Three Hours : A Novel (2020)

by Lupton, Rosamund

  A loud long ring on the doorbell, sounding strange and echoey in the corridor.

  The footsteps come towards them, they get to their door, they keep going.

  He’s gone past the door! He went past!

  They start to count. They get to five.

  * * *

  Neil runs down the corridor towards Jacintha’s classroom, fearing that the gunman will realize it’s a trick and come back. Their part of the corridor remains deserted, the gunman doesn’t yet realize.

  He reaches Jacintha’s classroom and opens the door, but only a few inches because there’s a desk still up against it and behind the desk he sees terror blanching the faces of children and the three adults, and then the relief that it’s him. ‘Time to go,’ he whispers. ‘Quickly now.’ And it’s like he’s asked them to jump off a cliff or stand in front of a firing squad, then Jacintha and Tonya quietly lift the desk and set it down softly away from the door; Tonya walks through the open doorway and the curse is broken and they all run through the doorway into the corridor.

  * * *

  They’ve counted to fifteen and it’s time to leave the library. Hannah’s hand is on Mr Marr’s chest, he’s still breathing. She looks at her socks and her wrist bare of jangling bangles; how can she leave him?

  The door opens very quietly. It’s Mr Forbright. He looks at Mr Marr and Hannah sees his shock and upset, his love for Mr Marr, and through his eyes she knows for a fact, though really she’s known since he was first shot, that Mr Marr is dying.

  ‘Everyone out,’ he says. ‘Quick as you can. Run. You too, Hannah. I’ll come back for him, I promise.’

  18.

  11.54 a.m.

  They hurry out of the library. Hannah sees her English class with Mrs Kale and they look sheet white and thinner somehow, as if they’ve been shrunk by this. Everyone is running towards the doors to the glass corridor in their socks; so quiet that they’re barely breathing, so quiet you can hear the swish of a girl’s long hair.

  A loud creak as Mr Forbright opens the doors and they all tense. He holds the doors open and they run through.

  Through the glass, daylight is like headlamps shining into your eyes. Snow has banked up, everywhere white, their school has changed entirely; and they are all sprinting towards the theatre, faster than they’ve ever run before. Hannah turns and sees Mr Forbright locking the doors behind them; still inside Old School.

  Sally-Anne, waiting by the open doors in the foyer, sees kids streaming towards her along the glass corridor; for a few moments, she can’t believe it’s real because they are silent. As they get closer she can hear them breathing, sees that they’re in socks, holding their shoes, a rustle as they run alongside each other and touch. In the middle of them, but not being touched, is Tobias, his hands pressing his shoes over his headphones. She ushers them in, patting shoulders and backs, shiny hair.

  She hasn’t told anyone else about the rescue plan because what if the gunman chased after everyone escaping from Old School along the glass corridor? Followed them here? The kids in the theatre were safer behind the locked doors to the auditorium, safer not knowing.

  Last down the glass corridor are the staff, like sheepdogs, she thinks: Tonya, Matthew’s punky secretary, and Donna, the matronly receptionist, and Jacintha. No one else coming down the corridor. No sign of Matthew or Neil.

  ‘Is that everyone?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes,’ Donna says. ‘Neil said to lock the doors.’

  Startled and moved by Neil’s courage, she locks the doors; the Yale and the deadbolt.

  The Old School kids are all in the centrally heated foyer, a great crush of them, but shivering as if they are in snow as the shock of it hits them. Some cannot move but just sit where they are. Hannah is covered in blood and just wearing a bra on her top half.

  ‘Sweetheart?’ Sally-Anne says to her.

  ‘It’s not mine, the blood.’

  Sally-Anne takes off her cardigan and wraps it around the shivering girl.

  ‘Everybody into the auditorium,’ she says. ‘Quick as you can.’

  She opens the locked doors and helps the ones who are sitting to stand again and ushers them all into the auditorium. Once inside, she locks and bolts the security doors. No way can the gunman follow them in here.

  * * *

  In the library, Neil sits beside Matthew, holding his hand. Outside the library door he saw the shattered case of medals, but their students have reached the safety of the theatre. Soon the gunman will realize it was all a trick and come back but in the meantime he and Matthew will stay like this. And in the meantime is everything; it is the gap between terror and isolation and whatever is to come; it is the time in between, in this building, empty apart from the two of them, where love and kindness and friendship exist, and it can’t be measured in minutes or hours, but moments in a lifetime. He isn’t sure if Matthew is conscious, isn’t sure if he can hear him, but is sure he can feel his hand.

  * * *

  They walk into the auditorium and Frank thinks it’s like walking into normal life, back into a normal world. The theatre looks exactly the same and some of their friends are on stage, with tunics on, just like they are meant to be; because they are rehearsing just like they are meant to be rehearsing this morning. But as he gets closer he sees their faces are strange, painted green and brown.

  Luisa is running at him, like she’s flying towards him; she flings herself around him, his cool twin sobbing into his chest. And other people are hugging, a hug-a-thon all around him; it’s the kids in the theatre giving the hugs, not shaking and sheet white like they all are. No footsteps, he thinks, and loos and phones and chargers. It hits him that they are safe now. Safe. He hugs Luisa back and his shaking subsides a little.

  Hannah is in the changing-room loos. She takes off the teacher’s cardigan. Her bra and torso are covered in blood. She’ll wash off the blood and then she’ll find a charger for her phone and call Rafi. He must be okay. Must be. Has to wash the blood off.

  Everyone was so happy to start with, being reunited and being safe, and it was like their friends in the theatre were pumping energy and warmth into them.

  She runs her bra under the tap, washing the blood off, but why is she doing that? She’s not going to ever wear it again.

  And then someone, she’s not sure who, asked about Mr Marr and then they were all asking. ‘Will he be okay? Will he make it?’

  Frank said, ‘Yes, he’s conscious and he’ll be okay.’

  ‘What about Mr Forbright?’

  ‘He’s staying with him.’

  The most brave thing Hannah has ever seen.

  All the library kids know Frank was lying about Mr Marr but also the reason, that he’s protecting everyone who’s been in the theatre until this terrible, terrible thing is over; and because they all feel guilty leaving him, Hannah especially because she’s the one who was mainly looking after him, and nobody wants the people in the theatre to feel that bad too.

  She tries to wash the blood off her skin, splashing water all over the place. In the mirror above the basin, she sees her pale body reflected back at her; her breasts look so naked, vulnerable and ugly with dried specks of blood. She wishes that she and Rafi had made love. He’d been the one who’d wanted to wait.

  ‘Jesus, Rafi, you mean till we’re married?’

  ‘I don’t want you to think you’ve made a mistake. I want you to be sure first.’

  She should have just taken his clothes off and made love to him then and there. But she’d worried that it was Rafi who’d later think it was a mistake; that she was. And then he’d left the beach and come back for her. And she’d known that he would never think she was a mistake.

  The specks of dried blood won’t wash off; she tries to pick at them with her nail, the shock of it all hitting her now as she scrapes them off.

  She’s the reason he and Basi are in danger, because he loves her, and if he dies, if Basi does, it would be better if he’d never loved her, never even me
t her.

  Antonella comes in. ‘Hannah? Are you okay?’ She sees the bloody bra at her feet, the red water in the basin. ‘Jesus, you’re hurt.’

  ‘No. I’m fine.’

  ‘Mr Marr?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But Frank said he’d be okay.’

  ‘He will.’

  Colluding in the lie that they’re all telling, till this is over.

  ‘Frank said you used up all the charge on your phone calling the ambulance?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Do you want to borrow mine?’

  Hannah takes her iPhone, startled by the generosity.

  ‘We have chargers, it’s no big deal,’ Antonella says.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You won’t get reception in here, only on the stage or right at the back of the auditorium. They’re going to carry on with Macbeth in a minute.’

  Hannah feels something like a laugh in her chest, really inappropriate but there it is, rising up.

  ‘You’re fucking joking?’

  ‘Fucking not.’

  Why did she never really like this girl before? She has a girl crush on her now, because of her lending her mobile and because she hasn’t commented on her standing there with nothing on her top and because she said, ‘Fucking not.’

  ‘Hannah …?’ Antonella asks.

  ‘I’ll be there in a minute,’ she says, because she is shaking now, uncontrollably, and can’t even get the teacher’s cardigan back on again. ‘It’ll stop in a minute,’ she says.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Antonella says. ‘Got nowhere I need to be for a while.’

  * * *

  Rafi is trying to run, the wind driving snow against him and into the abrasions on his face; he has to find Basi before the terrorist, but he doesn’t know where to go.

  The lights of Abu Qir harbour at night; in the darkness dogs are barking and men are shouting and they have to leave the beach and get to the boat again.

  He knows now how deep the sea is, that Basi will be out of his depth and that he’s not strong enough to carry him. He gives money to a man on the beach next to them, who’s told him that he’s an engineer like Baba; a strong, kind-looking man. The man promises he’ll carry Basi through the water to the boat. Rafi splashes through the waves, having to swim by the time he reaches the boat. He hauls himself up and looks for Basi. The engineer is getting into the boat without Basi, and he sees that the man has dumped Basi in the water near the beach. Out of his depth, Basi is trying to swim to the boat but he can only do doggy-paddle. The people smugglers start the boat’s engine, and Rafi is yelling at them to wait, yelling and yelling, but they don’t turn off the engine. His phone is vibrating but it’s part of the boat’s engine, the whole boat vibrating, and they’re going to leave Basi behind.

  * * *

  Hannah has joined her friends on the stage because it has reception and she’s phoning Rafi but he doesn’t pick up. Maybe he doesn’t know it’s her phoning because she’s using Antonella’s phone so she texts him.

  It’s Hannah using Antonella’s phone

  She sends the text, then rings him. His phone rings five times and each time her heart beats faster, please let him be safe. He answers and she thinks he says something but can’t be sure because all she can hear is the violent wind.

  ‘Rafi? It’s me. Can you hear me?’

  * * *

  Rafi is sitting on the snow, his hoody soaked through, his leg bleeding, pressing his phone against his ear.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Hannah asks.

  Her voice is a pure warm thing among the wind and pain and isolation of the snow.

  ‘Yes.’ But she can’t hear him so he raises his voice, ‘Yes!’

  Pressing his phone against his ear, holding her against him.

  ‘Where are you?’ he asks, having to shout above the wind.

  Because surely she’s at home with her father by now.

  ‘I’m safe. Is Basi all right?’

  ‘I’m going to find him.’

  He’s having to shout so Hannah can hear him and he had to shout when he spoke to Rose Polstein too, to be heard above the wind, but Basi had used his usual little voice when they spoke. It had been hard for Rafi to hear him but that was the wind where Rafi was, not Basi, because where Basi was it was quiet. He’s inside. That’s what he knew when he first talked to Basi, but didn’t register it, not properly, just thought he must be inside Junior School. So, he must be inside somewhere near to Junior School and he will find him.

  One hand presses his phone against his ear to hear Hannah better, and he makes out noises in the background, other voices.

  ‘Where are you?’ he asks again.

  ‘The theatre. Don’t worry, it’s completely safe here.’

  ‘But Frank said …’

  ‘I asked him to lie, I’m sorry. I didn’t want you putting yourself in more danger for me.’

  ‘I love you,’ he says but the harsh wind is gusting, screaming around him, so he has to yell, ‘I love you!’ He checks around him in case the terrorist has heard and is coming after him and imagines his love decimating hate, flattening it, no contest, the man turning into a phantom, a ghost in the snow. But Basi needs him and the terrorist is real and armed.

  ‘I love you too,’ she says and in the background he hears people cheering; someone even whistles, the way Benny whistles. ‘They’re rehearsing Macbeth,’ she says. ‘They’re all a bit bonkers right now. You should be Young Seward, you know that, don’t you? Find Basi and stay safe.’

  He pockets his mobile.

  She got Frank to lie to him about being evacuated. She was protecting him, didn’t want him to be in danger, didn’t want him to be hurt.

  All this time she’s been digging for him.

  The engineer was in the boat, leaving Basi in the water, and Rafi was yelling at the people smugglers as they started the engine, screaming at them, the boat vibrating with the engine, and they were cursing him, but he wouldn’t stop yelling and then they turned the engine off and the boat was quiet and still and Basi was doggy-paddling towards them, Rafi calling to him in Arabic and in English, ‘Come on, Basi, not much further, come on! Come on …!’ and another man, an elderly man, was calling to Basi too, and then he and the elderly man, who later turned out to be a judge, pulled him in.

  There’s a boatshed, he remembers passing it earlier when he ran across the car park from the top of the cliff path; the only indoor place where Basi might be hiding. He will go to the boatshed and find him.

  He thinks that a long time ago he was like a glass, a tall jug, he imagines, clear and transparent, made of invisible love – Mama’s and Baba’s and Karam’s and Basi’s – and he was filled with liquid running life, right to the brim.

  Then a truck stopped – ‘Enter Gloucester his eyes put out’ – and he’d had to leave Mama behind and he’d been beaten and ashamed and frightened and he was a thousand pieces scattered on a snow-covered pavement in Aleppo, an Egyptian beach, the deck of a boat, a migrant camp.

  But then he met a girl, loves this girl, and each of those thousand pieces know their way back to their place in the glass, the cracks in him kaleidoscopes of light.

  * * *

  In the theatre, Hannah feels again that flashing joy, euphorically happy, weightless with it. She walks up the steps to the back of the auditorium with her own phone which has enough charge now for one call.

  She reaches the back of the auditorium, where it’s quiet and gets a good signal. She dials.

  ‘Hey, Dad? I’m in the theatre. I’m safe. Don’t cry.’

  It feels like a miracle to Daphne, all of them here and safe in the theatre. She thinks that for everyone in Old School the noise of his footsteps is still there – they’ve all told her about the footsteps – but now they are borrowing phones and chargers and they’ve been to the loo and they’re with friends and teachers, all of them together in their school theatre, and they’re about to watch a dress rehearsal of Macbeth, which is wha
t is meant to be happening this morning, and the fact that one normal strand of the morning is continuing, and they are a part of it, takes them a little bit further away from the fear and the trauma.

  Neil sent a message to say that Victor Deakin hasn’t returned – hasn’t returned! – so Neil and Matthew are safe too.

  ‘Hey, Hannah,’ Antonella says, calling to Hannah at the back of the auditorium. ‘Text for you from Rafi. He says that Basi must be in the boatshed by Junior School. He’s going to join him.’

  ‘He’ll be safe in there. Sheltered too,’ Benny says, loud with relief, and Daphne claps her hands; she’s not sure if it’s because she’s in a theatre that she’s clapping – would anyone clap in everyday life at good news? Hannah looks like she could float, as if she isn’t fully physically present.

  ‘More good news,’ Sally-Anne says. ‘PC Beard’s texted and he’s safe. He’s hiding in the woods.’

  And now she wants to cheer; restrain yourself, Daphne.

  Sally-Anne texts PC Beard and tells him where Rafi and Basi are. Maybe he can go and shelter with them until this awful thing finally ends. She doesn’t want them to be on their own.

  ‘Right then,’ Daphne says. ‘Shall we carry on?’

  After they’d found out about 14 Words, fearing for Rafi and Basi, the rehearsal had become frenetic and disorganized, some scenes left out, others abandoned, and before the arrival of everyone from Old School they’d reached the end of Act Three. The kids from Old School just want this rehearsal to continue, so even though Daphne’s not sure how many of them will follow what’s going on, they’re going to start Act Four.

  Benny again projects the huge photo of a bombed street in Aleppo on to the back wall of the stage: collapsed chalk-white buildings, black shadow spaces where rooms should be, whitened cables and wires trailing; no building left intact; nowhere left to run. Their desolate place.