“Mine’s going to be even longer. Off to the dentist now.” Alex fingered his jaw. “Fillings.”
“You live for nothing but pleasure,” Jamie replied. “I hate dentists as much as I hate today.”
“Thanks for infusing me with confidence,” Alex said, although it was with a grin. “At least I’ll be on fighting form tomorrow, after this.”
“I’m not sure those poor teachers are going to know what’s hit them. I’ll have to play good cop, if you play bad.”
“And Bruce can play daft cop?” Alex asked, pausing with his hand hovering over the briefcase, as though he had something to say but couldn’t quite find the words.
“Yeah, something like that.” Jamie smiled. “It’ll be good preparation for having to face a real interview panel. Every governing body has their Bruce.”
“Tell me about it. I guess so long as he doesn’t try a question like ‘What do you think of À La Recherche du Temps Perdu?’ they’ll be okay.” Alex closed his briefcase and lowered his voice. “Or maybe we should take control and ask what they think about The Line of Beauty? That would put the cat among the pigeons.” He winked, swung his case off the table and backed away. “Sorry, got to fly. Dentist.”
“Oh yes. Best of British luck with that,” Jamie said, mind whirring. The Line of Beauty? What had Alex meant by mentioning that book? Subtle invitation? Or a warning shot across the bows?
***
Next morning, Jamie was first into the training room, stifling yawn after yawn.
Not his best night’s sleep. There’d been a phone call from work—problems on the plant that he needed to be aware of—that had spawned both a handful of further communications and waking at four in the morning worrying that he’d be called in today and not get to see Alex again.
Alex.
He’d been the other root cause of sleeplessness. The book. The wink. A dozen little things Jamie had noticed through the day that might mean something and might equally be nothing more than a mare’s nest constructed around his wishful thinking.
Why did romance—especially in its early, budding, “does he fancy me or doesn’t he?” stages—have to make you feel so nauseous? He put his papers on the table and wondered whether he could sneak a cup of coffee before the fun began.
“You look worse than I felt after the dentist.”
Jamie almost jumped out of his chair. How—and why—had Alex sneaked up so quietly?
“Nervous, with it.” Alex grinned.
“Sorry.” Jamie tried to compose himself and not keep looking at the left side of Alex’s face, which seemed a bit swollen. What would that feel like to kiss better? “Problems at work. I keep thinking I’m going to have to go in and sort them out.”
“Oh, that would be a shame. To miss out on the practice interrogations, I mean,” Alex added, just a touch too quickly.
“Yeah. I’d hate to miss today. May be my last chance to practice, before next month,” Jamie said, trying to convey about a dozen different messages in his tone of voice and the look in his eye.
“And there was me thinking you were wondering who’d sent you that mystery Valentine.”
“What mystery Valentine?” What was Alex talking about? Surely the bloke hadn’t somehow managed to sneak a card through Jamie’s door, and he’d missed the bloody thing?
“Hey, I was only joking. Sorry.” Alex looked mortified. “You mustn’t have slept well. I’ll keep my stupid jokes to myself.”
“No, you’re all right. I just need to dose myself up with caffeine, and I’ll stop being an ogre and become my usual miserable self.” That definitely counted as fishing for compliments. He hurried on. “I can’t get out of my head the worry I’ll be called in.”
“Turn your phone off and if anyone from work asks, tell them had no signal. Somebody else can cover, can’t they?” Alex slung down his briefcase and jerked a thumb in the direction of the cafeteria. “Right. That coffee.”
Jamie leaped out of his chair. “I thought you’d never ask.”
***
It wasn’t the practice candidate’s fault that Jamie couldn’t concentrate. She was coming up with impressive answers and giving as good as she got in response to Sandra’s probes and Bruce’s googlies. Now it was Alex’s section, and all Jamie could think of was his soothing voice and how eminently level-headed he appeared. Since when had common sense been so sexy? How good would that sensible voice sound if it were saying, “Your place or mine?”
The earlier sojourn in the cafeteria for coffee had proved frustrating. They’d just sat down with their lattes, Alex had said, “What about…,” when Sandra had waltzed in with a pile of papers and a gobful of questions, none of which had had helped to ascertain whether Alex was about to say, “What about going for a drink later?” or “What about that thunderstorm last night?”
Now, with the interview in full flow, Jamie sneaked a glimpse at the clock, which showed about twenty minutes before they’d be allowed a proper coffee break, but what chance did he have of nabbing Alex on his own then? Even if he persuaded the bloke to step outside for some fresh air and they managed to grab some time to talk, they’d be under the beady eye of the smokers. People were clued up—they’d see the signs of flirting, and, while it was the twenty first century, and everyone present had had “Equalities” up to their armpits, plenty of them wouldn’t like to see “Equalities” being acted out under their noses. You can take a bigot to training, but can you really make him—or her—think?
Alex finished his questioning and smoothly introduced Jamie’s part of the interview. “He’s going to give you the once over on safeguarding,” Alex said, with a smile.
“Thank you.” Jamie smiled back and tried to focus on what he was supposed to be doing. “Imagine it’s half an hour after the end of school, and you spot one of the year-five pupils still waiting to be picked up, by the school gate and on their own. What would you do?”
The practice candidate launched into what might have been a model answer. How the number one priority was the child’s safety, both at the time and then longer term; how they couldn’t jump to conclusions about what had happened and start slinging blame around; how they’d also have to look at their procedures, because they wouldn’t want it happening again.
Everyone nodded along, although Jamie had to fight to keep his thoughts in line. How his number one priority was somehow to ask Alex out. How he couldn’t jump to any conclusions about the man’s sexual preferences. How he’d regret it forever if he didn’t take action.
“That’s great, so far,” Jamie said, as the candidate at last paused, “but if this really had happened, what would you assess as being the most dangerous part of the incident?”
He waited for a response. Suddenly there wasn’t necessarily a model answer to go to. Would she talk about the danger to the child because of the risk of being abducted? Or the much higher risk of being hit by a car if there was no crossing patrol still on duty to keep the children safe?
“I think what would really worry me,” she said, at last, with real emotion, “is that the child shouldn’t have been allowed to be out there alone for so long without somebody noticing and taking action. I’d want to know if anybody had seen them and thought that wasn’t their problem.”
Jamie gave her heartfelt thanks for a well-considered answer and the questions moved on, under the panel leader’s gentle steering, to the issue of people taking responsibility for things. Jamie could sit back again. Interesting to suddenly find a window into somebody’s mind, to get beyond the set answers. What question could he ask Alex to produce the same result?
He looked at the clock—tempus was fugiting like nobody’s business, and if he kept putting things off, then the old diem would have gone before he could carpe it. Or something like that. He’d never been any use at Latin. And what the hell did it matter anyway, if the other delegates thought something was going on? He’d never have to see any of them again.
Sod the rest of the delegates if t
hey didn’t like two men flirting. Coffee time, his number one priority was somehow to ask Alex out.
***
The guardian angel had stepped up to the mark. The coffee break had started with the fire alarm going off and everyone heading for the assembly point so that Boosyboots the trainer could check her list and make sure nobody was being burnt to a crisp. Then the heavens had opened—out of a previously blue sky, which was a stroke of genius on the angel’s part—and they’d been allowed to take shelter in their cars until they could get back into the building.
“Snug in here, isn’t it?” Alex gave Jamie a grin from the passenger seat.
“Don’t insult my Mini. That’s size-ist.” Jamie caressed the steering wheel, in case the car had taken offence. He did sneak a surreptitious look at Alex’s long legs, struggling to organise themselves in the seat well. “Any chance the place will burn down, and they’ll send us home early?”
“We couldn’t be that lucky.” Not unless the guardian angel was on overtime, anyway. “Besides, we’ve been given ‘constructive criticism’ by the observers. Time we were allowed to rip them to shreds.”
Alex rubbed away some of the condensation forming on the window. “Talk about nit picking. Well, two can play at that game. I’ll note down every little mistake and hold it in evidence.”
“They liked you. You got away with things pretty lightly.” One of the observers in particular—an older man, now retired and, just like some of Jamie’s own governors, perhaps trying to reassert their authority in a new sphere—had laid into the woman leading the panel because she’d been too nice in places. And too harsh in others.
“Maybe he was afraid I was going to lump him one, if he started in on me.” Alex scowled. “Does this stuff ever get you down?”
“Only about eighty seven per cent of the time,” Jamie said, with a rueful laugh. “The rest of it’s brilliant.”
“Too right.” Alex rubbed at the condensation again. “No sign of that rain easing yet. Firemen won’t need to use their hoses.”
Jamie resisted using any of the replies—from the slightly naughty to the downright smutty—which had flooded into his brain, but, before he could even formulate an innocent response, Alex carried on.
“Do you ever get tired of being in a minority?”
“What? Ow!” Jamie whacked his elbow on the window. That was twice today he’d almost jumped out of his skin. How could Alex have such an unsettling effect on him? Apart from the fact he had looks to die for, of course?
“I meant being a bloke when you visit your primary school? We only had one male member of staff, and we’ve just lost him. I think he went because he couldn’t face the hormone talk in the staffroom.”
Jamie looked at Alex, mouth moving like a fish’s but nothing coming out, and—he thought, with a sudden blinding flash of realisation—he was being played just like a fish.
Right.
“How do you know that Cattlebridge isn’t awash with testosterone?” He said. “Our staff room might look like Dieux du Stade.” How much more obvious could he make the other minority he belonged to, short of saying, “I’m gay. Do you fancy me?”
Alex laughed. “If the blokes at your school looked French rugby players, I’d be asking to get co-opted onto your governing body.” He wiped the final patch of condensation from the windscreen. “It’s letting-up. We should rejoin the rest of them before they start wondering what we’re talking about.”
“Yeah.” Jamie eased the car door open. Now or never. Carpe the bloody diem and all that jazz. “If we finish at anything like a decent time this afternoon and we’re not knackered, would you fancy going for a drink?”
Alex closed the car door slowly, grinning over the roof like a mad thing. “About bloody time, too. I thought you were never going to ask.”
***
“Free at last!” Alex opened his briefcase and stuffed his papers in.
“Was it that bad? I thought it turned out all right in the end,” Jamie replied, getting his own things together again. It had been a long couple of days, but now he’d got his second wind. The thought of a date—a sort of date, anyway—with Alex would have kept anyone going. “And I saw you’d ticked the boxes on the evaluation sheet even though Boosyboots said we had to put a line through them, so the machine could read the things.”
“Let me have one little act of rebellion. I’m such a good boy normally.” Alex winked, then snapped his briefcase shut. “Ready for that drink?”
“Bloody well parched.” Jamie grinned. In fact, he couldn’t stop grinning, all the way back to his Mini, even though he was aware of some of the looks the pair were getting. Not surprising, since they’d been almost inseparable all day. Well, people could look all they wanted.
“So how did you know?” Alex asked, as they reached their cars.
“Know what?”
“Know that I wouldn’t lump you one when you asked me out on a date?”
“This is a date?” Jamie wrinkled his nose. “If I’d have been aware of that fact, I’d have worn my best shirt.”
“Pillock.” Alex narrowed his eyes. “I had a feeling you’d sussed me out before I made my unsubtle hint, the one about The Line of Beauty. You’re going to tell me I’m wrong.”
“Afraid so. My gaydar’s bloody useless, and it convinced me you were straight. I thought I had no chance.”
“What changed?” Alex leaned against the Mini, casually waving goodbye to Mr. Daft Ideas, who was walking past with a puzzled expression on his face, as though he knew something was going on but couldn’t quite work out what.
Jamie leaned against the car as well, trying to catch at an elusive thought. “I was thinking about what Boosyboots said about the horns and haloes effect. How what you feel about a candidate affects your interpretation of their answers. I was grasping at straws, trying to read things into every word you said. I’d come to the conclusion I was seeing things that weren’t there. I mean, the Line of Beauty reference might have meant you were a fan of Mrs. Thatcher.”
“Sorry to make life so difficult. You know what it’s like.” Alex shrugged. “Twenty-first bloody century? Some of the people in there haven’t made it past the nineteen fifties. Sends you right back in the closet.”
“So far I almost missed seeing you,” Jamie said, surprised at how much emotion was in his voice. Just as well he hadn’t sounded like this earlier. “It’s a shame people don’t come ready supplied with references. To tell you all about them.”
Alex’s eyes sparkled. “Wouldn’t that take away some of the fun, though? Isn’t the pleasure in the finding out? The thrill of the chase?”
“If you say so,” Jamie said, basking in the light from those eyes. How the hell would he have felt if Alex had turned out to be straight? What a waste that would have been.
“How about I get you testimonials from some of my exes? The last one might be a bit snarky, but they’ll verify any claims I make,” Alex added slyly, dropping his voice to a whisper, “like about performance. I’ve made plenty of impact in bed.”
“Ah.” Jamie smiled and tapped his wad of papers. “That has to come under the additional activities section.”
“Additional activities?”
“Yes. Remember what Boosyboots said? Some things you have to have direct evidence of. Hands on.” Jamie leaned against the car, drinking in Alex’s smile.
“Remember what else she said?” Alex leaned closer. “Don’t go making your candidates promises you can’t guarantee to keep. Come on. I know a great pub. You follow my car.”
***
The pub wasn’t far, and the Friday evening crowds hadn’t hit it yet. Neither, thank goodness, had anybody else from the training course. Jamie got the beer in, but neither of them fancied eating just yet, stomachs still struggling with the leaden sausage rolls they’d had for lunch.
“What’s Cattlebridge like?” Alex asked, once the first swig of beer had gone down.
“The school or the village?”
“I’ve driven through the village, so clue me in on the school.”
“Haven’t you read the Ofsted report? You strike me as somebody who does his research.” Jamie placed his drink on the table then sat back, enjoying the warmth from the open fire.
“Ah, you’ve got me bang to rights. I have read it. Rated good on all counts.” Alex nodded, with what seemed like approval. “But that’s just a snapshot, isn’t it?”
“Lucky snapshot, in our case.”
Alex was shrewd, just as Jamie had come to expect from the last two days. What was it about the combination of brains and those flashing come-to-bed eyes that made such a devastating combination?
“So, what’s the place like the rest of the time? When you’re not on your best behaviour for the inspectors?”
“The school’s absolutely fine,” Jamie replied, dragging himself out of a daydream where the come-to-bed eyes had led them into a big, comfortable, horribly empty bed. “Tell you the truth, it’s just the governors who could do with a boot up the arse.”
“Tell me about it,” Alex said, loosening his tie then carefully folding it before slipping the thing into his pocket. Elegance to add to the brains and the eyes. Jamie was glad he hadn’t got a glimpse of the full package the previous morning, or he’d have been a gibbering wreck all through the course. “Most of the St. Paul’s lot are pretty useful, but there are some I wouldn’t trust with running a piss up in a brewery, let alone a school. Right,” he put up his hand, “I apologise for asking. No more governor talk, okay? No Ofsted or closing the gap or any other buzzwords.”
“You’ve spoiled all my fun.” Jamie tried to look disappointed, but it clearly wouldn’t have fooled anybody. Two days of that sort of stuff had been enough. “If it hadn’t been for Governor Services putting on this course, we’d never have met.”
Did that sound too slushy? If it did, it was too late to take it back.
Love in Every Season Page 2