The Gated Trilogy

by Matt Drabble

  “Hurry up,” Stuart snapped. “We’re both running late.”

  She reached out and tried to touch his arm, wanting to feel his warmth, but he snatched it away quickly.

  “Look, about last night,” he started ominously. “I genuinely have no idea what happened between us or indeed why.”

  “Don’t say that,” she said a little sulkily, already fearing the worst.

  “Look Jemima, we’re friends you and I and it’s a friendship that I value highly.”

  “Oh spare me,” she snapped. “Spare me the whole ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ crap, spare me the whole I like you better as a friend because I’ve heard it all too many times,” she said, perilously close to tears and hating the feeling of weakness.

  She snatched up the rest of her clothes and stumbled to the door whilst trying to put her shoes on.

  “Jemima, please,” he said as her hand touched the handle.

  She turned back to him hearing the desperate plea in his voice.

  “Please don’t tell Sarah,” he said, finishing the sentence in the worst possible way.

  She positively leapt through the doorway and out into the corridor beyond, before slamming the door behind her with a loud bang.

  She stood there and tried not to cry when she suddenly felt that she wasn’t alone.

  She looked up to see Sarah standing at the far end of the hallway and even from this distance she could feel her friend’s hurt.

  Sarah turned away and hurried back down the stairs without speaking.

  As Sarah disappeared, Jemima noticed that she hadn’t come alone; for some reason, the new American pupil was standing there with a small odd smile upon his face.

  ----------

  Mavis Merryweather tore her office apart looking for Joshua Bradley’s paperwork.

  She was not scheduled to be working today but she had made the trip in nevertheless.

  Mr. Merryweather had protested from his armchair, but not enough to stop her, or even enough to bother climbing to his feet.

  He had retired from his Water Board job last year and now sat growing fat by the fire. The last thing in the world she wanted was to be put out to pasture by Mr. Barnaby and have to spend her days sitting beside her husband.

  If they were locked in a room together day in day out, it was going to be a steel cage death match.

  She dragged cabinets open and always slammed them shut again after searching fruitlessly for the files.

  She was growing increasingly angry and frustrated that a simple job apparently seemed beyond her. She couldn’t even remember meeting the boy or his parents which just wasn’t like her. And now, to top it all, she had seen the look in Mr. Barnaby’s eyes; it was a look that bordered on pity.

  She knew that she was rapidly approaching retirement age and she didn’t want to give the Headmaster any excuse to push her out of the door early.

  “You sure do look busy, Ma’am.” A voice startled her from the doorway.

  She turned to see a slender blonde boy whose accent gave his identity away. “Ah, just the young fellow,” she said gratefully. “I need your information my boy; we appear to have mislaid it.”

  “Oh I don’t think that will be necessary,” Joshua replied with a smile as he entered the office and closed the door behind him.

  ----------

  Stuart couldn’t remember a time when he felt worse.

  He hadn’t meant to sound harsh to Jemima but it had come out that way nevertheless. She was young and impressionable and he should have recognised the look in her eyes that morning.

  She wasn’t waking up mortified at the night they had spent together; her eyes had been full of happy hope.

  Breakfast had been an affair chock full of awkward glances and bitter avoidances.

  He could feel Jemima’s anger radiating down the table, as could everyone else; he only hoped that he was the only one who knew why.

  Barnaby sat deep in thought, occasionally rubbing his eyes.

  Jemima was sitting as far away from him as possible and his heart had sunk when Sarah joined the table late and sat at the opposite end to her friend.

  Dora Tibbs was positively bristling with interest in the flowing emotions and Hannah Marks sat beaming like an idiot.

  He couldn’t remember a stranger meal table. He was sat in the middle of the table, literally and figuratively, between the two women that he desperately wanted to explain himself to.

  As soon as the breakfast was over, Barnaby roused himself from his thoughts and led a prayer for the safe travel of everyone leaving.

  Stuart wasn’t one for religion personally, but he could see the merits in the ideals.

  After Barnaby released the hordes, Stuart wanted to speak to both Jemima and Sarah but they headed off in opposite directions.

  In the end, chivalry won out and his mother would have been proud; well, as proud as she could have been given the circumstances.

  “Jemima. Jem,” he called after her as she walked away. “Please,” he said, daring to raise his voice a little and hoping that the passing kids were too excited to pay him any attention.

  She stopped outside of the chemistry lab and nodded curtly inwards through the door. He followed her in and was suddenly a little concerned, as she closed the door behind him.

  “Look, I’m sorry ok? The last thing in the world I wanted to do was to hurt you,” he apologized.

  “Well, you certainly have a high opinion of yourself, now don’t you?” she replied haughtily. “I hate to shatter your illusions Mr. Keaton but I’m afraid that the world does not revolve around you.”

  “Then why are you so angry with me?”

  “I’m not angry with you, I’m angry with myself,” she lied. “I came after you last night and it was my idea and now I’ve hurt my friend in the process.”

  “Then you remember what happened last night?” he asked, surprised.

  “Yes, well mostly, I think,” she said, unsure but covering it quickly.

  “I don’t know about you Mr. Keaton but I don’t tend to lose my self-control and not remember the next morning.”

  “I’m still sorry,” he said awkwardly.

  She walked to the door and opened it for him, standing there with her arms folded across her chest. “Good day, Mr. Keaton,” she said coldly.

  “Jem, please,” he tried.

  “I said good day,” she added curtly, ending the conversation.

  Stuart left the chemistry lab more despondent than when he’d entered it. One stupid night that he couldn’t even remember had potentially ruined two important friendships in his life.

  ----------

  Sarah lost herself in the constant stream of visiting cars collecting enthusiastic children.

  She didn’t want to think about Jemima or Stuart or even what her own feelings were. She knew that she had no right to feel betrayed, but she couldn’t help it.

  She hadn’t wanted anything to happen with Stuart, at least not now, but it felt like Jemima had just taken the option away from her.

  Her whole life had felt like she had been a supporting character in her own life’s story. Just for once she wanted to be the lead.

  The morning passed by quickly as she shared hugs and best wishes with some of her students. She was soon inundated with Christmas gifts from some of the younger kids - brightly collared wrappings expressing affections that caught her off guard.

  By lunchtime the snow had started to fall and by late afternoon, when the last child had left, the blizzard was coming down in hard flurries.

  She stood outside the front door as the world grew quiet and the last honking of car horns had retreated back to the world.

  “Aye, it’s going to be a big one this year,” Maurice said, as his boots crunched through the settling snow as he made his way up to her.

  This was her sixth year at Ravenhill and the first that she had seen the real bite of winter.

  The first year, she had worried about being cut off by the weather,
but the snow had barely registered a few flurries of white that had left a thin layer across the ground.

  Since then, she had come to think that winter’s reputation had been greatly exaggerated, but now looking through the thick falling flakes she was worried again.

  “Don’t worry yourself, Miss,” Maurice said, reading her thoughts. “Ain’t nothing but a bit of frozen water is all. It’ll thaw like it always does in a week or two.”

  “How bad can it get?”

  Maurice looked up to the heavens and pondered for a moment.

  “This’ll be bad I think, maybe the worst it’s been for a long time. The lanes will soon be impassable as they don’t grit or plough this far out. We’ll be cut off for a spell, but we’ve got more than enough supplies to last a hundred times what we’ll need. No one’s about to go hungry; we’re not the Donner party,” he grinned.

  That thought hadn’t occurred to her, but it didn’t seem as ridiculous as it would have yesterday. “Thanks for that image,” she only half joked.

  “Welcome,” he said before crunching away.

  She watched him go and wondered what he did in the cottage of his. Ravenhill seemed to run smoothly by the hand of one man with a multitude of talents.

  Despite his outwardly grumpy attitude, she liked Maurice; at least he was honest.

  “Can we talk?” A small voice startled her from behind.

  She had been dreading the moment as she really had no idea just what to say to Jemima. “I don’t know what to say,” she said honestly.

  “Well that’s good, because neither do I,” Jemima shrugged with a tear in her eye. “I suppose I start with sorry?”

  “You haven’t done anything wrong,” she answered, not quite believing it.

  “I saw that look in your eyes this morning when you saw me coming out of Stuart’s room. You looked like you had caught me in bed with your husband, and please don’t deny it. I know I kept on trying to push you guys together, but you kept telling me that it wasn’t what you wanted. I don’t know how things got so out of control last night, but I wouldn’t want to hurt you for the world Sarah, honestly I wouldn’t.”

  “I know that,” she said with a sigh. “I guess this is why Barnaby discourages personal relationships here.”

  “Yeah, he gave me the same speech when I started. I told him that I was far too professional and concerned with my career,” Jemima laughed a little bitterly. “I guess I showed him, huh?”

  “Do you remember much about the party last night?” Sarah asked suddenly.

  “No, not really.”

  “Oh, come on Jemima. You must do, surely?”

  “Look, I said I’m sorry,” Jemima snapped. “I’m sorry that you think I stole your boyfriend,” she said sarcastically.

  “No it’s not about that,” she stressed. “It’s the party last night; didn’t it strike you as odd that everyone was acting like they were drunk, and yet no one was drinking?”

  “Oh I see, so the only way that Stuart could have possibly been interested in me is if he was pissed?” Jemima said angrily, missing the intended point.

  “No of course not, that’s not what I meant,” Sarah said quickly.

  “Yeah, right,” Jemima snapped, turning on her heels. “Well you’ll be glad to know that he was more disappointed when he woke with me than you were,” she said in a choked voice as she walked quickly away.

  Sarah wanted to run after her friend, hug her and tell her that it was all right, but there was still enough of her self-built wall left to stop her.

  The thought of how everyone had acted last night had suddenly come to her in a strange moment of clarity.

  The whole thing was just too damn weird, and she was a woman who had experienced more than her fair share of weirdness.

  She started to go after Jemima when her feet suddenly stopped, seemingly of their own accord. Her concern rapidly morphed into anger.

  Wasn’t she the injured party here? Why the hell should she be looking to make amends when she had been betrayed by her supposed best friend? She couldn’t believe that she had almost run after Jemima when she should be clawing the bitch’s eyes out.

  She stood in the doorway and watched the snow fall, her heart and mood feeling as cold as the falling snow.

  All the while, unbeknownst to her, a slender blonde boy had suddenly appeared in the shadows of the atrium just as she’d turned to run after Jemima.

  Joshua smiled with pleasure and anticipation as the blizzard intensified and Ravenhill Academy was isolated from the outside world.

  CHAPTER 9

  Father Brendon Monroe looked out at the falling snow and worried for his flock.

  The weather people on the television had been talking for weeks now about the storm rolling in, but he hadn’t paid them much heed.

  There were always scare stories about the weather and it seemed to be a particularly common British pastime. But now, as he watched the heavy flakes fall, he knew that they were in for a bad spell.

  His parish was the small village of Bexley Cross. His parishioners were elderly folk who still wished to remain within the bosom of the Lord’s embrace.

  He often held services at several of the small churches and chapels dotted around the surrounding villages on a rota basis.

  The falling snow may well make his job more difficult, but where there was a will, there was always a way.

  His way included a monster of a 4x4 that allowed him to pass the narrow lanes and off-country roads to reach those in need. He liked to refer to his vehicle as “The Beast” but only in private circles; he had found, to his bitter cost over the years, that the church could be somewhat lacking in the sense of humour department.

  The phones could go down at any time and with no mobile reception this far out he was concerned with his elderly neighbours who could become vulnerable prisoners in their own homes. Old bones were brittle and prone to break under the smallest of falls.

  Brendon was 43 which was considered young in his profession, but he was as far removed from his peers as one could be.

  He found it difficult to take at times that whilst those priests with dubious reputations who found themselves running from their parishes were afforded enviable positions, he was often relegated to the far flung reaches of the church’s jurisdiction.

  He was a tall man at a little over 6 feet three, and a heavy one as well. But he carried his bulk with the athletic grace borne of a lifetime of experience.

  He had always been a man of excessive tastes and appetite whether it was on his plate or in his soul.

  He had greying hair that he kept short for ease of maintenance and his eyes were a dark hazel brown. He was a man that had little time for the borders and regulations of organised religion; as far as he was concerned there were far too many layers between God and his people.

  A life beneath the clerical collar had always been in his future. It wasn’t a calling as such; he hadn’t been blinded by the light, just a small voice in his heart that had guided his hand and heart towards the church.

  After his graduation from the seminary he had taken a sabbatical and joined up with various charity organisations on some decidedly dangerous frontlines.

  He had grown tired of learning about the evils of man from text books and had wanted to travel and experience the world in the flesh.

  His last posting had been at a mission out in Sierra Leone. It had been an outreach program that concentrated far more on the practical than the spiritual.

  He had witnessed the looks on the faces of the young and innocent as they were dragged into the makeshift hospital, maimed and bloody.

  He had stuck it out for as long as he could manage, but in the end there had been a time limit on his faith. He was still a believer in God; he just wasn’t the man’s biggest fan.

  Upon returning to the UK he had felt his faith initially shaken a little, but ultimately made stronger by his questions.

  He had served as a deacon for 6 months before finally taki
ng his vows.

  His probationary period had been full of life and challenges in a large inner city church. There was a constant stream of the needy dealing with problems stemming from abuses such as drink, drugs, and domestic.

  He had enjoyed being on the frontline and making a difference. However, after he had taken his final vows and entered the priesthood he had found himself posted out to the back of beyond for his first stab at cutting it solo.

  He looked out of the cottage window again at the falling snow. The small house came with his position and it was more than adequate for his needs.

  He had a christening tomorrow a few miles over in Bexley Cross and he wasn’t going to miss it, no matter what the sinister skies above had in mind.

  He stared out at the open fields towards the private school that sat upon the horizon. He had always found something distinctly creepy about the place and had avoided it thus far in his posting.

  He had been here around three months now and his initial feelings of dark foreboding had not faded as far as Ravenhill was concerned. He wasn’t a man given to flights of fancy, but the school just rubbed him the wrong way.

  “Will you be requiring tea, Father?” Edna Bailey jarred him from his thoughts.

  He had given up trying to tell the old woman to call him Brendon. She was a staunch Catholic woman who would rather have chewed her own arm off than circumvent protocol.

  Her demeanour today, however, seemed remarkably upbeat from her usual quiet reserve.

  She had told him a few days ago about the possibility that her neighbour Rosa Marsh might be missing.

  He had called the local police personally, only to be assured that everything was in hand. Edna had told him that morning that everything was fine and that Rosa had simply been away visiting her sister.

  “I’ll be fine, Edna; why don’t you head home before the weather bites too badly?” he replied, knowing that there was no way that she would accept a lift as he had offered many times before.

  She was able to walk across the fields and, as the crow flew, her cottage was less than a mile’s walk from his.