thought. Leave it with me.’ He closed the file. ‘I’ll call the boy’s parents again, speak to Miss Gleason. See what the assessment throws out. See what can be done about keeping him away from Sam. We’ll sort it. Don’t you worry.’

  I couldn’t seem to calm down all afternoon; the vision of Sam’s face was never far from my mind. It obscured everything. I had a stack of paperwork to do for the school trip, all the forms for each child needed to be signed off and all the emergency information on file and on the database, when I found myself looking at Sam’s class timetable and seeing what Lisa was down as having them do.

  John thought Toby was vulnerable! Vulnerable? He was evil. Telling another child that he was going to slash them, what kind of vulnerable boy does that? And what was he doing now, while John and Lisa and the assessment team gave him a label that came with a stamp of sensitivity. While I was told to wait. What was Toby doing to my son while all this was going on? Through all the red tape, the form filling, the following of protocol and procedures, what threats was he whispering in the ear of my son?

  It was coming up to afternoon break. Lisa had them down as doing PE. It was last lesson before playtime, which meant it would be a scramble of children getting changed quickly to get back outside and it would be chaos. Without any more thought, I left my office and headed down to the playground, a pile of letters in my hand as a kind of alibi.

  The school was busy, there was singing of times tables coming from
one of the classrooms as I passed, the shout of a teacher from the year six room and then I came to year five. Janine’s daughter would be in there, Eve’s daughter as well. How was she? Now that she was leaving school, that the bullies had won. Had it stopped? I paused for a moment and peeked through the oblong window on the door. Glen was pointing at something on the whiteboard and I took a moment to watch him. His face was animated, a mixture of pure delight and charm; he was enjoying himself I could tell. And from the look of the children, who all seem mesmerised, they were enjoying it just as much. I tried to spot the girls, to see who was tormenting who, but it was useless. They were a class of thirty children, watching Glen and writing in their books. Maybe if Glen had been teaching them earlier, the bullying wouldn’t have happened, he wouldn’t have let a whole class torment one child. He would’ve stopped it before it started. But then, looking at them now, you’d never know that one girl in that room was going through a living hell. And one girl was persecuting her. No one had any idea what really went on.

  I went through to the infants, passing the dining hall and coat racks, the lower half of the school. I could hear the usual screams and shouts from nursery and reception. They were at the bottom of a long corridor and there was a smell of something coming from there, the sharp tang of glue or paint. A smell that whipped me back to my own childhood, my own time sitting in a classroom, my life dependent on the whims of a teacher. And for a second, I felt the hopelessness, the despair, the unjustness of a teacher and the power they held. It was luck of the draw as to who you got, who took control. You could have someone like Glen or someone like Lisa. It was pure chance. The person who dominated you, who, while you were in their company, had complete authority, and it was a toss-up as to who that person would be.