Burning Secrets

by Clare Chambers

  “Chet! Come here!” Daniel bellowed, as he chased after the runaway dog, skirting the pitch to avoid the players, who’d abandoned the game and were staring after him. In the classrooms overlooking the field heads turned at the commotion.

  Chet vanished around the side of the building, and as Daniel caught up, he was horrified to see the dog bounding in through the automatic sliding doors of the front entrance.

  Sweating with embarrassment, Daniel followed, smiling apologetically at the flustered receptionist who had emerged from behind her desk.

  “Sorry,” said Daniel. “Can I go and get him?” He pointed down the long carpeted corridor leading out of the lobby, from which distant barking was clearly audible.

  “Please do,” said the receptionist faintly.

  “Has somebody lost a dog?” a voice said, and a woman appeared from one of the corridor’s many doorways. Although she was smartly dressed in a suit and had her hair twisted up and fastened in a clip, it was unmistakably the same woman he had met on the cliff path. She had one hand hooked under Chet’s collar; with the other she was tickling him behind the ears. She didn’t seem remotely annoyed. “I thought I recognised those muddy paws,” she said, smiling at Daniel. “Hello again.”

  “Hello,” mumbled Daniel, hastily clipping Chet’s lead back on. “Sorry. He was chasing something.”

  “No harm done. It was probably the caretaker’s cat. He loves a scrap.” She looked at Daniel with interest. “How are you getting on?”

  “Er, OK, thanks.”

  “I’ve been meaning to call round.”

  “Oh…” said Daniel without enthusiasm. The last thing they needed was someone pressurising them to come to school.

  “I didn’t mean an official visit. I was just going to say hello. See how you were getting on.”

  “We’re OK. My mum’s teaching us at home, so…” It was difficult to find a way to tell someone to back off that didn’t sound rude.

  “In that case I won’t disturb you,” Mrs Ivory said, smoothly. “I only wanted to say that you and your sister are very welcome to come in and use our facilities any time. We’ve got computers and a swimming pool and a gym and a lovely grand piano that doesn’t get nearly enough use.” She smiled encouragingly, and Daniel wondered how she knew that he had a sister. Information travelled like smoke on a breeze here.

  “You mean walk in any time?”

  “Well, yes. Although after school hours would probably make more sense. The computers and music room are in use during the day. But we’re open until seven on week nights and all day Saturday. We’ve got the best facilities on Wragge, so the students are often here outside of school hours. Don’t feel you can’t use the place just because you’re not a pupil yet.”

  Free computers sounded good, Daniel thought. Though the rest of the island must offer zero entertainment if people willingly spent their free time back at school. “So I just turn up. I don’t have to let anyone know?”

  “You just turn up.”

  “How do you stop things getting nicked, if people just wander in and out?” At school in London they’d had security gates and keypads on all the doors – even the teachers had swipe cards to get in – and everything still got nicked, anyway.

  She laughed at his pessimism. “Theft isn’t really a problem on an island this size. Everyone knows everyone. There’s nothing much to steal, and nowhere to dispose of anything stolen. Nobody here bothers to lock their doors.”

  They were interrupted by hesitant throat-clearing noises from the receptionist. “Emma, there’s a Mr Chancellor on the line? Do you want to take it?”

  Mrs Ivory said goodbye to Daniel, gave Chet’s back a last ruffle, and returned to her office to take the call.

  “Do you know who that is?” the receptionist whispered to Daniel. “That’s the headteacher – Mrs Ivory.” And she gave him a significant look, as though he’d had an audience with the Pope or something, Daniel thought later.

  Chapter 7

  DANIEL WASTED NO time in following up Mrs Ivory’s suggestion; he was desperate to get on a computer again, since it looked increasingly unlikely that there would ever be an internet connection at The Brow. His mum’s efforts to call out an engineer to connect them seemed to have stalled in the face of unexplained delays and hitches.

  His plan was to spend an hour or two online, maybe check out the piano, and then do fifty lengths of the pool. Louie refused to come with him; she wouldn’t swim in public, anyway, and didn’t want to set foot in Stape High. In spite of Daniel’s assurances, she was suspicious that Mrs Ivory was trying to lure them back to school.

  “Go without me. I’m fine here,” she said, without looking at him. She was sitting at her easel, smearing thick daubs of black and blue oil-paint on to a stormy-looking canvas. However they began, most of her paintings ended up looking dark and stormy.

  “That’s good,” he said, nodding at the picture. “What is it?”

  Louie gave him a withering look. “It’s not meant to be anything.”

  “Oh. Right. Well, it’s good, anyway, whatever it is. Or isn’t.” He was glad he was going out now. It was better to keep your head down when Louie started getting artistic. She’d once taken a bread knife to one of her paintings because it wasn’t turning out the way she wanted and slashed the canvas from top to bottom.

  Mum was in the kitchen, working at a translation, as he put his head round the door to say goodbye. One end of the table was covered with the pages of a manuscript and her own handwritten notes; the other, with vegetable peelings. A large pan of greenish liquid bubbled and frothed on the hob. Some species of soup for dinner, thought Daniel, making a mental note to buy proper food while he was out.

  He stuffed his towel, swimming trunks, goggles and wallet into the drawstring bag with the smiley logo and set off.

  It was five-thirty by the time he reached Stape and the students had long gone. The automatic doors swished open to admit Daniel into the empty lobby. At the reception desk the switchboard lights winked unheeded. He began to make his way down the corridors, half expecting someone to challenge him and ask what he was up to. It hadn’t occurred to him until now that he wouldn’t be able to find his way around. The students would know where the music practice rooms and computers were, but there were no signs or directions to assist a stranger. Daniel wandered past silent classrooms and laboratories releasing the faint scent of sulphur and leaky gas-tap into the corridor. A cleaner appeared from a doorway dragging a squat hoover by its flexible trunk.

  “Where’s the computer room?” Daniel asked, unable to shake off the feeling that he was an intruder.

  He was in the wrong block altogether. The woman gave him directions to a distant corner of the building and went on her way, the hoover following her in fits and starts like a badly behaved pet.

  As he walked, Daniel checked out the displays on the walls: one whole board was taken up with students’ portraits. The standard was dismal – figure-drawing only one step up from stick-men! Daniel assumed it must be the work of the youngest pupils, but the year group was the same as Louie’s. Unbelievable. She’d produced better stuff than this at primary school.

  There were half a dozen other students already in the IT suite when Daniel walked in. To his relief they were sitting separately, spread out around the room, and did no more than glance up at him and back to their screens. Individuals were always much less intimidating than a group. Over the hum of computers and the air-conditioning, he could hear the soft rattle of fingers on keyboards; apart from that all was quiet.

  Daniel found an empty terminal and followed the onscreen instructions to set up a password. A feeling of warmth and contentment began to steal over him as he logged on to his favourite sites, as if he was a traveller coming in from the cold to find a welcoming fire in the grate. He felt reconnected to the world of online gamers out there. Even somewhere as remote and isolated as Wragge you could still belong.

  These elevated thoughts were cut shor
t when Daniel discovered that his subscriptions to World of Warcraft and other (inferior) gaming sites had been allowed to lapse. Typical of Mum to overlook the important things, he thought irritably. He tried to log on to Facebook instead, but the computer was achingly slow, and after a wait of five minutes a warning message popped up: access denied. He tried another, and another with the same effect, squirming in his seat and sighing with impatience, striking the keyboard more forcefully than really necessary. Even YouTube was off limits. No one else in the room appeared to be experiencing these frustrations; they were all typing away placidly, doing homework assignments or playing silent arcade games.

  Exasperated, Daniel shut down the terminal, snatched up his bag and stalked out, letting the door bang behind him. What a waste of time! What was the point of having whole banks of new computers if you were going to censor every site? Even though he generally spent a sizeable part of each day kicking around trying to find ways to pass the time, Daniel was suddenly furious about a precious hour wasted. He was still fuming when he reached the music room. The door had been left open, thousands of pounds’ worth of instruments there for the taking. There was a rack of electric guitars, a couple of saxophones and a whole percussion section including a drum kit. Taking out his frustration on the grand piano he banged out the handful of pieces he knew by heart, his foot pumping at the loud pedal. Gradually, the quality of the piano won him over and he began to calm down. It was a beautiful instrument and made him sound a thousand times better than he really was. He closed his eyes and imagined himself on stage at the Albert Hall or somewhere equally unrealistic. The stillness around him was the audience holding its breath. He hammered out a Rachmaninov prelude, blundering in places, but feeling the music with every fibre of his being. When he opened his eyes he was startled to find that he was no longer alone. A youngish woman had come into the room and was standing listening. She had long bushy hair tied up in a loose ponytail, and looked vaguely familiar, but Daniel was too surprised to recall where he’d seen her.

  “Very good,” she said, taking her hands out of her pockets and applauding softly. “How come we haven’t met before? Whose class are you in?”

  “I don’t go to school here,” Daniel replied, embarrassed. “Mrs Ivory said I could come in and use the piano and stuff.”

  “I should have guessed you weren’t a pupil. No one here plays like that.”

  “I know. It was rubbish. I haven’t played it for ages.” He stood up to go.

  “It wasn’t rubbish.”

  “It was full of mistakes. I can’t play it without the music.”

  “I can get the music for you, if you like. Anyway, mistakes are OK. You played with real feeling – that’s the main thing. I haven’t heard anyone do that since I came here. I’m the music teacher by the way, Helen Swift.” She held out a dry chapped hand to be shaken.

  “Oh. I’m Daniel. Milman,” he replied, giving her hand a reluctant tug.

  “Who’s your piano teacher? Mr Reid?”

  “I don’t have lessons. I quit ages ago.”

  “And yet here you are, practising.”

  “Yeah. Now I don’t have to, I want to.” What he couldn’t tell her was that the urge to play had come back during those endless months at Lissmore, when there was no possibility of playing a piano, when it would in fact have been positively dangerous.

  “Didn’t I see you on the ferry coming over?” she asked. “Are you not from round here?”

  He remembered her now, sitting in the bar, reading. “No. London.”

  “Me too.” It was like a bond between them – fellow strangers in a foreign land. Helen Swift made herself comfortable in the teacher’s swivel chair and seemed in no hurry to bring the conversation to an end. “I thought it was almost impossible for outsiders to get a residency permit. I only got one because they couldn’t get a music teacher. What brought you here?”

  “My great-granddad lived here. He left my mum his cottage when he died. So we’re living here for six months. Get away from London and stuff.”

  “And do you like it? Wragge, I mean?”

  “It’s OK,” said Daniel guardedly. He had learnt that it was generally safer not to reveal too much of your own opinions. “It’s a bit kind of… dead.”

  Helen nodded. “I still can’t get used to the fact that the shops all shut at lunchtime on Saturday. Mind you, there’s not a lot to buy when they’re open.”

  “You can’t even get a Coke,” Daniel complained.

  “That’s true, now you mention it,” said Helen, suddenly attentive. “The students love that disgusting bitter lemon stuff. Of course they drink mostly water at school – there are water coolers in the classrooms – and the sixth formers all drink black coffee. But I’ve never seen anyone drinking Coke.”

  Daniel felt the conversation had gone on long enough. There were still things he wanted to do before the school closed, so he asked the teacher if she knew where the pool was, and she offered to take him there.

  On their way they passed Mrs Ivory going in the opposite direction. She seemed pleased to see that Daniel had taken up her invitation and stopped to chat. “Oh, you’ve met Miss Swift already. She’ll be able to show you around.”

  “It’s a case of the blind leading the blind, I’m afraid,” Helen replied. “I still get lost several times a day.” Daniel noticed that in the head’s presence her voice had immediately become more formal and ‘proper’.

  “It is a bit of a labyrinth,” said Mrs Ivory, cheerfully. “Are you going to try our pool?”

  “I was going to,” said Daniel, patting his swimming bag to show he’d come prepared.

  Mrs Ivory’s manner changed, as if something important had distracted her. She seemed about to say something, but then thought better of it and walked briskly on.

  The music teacher took Daniel all the way to the sports block which housed the pool. “Come and use the piano any time,” she said as they parted. “I’ll try and dig out that Rachmaninov music for you next time.”

  There was no one in the reception area, but he could hear the sounds of a basketball game coming from the gym. In the changing room, which smelled powerfully of feet, there were uniforms and kitbags on the benches. He changed quickly into his trunks and stuffed his clothes, towel and wallet into the drawstring bag, which he hung on a peg. He wished he’d thought to bring a drink with him, and then noticed a water cooler in the corner. The clear bluish plastic of the canister made the water look cool and inviting, but there weren’t any cups. The dispenser was empty and the bin below was full of used paper cones, but Daniel decided he wasn’t thirsty enough to make a habit of fishing stuff out of bins.

  The pool was a decent size for a school one – twenty-five metres, with a springboard at the deep end and an area roped off for lane swimming. It looked fairly new too; the chrome handrails were shiny and unscratched and the grouting had that bright whiteness that doesn’t last. A group of eleven- or twelve-year-old girls was playing on giant floats in the shallow end, their shouts of laughter bouncing off the tiled walls. Perched on a tall chair and clutching a long pole which ended in a wire loop as though in readiness for an imminent drowning, sat the lifeguard, Kenny-next-door. He gave a grunt of recognition as Daniel approached. It was the first time they had met since he had brought the eggs round. Occasionally Daniel had seen him from his bedroom window, weeding the vegetable patch or picking runner beans, but they hadn’t spoken. His mum had decided, in that way she had of instantly judging and labelling people, that he was retarded.

  “Hello,” said Daniel, hoping to engage Kenny in conversation. It would give him great satisfaction to be able to demolish his mum’s prejudice by reporting back that Kenny was completely normal.

  “Hello,” said Kenny, without making eye contact.

  Not retarded, just a bit shy, Daniel thought. He could relate to that. “I didn’t know you worked here,” he said.

  “I’m the assistant caretaker,” Kenny replied, with a hint of sel
f-importance. “Mr Fixit. I just do this a couple of evenings because I’ve got my lifesaving certificate.”

  “It’s a nice pool,” said Daniel, snapping on his goggles. He felt a bit self-conscious, especially now that the group of girls was getting out, and he’d be the only one in the water under Kenny’s watchful eye.

  “Don’t all the schools in London have swimming pools then?”

  “Hardly any,” said Daniel.

  This answer seemed to please Kenny. “I thought they would have,” he said.

  Daniel made his way up to the deep end and dived in, surfacing to find Kenny still talking. “Cat’s just had kittens,” he was saying. “Your sister could come round and have a look at them if she wants. Before we get rid of them.”

  Daniel gave a thumbs-up sign, wondering uneasily what form this ‘getting rid of ’ would take, and then began to swim lengths; front crawl, his face well down in the water to discourage further chat. He completed thirty lengths without pauses in record time, aware that Kenny might be wanting to lock up and go home, then hurried into the changing room. He stopped abruptly, looking around in confusion: his bag containing his clothes, wallet and towel had gone.

  Chapter 8

  DANIEL STOOD, DRIPPING and shivering on the chilly tiles, staring in disbelief at the empty peg where he’d hung his bag. A quick glance around the changing room confirmed it had well and truly vanished. There were piles of uniform and kit lying around on and under benches, but no sign of his distinctive blue bag. A feeling of panic and rage swept over him and goose pimples sprang up on his bare flesh. Oh no, Mrs Ivory had said. We don’t have any stealing here. We’re all one big happy family. And now on his first visit, someone had nicked his stuff. How the hell was he going to get home without clothes?