“Some of you might have read about this boy. Gary Vine. He tragically died after a cycle of abuse made him feel so desperate he didn’t think he had any other option. He killed himself. His little brother found him hung in a wardrobe. Nobody knew what was going on. He wrote a diary in a locked file on his computer and it has since been published. I urge you all to read it if you feel brave enough to.”
I take a breath and pause. I see many heads now bowed and some boys and girls rubbing their eyes. Yes, it goes on all around us. Sometimes nobody speaks out and things as terrible as that do happen. Speaking about it so openly can be shocking and devastating. It makes you question yourself and whether you ever treated someone badly enough to make them want to hurt themselves. It makes you question your very existence. Speaking like this makes you wonder whether you treat people how they should be treated and it also makes you realise so much we take for granted.
Teachers.
We take them for granted. They put up with a lot and they don’t do it for the good of their health half the time. They do it because they love to teach, to inspire and to make children’s lives better.
“I can say these things because I have worked with bullied children, bullied adults, abused children and abused adults. I have first-hand experience of this, boys and girls. I have come today to tell you that I will be in your school, all day, sitting in your headmaster’s office. If any of you know of someone being abused, bullied or harassed… if any of you know anything about anyone, anywhere, you can tell me. It will be kept in the strictest confidence. The matter will be dealt with immediately and discreetly. It doesn’t matter how big or small your concerns might be, just come and tell me. Let your teacher know you want to speak to me and you will be excused. I am here to listen and help. That’s why I am a social worker. Don’t be afraid. By opening up and saying a few words, you could be saving someone’s life. Don’t forget that. This is your chance to speak. Thank you.”
I take a step back and nod to Jack, who moves forward and announces that they can all go. Before they do, one of the teachers starts applauding and everyone follows suit. The kids, though most still have their heads bowed, clap too, even if rather gingerly.
My only concern is going to find Jules and then I shall be in that headmaster’s office as quick as my legs will carry me there.
Chapter Forty-Five
Jules
I rush from the hall and head to the English office, where I know nobody will be. However as I reach for the doorknob and turn it, I hear a voice behind me.
“Jules, are you okay?”
I crash into the office almost sobbing already and Ruby follows behind me, shutting the door. I collapse in my chair and hunch over my desk, elbows holding up my head in my hands. Tears are burning the backs of my eyes but inside my mind, I shout them back into my head.
She sits on my desk, on a corner not covered in paper or pens.
“You and he are together again, aren’t you? We were all wondering. We thought when you told them crazy stories about a spy you were having us on. Instead, you’ve gone and got yourself a right good ’un there.”
“You think?” I ask, not looking up. I don’t want her to see my face.
“He’s a keeper, anyone can see that. Anyone can see he loves you.”
“I was so frightened of jinxing it again, so I was silly, and didn’t tell you. But… Ruby. You’re, what? What are you now? Twenty-five? Not much younger than me?”
“Yes.” Her voice is tentative.
“He’s thirty-five. He’s lived. Can you remember how it felt when you were twenty-one and you felt so grown-up, as if you knew everything you’d ever need to know? Now when you look back you realise you knew nothing at all?”
“I guess…” Her voice suggests she’s worried where this is going.
“He’s lived, done things, been in situations I cannot fathom. It frightens me. He’s such a deep, intense person. I love him so much but sometimes it’s too much.”
“Too much? He looks just enough to me! What I wouldn’t give for a man who looked at me like that! Like he would throw himself under a bus for you!”
“I know, but‒”
My stupid emotions get the better of me and I start to cry. Really cry. I am not sure why. Maybe I just love him too much and there is nowhere else for it to go anymore but out of my sockets.
She moves round the desk and puts an arm around my shoulder, resting her cheek on my back.
“It’s okay,” she says softly.
Nobody ever knows why we say it’s okay but I thank her for the effort to comfort me nonetheless. It’s what I’d say. What can a woman say to another woman so deeply and desperately in love? So deep that nobody else could possibly imagine what it feels like.
I lift my head and look into Ruby’s bright blue eyes. I hold up my left hand and crack a weak smile, “Yes, I am actually engaged!”
She throws her arms around me and we hold each other.
“That’s the most fucking fantastic news I have heard all year, you old bag.”
“Thanks,” I squeak, wiping my eyes and gasping for breath.
“Is he a rough one in the sack? He looks it. That hair. God! It’s like Samson’s mop. If you cut it off will he lose all his strength?”
We laugh like hyenas and I swat at her like she deserves a slap. I love Ruby for her big mouth and her strange outfits, wacky haircuts and tattoos that never are covered up, because they show through her white blouses. I dread to think how many piercings she has. She’s the most brilliant teacher, however, and I would be lost without her.
“I am glad I have got you alone, actually,” she begins.
“Why, what’s up?” I ask, sniffing into a tissue.
I don’t think anything serious will transpire until she starts to speak.
“Mr Treading the Boards has been getting a bit friendly lately. I didn’t want to mention it at all because he’s re-shaped this department, he’s a friend of yours and all, but he’s been making me feel uncomfortable.”
“In what way?” I narrow my eyes.
“In the stationery cupboard, he grabbed my bum and asked me if I would go for a coffee sometime. I said no. He scowled but I walked off. Ever since, he just gives me these leering looks and says I will succumb. Half the time I hope he’s joking, the other half I feel like I really cannot be sure. It’s not nice feeling like this when I come to work. He’s… predatory. He clearly only wants one thing.”
She sits back on my desk and twirls a pencil in her hair. Her worried expression is one I have never seen on her face.
“Ruby, I shall deal with him. Leave it to me. Don’t let this worry you.”
Her mouth forms a flat line and her cheeks strain when she mouths sorry.
Warrick then comes steaming into the room and sees my eyes and before I have chance to complain, his arms are wrapped around me. I am lifted from the chair and kissed all over my cheeks.
“Babe, you okay?”
“Yep,” I reply in a weak voice. He holds me so tight, my feet leave the floor.
“You guys make me ill,” Ruby complains.
I smile in response to her, seeing her get all gushy over us. Warrick cannot see but she’s now as much on the verge of tears as I am.
“I’ll give you five,” she says, wafting her face.
When she’s gone, I grab Warrick’s cheeks and we kiss passionately. I hold his suited body in my arms and swoon over how gorgeous he looks in a black two-piece and crisp white shirt.
“I love you.” I pull back and stroke my hero’s locks.
“I better get to my post. I want to be there all day. Even through lunch, so I’ll see you at home time, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He smiles and his thumbs rub my cheeks free of tears. He pecks my lips softly and groans, “I love you more than anything, Julie.”
He leaves the office and I slam my arse back down in my chair. The truth is, I am frightened for my fiancé. I am worried. I wonder wheth
er he is really holding it all together, I worry he is still hiding something from me.
Most of all, I worry what might happen if the victim speaks out against her abuser.
Chapter Forty-Six
Warrick
I don’t know what I expected. A steady stream of students unfurling their tattered hearts over this desk? There certainly were some broken little teenage hearts in assembly this morning, forced to question themselves and everyone around them. Hopefully those with real stories to tell have been moved enough to come forward.
Come forward? Even now I am still speaking like a copper.
I lean back in the large, plush chair of the headmaster’s office and admire what he has got going on in here. A large, red metal desk with a leather pad across the top and an iMac with a gel keyboard. Smarmy bugger. My own desk only just fits my legs beneath it. Several filing cabinets in here are shined to perfection and there’s a large overhead fan for coping with the summer heat and lots of wooden chairs for when he’s holding court in here.
The door is open and hopefully looks welcoming. I am hoping my suit doesn’t say unapproachable. I could have worn my usual scruffs but I just wanted to say I’ll sort your shit out rather than I’m as much use as a hippie let out from the commune for a day. I am letting my worry get the better of me. I have always hated the way I look in clothes. Smart like this. Scruffy otherwise. Jules loves me best naked, so she says.
Jules. My lovely girl. How do I tell her something I know will rock her world? Something I cannot hold back before we marry. I have been pushing it down and deep inside since, well, it seems like forever. The case, this, the past… everything seems puny in comparison. Part of me already senses she knows something is not right.
I eat lunch at the desk; a cheese sandwich, a packet of salt and vinegar crisps, a Yorkie bar and a Muller corner. She made me the pack-up and packed a note in the bottom too: Love you, hero. J xxx
I love her. When I am least expecting it, someone knocks. I chew down the cheese sandwich still in my mouth and bolt up. It’s a girl. I wipe the stupid grin off my face that Jules’ note left and move across the room.
“Come in. I’ve got the door.”
I gesture for her to take a chair and I draw the small blind down on the glass panel of the door. I sit in a wooden chair two spaces away from hers and she keeps her eyes focussed on the floor.
“I’m Warrick. No need to call me Mr Jones.”
“Are you and Miss Simonovich… you know?” she says with a giggle. She still doesn’t look up at me.
I clear my throat, “Why d’ya ask?”
I watch her as she fidgets and plays with her sleeves.
“I thought… I thought you might have wanted to know…”
“Know what…?”
Internally, I fly into a blind panic. She looks extremely awkward, this Year Eleven girl. I know she’s in Y11 because she’s got a prefect badge on.
“What?” I ask again, trying not to make it seem like a demand.
“In P.E., after your thing this morning, one of the lasses was giving it large over your mate Miss Simonovich. Saying she’s an idiot for choosing a knob like you… sir,” she checks herself.
“Who was this girl?”
“Hetty. In Miss Simonovich’s class. She used to be her swot until that other geek came along.”
“What else happened in P.E.?”
“We all took the mick outta her something chronic, thought we were having a laugh and a bit o’banter like normal, you know, but she blew up big style. Started trashing the gym. We thought she’d been on something, you know sir. She obviously has a soft spot for Miss Simonovich.”
The girl sniggers and I ask for her name, which I write down surreptitiously on a notepad.
“Anything else?”
I sense this girl is one who listens and doesn’t look.
“Yeah, some dodgy porn has been going about. Some lad called Mike Hunter is the man you want.”
“Ever thought of being a policewoman?” I ask as she stands up.
“Why?” she asks suspiciously.
“You’d be good I reckon.”
“Catch ya later, sir,” she says, leaving, saluting me.
I spend the rest of that afternoon hearing sob stories from one pupil after another.
He took my pencils.
He took my bag.
He nicked my bike seat.
She stole my tampons.
She called me a bitch.
They stamped on my foot.
I wrote all the cases down and said I would be in touch.
I am clock watching when ‘some lad’ does indeed turn up. He has pushed the rules of uniform to the brink, and barely looks like a pupil at all. His tie is about an inch long, his trainers are indigo, violet and blue, and his trousers are a pair of tracksuit bottoms turned inside out to cover the fact they have logos.
“Alroit mate,” he says as he walks into the room.
“Mike Hunter?”
“Nah, I knows of him though.”
“Go on,” I say, shutting the door.
He sits down and asks, “Got a smoke?”
“Nah. Got a taser and a pepper spray in my pocket though.”
“Ya what? Proper? Aufen’ic?”
“Yep.”
“Show us then.”
I open my suit jacket and show him.
“You ain’t a pig, are ya sir?”
“Nah. But I deal with some bad types so a mate set me up.”
“Wicked, init,” he says, brapping his fingers.
“Spit it out then lad, I’m listening.”
“Gis a fiver and I will tell ya, dawg. Yeah?”
“What are you gonna spend it on?”
I fiddle with my wallet and show him I’m good for it. I caress the edges of the note and he licks his lips. I maintain a stash of fivers.
“Me nanna has no money for heating. Gonna pop down the offy and top her up.”
“With what?” I ask bluntly.
He shows me the top-up card and I nod, handing him the money.
“Hunter… he’s been showing off with some sick pictures, ya naw. Bad, dirty stuff. Thinks it’s funny. Other day, I sees him walking down the street with this big, nasty looking fella.”
“What did he look like?”
“Tall, big set, like a boxer but well out of shape. Grey hair. Cream jacket.”
Positive ID.
“Did you follow them?”
“What’s it worth?” He grins cockily.
“The pepper spray,” I offer, knowing full well it has maybe a half squirt left.
“Go on then,” he agrees, snapping it out of my grasp. “I made sure I weren’t seen. Followed him good, I did. I recks it’s 107 Victoria Park. He uses the fire escape.”
“Sure, you sure?”
I try not to seem too excited. That address is in the area we’ve spotted somebody fitting Kerrick’s description before. We follow him but he has too many helpers and he sneaks between buildings before we get to where he actually lives. Kids are more incognito, it seems.
“Yep. Bet my granny’s pension on it.”
“Here, have this.” I give him a tenner and advise, “Take her out for fish and chips. Treat her like a queen. You’ll defo go to heaven then. Stretch to a pickled egg if you can!”
“They’re rank, sir!”
“You try telling Miss Simonovich that!”
He smirks and strides away with bluster. “Eh, good on you gettin’ Miss Simonovich. She’s fit as.”
“Stay out of trouble,” I shout down the hall after him.
He scarpers and ducks into a room, maybe to leg it out of a window and avoid being seen. I don’t blame him. I get on the phone to Ronnie and give him the address.
As I hang up, one more visitor knocks on the door.
Hetty, I am guessing.
She’s tall and blonde and chewing a wasp.
“What’s up, sir?” she says about as sarcastically as a sixteen year ol
d can do.
I sense a lot of things about this girl, immediately, so I’ll play it on the down low.
“I am a bit fed up to be honest. Just had kids in all day, telling me someone is stealing their lunch money etcetera.”
“Huh,” she says, chomping on her lip.
“Yep. Frustrating, as you can imagine.” I pause, and watch her survey Mr Jack’s sea of certificates on the wall. “Why don’t you take a seat?”
“Why? So you can stare up my skirt?”
I refuse to be aggravated so I remain standing and fold my arms, towering like the six foot brute I really am.
She eventually relents to seat herself and lies across a row of chairs while nibbling her lip.
“You and Miss Simonovich, then?” she asks, failing to seem nonchalant.
If looks could kill…
“What about us?”
“Obviously banging her, aren’t ya?”
“Banging?” I tease, mocking her.
“You know. Shagging, sir.”
“My name is Warrick. Call me that.”
“Warrick,” she laughs, “what the hell kind of name is that.”
“So you think she’s a good teacher, then?”
“She was.”
“Was?”
“Gave all her attention to some sniveller. Some little chinchilla faced cow from the lower sets.”
“Chinchilla?” I keep her talking.
“Yep. Like a mouse. But with fatter cheeks.”
“What’s her name, this swot?”
Hetty has barely looked me in the eye since she’s been in this office. I think I know why.
“Oh Liza or something.”
“Liza, that clever girl who was lost in a sea of other reprobates?”
“Reprobate’s the right word.”
“What do you have to tell me, Hetty?”
She scowls, “How do you know my name?”
“Lucky guess.”
She stands and I see her eyes turn a fierce shade of menace. She points at me and warns, “You ain’t worth noffing mate.”
“Noffing?”
“Yeah. You ain’t good enough for her.”
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