by Daniel Hurst
‘What do you play?’ she asks me, and I wonder if she is genuinely interested or just being nice.
‘Mainly FIFA. I love football.’
‘Cool. We’ll have to have a game sometime.’
‘Yeah, that would be awesome!’
I say that a little too enthusiastically and quickly clear my throat. I pretend that the high pitch of my voice was caused by something stuck in there rather than my excitement at playing my favourite game with my crush. The guys at school would really be jealous if they found out Petra had been in my bedroom.
‘Which football team do you support?’ she asks me, and I still can’t believe my luck that I’m spending my whole Maths lesson talking about things that I actually enjoy.
‘Aston Villa,’ I reply. ‘I go to loads of matches.’
‘With your dad?’
I’m caught off guard by the question and quickly try to figure out what the best answer would be. Yes, I do go to the games with my dad but admitting so might remind her of my age, and I’m trying my best to come across as an adult. I could just say that I go with my friends. That would make me seem more mature. But then what if she talks to Dad and finds out that he is the one who takes me to matches? Then she will know I have been lying to her. Then again, why would she be talking to Dad about football?
‘Michael?’
I realise I haven’t answered her.
‘I go with my friends. We get the train together and usually go out afterwards.’
‘Go out?’ she repeats, eying me a little suspiciously. ‘As in drinking?’
Of course we don’t go out drinking. We’re sixteen. We wouldn’t get in anywhere. But I’m trying to seem older, so I have to keep it going.
‘Yeah.’
‘You can get into pubs?’
The questions keep coming so I have no choice but to keep answering them as best I can.
‘Yeah. Some of them. I have a fake ID, but I never have to use it. I guess I look old enough without it.’
I’m lying about the fake ID, and I’m lying about looking old enough. I have never tried getting served in a pub with my mates, and that is for one simple reason. I don’t want to be laughed at by the landlord. But Petra doesn’t need to know that.
‘Cool. So you like going out for a pint, do you?’
‘Oh yeah, I love a pint,’ I reply, nodding and trying to look like a sophisticated drinker, even if the only pints I drink consist of Coca Cola while playing video games at 2 am.
‘I’m more of a wine drinker myself,’ Petra tells me, and I decide I need to be too.
‘Yeah, I don’t mind a wine,’ I say, but I worry I have pushed my luck a little when I get the next question.
‘Really? What’s your favourite wine?’
‘Erm...,’ I do my best to try and remember what wine I have heard my parents talking about over the years. But I can’t quite recall it.
My eyes quickly scan the kitchen until they land on the wine rack in the corner. I can just about make out the label on the bottle on the top shelf.
‘Sharaz?’ I say, unsure if I have read the bottle right from this distance.
‘Shiraz?’ Petra asks, and I guess that must be what I mean.
‘Yeah,’ I reply, nodding confidently. ‘But me and my friends call it Sharaz. Long story.’
I bat the air dismissively as if there really is a long story about why I called it Sharaz. It’s better than admitting that I have absolutely no bloody clue what I am talking about right now.
‘Well, I am impressed. I didn’t start drinking until I was eighteen, but I can see that you are already way ahead of me there.’
I feel a warm glow inside and do my best to stop a massive smile breaking out across my face. Petra is impressed.
I have impressed her.
‘So how did your mum and dad meet?’ she asks me.
I’m surprised by the sudden change in the direction of the conversation. I thought we were talking about me, and I was rather hoping that I would have more opportunities to impress her. Never mind. This is still better than talking about Maths.
‘They met at school,’ I say. ‘When they were my age.’
I cringe because I have just reminded Petra that I am sixteen and I have spent the last half an hour trying to make her forget about that. But it’s too late now. I’ve done it. Fortunately, Petra doesn’t seem to mind or even notice. Instead, she just keeps asking me about Mum and Dad.
27
PETRA
I’ve been feigning interest in Michael’s life for the last half an hour, but now we are finally talking about what I really want to get into.
Amy and Nick’s relationship.
Their son has already told me that they met in their last year of school. That means they have been together for their whole adult life. I thought that was just something that couples did in movies.
‘Wow, so they have been together since they were sixteen?’ I ask, raising my eyebrows to telegraph to Michael that I find that surprising.
‘Yeah, pretty much,’ he replies. ‘They got married at twenty-two, had me at twenty-four. Pretty young, huh?’
‘Very young,’ I reply, and Michael seems impressed that we agree on something else. Of course, those ages aren’t young to get married and have children. Not if the people involved are in love. But I pretend they are to my student because I want him to think that we are both on the same page. That will be the best way for me to keep extracting information from him.
‘Do you have a boyfriend?’ Michael suddenly asks me, and I can tell by his facial expression that he probably meant to think it rather than actually blurt it out.
I hold off on giving him an answer for a moment, more to tease him than anything else, before I finally put him out of his misery.
‘Nope, I’m single,’ I say breezily, letting him know that my freedom is something that I enjoy.
‘The best way to be,’ Michael advises, nodding his head as if he is some sage of the dating game. ‘You have to enjoy life before you settle down.’
I manage to hold in the laugh that is threatening to leave me and nod my head too. This kid is sixteen, yet he’s trying to make out like he has loved and lost. The only thing he loves is his video games, and the only thing he has lost is his homework. But I appreciate his effort to impart some wisdom onto me.
Of course, it should be me who is imparting the wisdom on him, yet thirty minutes into the lesson and I haven’t even begun to teach him any of the things that his parents are paying me to do. Not that it’s a problem. I hardly expect him to go and complain to his mum and dad about his lack of learning here today. I’m sure he is enjoying our conversation a lot more than he would be if we were back on probabilities again.
‘So what are your parents’ hobbies?’ I ask, making sure the flow of information is still going to keep coming from across the table.
‘Drinking wine,’ Michael suggests lazily, and I laugh. I’m sure he meant it as a joke, but he seems a little surprised by my reaction, so maybe he was being serious. ‘Dad likes football like I said. And mum watches TV.’
I smile because he has answered the questions with about as much enthusiasm as I would have expected a teenage son to speak about their parents with. But I just know that he is dying to get the conversation back onto himself again. He’ll be thinking of all the different ways he can try and impress me with his maturity some more. I will go back to asking him about himself shortly. But I just have a couple more things I want to know first.
‘Do you think your parents are happy?’ I ask, keeping the tone of my voice light to deflect away from the weight of the question I have just asked.
Michael looks a little uncomfortable and shifts in his seat so I allow my gaze to lower to the Maths book in front of me as a way to remind him that there is something else we could be talking about instead.
‘I guess so,’ he replies, making sure my gaze is returned to him and not the multitude of GCSE questions in that book. ‘I ne
ver hear them arguing.’
‘That’s good. Although some would say...’ I allow my sentence to drift off. ‘Never mind.’
‘What?’ Michael asks, intrigued by what I might be thinking.
‘Well, it’s just that some people might say that if couples don’t argue, then it shows a lack of passion in the relationship. But I think that’s a load of rubbish.’
Michael doesn’t seem so sure, so I press on.
‘Would you say that they have passion?’
‘What do you mean?’ he asks me, and he looks every bit of his age right now. I make sure that I remind him of it too.
‘Sorry, forget about it. You’re sixteen. You don’t know about all of that stuff yet.’
I say it in a tone that lets him know that I don’t mean it in a disparaging way. But I want him to feel bad, at least just a little. As I let my words sink in, I flip open the textbook in front of me and pretend to be getting ready to finally start the lesson.
‘You mean sex?’ he asks me, and the word is enough to get me to look up from the book.
I allow my silence to give him his answer.
‘They have sex,’ he continues. ‘I heard them the other night actually. At least I heard the start of it. I put my headphones in quickly before they could really get going.’
I smile at how much Michael is blushing as he says all of this. No teenager wants to talk about their parents in this way, but he is obviously trying to make sure that I know he is aware of those kinds of things, and I appreciate his effort.
‘Wow, lucky them,’ I say. ‘I guess being married isn’t so bad.’
Michael laughs, and I bet he is thinking about how he can tell all his friends at school about how he got to talk about sex with his tutor. I’m sure he has already shown them a picture of me. I bet he has been on my Facebook page. Why else would he have asked me for my surname last week?
‘Right, we better get some work done,’ I say, finding the page that I want in the book.
‘Is there anything else you want to know?’ Michael asks hopefully, trying to put off revising for one more minute if he can. But I was expecting this.
I pretend to think about it for a moment before I ask him the question that I had already had in mind before he sought it.
‘Which night was it when you heard your mum and dad?’
Michael thinks about it for a second, probably wondering why it matters. But it does matter. It matters to me.
‘Thursday,’ he replies. ‘Yeah, I’m pretty sure it was Thursday.’
‘Cool,’ I say, doing my best to suppress the grin that is trying to break out on my face.
That was the answer that I was hoping to hear. That’s because Thursday was the last time I was here. It was the night I spoke with Nick on the driveway.
I imagine it was the reason why he was feeling so frisky that evening.
28
AMY
I’m sitting on Bella’s bed watching my daughter run through some dance routine that she has just learnt on YouTube, but my mind is elsewhere. It’s downstairs on the woman sitting at my kitchen table, as well as out on the streets where my husband is running. I might be being silly, but I can’t help it.
I’m worried that something is going to happen between my husband and the tutor.
Bella’s attempts at breakdancing are not enough to distract my wandering thoughts. Nick was looking at Petra’s Facebook page in his study. Why else would he be doing that unless he was interested in her? I know I looked at her page too, but that is different. I was looking because I was a curious parent wanting to find out a little more about the person teaching my child. I very much doubt that was the reason why he found himself on that same page.
Now he is out running, which is something that he has only started to do since she started coming around. Is that what’s motivating him? Is he trying to get in shape to look better in front of her? Is he using exercise as a way to try and impress her?
The fact that he is out of the house while she is here should be a good thing, but even that is making me a little paranoid. He could have gone for a run at any point today. Why has he gone now? Does he not want to be here when she is? If so, why not?
Is it because he is worried about what he might do if he sees her again?
‘Mum, watch!’ Bella cries, and I return my focus to my child. I’ve seen a million of these dances over the years, and I should enjoy them while they last because it’s only a matter of time until she doesn’t want me anywhere near her bedroom anymore. I should also be glad that she is in better spirits than she was last week when she came into my bedroom in the middle of the night and told me about the girl who had been teasing her. That seems to have been resolved since I spoke to Mrs Samson. Bella has said there had been no teasing since.
‘Very good darling,’ I say as I watch my daughter do some weird thing with her arms. God knows which celebrity has come up with this routine, but I imagine that I’m not the only parent in the world to be subjected to watching their child performing it tonight.
As Bella keeps dancing, my mind returns to the people outside of this room. I just can’t help worrying about the fact that something might happen between Nick and Petra. But he wouldn’t do that, would he?
Could he hurt me again?
I know that all my jealousy and anxiety stems from the fact that Nick has strayed before. It was ten years ago, but that doesn’t mean I have ever fully recovered from it. It happened with a woman he used to work with back when he was still office-based. I saw a message flash up on his phone when he was in the shower one night. He must have forgotten to take his mobile in the bathroom with him like he usually did so I had been able to see what had just arrived on his device.
It was from a woman called Tina. It was a photo. And it had two kisses beneath it.
Using the code that he had told me about before, I unlocked the message and kept hold of the device until my husband had emerged from the bathroom. Then I had told him Tina had been in touch.
I had seen his face drop when I handed the phone to him. But that had been nothing compared to how he had reacted when I had demanded to know who she was.
He had got defensive. He had got angry. And he had got rude. But I had refused to drop it until he told me. In the end, he confessed to everything.
How he had been stupid. How he had been drunk. How he had been meaning to put a stop to it. How it had only happened because he spent all day with her at work. How the arrival of Bella had meant that there hadn’t been much time for us. Most of all, he had told me how he was sorry, and he was never going to do anything like this again.
It had taken me a long time, but I had eventually forgiven him. I had told him that he had to leave his job and that woman and he did, and that is how he had ended up working from home. His new company told him about how he could work remotely, and he said it sounded perfect, which I had to agree with. Having him at home all day was one way of making sure nothing like that ever happened again. A decade on and those wounds are still there but buried deep.
But seeing that profile page open on his laptop the other day has sent me into a tailspin.
I haven’t spoken to him about it yet. How can I? It’s not as if he has been receiving messages from Petra. He has just been checking out her photos on social media. I don’t want him to think that I’m so crazy that I won’t allow him to browse the internet anymore. But why did it have to be her page?
Why did it have to be the woman who is in our house right now?
I regret not hiring Sue to be Michael’s tutor. Then I wouldn’t have had all these worries. There would have been zero chance of Nick being tempted if we had hired her, but there would have been zero chance of getting Michael to sit down and study with her too. I try to keep my anxiety at bay by telling myself that I am doing the best thing for my son, and it is only for a few more weeks until his exams come around. Besides, just because Nick might fancy Petra, it doesn’t mean that she fancies him. He is twelve
years older than her. I doubt she would be interested even if he was.
So why don’t I feel better about things?
Bella keeps dancing while my mind keeps running.
Somewhere on those streets, Nick is doing his own kind of running.
29
NICK
You can’t beat the endorphins that you get from a good run. I’ve been out here pounding the tarmac for forty minutes, and I feel great. My heart rate is up, my adrenaline is spiking, and the dopamine hit is making me feel better than I have felt in months. I can’t believe I stopped doing this. I should never have quit running. At least I’ve got back into it again now. It’s the best way of making yourself feel good naturally.
Okay, so maybe the second-best way.
I’m trying not to think about that other thing that people do to get a natural high. One, because I don’t get to do that so much these days and two, I don’t get to do it with the people that I want to.
Picking up the pace, I turn the corner at the top of the street and move onto flatter ground. I like going this way because of the hill that I am forced to climb, but I’m glad that I have reached the top now. I’m over halfway, and it won’t be long until I’m back at home with my feet up. By that time Petra will have left, and I won’t have to worry about bumping into her again.
I’m not the perfect husband, but I’m trying.
I haven’t cheated on Amy since my mistake with Tina ten years ago. While I like to think that proves that I have learnt my lesson and have become a better husband, I am also aware that I haven’t exactly been tested in all that time. I have worked from home ever since I left that office where the fling with Tina had begun, which means I have hardly been around another woman besides Amy since then. We have a few friends that we meet up with on occasion, but I have never looked at them in the same way that I looked at my former colleague, so I have never been tempted at all.
Not once.
Until now.
Petra is the first woman that I have been around since Tina who has made me feel like I did back then.