by Paul Read
Over a candlelit dinner at the only restaurant admitting without a prior booking they discussed the performance, and when she switched from alcohol to water he, out of solidarity, did the same, though it unnerved him that the getting-pissed-and-launching-himself approach which had worked so sublimely in his twenties was out the window. He sobered with every mouthful and, to his relief, found he stopped going through the motions of a date and relaxed. Under pressure, he’d often confused what it took to talk a woman into bed with how to talk her to sleep.
‘What does Jenna make of this?’ he asked. ‘Our meeting?’
‘She thinks I’m at the cinema with a friend. Can you imagine what she’d say if she found out about this? I told her you were ringing to discuss another matter.’
‘Denis?’
‘Yeah. I had to fess up about that. The idea of me being with anyone other than her father would be hard enough for her, but one of her teachers…’ She checked her watch. ‘I ought to be back soon. We have a curfew.’
‘There’s a curfew in the estate?’
‘Me and Jenna have our own. It just isn’t safe after a certain time.’ She peered at him over the carafe. ‘You look tired.’
‘It’s been a long term.’ His exhaustion wasn’t something he’d desired to mention. It bored him when Charlotte, first thing Monday morning, assigned the inane fact of her tiredness such importance, alongside how quickly the weekend flew past. He was cutting out dull. He would be dynamic, impressive.
‘Doing anything interesting for Christmas?’ was all he could think to ask.
She stirred her mange tout. ‘Not particularly.’
He was no expert on flirting signals but was sure she maintained eye contact for longer than the standard few seconds, mimicked his body movements. In retaliation, he looked directly at the cherry lipstick with which she’d coated her mouth. ‘Me neither.’
He got the impression she held her personality at a distance and, beyond the opera they’d watched and the food they ate, the conversations she instigated concerned, exclusively, his interests. He changed tack before she could press him on The Forsaken. ‘So where do you work? You said something about secretarial…?’
‘P.A. I’m a P.A.’
‘Sounds interesting.’
‘It’s horrible.’ Her smile was so dismissive he could only believe her. ‘You must have a large knowledge of art and the exhibitions on, I bet. What have you been to see recently?’
‘Nothing for a bit. I went to the RA this summer. I go every year. Have you been?’
She shook her head and gazed with renewed interest at her napkin. ‘I went to the Tate Modern a while back. Maybe you can explain it to me. What’s it all about?’
‘What’s it all about?’
‘Just explain one piece to me. Anything. There were all these, like, oxygen tanks falling out of a van, and a wall of red cows. Most of it could have been made by a blind man. What was with the piano hanging from the ceiling?’
‘I’m not sure it’s for me to explain. Either you like a piece or you don’t. There’s really nothing to ‘get’. Anyway, most of the stuff there’s bollocks. I loved the collection before the rehang. The Cornelia Parker. The Rothko room. I don’t know why Serota felt the need to muck about with it.’
‘Maybe they worried about people getting used to the layout, or that they weren’t coming any more. Change is inevitable.’
Patrick watched her jawbone as she ate, the lips which gently caressed one another. ‘Change for change’s sake,’ he declared.
‘I bet it’s no different. I bet you changed.’
Her foot tapped his, probably accidentally, and a spark of desire flickered between the belly-dancing candles on their table. It was then that Patrick knew he would perform his oft-played ‘perfect gentleman’ role at the end of the night, accompany her back to the tube, offer her cheek a temperate, platonic peck and leave before he gave in to the long pent-up sexual thirst that would, inevitably, humiliate him. He rued his gutlessness and his genitals in equal measure.
She checked the time again. ‘Fancy a quick one?’
The Lionswater hotel was exactly as he remembered, a three storey, Victorian building in petroleum-coloured brick. Powerful lights shone upwards between tall windows on the first floor, advertising the hotel’s name to the main road, and two naked trees twisted from the earth on either side. Inside, the bar was set in mirrors and golds at odds, he felt, with the high-ceilinged, baroquely corniced charm of its period, and the receptionists wore stiff black and gleaming white and didn’t seem to hurry about their duties. He was taken back in time eight years, by the smell of the place, its background jazz. As before, he ordered two glasses of Muscadet. That he could remember what he’d drunk last time didn’t surprise him.
The girl who served them was too young to have worked there then but the man at reception might well have and as Patrick caught his eye, raised the glass to his lips, he fantasised that he’d been recognised, that his previous visit to the Lionswater was as famed to the staff as it was to him. It was a depressing fantasy and he was caught off-guard when Sarah returned from the reception with a key swinging from her index finger.
‘What we drinking?’
Patrick shrugged. ‘Nothing special. Why are you looking at me like that?’
Her lips were screwed tight, quizzical. ‘You still think yourself pretty rock ‘n’ roll, don’t you?’
He’d entertained the idea of her coming back to his, but had quickly decided against the notion. Material belongings count, in the end, for little, but what a person chooses to fill their shelves with provides a comforting affirmation of who they aspire to be; unfortunately, he no longer recognised the person who bought the Britpop best-ofs, the Martin Amis first editions, the seventies horror DVDs that stopped being mildly frightening over thirty years ago. On his desk sat a Waterman pen, given to him by a Best Man he hadn’t spoken to in five years. And he certainly didn’t want to talk about that gold disk in the lounge celebrating half a million sales of The Forsaken’s first album. So instead, they sat side by side at a bar in a hotel he’d recommended, squinting under the barrage of halogen bulbs, mirrors, tinsel and baubles, not saying much. She nudged their room key around the bar with a steady finger and he watched her do so with a jester’s melancholy. Within three minutes they’d polished off their drinks.
‘Shall we go upstairs?’ she asked.
The guest rooms were modern, imitation – plain glass chandeliers, gold framed pictures of the hotel’s yesteryear – and theirs looked out over the local park, a metal spine of traffic clogging the entire length of road to its left. A potted cyclamen by the window snagged a thread from Sarah’s green dress. ‘Lovely big room,’ she said, drawing the curtains.
Number four was bigger, he knew.
They kissed. Was this risky? There was no law against seeing a child’s parent but even if one had existed it would only have added to the illicitness of the situation; hiding their tryst from Jenna was already lending the hours-old relationship a pleasing debauchery. He peeled a bra strap over her shoulder. A constellation of moles on her belly. Soft wisps of hair at the neck’s nape. It was to be the first time he’d been with a woman for over a year and his nervousness alarmed him, but he tried not to put too much pressure on his imminent performance. As a conscious result of trying to take control of his inhibitions, their lovemaking, he suspected, would be neither frenzied nor tender; at best, it might carry a disclaimer, the promise of more another day. He hadn’t drunk nearly enough.
She pulled back. ‘Do you do this sort of thing a lot? I mean, take parents of…’
‘Never.’ It seemed appropriate to add, ‘But in two terms Jenna’s no longer my responsibility…’
She winced a smile. Whether it had been mentioning her teenage daughter by name, or the suggestion that such trysts might still be ongoing two terms down the line, the mood had subtly changed.
He looked around the room, searching for some tangible back-
up. The radiator was clicking out an irrational time signature.
‘Sarah… We can go back downstairs if you like. We don’t need to, you know…’
He investigated her face in the semi-dark, her blonde streak standing skunk-like against her darker tresses. She smelt earthy, buttery, the alcohol-strawberry of her lingering perfume now overripe and on the turn. Her cheekbones were prominent and her lips full and, examining the vague puffiness under the eyes and the faint lines traversing them, he wondered how old she was. There was something weary, perhaps even tormented, within her carefully humouring eyes, which, even under the Lionswater’s energy-saving wattage, maintained their array of never-before-seen colours. He had that strange sense that he’d known Sarah for years, that they’d already entered an awkward stage in their relationship, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, his thoughts turned to Ana, the one good thing he’d always believed to have come out of the disintegration of both the band and his friendship with Adam. He recalled how similarly beautiful and worried his future wife had looked on the fateful evening they’d stayed at this very hotel.
Sarah’s phone rang and she casually retrieved it from her handbag.
‘…Hi Jen. No I got caught up in some… No. Of course not. Look, I’ll be back in half an hour, okay?’
She killed the call, then stood and smoothed down her skirt. ‘That was Jenna. I better go.’
Neither of them spoke as she reapplied her makeup in the large wall-mounted mirror.
‘You okay?’ he finally asked.
There was a long, asexual pause. She peered into him with a calculating expression, as though deciding his entire future.
‘You know what? I really didn’t like your second album.’
He apologised again, eight years too late. ‘I wasn’t keen on the remixing they did after I left, but there’s some strong stuff on it. A review in the NME said…’
‘Patrick, shut up.’
‘You read it then?’ he joked.
‘I’m paraphrasing.’ At length, she kissed him. ‘I have to go. Sorry.’
Patrick was part relieved, part insulted that she rushed home for her daughter’s sake and as they walked downstairs he wondered at how he’d got himself into this ridiculous situation, at how fast things had rocketed to this albeit predictable conclusion. He handed the keys to the receptionist before gliding Sarah to the door, and considered initiating an unsentimental kiss for the benefit of the hotelier so he didn’t presume either one of them a prostitute. But all Patrick could do was laugh, cold air ripping at his lungs.
‘See you.’
Parentheses deepened on either side of lips painted red and dry by the winter. It seemed a genuine smile. ‘See you too, Mr Owen.’
SIX
The white emulsion paint, running down the legs of his desk and dripping into an air-conditioned tackiness on the polished wood, had adhered together his Key Stage Three reports and ruined countless mark sheets. It reeked of ammonia, and a looping splash speckled the wall. Two words were scratched into the paint, across the full surface of the desk:
YOU DIE
Patrick was running late and had just enough time to stow his umbrella behind the door before striding back along the corridor. Fellow teachers looked up from desks to scowl at him and in their countenances he saw only desperation, Ofsted paranoia. It was the last week of term, but there was no room for joy here. These people were the pedagogical equivalent of spent matches.
Patrick was led into the boardroom next to the head’s office. It was large, bright and boasted a view of the staff car park. The outside world was experiencing the kind of sudden temperature climb which, on a freezing winter’s day, so often heralds snow.
He sat at one end of an ovoid table, Mr Hutchinson and PC Thomas the other.
Mr Hutchinson was a mid-height, dumpy man whose soft features might have been prepossessing in his youth but had aged in too kindly a fashion for his role. Despite this, no one had ever seen him smile. His baldness was the baldness of the nineteen-seventies; while electing not to sport a comb-over, he had however thrown caution to the wind and grown whatever nature permitted, affording him monkish sides and a newborn gathering of fluff at the front.
‘Take me through what happened,’ Mr Hutchinson said. He had a deep and resonant voice and probably made a good baritone.
‘Well,’ Patrick began, ‘…Matthew had said something that sounded like “Watch it, Harey” when Denis was collecting materials at the end of the lesson. Denis didn’t react, but I’m pretty sure he heard.’
‘And after the lesson?’
‘Oh, I kept Denis back for some other matter. After I let him go, that’s when I heard Matthew crying out.’
‘Did you see the incident?’ the policeman asked, supercilious and mistrustful.
PC Thomas, the on-site constable, was a remarkably lanky and inoffensive-looking man whom Patrick doubted could twist the lid off a jam jar, let alone threaten a Year Seven with jail-time. But he was notoriously trigger-happy, once carting a fourteen-year-old off in irons for throwing a football boot through a window. Generally, he sat reading confiscated comics in his office behind reception, awaiting the call to action. Nine times out of ten he was only required to deal with the triggering of the foyer’s security scanners.
‘Um. No. But I was the first on the… scene.’
‘Very little to go on,’ the policeman stated. ‘But this is serious: you say Matthew insulted Denis’ cleft lip… Do you honestly think this ‘accident’ has something to do with that?’
‘It’s my theory,’ Patrick said.
The headteacher’s eyebrows rose. ‘We’ll speak to Denis, along with the rest of the class. And, once the boy’s recovered, we’ll get Matthew’s story.’
‘He didn’t seem to be accusing anyone when the paramedics arrived,’ PC Thomas chipped in. ‘He was in a lot of pain but, in my experience, a kid who’s been wronged never keeps quiet about it. Probably just a nasty accident.’ He said this with a degree of disappointment.
‘We’ll sort it as soon as we can,’ the head intoned. ‘In the meantime, back to the chalk face with you. Registration’s in fifteen minutes and not all our kids are as ’armless as Matthew, you know.’ Mr Hutchinson had evidently completed his headship training at a university for terminally unfunny cunts, emphasised by the cravat he wore during celebration assemblies.
Patrick remained where he sat. ‘How’s Matthew doing?’
‘Oh, he’s alright, I think. The damage is worse than first thought though. They popped the shoulder back in but… Hopefully he’ll be right as rain come January.’ Mr Hutchinson didn’t want his school’s attendance figures too skewed. ‘He seemed more concerned about his mobile phone, which Mr DuPont confiscated earlier in the day.’
Even if Denis had wrenched Matthew’s shoulder out of its socket, why were pupils remaining silent on the matter? All of them? A chill rippled through Patrick. Might the fact that the ‘accident’ happened after his lesson be significant? Was Denis letting his teacher know that, ultimately, he settled his dues?
‘There’s one more thing, sir,’ he said.
His two examiners stared expectantly back at him.
‘I received what could be perceived as a death threat this morning. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was also from Denis.’
PC Thomas crossed his arms. Mr Hutchinson unfolded his.
‘Go on,’ the head said.
‘I found paint across my desk. It had the words YOU DIE written in it. Denis once told me, not exactly in so many words, that he was going to… you know.’
‘He’s threatened you before?’
‘There have been… moments. You know. Intimidation. I caught him being inappropriate towards a girl in the class and he told me he’d show me, one day, what “inappropriate” really meant and then, later, he made this lovely gesture to me.’ Patrick ran his forefinger against his throat. ‘Oh, and someone vandalised my Wikipedia page and told me to Rest In Peace.’
‘You ha
ve a Wikipedia page?’
‘But why would he want to kill you?’ the policeman interjected.
‘I’m not taking it seriously. Obviously. But I’m pretty sure the mess upstairs was him.’
A few, slow flakes of snow began to spiral outside. The two men opposite him looked at one another, seemed to use clairvoyance to decide whether it was worth getting up off their arses, then both rose in tandem.
‘Guess we’d better have a look,’ Mr Hutchinson sighed.
They didn’t speak on the way up the stairs. Somehow, they had made it clear that Patrick was wasting their time. It was a technique people in power often used, he suspected, to affect the impression of perpetual busyness.
When they arrived, the desk was clear.
It wasn’t exactly spotless; the smell of paint still lingered beneath the overpowering reek of cleaning fluid. Some emulsion streaks clung within the grain of the wood like greasepaint in the wrinkles of an old thespian, but otherwise the threat had been completely removed. In the bin beside his desk, his ruined reports lay rejected, the paint still wet.
‘This… This isn’t how it was,’ Patrick protested.
The two men looked over the scene. They probably would have been amused had it not been for the fact that Patrick was very obviously distressed. ‘I’ll check the CCTV outside your room,’ the PC said, pumping his fists together.
‘You go with him,’ Mr Hutchinson told Patrick.
The lights flickered.
‘What was that?’ the PC asked Patrick.
‘Oh, that was Dave. Don’t worry about him.’
They sat in the cramped annex behind reception, three monitors before them showing grey footage of school corridors. Through the glass behind them, the human resources staff typed diligently away at whatever essential bureaucracy it was that kept them in paid employment.