by Kate Bradley
But as I sat in the car, engine running, I still felt torn. I knew I was letting George down. He had always been good to me. He’d given me a chance when my second teaching placement had threatened to fail me because my awful mentor didn’t understand me. He’d rescued me by giving me the opportunity to repeat the placement with him. Yes, he’d been desperately short of maths teachers, a single vacancy unfilled for months, but still . . . he would be so disappointed in me.
Again I longed for another’s opinion. Then it occurred to me that people’s circumstances controlled their choices. Most of the teachers I worked with were hugely devoted to their roles – that had impressed me when I joined, a factor that made me think that I could relate to teaching. I was used to operating with hugely dedicated professionals. The teachers I worked with gave their all – and then more on top. But they also needed their jobs to pay their bills, or perhaps they had children or a spouse at home that meant that they couldn’t risk being fired. But what did I have? I didn’t have anyone who needed me to do anything or not do anything. I had a generous pension from the army; I didn’t need my teaching salary. I never went anywhere, I never did anything other than train and compete and I was still making money from competitions. I could walk away from this job – or worse – and it wouldn’t really change anything for me.
I was a free agent. It occurred to me that the only person’s permission I needed was my own.
Besides, a little voice whispered, I wasn’t even sure I liked teaching: I could always try the army for employment again. They might let me back in if I did a desk job.
I looked in my rear-view mirror at the empty road. And I remembered what Destiny had said that sealed the deal: If you don’t help me, they will take me.
*
I continued to watch the rear-view mirror, heart pounding. I needed to be careful. Part of me enjoyed the thrill of the operation: it was like being back on the squad again. Watching, waiting; a mission to complete. I was ready. Now all Destiny had to do was to climb the six-foot fence and bunk over the top. I knew she could do it because my classroom overlooked the fence and I’d seen kids leave school early time and time again.
I glanced at my watch and when I looked back up, I saw her walking down the road. I checked all my mirrors again – in half an hour this road would be jammed with kids flooding out of the school, but now no one was around.
I watched her walk towards me, steady as a heartbeat.
And then I saw the van coming from behind her. They were back. And they were closer to her than I was.
Friday
14:45
Jenni
I didn’t hesitate: I threw the car into reverse and hit the accelerator. I reversed, gearbox screaming at the speed.
My arm locked over the back of the passenger seat as I craned to see the road. The backwards steering only caught me for a split second, but I didn’t let it throw me: I drove straight for Destiny.
She saw me and her eyes widened. She glanced over her shoulder at the van. She obviously saw it because she stood, frozen to the spot, with, I think, horror on her face. I reached her first. I threw open the car door. ‘Get in,’ I said, my voice quiet and low.
Her eyes were wide; she stared at me before looking back at the van. ‘Help!’ she said.
‘I will – don’t worry!’
I realised she was too traumatised to move, so I unclicked my seat belt and got out. I ran round to her side. The van had stopped and the passenger door opened. I could see a man getting out. It was the same man who had the gun. For a moment we simply faced each other in the street, like gunslingers. I wished I had my army rifle. I had never felt like that before or since in civilian life, but I remember how much I’d wanted to kill him. Even though we only stood facing each other for a few seconds, it was enough that I could feel the weight of my rifle in my hands as I lifted it up, the butt nestling into its familiar spot by my shoulder joint. I imagined raising the scope and seeing him through it, his heavy features that of an abusive exploiter of children, before squeezing the trigger. I could hear the crack. I could feel the recoil and see the surprised look on his face as a black mark appeared on his forehead, between his eyes. I could see the spray of blood burst outwards from behind him like a plume before he fell to the ground.
But he was still standing there, because that was then and this was now. And I didn’t have my rifle. There’s a big difference between wanting and having.
He still stood there and pointed at us. ‘You’re dead,’ he mouthed at Destiny, drawing a finger across his neck. I heard her whimper. She was holding her school bag, but she dropped to the ground.
He started to walk towards us; cocky, he didn’t rush. His arms were held out to the side of him, as if his overworked muscles meant they couldn’t lie flat to his sides. He raised his chin and pushed his shoulders back as if he was bracing himself for action, an overmuscled fighting dog squaring up to another. He might have been a big man but I remember thinking that he was short-limbed and, typical for endomorphs, slow. All those muscles for strength didn’t mean he was built for speed. I was built for speed. I haven’t won three Ironman contests for nothing.
I opened the car door and picked up the bag Destiny had dropped, throwing it in before I helped her get into the passenger seat. I slammed the door and had made it to my side as he picked up speed and was only ten metres away.
We were gone just as he reached us.
Friday
14:51
Jenni
Despite his proximity, I drove away carefully; we were in suburbia in a thirty miles an hour zone. I stuck to twenty-eight miles an hour – the last thing I needed was the police stopping me.
Destiny then had a panic attack. She went crazy, screaming that he was going to get us. She was hyperventilating, pulling on the locked door handle, yelling that we weren’t safe. I found a paper bag, got her to breathe into it. Eventually she calmed down.
We passed through quiet streets. The houses were mostly small semis built in the fifties, punctuated occasionally by a run of bungalows or a short parade of shops. Here, grass verges were kept mown, front and garage doors kept well painted and there was very little litter. This was not the neighbourhood to drive the car at sixty and not expect to gather attention.
Instead of attempting to outrun them, I was content to watch them in my mirror. Every time I took a turn, they took a turn. I thought they would; I wanted to test how close they would stay. I wanted to see what I was dealing with. Know thy enemy.
It took only minutes for me to make a series of judgements about them. They were patient, which suggested confidence. They were also smart enough not to try anything that might draw attention to passers-by, like ramming me or trying to pull in front of me to stop me in the road. They didn’t even get too close, which suggested they weren’t just trying to harass me, they were prepared to play a longer game of cat and mouse. For whatever reason they wanted Destiny, they obviously really wanted her. They were a difficult enemy. A bit of me felt the thrill that I was fighting for good again.
I would win this, I decided there and then.
I will win.
‘They’re following us, Destiny.’
Her voice was so small, I could barely hear it. ‘Speak up.’ I gentled my voice. ‘I need to know as much as I can so I can’ – win – ‘deal with this.’ I indicated again, slipped down to second gear and took the turning. As I did, I watched them indicate too, and equally slowly, they then followed me round the corner. ‘Do you have anything they want, something perhaps that you took – and I won’t judge you even if it’s drugs – or is it you they want?’
‘It’s me.’
I accelerated gently, hitting no more than twenty. A black cat ran in front of my car, but was gone before I was even too close.
I passed house after house, reaching the end of the road, I indicated left. So did they. ‘How long do you think they’ll keep this up?’
‘For ever.’
I a
ccelerated gently away from the corner. I thought through my options. There was a police station nearby, and I considered driving to it. But I thought again; the local town police stations always seemed to be closed these days, and if I pulled in, I’d be in a car park and we’d be trapped. Besides, I had no intention of seeing the police.
I considered different ways of throwing them off. When I hit upon my plan, I decided it was brilliant. I gave a tight, private smile: yes, I would win.
I drove towards the centre of town.
*
The town was busy but I wasn’t heading for the high street. I headed for the railway crossing. The railway line crossed the town’s roads in two points: one I had considered and dismissed, because the approach didn’t have a turn-off, which meant that we would be committed if the gates were down and right now, I didn’t want to stay committed on any road. I’d picked the second crossing because it had what I needed – a turning I could take if the gates were down. And I could see right now I needed it because they were. With London trains coming through here, the locals complained about the amount of time the crossings shut the roads, but now I was determined to make it work for me. I indicated right and moved away from the crossing.
The van followed.
I went round the block.
Destiny hunkered even further down into the seat.
I felt the beat of my heart, but with my hands planted firmly on the steering wheel, I felt safe. The doors were locked, I was in a public place in broad daylight, and if they came for me, I’d give as good as I got. My wheel-jack was under the seat and with that, I reckoned I could defend myself.
Bastards, getting hold of young girls for goodness knows what. I remembered Destiny standing in a puddle of her own urine and thought the wheel-jack was too good for them.
I cruised down the road, turned left again and went round the block. This time the gates were up and traffic was flowing. As I approached the crossing, I slowed. ‘Come on,’ I hissed to the gates under my breath. But nothing. The gates stayed up. I was forced to keep up with the flow of traffic and move over the crossing point to the other side of the road. I indicated left and went round the block again.
They must have known what I was trying to do.
After turning down two more streets, I was back facing the crossing. The streets were fairly busy, but suddenly there was a lull in traffic with only the van behind me. It wouldn’t stay like this as soon the school run would mean too many cars on the road.
I needed this to work now. I moved the car slowly towards the crossing. ‘Come on, please,’ I urged. As if in answer – third time lucky – the lights flashed orange and the beeping started. The gates started to come down.
I held my position, stopping directly over the tracks. I was now in the yellow hatched-box section in the middle of the crossing.
‘Miss!’ Destiny cried out.
I didn’t answer; instead, I concentrated intently, desperate to judge the right moment.
‘Miss! We could be hit by a train!’
I didn’t plan on waiting that long; I just needed to block the van pulling onto the rail track behind me. But it was an intense moment. Destiny started screaming and trying to pull the wheel, a taxi driver from the nearby rank got out and started yelling, a few cars nearby started sounding their horns and two men sitting in front of the nearby pub ran over and tried to hold up the dropping gates.
With the gates only two metres from the ground, I pressed down hard on the accelerator. My little car shot forward. As I passed underneath them, the gates scraped against the roof of my car. I watched the faces of the men holding them as they shouted at me. I looked down; I didn’t want to be seen. I didn’t want to be caught on the CCTV that I knew would be watching me, but I also didn’t want this van to be following me any more.
Behind me I heard the van beeping. If they didn’t know what I was doing before, they certainly did now.
I sped off, seeing the van trapped on the other side of the crossing gates. Ever the professional, I resisted giving them the finger.
Friday
15:22
George
Despite the initial lightness George Danvers had felt as he’d pulled his office door shut, it had begun to dissipate as he drove out of the school car park; he realised that he would soon be apologising face-to-face to Steve Wichard for the delay to their meeting – an apology that would make that bloody, smug, little twat with his rising results and growing budget even more super smug.
George fiddled with his car radio – he only had a fifteen-minute journey, but he needed some music to unwind first.
He found Classic FM and the sound of Bach filled the car. Determined to feel a bit better, George rolled his shoulders against the tension in his muscles. The meeting wouldn’t take long, he told himself. Perhaps only a couple of hours. George liked to be out of work at five-thirty, but Steve would probably want him to stay late. That would be so bloody like Steve to force the meeting to go on and on, waiting for George to be the first to say that he wanted to go home. ‘I’ll just say it,’ he murmured. ‘I have no shame.’
But George did. And he still had the ability to feel it. Ten years ago, his job only made him feel proud. How times had changed.
It took a lot of energy to deal with the likes of Steve Wichard. If only he didn’t have to go to these meetings where he had to suck up Steve’s so-called mentoring. He was sick of these monthly humiliations. Just because Steve’s academy was an outstanding school and his was not. The organisation that ran both academies insisted George did this – so what choice did he have? George’s knuckles paled as he gripped the steering wheel.
As he sat at the traffic lights, he realised that Steve would find a way to imply that George having to delay their meeting was a sign that he wasn’t truly in control of his school: Steve bloody Wichard would never have an emergency. But then, Steve bloody Wichard didn’t say yes to taking in children such as Destiny, those who had already failed at other mainstream schools. The man was a control-freak who got every child who so much as sniffed at the wrong time out of his school and into the local alternative education provision. He didn’t care that he wrecked young people’s lives – those who were often struggling with terrible home environments. He’d often heard him say: ‘It’s the Wichard Way or the highway.’ But George didn’t believe that the Wichard Way was the road to success. Just the mention of the Wichard Way made George, who’d walked away from every fight he’d ever had in his life, clench his fist in irritation. Just because Steve bloody Wichard had an intake with a middle-class demographic; had received a national teaching award and his wife had a narrow waist and small, white, even teeth, didn’t mean that he was right.
George flexed his shoulders again and told himself to buck up. Even if he was seeing Steve, it was still great to get out of school. He’d just looked at the budget report and knew the only way it was going to work was if he resisted about 50 per cent of the staff getting a pay rise next year. It wouldn’t matter to anyone else if he told them that he hadn’t given himself a pay rise for the third year in a row. It would only matter to his wife, Sal, who’d have to keep doing her admin job for another year, but she’d understand without him having to explain.
Anyway, Sal didn’t care about money, she just wanted him to quit. She’d started to talk about retirement. She wanted rid of their house with its mortgage. She’d started to point out smaller properties on Rightmove near her sister in Wales. ‘Look, George, this one’s got over an acre of land. Think, George, we could spend our time gardening. We could get chickens like you’ve always wanted.’ If he had a yen for apple crumble, she whipped out the iPad and showed him a property with an orchard. If he patted his stomach and rued his lack of exercise, she showed him a property with a pool. If he complained about the traffic, she showed him a house with six miles of uninterrupted bucolic views.
The mantra ‘think of your health’ had now become an almost daily statement from her. No wonder he’d starte
d to throw his empty Gaviscon bottles out in the large bins at work, the clinking making him feel like a secretive alcoholic. The last time she saw them in recycling she’d started crying. ‘But there’s so many!’ she’d sobbed.
George had held her tightly, just as he hugged the truth to himself. He wanted the house with the sweeping gardens and idyllic views. He wanted to be free from the responsibility of the school that hung round his neck with a mass that defied the laws of physics. He wanted to tell the staff he was leaving. Sometimes, sometimes, he allowed himself to think of it. Sometimes. But he couldn’t most of the time because it hurt even to think of it.
The truth was he wanted to go: he was tired. But George couldn’t set himself free. He had to look after the school, he had to protect the staff and the pupils from the Steve Wichard clone who would be hired in his place. A clone who would take pay rises, who would get rid of any poor kid with an aura of trouble, and who would drive the unions out, leaving the staff with no protection. It would happen. He doubted if he could lean on a garden fork and look across the scenic Welsh countryside knowing that back in Hastings his school was unhappy without him.
He’d loved having his own children, but now that Caitlin and James had grown and had families of their own, the truth of it was that his school felt like his third child, just one that had refused to grow up and leave. Instead of getting stronger over time, each year saw it ailing a little more. The reducing of year-on-year budgets was like a reducing bloodflow cutting supply to vital areas. While a heart attack was inevitable, it still wouldn’t be right to euthanise. Better that he stayed, held on, cherished and fought for his school as only he could.
No one else understood.
Only last week his daughter had intervened on Sal’s behalf. She and her family had come round for Sunday lunch, and as soon as it finished, everyone else suddenly disappeared. Caitlin had cornered him as he dried up, taking the tea towel before begging him to ‘Think of Mum. She’s worried sick about you – she thinks your ulcer is going to perforate again.’