He glanced at her, scared and grateful. ‘I was warned they’d be a bit odd. Seeing what happened to my predecessor.’ He brightened. ‘I don’t know much about it all. Just that there was an accident. Can you tell me? It must have been a very major one.’
Hattie looked at him with her head quirked to one side and then sighed in a slightly exaggerated way. ‘Oh, dear, you are definitely going to fit into this common room like a cork into a bottle. Just as nosy as the rest of them.’
He flushed. ‘I didn’t mean to be pushy,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Oh, that’s all right,’ she said, relenting. ‘You’re entitled to ask. It’s just that this place is so — it’s the most gossipy I was ever in and since I used to work in hospital you’ll see just how gossipy that is.’
‘It can’t be as bad as Art School.’
‘Wanna bet? Well, I’ll tell you about Tully before someone else comes up with an over-embroidered version. The truth is bad enough.’ And she told him as baldly as she could what had happened to Tully and when she’d finished he stared at her, clearly shaken.
‘I wouldn’t have thought a school could be such a dangerous place.’
‘Just you wait and see,’ Wilton said darkly, coming to stand behind Hattie. ‘This is the original sin bin, the den of iniquity of all times, you take your life in your hands here —’
‘And mostly we survive.’ Hattie said and patted Paul Dinant’s shoulder. ‘You will too. The boys are rather sweet.’
‘The fourth form sweet?’ Wilton said, amazed. ‘My God, now I’ve heard everything.’
‘They are to me,’ Hattie said serenely, and finished her coffee. She had a free period coming up and there was no hurry. Perhaps, if there was any coffee left, she’d spoil herself with a second cup.
There wasn’t. She sighed and found herself a spare chair to sit in and began to tidy the mass of papers she had pushed into a folder in her pile; it was amazing how much assorted bumf could be collected when all she was doing was teaching non-exam subjects, she told herself a little gloomily. Maybe I’m getting as bad as everyone else here, untidy and bad-tempered and sharptongued —
The door opened again and she looked up to see Sam Chanter standing there and, as calmly as she could, looked down at her papers again. He’d been behaving so oddly these past three weeks since Founder’s Day; cool was the only word she could find to describe him. Where once he’d been ready to chat when they’d met in the common room or in the corridors, now he was always in a hurry to go somewhere else. The suggestions of evenings out never came, and on the one occasion when she had a free evening because Judith had opted to take all the children to the theatre to see Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and she’d suggested it, he’d pleaded pressure of work as a reason not to accept. She’d been furious with him over that and even more furious with herself for being annoyed. He owed her nothing, after all; he was just someone here where she worked, no more. But it had rankled all the same. She had thought they were friends, and now for some unexplained reason he was anything but friendly, so she made no effort to catch his eye as once she would have done in order to smile at him. She just sat with her head bent over her papers even when he called loudly: ‘Listen everyone, there’s something I have to tell you.’
The room hiccuped to a silence as one by one they turned to look at him while he repeated his call, and Bevan said sourly, ‘Well, now what? Another accident?’
‘This is no accident,’ Sam said. ‘I have to tell you that Staveley’s — um, been taken ill.’
‘Staveley?’ Steenman looked sharply at Sam. ‘I saw him yesterday. He didn’t look ill. Just his usual self.’
‘Thoroughly miserable self,’ Bevan said. ‘The man’s been unfit for human companionship for weeks.’
‘He had a nasty shock when the accident happened,’ Wilton murmured and Bevan snorted.
‘He had a shock? How does he think I feel? Standing there right beside Tully when it happened, how can I be sure it wasn’t me the person was after? Whoever shot that bullet wasn’t doing it by accident and I’ll say as much till my dying day, whether you like it or not. It was deliberate and any one of us could have been the victim and I was the nearest and —’
‘Oh, shut up, Bevan,’ Sam said wearily and there was a little hoot of laughter from Steenman as Bevan stared at Sam with his face blank with rage.
‘Don’t you talk to me like that, Chanter. I’m the Senior Master here and just you —’
‘Staveley’s ill. They found him this morning.’
‘Found him?’ Hattie looked up and spoke more sharply than she’d meant to.
‘You’ve got it,’ Sam said dryly. ‘Yes, they found him. In his car.’
‘Had he been in a crash or something?’ Wilton said, staring, and Sam shook his head and opened his mouth to speak. But Hattie was before him.
‘Carbon monoxide?’
‘Again, you’ve got it in one,’ Sam said and went on before anyone could interrupt him. ‘It’s all very clear. He went up to Hampstead Heath, did the usual rig-up from exhaust via a hosepipe into the closed car. He left a note. He’s been very depressed, he said, over the loss of the Cadet Force, sees no point in going on, sorry for any trouble he’ll be causing — the usual stuff.’
‘Is he dead?’ Wilton sounded awed, and Sam shook his head.
‘No. Poor devil didn’t even get that right. The car ran out of petrol and the engine stalled, it seems, before he got too much. He was admitted to the Royal Free and they’re transferring him to Epsom. He’ll be sorted out there —’
‘The loony bin?’ Bevan cried shrilly. ‘Old Staveley in the bin? Well, I’m not at all surprised. The man’s got no stamina! I was nearer to it all than he was, he was miles away, right behind his bloody guns, safe as a house, what’s he got to get so agitated about?’
‘Sometimes, Bevan, I could cheerfully throttle you,’ Sam said and again Steenman let out a snort of laughter. ‘The poor bastard’s in a terrible state. Deeply miserable. He’s been looking like hell ever since it happened and I for one tried to talk to him, but he wouldn’t have it, so there it is. He’s in hospital in Epsom. I’m collecting for fruit and flowers for him. And I want to make up a rota for visiting the old boy as soon as he’s on the mend. He’ll need us. He hasn’t anyone else.’
‘No family?’ Hattie asked, and Sam flicked a glance at her.
‘No,’ he said shortly. ‘Lived alone. The classic bachelor existence. He’ll need us to visit unless he’s to be left completely alone, and I can’t imagine even you, Bevan, would wish that on him.’
‘Well, you can do as you wish.’ Bevan hauled himself to his feet from the depths of the old chair. ‘I’m not going to be any hypocrite. Sending Staveley flowers? You must be mad. As for visiting him, pah!’
The school bell had started to ring and a self-satisfied grin spread itself across Bevan’s face. The news of Staveley’s collapse into depression seemed to have cheered him hugely, for as soon as the bell stopped its raucous clamour and they could speak and be heard he said loudly, ‘I’m off to class. My pupils don’t suffer just because I’ve got no stuffing. Not like Staveley’s lot. Hmmph. It’ll mean more new staff, I dare say.’ He threw a withering glare at Dinant who stood miserably silent at the edge of the group. ‘Well, we have to pay for our blessings, I suppose. One way or another.’ And he went stumping off.
‘Miserable bastard,’ Steenman said, looking after him, but he was grinning. ‘That’s set him up for the day, that has. He’s always hated Staveley. How much do you want, Sam? I can stretch to a couple of quid, I suppose.’
‘I want a fiver,’ Sam said firmly. ‘I want enough to send something every week for the next two or three, if I can. Poor old Staveley needs all the support he can get.’
Hattie put her five-pound note in the envelope when he brought it to her and he said, ‘Thanks,’ in a colourless voice, and on an impulse she didn’t know she had put her hand on his arm and said in a lo
w voice, ‘There’s something I really must talk to you about, Sam. Can you spare the time tonight after school? In the usual place. Please. It’s important to me.’
He looked at her, and then opened his mouth to speak and closed it again and finally nodded a little blankly.
‘If it’s that important,’ he said.
‘Oh, yes, it is,’ she assured him and went out of the room, hurrying after Bevan and wanting to shout at herself every step of the way. Now why on earth did I do that? she asked herself. Why on earth tell him I have to discuss something with him when I haven’t the least idea what I want to talk to him about? I must be absolutely potty.
Twenty-five
It was awful. He stood there in the street outside the tube station and said coolly, ‘Well?’ and she stood and stared back at him, not knowing what to say.
He had waited for her outside the school gates and as she emerged he’d nodded curtly to her and then fallen into step beside her as they made for the tube station. And, still not knowing what to say, still hoping some bright idea would come to her, she burbled at him about how awful it was about poor Mr Staveley, and thinking as she did it that she sounded like one of those silly women she used to hear sitting around in Casualty like ghouls, watching the comings and goings of injured people and exclaiming over them with a vast relish that had made her feel sick. Yet here she was doing the self-same thing.
Her speech had faltered to a stop then and she just hurried on beside him, seeking in every corner of her mind for something to say, but nothing came to her and she was scarlet in the face both with embarrassment and exertion when at last they reached the entrance to the tube.
‘Well?’ he said again and she jumped a little and looked up at him.
‘What on earth’s the matter with you?’ she snapped, not stopping to think at all. ‘Biting my head off like that. I — it’s — you’ve been absolutely hateful these past three weeks. What on earth have I done to deserve it?’
He looked at her for a moment and then away, over her head. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Oh, of course you do! We used to — I mean, we’d talk in a civilized fashion. I thought I could regard you as a friend. We were both involved over the business with Dilly and Arse and the pepper, and — and — I thought you were a friend. And now all I get is silence and scowls and —’
What are you doing? a voice shrieked deep in her mind. This isn’t what you want to say. You’ll make him think you’re a complete idiot, a stupid eyelash-fluttering woman who just wants to make up to him and is put out because he won’t play her silly flirtation game. You didn’t mean to do this, shut up, shut up —
But I did mean to do this, another part of her mind whispered. It was exactly what I meant and she said aloud, trying to sound reasonable, ‘Look, whatever I might have said to offend you, I apologize. I want only to be — There are very few people I can be comfortable with here at the Foundation. It matters to me if I’ve offended you.’
‘No, of course you haven’t,’ he said roughly and now he did look at her, and she thought, He’s miserable about something. Now, why should he be miserable? Because I’m angry? I hope so! But that thought had to be pushed away as thoroughly unthinkable.
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ she said more quietly, and waited.
‘I’ve just been busy,’ he said at length. ‘There’s a lot to think about.’
‘I know. I have a fair deal to think about too. I mayn’t be teaching A-level courses, but all the same —’
‘And there’s my book,’ he said suddenly and rather loudly. ‘Yes. There’s my book.’
‘Book?’
‘I told you. I’m working on a novel. Not easy. I’ve reached a difficult stage. It — I have to concentrate a lot. That’s what it is. I didn’t mean to — Oh, this is ridiculous! I really do think you’re being a little absurd, you know. I hope I’m friendly enough at school, try to be cooperative, but I’m entitled to my free time and my own — I don’t have to explain to people why I choose to be silent, surely?’
‘No,’ she said, stung. ‘You don’t have to explain to people. Not that I’d thought of myself entirely as people in the plural, you understand. However, there it is. If my talking to you disturbs your channels of thought over your book so that you can’t get on with it in the evenings and weekends, which is, I think, when you told me you work on it, I’ll be very careful not to do so again. Goodnight, Mr Chanter.’ And she went into the station, fiddling blindly in her bag for her season ticket, enraged at herself for feeling tearful. What on earth was there to be tearful about?
He seemed to her to hesitate for a moment in the entrance and then vanish. She felt his absence more as an increase in light from the entrance than anything else, and she stopped as one or two other people came into the station and then, on an impulse of which she felt ashamed, went back to the entrance, standing carefully at the side out of sight, and peered out to see where he’d gone.
He was on the other side of the road, waiting at the bus stop, and her forehead creased. He could go home to his flat either by train or bus, and once they’d become friendly he had gone out of his way to take the tube to keep her company. Now he was deliberately avoiding her and this time the tears pricked her throat so sharply it was like needles. Damn him to hell and back again, she thought furiously, and went stamping down into the station to wait on the platform, staring down the black hole of the tunnel with eyes smarting and hot and quite unseeing.
She had calmed down a little by the time she got home, which was just as well. It was Judith’s birthday and under some pressure she’d agreed to go out with her and Peter and two other couples for dinner.
‘I’m having my proper party next month, darling,’ Judith had told her jubilantly. ‘In Eilat, no less! I crave some sunshine and the only good thing about having your birthday so close to your wedding anniversary is it makes it so hard for husbands not to give you what you want. You can insist on having a very expensive combined anniversary and birthday pressie. Lovely! Right now the only pressie I really want is sunshine, and that’s what I’m getting. Now, don’t say no to dinner. I’ve found a darling Thai restaurant on the other side of the Hill, you know, down on Finchley Road, not at all fashionable but totally delicious. I insist you come, you’ll have to. I told your two they could sleep over at my house and they’re cock-a-hoop. Now, don’t look daggers at me. You know they love it and it all works out so well.’ At which veiled reference to the important part Judith played in the support system that allowed her to work at all, Hattie had been forced to capitulate.
Not that she had minded unduly; the little girls were indeed excited beyond belief at being allowed to sleep over in Jenny and Petra’s house under the indulgent eye of Inge, who played wonderful games with them long after they should have been asleep (and which Hattie couldn’t forbid, seeing it was Friday night), and anyway dining out would be agreeable. A welcome change. A chance to think of other things.
So she hurried in and made the girls their supper and listened to them chattering about school and the evening to come as they wolfed it down and she wrapped Judith’s present — a couple of pairs of lace-foaming knickers from her favourite shop — marvelling a little at how easy it all was, compared with what she’d feared when she’d taken the job at the Foundation. The children were relaxed and happy, more than content to divide their free time between their own home and Judith’s next door; indeed, Hattie thought now, it’s as well I’m not the jealous-mother type; I’d be entitled to feel well cut out by Judith, who was adored by the children. But she couldn’t mind, because it was so patently good for them. They were much happier than they had been when she’d been a full-time mother, she couldn’t deny. Her old intensity must have been a heavy burden for them.
She dressed as carefully as she could, knowing that Judith would of course have produced a spare man for her at her supper party, and she had to go through the motions of being interested, even if she wasn’t,
so she put on the favourite amethyst dress which suited her so well and wrapped herself in her black woollen shawl and took the children next door.
Her escort for the evening proved to be a surgeon on Peter’s firm at the hospital who was clearly much more interested in impressing Peter than Hattie, and that was a comfort, though she thought wryly that the amethyst dress was quite wasted on him; but the other people, a pair of actors who lived further down the same road as her and Judith and Peter and who could be relied on to talk non-stop, and a rather taciturn pair who had something to do with the Arts Council, were pleasant enough and she made up her mind to enjoy the evening.
It started well enough, with much giggling over the contents of Judith’s parcels — and since everyone had bought her underwear except Jeffrey Pratt, the house surgeon, who had played safe with bath salts, there was a good deal of ribaldry on the subject of Judith’s public image, all of which Judith hugely enjoyed and which made Peter grunt in his usual fashion — which relaxed them all. And the food was fun too, demanding a certain amount of attention in the ordering and then manipulation of chopsticks, and accompanied by surprises that consisted largely of foods that looked innocuous but which were extremely fiery indeed and made people cough and choke.
Judith seemed so absorbed in the general conversation that Hattie relaxed and settled to thinking her own thoughts, which were inevitably of Sam’s behaviour that afternoon. To have been so remote in the first place had been bad enough; to have gone out of his way not to travel with her had been even more hurtful. And she stared sightlessly at her food and wondered.
‘It can’t be that bad, ducky,’ Judith murmured in her ear and she started.
‘Mmm?’
‘You look like you lost a pound and found half a crown, as my old Granny used to say. That sounds odd now, doesn’t it? Lost a twenty-pound note and found a fiver, I suppose it ought to be these inflationary days. What on earth’s the matter? Not another bit of murder and mayhem at your school?’
Dangerous Things Page 27