The Tutor

by Daniel Hurst

  ‘Oh. Okay,’ Nick replies, doing a good job of keeping his eyes on my face and not my dress, even though he must be tempted to look down.

  ‘I’m not sure where but it must be here because I’ve looked everywhere else. I must have left it here after my last lesson with Michael.’

  ‘I see,’ Nick says, and he looks back over his shoulder into the house as if that will confirm to him if I am telling the truth or not.

  ‘Could you just check? It’s just it’s quite an expensive book and I need it for my other students.’

  ‘Sure, let’s have a look. Like you say, it must be here somewhere. It has probably got mixed up with Michael’s books.’

  Nick steps back into the house but leaves the door open, and I take that as my sign to go inside too. I close the door behind myself, and without the sounds of the street outside it suddenly feels very, very quiet in here.

  ‘Is it just you?’ I ask as if I have no idea that the rest of his family are out.

  ‘Yeah, the kids have got their activities, and Amy’s on a girl’s day out in Birmingham,’ Nick replies as he walks towards the kitchen.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry to interrupt your peace and quiet,’ I lie.

  ‘Don’t worry about it. I wasn’t doing much anyway.’

  We’ve walked into the kitchen and I can tell that Amy is out because the counters are full of dirty bowls, spoons and plates from what I imagine was a typically chaotic breakfast time.

  ‘I know some of Michael’s books are down here,’ Nick says, walking over to the shelf near the kitchen table. ‘Hopefully it’s with these.’

  He picks up the stack of revision textbooks from the shelf and starts going through them, and I know I should help, but I’m too busy looking at all the cookbooks that are also nearby.

  ‘Wow, I guess Amy is quite the chef,’ I say, picking up a chunky book full of traditional dessert recipes.

  ‘Yeah, she’s pretty handy in the kitchen,’ Nick replies. ‘Plays havoc with my waistline though.’

  ‘Doesn’t look like it,’ I reply quickly, making sure that he sees me checking out his torso.

  ‘Erm. So is it any of these?’ he asks, thrusting the revision books in my direction to disguise his awkwardness at the compliment I just gave him.

  I make a point of looking through them all carefully, even though I already know that the textbook won’t be here. Why would it be? It’s under my coffee table in my flat.

  ‘No, I can’t see it,’ I reply, feigning disappointment. ‘Is there anywhere else he might have put it by mistake?’

  ‘The only other place would be his bedroom,’ Nick says, and I smile because that’s exactly what I was hoping he would suggest. ‘I’ll just go and check.’

  Nick heads for the door as I place the books back on the shelf, and I wait until I hear his footsteps on the stairs before I follow him. I don’t want him to know that I have followed him up there until it is too late.

  I can hear him rummaging around in the upstairs bedroom as I climb the stairs, and I see the open doorway which must lead to Michael’s room when I reach the landing. Walking in confidently, I find Nick on his hands and knees, pulling several textbooks out from under his son’s bed.

  ‘So this is what a teenage boy’s bedroom looks like,’ I say from my position by the doorway.

  Nick bangs his head on the edge of the bed as he looks up, and he is clearly surprised to see that I have joined him upstairs.

  ‘Here, let me help you,’ I say, crouching down so that I am at the same height as the man beside the bed.

  The floor is littered with football magazines, video game boxes and discarded items of clothing but I’m able to find a small slice of carpet to fit myself onto beside Nick, which means we are now very close together.

  The man of the house is uncomfortable, but he does his best to keep to the task at hand.

  ‘Is it any of these?’ he asks, referencing the numerous textbooks that he has pulled out from under the bed.

  He clearly doesn’t have a clue what he is looking for because some of these books refer to school years that Michael has long since left behind, but I don’t tell him that.

  ‘Hmmm, I can’t see it,’ I say. ‘But then it’s hard to see anything in here.’

  Nick laughs at my joke, and I’m glad because I need to keep it light. I need to keep his mind off the fact that his wife would kill him if she knew that he was in this house alone with me, never mind his son for letting me into his bedroom.

  ‘Yeah, it is a bit of a tip. But then so was my room at his age,’ Nick says.

  I keep my eyes on the books on the floor, but I can feel him checking me out in my peripheral vision. It’s time to go in for the kill.

  ‘I have a confession to make,’ I say, turning to look at him so that our faces are even closer now.

  ‘What?’ Nick asks, his eyes wandering down to my perfect red lips.

  ‘There is no textbook. I lied about leaving it here. I knew you would be home alone today. That’s why I’m here. I wanted to see you.’

  Nick looks stunned by my confession, but I’m telling him the truth. I make sure I keep looking at his lips too to let him know how serious I am.

  ‘How did you know I’d be alone?’

  ‘Michael told me. We’ve been texting.’

  ‘Why have you been texting?’

  ‘Because I’m still teaching him. He comes to my flat. I guess he didn’t want to stop seeing me. Just like I don’t want to stop seeing you.’

  I move my face closer towards him, inviting him to close the last little distance between us and initiate our first ever kiss. And I have a feeling he is going to do it too.

  He is going to do it right up until we hear the front door open downstairs.

  43

  MICHAEL

  ‘Dad, I’m home!’ I call out into the quiet house as I close the front door behind me.

  I dump my rucksack at the bottom of the stairs and kick off my trainers, annoyed that my football game got cancelled at the last minute but trying to look on the bright side. I can chill out and play FIFA all morning now instead.

  I get no response from Dad and assume he hasn’t heard me because he is locked away in the study again. I’m tempted to go up to my bedroom and start playing my game, but I had better make sure he knows that I am home or he will still be thinking that he needs to go and pick me up at lunchtime.

  ‘Dad!’

  Still no reply. He’s so annoying. I bet he’s got his headphones in on his laptop again. He says he is working, but I know he does it so that he doesn’t have to listen to all the other things going on in the house. Mum’s nagging. Bella’s singing. And me trying to get his attention. But he’s alone now so he shouldn’t be trying to drown out the noise.

  So why isn’t he answering me?

  ‘Michael?’

  I turn around and see my dad standing on the staircase. He looks surprised to see me, which he should be because I shouldn’t be home yet.

  ‘There you are,’ I say, rolling my eyes. ‘I’ve been calling you.’

  ‘What are you doing back?’ he asks and I notice him glancing back up the stairs as he speaks.

  ‘The game got cancelled. The other team didn’t have enough players. Idiots. I got a lift back off Nev’s mum.’

  ‘You should have called me. I would have come and got you.’

  ‘It’s fine, I’m back now,’ I say, reaching the bottom of the staircase. ‘I’m gonna go play some Fifa before revising.’

  I have no intention of revising, but I better say I do otherwise I won’t get to play my game beforehand.

  ‘Wait,’ Dad says and he rushes down towards me, blocking my path to go up.

  ‘What?’ I ask, getting annoyed. I wish he had been out too. Then I would have had the house to myself, and I would have been playing FIFA already.

  ‘You can’t go up there.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I’m planning a surprise and I don’t want
you to see it.’

  ‘What surprise?’

  I look past him up the stairs, but I can’t see anything from down here.

  ‘It’s for after your exams. For all the hard work you are doing. But you can’t go up there, or you’ll see it.’

  A present for after my exams? I like the sound of that.

  ‘What is it?’ I ask, even though Dad obviously won’t tell me.

  ‘It’s a surprise. But I need to put it away. Can you go out in the back garden for five minutes while I move it?’

  ‘Why can’t I just stay down here?’

  ‘Because I need to bring it down. Just do it, please.’

  I’m not sure why Dad is so flustered about the whole thing, but then I figure it must be because Mum has told him to make sure that I don’t find out about it until my exams are finished. She wouldn’t want me to be distracted.

  I can’t believe they have got me a present. I actually feel a little bad for not doing more revision now.

  ‘Okay, I’ll go in the back garden. But hurry up, it looks like it’s going to rain.’

  I put my trainers on and head for the back door in the kitchen, annoyed at the temporary delay to getting on my games console but also excited about what this surprise present could be. They have already told me about the tickets to the E-sports festival in London if I keep having my lessons with Sue, but this must be something else.

  Stepping outside, I pull the back door closed behind me and look up at the gloomy sky. It is definitely going to rain. Maybe it’s a good thing the game got cancelled. I was looking forward to playing football, but it looks more like a day for playing it online in my bedroom rather than outside on a real pitch.

  I wander down to the shed at the bottom of the garden and peep through the small window on the side, but I can’t make out anything within as it’s too dark in there. But I know that there’s nothing exciting inside: just a lawnmower, a rusted barbeque and a couple of old deckchairs. Turning back to the house, I walk across the grass and wonder if enough time has passed for Dad to hide my present away and let me come back inside again.

  I can feel the first few drops of rain beginning to land on my skin, and I need to get back inside sooner rather than later if I don’t want to get drenched. I decide to give it one more minute. He should have finished by then. Too bad if not. If I catch a glimpse of the present, then so be it.

  To pass the time, I take out my mobile phone and look at my messages. There’s already a new one from Nev even though I have literally just said goodbye to him five minutes ago when his mum dropped me off. He’s sent me a football meme, and it’s a funny one, but I’ll reply to him later. Going down through my messages, I notice the last one I sent to Petra. I had thanked her for the lesson we had the other day, but she didn’t reply. No biggie. As long as we are still on for the next one, then I don’t care.

  Maybe I should make sure that we are.

  I type out a message to her asking her if we are definitely still on for the secretive study session on Wednesday and press send. I know she might not text me back for a while. It is Saturday after all. She must be busy. I wonder what she is up to. I try not to let myself imagine her out on a date with some other guy right now.

  I wait for the tick to appear on the message to tell me that it has been delivered to Petra’s phone. After a couple of seconds, I see it.

  I also hear the ringtone from another mobile phone at the exact same time.

  That’s weird. What are the odds of sending a message and hearing somebody receive one nearby at the exact same moment?

  The noise sounded like it came from the front of the house. I walk down the side and see the gate that leads to the driveway. Mum and Dad always used to make sure it was closed when we were small, but they don’t care as much now that we are older, which is why it is currently wide open.

  I walk through it, and that’s when I hear the sound of the front door closing.

  I wish I’d stopped there. I wish I hadn’t looked around the corner onto the driveway. Then I wouldn’t have seen who was leaving. But I did.

  I looked, and I saw.

  I saw Petra rushing away from my house.

  44

  PETRA

  That was close. I can’t believe Michael came home. How annoying. Nick and I had just been about to kiss. I could have been in his bed right now. Instead, I’m out here in the rain trying to get back to my car before I get soaked.

  I get behind the wheel and slam the door shut before taking out my mobile phone. I heard a new message come through just as I was leaving Nick’s house and I want to check it before I drive. I also want to take a minute to chill. That was a stressful time trying to get downstairs and out of the house without Michael seeing me. I need to get my heart rate down before I start the engine and drive home.

  I take out my phone and check the notification on the screen. But it doesn’t make my heart rate go down. It does the opposite.

  The message is from Michael.

  Oh god, did he see me?

  I look up at his house through my windscreen from where I am parked down the street, but I can’t see any sign of him or anybody else looking back at me. He can’t have seen me. Nick told me that Michael was in the back garden. I left via the front. There’s no way he could have spotted me.

  Letting out a deep breath, I open the message to see what Michael has sent. But it’s just a message asking me if we are still on for our session on Wednesday. There’s nothing about him seeing me today. He’s not asking me what I was doing at his house with his dad while everybody else was out.

  I got away with it.

  Phew.

  I put my phone on the car seat and turn the key in the engine. I’ll wait until I get back home before I reply to the message. I’m sure Michael is checking his mobile eagerly to see if I have responded to him, but I’ll make him wait. He’s just spoilt my morning. It’s the least he deserves.

  But no sooner have I started to drive then I am forced to pull over again. Somebody is calling me, and I can’t ignore this like I have just ignored Michael’s message. This person demands my attention straight away.

  ‘What do you think you are doing?’ asks the person on the other end of the line, and I don’t really have an answer for her. I just stay quiet and look through my car window at the house I just had to sneak out of.

  I guess I did get spotted by somebody after all.

  45

  NICK

  That was too close. What the hell was I thinking allowing her into my home when everybody else was out? I should know better than that.

  I do know better than that.

  I almost fucked things up for myself all over again. Michael could have seen her. He would have told his mum. Amy would have thought the worst.

  She would have thought I was cheating again.

  But I’m not. I haven’t done anything wrong. Petra just turned up unannounced. She told me she had left a textbook behind, and I had believed her. Why wouldn’t I? It was a perfectly legitimate thing to say. She could have easily left it behind after one of her lessons with Michael. How was I to know that she had an ulterior motive?

  How was I to know that she was going to try and kiss me in my son’s bedroom?

  I managed to get her out of the house before my son saw her. It was plain bad luck that his football match was cancelled, but then maybe it was for the best. God only knows what would have happened if he hadn’t walked through the front door at that exact moment.

  Would we have kissed? Would we have done more? Would we now be lying in my marital bed together while my wife is out with friends in the city?

  I’m glad I don’t have to know the answers to those questions because we were interrupted before it could get that far. As it stands, I am still a good husband, and I intend to keep it that way. I haven’t done anything wrong. Petra came onto me. She told me she liked me. I didn’t say anything back. I didn’t reciprocate any of it.

  But maybe I didn’t hav
e to. Maybe my silence was her answer. Maybe my eyes on her lips told her all she needed to know about how I felt too. Maybe it was inevitable that we would have kissed if my son hadn’t come home at the most critical of moments.

  That’s not even the craziest part of this whole situation though. That part is reserved for the fact that Petra has told me that Michael is still seeing her. She told me just before he came home. Apparently, he is going to her flat for study sessions. He has even been paying her with his own pocket money which explains why he has been so keen to do some extra housework lately. Not only that, but he is texting her. My sixteen-year-old son is secretly texting a twenty-eight-year-old woman. There’s no way he is doing it because he wants the extra revision sessions. He is doing it because he wants her. But she is too old for him. She is an adult.

  And she likes me instead.

  I can’t deny it. I feel excited to have been told that I am wanted by a younger woman. How could that not make me feel good? I know I can’t do anything about it, but still, I can’t disregard the confidence boost it has given me. But I’m married. Nothing can happen there.

  My single days are long gone.

  Then again, I hardly experienced them. Amy and I got together when we were sixteen. I didn’t get to play the field. I was married before I knew it. Maybe the affair with Tina was inevitable. Maybe it was me trying to experience some of what I missed out on by settling down so young. Maybe it is also why I can’t stop feeling the urge to see Petra again even though I know it will lead to breaking Amy’s heart all over again.

  But she doesn’t have to find out. Nobody does. I could get away with it. I learnt my lesson from the last affair. I can avoid making the same mistakes. I can avoid Amy ever finding out about this one. And it doesn’t have to be like it was with Tina. It could just be a one-time thing. A brief burst of passion to brighten up my dull suburban life. Then I will leave it. I will return to my wife, and Petra will move onto the next lucky guy to catch her eye.