by Simon Lelic
And he didn’t help himself. Samuel, I mean. He had his untidy little beard and his scruffy black hair and he always wore one of two suits. One lace was invariably undone, one button on his shirt missing or misaligned. I know, I know: appearances shouldn’t matter. But they do, don’t they? Everyone knows they do.
He was reticent, stand-offish. He answered, he never asked. I say he answered but he didn’t answer how you or I might answer. How are you? someone might say to him. Fine, thank you, he’d reply. And that would be it. Hi Samuel, what are you up to? Reading, he’d say and not look up from his book. He wasn’t rude exactly but the others, they didn’t like that. They assumed him arrogant. They thought him aloof. Veronica Staples, the woman who died – the woman he killed – she said to me one time, she said, he’s like an Oxford don at a children’s party, and that about summed him up.
Veronica was a friend of mine, Inspector. She was a friend. She had children, you know. Two children. One of them is a teacher too. Beatrice: she’s training to become a teacher. What must they think? What must they be feeling?
No, thank you. I have one in my pocket. I’m fine, honestly. I’m just, I don’t know. Just being silly, I suppose. I’m fine.
What was I saying?
Samuel, yes. He was what you might call an outsider. He was an outsider right from the start. It was easier to ignore him than to engage with him. It was easier to laugh at TJ’s little pranks than to act like a prude and stand up for him. Him and TJ, they had a little set-to at the start of term. Samuel said something and TJ got upset and I don’t really know what happened but it looked like men being men, nothing more. But after that TJ pretty much decided that he and Samuel were mortal enemies and that he would get his revenge one minor humiliation at a time. Pathetic, I know, but harmless enough. He’s just a kid, TJ. He acts like one of the kids. He’s always out there with them, playing football, playing basketball. They call him TJ not Mr Jones and the headmaster stands for it because with TJ the kids don’t act up. Order: the headmaster demands order and TJ is one of the very few teachers in this school capable of bringing it.
So the first thing TJ does is tell Samuel to turn up one Friday in jeans. Says it’s Jeans for Genes day or something and that all the teachers are doing it. This is before Samuel suspects that TJ has a grudge against him. I mean, maybe he suspects but he’s still the new bloke, isn’t he? He still has to listen to what TJ says. So Samuel does and the headmaster sends him home to change – like he’s a kid, he sends him home, because teachers don’t wear jeans in this school, oh no, that would not be appropriate at all – and the headmaster has to teach Samuel’s morning classes himself. Which he hates doing, particularly a subject like history. The next thing TJ does is leave Samuel a note signed by the headmaster saying his lesson has been moved to a different room, a different floor. So while Samuel is up in the attic – that’s what we call it up there, the attic – while he’s up there waiting for his class to turn up, his kids are where they should be, shouting, laughing, throwing chairs probably, until one of them ends up with a bloody lip and starts wailing. The headmaster hears all this and he storms into the room and screams at them to be quiet, to maintain order. And naturally he blames Samuel, assumes Samuel was late, and Samuel doesn’t say anything because he knows by now what’s going on and he knows enough to know that you don’t go squealing, you don’t go telling tales.
There were other things too. All silly things, childish things, like TJ spilling – tipping – his coffee on to Samuel’s lap just before Samuel’s sixth-form class. Or the time he stuck an L-plate on Samuel’s back and Samuel walked around for half a day before he realised he was wearing it.
I shouldn’t laugh. I’m not laughing really. It wasn’t funny then and nothing’s funny now.
But that’s what drew me to him. I felt sorry for him, it was as simple as that. I mean, he wasn’t bad looking either. Not good looking, not what most people would describe as handsome, but he seemed sweet. He had nice eyes. They were green, almost grey. He had kind eyes, that’s what I thought at the time. What an idiot.
The first time we spoke was after that incident I mentioned, the run-in he had with TJ. The headmaster’s leading TJ away and Samuel is left standing there, looking shocked, to be fair, looking dazed. The rest of the room has gone quiet and after TJ and the headmaster have left, people start to clear their throats, to raise their eyebrows, to whisper. No one looks at Samuel but everyone is watching him.
I can’t bear it. I feel as awkward as he looks. I mean, he has his glass of wine in his right hand and he swaps it to his left. Then the glass is back where it started and his left hand is twitching at his side. Next he’s fiddling with his tie and looking up at the ceiling and then he’s wandering along the buffet table, not picking up any food. I meet him by the angel cake.
Don’t let him bother you, I tell him and he smiles this curious smile.
That’s just what I was telling myself, he says, which makes me laugh. I laugh a bit too loudly, a bit enthusiastically, and I hear my laugh how the others would have heard it, which you don’t often do with your own laugh, do you? It’s hideous. I cut myself some cake.
He asks me my name and I say, Maggie. I say, you’re Samuel, and he nods. He asks me what I teach and then says, please don’t make me guess. I say, sorry, and he says, never mind. Music, I say. I teach music, or try to. He says, oh, and nods.
Do you like music? I ask him because even though I could say a hundred things, it is the only thing I can think of to say.
I do, he says.
What music do you like?
I like the Russians, he says. I don’t like Mozart.
You don’t like Mozart? Why not?
Too many people like him, he says. Too many people enthuse about how wonderful he is.
Is that a reason not to like him? I ask. I like Mozart, you see, Inspector. I love Mozart. All the more so now.
Yes, he says. I think it is.
And I say nothing because I don’t agree with him and I don’t want to start another argument. He starts one instead.
You don’t agree.
No, I say. It’s not that.
You think I’m wrong.
Well, I say. No. I mean, yes, I do think you’re wrong but that’s fine. You’re entitled to your opinion.
I know, he says. What’s yours?
I put down my cake. I don’t really want it and the piece I’ve cut is enormous. In my opinion, I say, music shouldn’t be constrained by opinion. If music talks to you, you should let it. You shouldn’t shut it out just because of what someone else thinks or says or does.
He grunts. He smiles.
What? I say.
You have to say that, he says.
What? I say again. What do I have to say?
What you said. You have to say what you said.
Why? Why do I have to say that?
Because you’re a music teacher, says Samuel. You have to pretend to be open minded.
Pretend? You think I’m pretending?
Maybe, he says. And he tears himself a corner from my slice of cake.
That’s my cake, I say.
I thought you didn’t want it.
When did I say I didn’t want it? I do want it.
Here then, he says.
I don’t want it now. And when I say this I realise I’m being rude, like the fact that he’s touched it has contaminated it somehow.
I think, says Samuel, I think it’s time I left. It was nice to meet you.
Yes, I reply. That’s all I can say. He leaves and everyone else seems relieved but I just feel like a fool.
The thing with Samuel, you see, is that he had opinions. Have you noticed how these days nobody has an opinion? People say too much and they don’t listen but when they speak they talk about nothing. Samuel seemed aloof because he was quiet but if you were ever to talk to him – and I mean talk to him, not chat with him, not try to pass the time – he would talk to you right back. He would listen to
what you had to say, genuinely listen, and he would consider it and often dismiss it and he would tell you what he thought himself. And his opinions could seem conceited or misconceived or sometimes a little scary but at least he had an opinion.
Here’s what I think, I tell him when I catch up with him in the staffroom on the first day of term. Here’s my opinion, since you value opinion so much. Mozart was the second greatest composer who ever lived. He was a genius. Tchaikovsky was a moron and Rachmaninov a sentimental fool.
What about Prokofiev? he says, no hesitation, no surprise in his tone.
Second tier, I say. B list. Also a sentimental fool.
And he nods and I say, just don’t tell the kids I said that. If they ask, tell them I said Prokofiev was a genius too.
After that we talked more and more. Never in company. Never if anyone else was around. If we happened to be in the staffroom and someone else walked in, we stopped talking, we just did. I don’t know why. I think I assumed he preferred it that way and maybe he assumed that I did too. Maybe he assumed it would be easier for me. You know, because of who he was, because of what the others thought of him. But we were fooling ourselves. Everyone knew. All the teachers knew, the headmaster knew, even the kids knew. Somehow the kids always know.
I was the one to ask him out of course. He would never have asked me. It took some courage, I can tell you. Some courage and, from the bottle we keep hidden under the sink for emergencies, a nip of whisky.
The first time, I ask him to go to the movies with me. There’s something European on at the Picturehouse and I think that because it’s European he’ll like it. I don’t know, I just assume that he’ll be into foreign films. As it turns out, I love it and he hates it. He calls it pretentious. I think it’s exquisite. It’s in French and I love French. Such a musical language, so lyrical. I find myself just listening, not following the subtitles, not really knowing what’s going on. He takes in every word, I suppose, because afterwards he’s all why did they do this, no one would ever do that, who in the world talks like that? So analytical, so overly analytical.
The next time I ask him to an exhibition, to the Caravaggio at the National Gallery. I almost don’t but I feel guilty about not asking him out again because I don’t really want to, not after the film. So I decide an art gallery will be just the place. You know, quiet, formal, an afternoon not an evening. I’ll make it clear that I only want us to be friends.
It’s wonderful. I have the most wonderful time. Do you know anything about art, Inspector? I know nothing about art. I know what I like and I admire most things I could never do. Samuel, though – he can paint. Did you know that? He’s a painter. What am I saying? He was a painter. He was.
No, I’m fine. Really. I’m not crying because of that. You know, because of him. It’s just, I don’t know. The whole thing is just—
Well. Anyway. Samuel, he could paint. He said he hadn’t for some time but he knew so much about it and he was so enthused, so delighted by the whole thing. Isn’t it refreshing to be with someone who has passion? And to be surprised by someone having passion whom you’d assumed had none? Or not none exactly. I mean, I knew about the teaching, I knew how important he thought teaching was but I had no idea there was anything else that inspired that same enthusiasm in him.
We stay in the gallery until it closes. We sit and we walk and we watch the other visitors. Samuel is so funny. He talks about the paintings and he talks about the other people too, making jokes, constructing little caricatures – you know, the pompous art student, the wannabe actor turned tour guide, the philistine American. I thought at the time that he was being funny but maybe, thinking about it now, maybe he was actually being cruel.
We had sex once. Not that day, another day, months later. He wasn’t good at it but I didn’t mind because I’m hardly an expert myself.
You’re recording this. I keep forgetting you’re recording this.
What does it matter? We had sex and it was bad. It was awkward before and it was awkward during. I was a little drunk. Samuel was too. He didn’t drink much as a rule and neither do I but we’d finished most of a bottle of shiraz. We’re at my place and I’ve made him some dinner and we’re watching a film but it isn’t very good so I turn it off and I put on the stereo—
You know what? I don’t want to talk about this. Can we not talk about this?
We broke up. That’s how this ends. I say we broke up but that sounds so conventional and our relationship was anything but conventional. Apart from that one time, there was no physical involvement. We didn’t even kiss. I’m embarrassed to say that, I don’t know why. But it’s the truth. We didn’t kiss, we didn’t hug, we didn’t even hold hands. Once or twice we held hands but only if we were crossing a road or he was helping me from the bus or something silly like that. And it wasn’t just that. In a normal relationship, you don’t hide your affection like it’s something to be ashamed of, you don’t hide your lover from your friends and from your family and from yourself sometimes, even from yourself.
We argued. I suppose in that sense it was a normal relationship. Samuel was having a difficult year. There was the headmaster and there was TJ but also there were the kids. Although with the kids I couldn’t help. I didn’t try because it was beyond me. What they did – what they would do to Samuel – I just couldn’t understand it. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it for myself. No, when we argued it was about nothing in particular. It would start off as being about something – about TJ maybe, about his pranks – but in the end it would be about nothing. Nothing and everything.
I would probably have broken up with him sooner had he not been having such a difficult time. There it is again, you see: pity. I’m a hopeless judge of character, Inspector. I must be a hopeless judge of character. Everyone else could see he wasn’t normal. Why couldn’t I?
No, thank you, I’m fine. Let’s just get this finished. Can we please just get this finished?
Was he angry? What makes you say that? He had no reason to be, if that’s what you mean. No reason at all. I mean, he expected it. He must have expected it. He wasn’t the easiest of people to read, that was part of the problem, but surely he must have expected it. I don’t know though. He didn’t seem angry at first but things got bad for him afterwards, which can’t have helped. They were bad before but they got worse. So maybe his anger grew. Maybe his bitterness festered. Maybe he talked himself into resenting me because I know one thing for certain, Inspector, I’ll tell you one thing. They say he was aiming at TJ when he shot Veronica. That’s what everyone thinks. I know better. He wasn’t aiming at TJ, Inspector. He was aiming at me. He was aiming at me and Veronica died instead.
.
The gates were open; the playground had become a car park. It was full of vans: white vans mainly, vans that would have been white had they not been so encrusted with grime. Cleaning contractors, rubbish removers, flooring firms, a plumber. Men in paint-stained clothes sat in the shaded sanctuary of their cabs, the cigarettes that dangled from their sunburnt arms adding to the heat of the engines, the tarmac, the sun. Crumpled Coke cans and tabloid newspapers lined the dashboards that Lucia passed. She caught a headline, something about the weather and the temperature and the beginning of the end of all things.
She ignored the stares. The shadow of the Victorian red-brick loomed and drew her in and all of a sudden she felt chilled. She climbed the stairs to the entrance, passed the uniforms and pushed through the doors.
There was no one she could see. From the assembly hall she heard scraping furniture and baritone voices and the sounds of men at work, disconcertingly jolly given the origins of the mess they were clearing.
She almost left. She had come to the school out of habit. She had come the first day and the second and the third, and after that she had found that she could not not come. But it was Friday and on Friday, she knew, the crime scene was to become a school again.
She almost left but she hesitated long enough for the he
admaster to spot her. She considered ignoring his call, pretending not to have heard, but he was striding from the assembly hall towards her and covering the ground quickly and if she turned away now it would be too late.
‘Detective Inspector May.’ His voice held her still. Seconds passed and he was upon her.
‘Mr Travis.’
‘Inspector.’ His smile, as a smile, did not convince. The polo shirt he wore seemed equally ill-fitting, an attempt at smart casual by a man not comfortable dressing down. The collar and sleeves had been pressed, the buttons were fastened to his throat.
‘I was just leaving,’ said Lucia.
‘And I thought you had just arrived,’ the headmaster replied. ‘I saw you from the window. I saw you cross the courtyard.’
‘I forgot the day. I forgot that it was Friday.’
‘I almost did myself. It’s as if the holidays had started already. Come, let me show you what’s been happening.’
‘Really—’ Lucia began but Travis was already on the march towards the hall. She followed.
‘You’ve been busy, Inspector.’ The headmaster moved his chin to his shoulder as he spoke but he did not look at her directly.
‘As have you, I’m sure.’
Travis nodded. He turned away from her. ‘I wonder what it is that you have discovered.’
Lucia watched the back of the headmaster’s head, tracking his over-long neck into the slope of his narrow shoulders. She noticed the surplus skin on his elbows, just visible below the sleeve line of his shirt and, in that one sagging patch, the same shade of grey as his hair.
‘Not as much as I would have liked,’ Lucia said. They stopped at the doors leading into the hall. ‘More than you might imagine. ’
‘After you, Inspector.’
Lucia tried to slide past the headmaster without making any contact but brushed against the skin of his outstretched arm.