Tell-Tale

by Sam Hayes

  Nina had seen to it that Josie clearly understood she mustn’t concern her father with tales of the police and false alarms. That he had enough on his plate, that worrying about such things would only stress him out and kill his creativity. ‘Your dad’s got deadlines,’ she’d said, convinced Josie understood. ‘I guess I was mistaken about what happened, although it really is a mystery.’ They’d even laughed about it.

  That night, to escape the teenage whoops and laughter coming from the living room, Mick had taken Nina upstairs, away from the noise. He’d run a bath for her, and given her a massage on the bed. But Nina had halted him when he was halfway down her back, pulling him on top of her, removing his clothes, pressing his flesh against hers.

  Next thing she knew, the light was breaking through the gap in the curtains. She waited for the rush of adrenalin she’d suffered the last few days to wrench her heart. But it didn’t. Any fears that she was under threat had dissolved with the dawn; out of her system like the end of a bout of flu. She stretched out her toes, trying not to wake Mick. She needed to get up, but instead lay still, watching the clock flash from one minute to the next.

  It was bound to happen sometime, she thought. Like a delayed reaction; post-traumatic stress, she supposed. Explaining her behaviour, from an outsider’s point of view – which she was trying to take – was simple.The mess in the dressing room, the car accident, Josie’s clothing, someone rattling the door, could all easily be explained away as coincidental happenings that actually meant far less than the sum of their parts suggested. ‘No one,’ she whispered through the tiniest breath, ‘is trying to hurt me.’

  Mick wheezed gently through early-morning dreams. Nina shifted her head and saw his eyelids flickering. Today, she resolved, she would get up, not think about anything that frightened her, and simply focus on gearing up for the Charterhouse job that was looming. There was work to be done.

  Nina prised herself out of the warm nest of Mick’s shoulder. She stepped on to the carpet and padded naked to the bathroom. In the mirror, she saw Mick open his eyes. He smiled as he watched her leave.

  In the shower, her mind was back on work. She felt bad for having left Tess to sort out most of the logistics so far. She would invite her round later, make her some lunch, and they could prioritise remaining jobs. After all, there was not much more than a week to go before Chameleon FX made its debut appearance on the movie set at Pinewood. This was a big deal for Nina. Rinsing her hair, she made a mental note to check how the bulk orders she’d placed were progressing. She didn’t want anything going wrong at the last minute.

  ‘Morning.’ Nina raised her eyebrows as her daughter silently retrieved the breakfast she had made for her an hour ago. It was nearly eleven o’clock and Nina had already ploughed through last month’s accounts, made a dozen phone calls, emailed the director of a future production at the Old Vic theatre, made a salmon and asparagus quiche for Tess’s arrival later, and placed another online order for some prosthetic gel for the fake burns she was going to create.

  Josie didn’t say anything to her mother. She swiped the limp toast from the plate, gulped down the orange juice and headed straight for the door.

  ‘Nice to see you, too, sweetheart. Are you still walking round to Nat’s house today?’ Nina thought she saw a vague nod of her daughter’s head. ‘What time are you back? Would you like me to fetch you?’ Nina thought it would be a good chance to see Laura. They could talk about the girls’ internet use.

  Josie held up five fingers over her shoulder before disappearing from the kitchen.

  ‘I’ll fetch you at five then,’ Nina said, bemused. ‘Teenagers,’ she muttered after Josie had banged the front door closed. Ten minutes later, she resisted the temptation to text her daughter to see if she’d arrived safely at Nat’s.

  It’s only a few streets away, she reminded herself. Nothing is going to happen.

  Nina settled back at the kitchen table and replied to several emails. One was from Tess, saying that she would be a little late for their meeting. Her youngest child had a dental appointment. Nina didn’t mind. It would give her a chance to really get ahead; catch up with the backlog of the last few days. Her head hadn’t been in the right place for work, and she couldn’t afford for things to slip further. A couple of years from now, Nina saw herself with twenty or so employees, premises, and multiple film contracts. ‘We might even be able to afford a holiday,’ she muttered while checking an invoice.

  The doorbell stopped her. ‘Now what’s she forgotten?’ Nina said to herself, pushing out the kitchen chair.

  She strode to the front door. The band in her loose ponytail slid from her hair so she pulled it out completely. Her bare feet trod softly on the carpet. She opened the door but no one was outside. She leaned out and glanced around the front garden. Her car was on the drive, the cardboard boxes still in a pile ready to take to the recycling depot, and the dustbin sat on the street waiting to be brought in. There was no sign of Josie. Had she imagined the doorbell?

  ‘Just kids messing,’ she said out loud. ‘Long summer holidays make for silly pranks.’

  She frowned and turned to go back inside, but she stopped suddenly, having trodden on something. When she looked down, she saw an envelope. She picked it up. It was obviously just junk advertising – blank on both sides to entice you to open it. She took it into the kitchen, ready to toss it into the recycling bin. The postman had already delivered the mail, so she knew this was nothing important. She despaired of the rubbish that came through the door.

  Nina filled the kettle, still holding the envelope. She wondered whether Mick would be hungry yet. He’d been out in the studio for hours already, determined to get the current painting finished. She was just about to throw the paper into the bin when she felt something hard inside; something lumpy. She frowned, particularly disliking free gifts in promotions.

  ‘Another cheap pen that won’t work properly.’ Whatever it was would have to come out before the paper could be recycled. But when she tore open the envelope, there was no paper inside; no sales pitch for insulation or fake brick cladding.

  Nina pulled out the object and let the envelope flutter to the floor. Her hands shook as she examined the contents. Her lips parted and her eyebrows tugged together in a frown. Her heart began to race as she remembered, as the memories dragged through her mind on barbed wire.

  Oh God, no.

  She couldn’t believe what she was seeing; that it was real. A child’s hairclip, old-fashioned, slightly bent, with one side rusty and missing its paint. The ceramic strawberry was still there, fat and shiny with black painted dots and a once bright green stalk, now dulled with age.

  ‘Oh Mick,’ she whispered, shaking. ‘Josie . . .’ Frantically, she punched in a text to Josie asking if she was at Nat’s. Within seconds, a reply came back. Yep xx. She breathed a sigh of relief.

  Nina leaned against the kitchen counter. She tipped back her head to contain the sobs, to help herself think.

  Looking out of the window, she saw her husband’s studio, the bright light spilling from the small windows as he worked. She saw Josie’s lacy cardigan draped haphazardly over a chair, a hairbrush fallen on to the floor, and a pair of flat shoes squashed down at the heel. Her face reddened at the normality of it all. And now, suddenly, it wasn’t. Then she saw herself reflected in the glass cupboard door – a woman lost, a woman scared. She saw the long road ahead.

  Nina took a deep breath, swiping away the tear that wet her cheek. She turned the hairclip over and over in her fingers, before stuffing it into her jeans pocket. She made tea for Mick and tossed a salad for her lunch with Tess. She fixed her make-up and changed her top, and she put on a load of washing. She ran the dishwasher and wrote a shopping list, and then she slid down the wall, each knob of her spine aching with the pressure, and said, quite matter-of-factly, ‘It’s over.’

  CHAPTER 23

  Katy’s chin juts forward. She chews on the inside of her lip. She stands with her ankles c
rossed, her arms folded, and her eyes stare at the floor.

  ‘Katy?’ She hasn’t said a word since I called her into sick bay. Matron has a day off so I’m on duty alone. ‘What have you got to say for yourself?’

  ‘You can’t prove it,’ she says.

  ‘No, I can’t, but I can at least ask you to explain why you did such a horrible thing to Mr Kingsley.’

  Katy shrugs. ‘Just for fun. It was a dare at first.’

  ‘Fun?’ I half scream.

  ‘It’s not like he has a wife or anything. He didn’t have to look at me naked.’ Katy sighs heavily, as if I’m making a fuss about nothing. ‘It wasn’t just about the sex, or some silly crush.’ She flicks back her hair. ‘I . . . I didn’t like it when he said no.’

  ‘So you thought you’d trap him into it?’

  Katy shrugs. ‘It was just a dare.’ She looks up at me. We are getting close to the truth. She snorts and blushes, a far cry from the naked young woman in the woods. ‘All the girls really fancy Mr Kingsley. It’s not our fault there aren’t any boys here.’ I nod slowly, not wanting to put her off. ‘Someone said that Mr Kingsley had been looking at me in history, and that I should go for it.’

  ‘Go for what?’ I ask.

  ‘You know.’ She turns crimson. ‘He’s just so hot,’ she continues when I don’t say anything.

  ‘What did your parents say when you told them a teacher had been . . . ?’ I can’t finish.

  ‘My father went ballistic. He’s got his company lawyers to sue the school. And the police are involved because I’m under sixteen.’ I notice a little shake in her shoulders.

  ‘Is it because your parents are so strict? Do you feel you have to rebel?’ I’d never anticipated saying these words to a teenage girl I didn’t even know.

  Katy sneers. ‘No. I can do whatever I like.’ We both know that’s not true.

  I nod, not wanting to anger her. ‘I think that your parents and everyone else would be very relieved now if you just told the truth.’

  I’ve already told Katy that I saw everything – that I’d woken up when she came down the corridor to my room, that I’d heard Adam trying to stop her, that I’d followed them into the woods. She listened and breathed in gulps as the realisation struck her that I couldn’t be making it up. She didn’t react when I said I’d seen her naked, tempting Mr Kingsley any way she could. She had been found out. It was over.

  Suddenly, the breath Katy has been saving up leaves her body in a rush. She breaks down in tears. I step in and fold my arms tentatively around her – not nervous of how she might react or of the physical contact; no, I am nervous of this simple act of comfort because strangely, overwhelmingly, it is pure comfort for me too.

  ‘So, are you going to tell me what happened?’ Adam points to my face. The sun streams in through the floor-to-ceiling window behind us. The light touches my shoulder, sewing a warm passage through the fibres of my skin. We fork up our breakfast, aware that the assembly bell will ring any moment.

  ‘I used to be a lion tamer at a circus.’ I’m deadpan as I touch the wound – a diagonal slice from the corner of my left eye to the summit of my cheekbone.

  ‘Do you fly trapeze, too?’ He scans my face again.

  ‘I was in an accident. A car accident,’ I tell him. ‘I’m pleased it worked out OK for you, Adam.’

  He’s already thanked me profusely, when I told him about my conversation with Katy and how I had seen them in the woods together, about how I had persuaded her to own up.

  ‘Being at Roecliffe is so very important to me,’ he says, leaving me silently agreeing. ‘And what happened was every male teacher’s nightmare. I just never thought it would happen to me.’

  ‘Katy’s being offered professional counselling. It’s more than we can cope with in school.’

  He nods and chews. ‘She gave a written statement to the police yesterday, confirming she was fabricating the allegations. It’s all thanks to you, Frankie. I owe you.’ In his own way, this is Adam being emotional. It’s the equivalent of throwing his arms round my neck and sighing his relief into my shoulder. We’ve only known each other a short time, and it’s been a vague acquaintance at best. Through this drama I have learned that, for some reason, he’s holding back, just like me.

  ‘I wasn’t spying,’ I say again, just to make sure he knows. ‘I’ve told you the story. I had to get Katy to confess. I couldn’t see your job go down the pan. She’s grown up a lot these last few days.’

  I’d decided not to let anyone else know that I’d witnessed the scene in the wood. Mr Palmer need never know that I was instrumental in bringing about the girl’s admission. I would rather he looked upon her as a brave young woman coming to terms with her mistakes, having the courage to confess. The ethos of the school, I imagined Mr Palmer telling Katy, while thankful the whole sordid business could be put behind them, is a lesson well learned. Non scholae sed vitae discimus, he would say to her. We do not learn for school, but for life.

  ‘So would you like to?’ Adam is talking to me and I’ve not been listening. The bell resounds through my head. ‘Come on a walk with me later?’ he repeats, standing up from the bench.

  ‘Yes. Yes, that would be nice.’ A few words, but some of the hardest I’ve had to say since I arrived. And as I watch Adam deposit his plate at the serving hatch, I realise that walking with someone, talking with someone, spending time with someone other than in a rushed work capacity, goes quite against everything I ever vowed; goes some way, I realise, to making me feel normal again.

  ‘You’ve just saved me,’ I say. ‘So we’re even.’ I’ve put on a jacket. There’s an autumn chill at each end of the day now that October is midway through. Half-term break sits like a gaping void next week. The prospect reminds me of plans, of holidays in Scotland, of log cabins and long walks, of the casual kisses that were never counted, of the hugs and bickers that went unregistered. ‘My evening would have been spent with the weepies. Sylvia stepped in to cover.’

  ‘They do get very homesick at this time of year. I don’t think it’s so much that they’re looking forward to going home next week, rather it’s the coming back to school afterwards that some find hard. Especially the first-years.’

  I nod. Roecliffe Hall reaches out its silent fingers around unsuspecting hearts.

  ‘I went to a kind of boarding institution,’ Adam continues. ‘And I hated every bloody minute of it. Ironic that I’ve ended up teaching at one.’ He scuffs the dirt on the track as we walk away from the school. There’s a public footpath stretching to the west of the building. Miles of flattened track, thousands of anonymous footsteps placed before ours. I think about what Adam has revealed – a speck of colour in the black and white of his life.

  ‘Where was it?’ I want to know more. It’s unexpectedly sweet, this communication. A safe haven in all the chaos. It wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for Katy’s behaviour. I pull my jacket round me, matching one of Adam’s strides with two of mine. ‘Banana land?’

  He shakes his head. ‘No. It was a grim place in Birmingham. An odd situation, really.’

  ‘How come?’ We are in a field of sheep – white smudges on a canvas of olive green now that the light is fading. The animals stop eating and stare at us as we walk past.

  ‘Look,’ he suddenly says in a hushed voice. He stops and tenses, pointing to the corner of the field. ‘It’s a hare.’ Adam crouches, as if making ourselves smaller will somehow disguise our scent. ‘Meant to be lucky,’ he whispers. ‘A sign of fertility, according to the pagans.’ The hare sniffs the air and tenses.

  ‘He’s on to us, look.’ A second later and the creature has darted fifty feet towards the cover of the hedge. Then he stops rigid, his black eyes and long ears twitching as Adam stands up and speaks normally again. ‘There are stories about witches shapeshifting into hares.’ He looks at me and grins. ‘Seriously,’ he says.

  ‘Shapeshifting?’ I say, not so much a question as an audible thought.

 
; ‘Country folklore’s full of it,’ he continues. ‘Where one living thing is able to transform into another at will.’

  ‘I see,’ I say thoughtfully, kicking off our walk again. From the corner of my eye, I see the hare speed off into the hedge.

  ‘Do you think you’ll stay at Roecliffe forever?’ We’re in the staff lounge sipping hot tea. We walked several miles and, by the time we arrived back at school, my cheeks had turned a shade of red to match my jacket. Adam laughed at my breathlessness, saying I should get out more. I smiled, suddenly finding myself wanting to explain why I can’t.

  ‘Forever’s a long time. I want to get my book finished first.’

  ‘Book?’ I say, pretending I’ve not already heard about it. Adam reveals another layer. It saves me from doing the same.

  He nods, almost shyly. ‘I’m writing a . . . a kind of history of the school.’

  There’s an awkward silence.

  ‘Well,’ he continues when I don’t reply. ‘It’s a history of the actual building really, rather than just the school. I’m covering the village of Roecliffe, too. The things that went on.’ His accent stretches through the words, a twang that makes him as out of place as I feel. ‘It’s had a pretty colourful past, by all accounts.’

  ‘How . . . come?’ There’s ringing in my ears.

  Adam shrugs. ‘How long have you got?’

  My entire life, I silently reply.

  He slides over an antique chess table and pulls out the drawer. Black and white carved pieces lie stranded on their sides. ‘Fancy a game?’ he asks.

  I’m already playing, I think, while nodding that I would.

  CHAPTER 24

  All that waiting, all that childhood, somehow turned into years. Strange how one glance at a clock, one look out of the window, one dash to the mail board to see if there’s a letter pinned up with your name on it can turn into half your lifetime.