by Bowes, K T
The bell sounded for registration and staff dispersed to their tutor groups. Peter North blasted in through the common room whistling. Seeing Hana leaned over her desk, he grabbed her by the waist and swung her round. “Henrietta has agreed to marry me!” He kissed her loudly and wetly on the cheek and Hana’s face broke into a smile. “It was your wedding that did it. It got me thinking.”
“Congratulations!” Hana hugged him tightly, her face showing delight. “I’m genuinely pleased for you. What did Logan say?”
Pete bounced on the spot for a moment and then let her go. “Well,” he began, “he said we could have it at the…” He stopped speaking suddenly, looking at something behind her and his excited face morphed into an ugly sneer.
As Hana turned around, the sight of Caroline standing in the doorway startled her. Her face was red and her manner held something much more dangerous than its usual chilly air. She stood like stone, staring at Hana as though she hated her more than anything else on the earth and from her gimlet eyes, venom spewed out, cutting Hana to the bone.
Hana was caught completely off guard and the smile of congratulations slipped from her lips. She felt instantly intimidated. Caught hugging Pete with abandon, she wondered if she should justify their behaviour and stuttered, “He’s getting married…” Her voice trailed off as Caroline’s lips moved into the nastiest of smirks. She held Hana’s gaze but nothing. “Congratulations, love,” Hana whispered to Pete. “We’ll chat later.” Caroline’s eyes burned into Hana’s back and eventually, she felt in enough danger to want to leave the room.
She left via the rear door, finding herself out in the busy foyer shaking and unnerved. Work this last few months ceased to be a happy place. Hana ran a hand over her face, unsure how it happened, just that it had, slowly, quietly, creeping over her like a shroud. There were so many things in the office she should be attending to. Her desk was littered with unfinished work and she spent so much time away in the last term, she was behind. Still she stayed out in the foyer, pretending to move posters and check the dates of the vibrant illustrations advertising events. Life would be so different if Caroline Marsh weren't in it. Something told her she wasn’t the first person to believe that.
Hana tidied the brochure racks, occupying tutor group time and returning periodically to the window to peep into the office. It was only a small window, mostly covered with posters advertising the universities, but Hana could see through the gaps in between enough to know when Caroline left the room. Finally, the tall, blonde woman stood up, breezing out through the common room, a mammoth blot on Hana’s landscape but a tiny figure against the arched ceiling and vaulted beams. Maybe it’s all about perspective. Hana waited with her nose pressed against the glass for a moment or two, just in case Caroline forgot something and returned suddenly. Psyching herself up for going back in, Hana caught sight of her key, sitting on the desk swamped in paper. “Noooo!” she wailed quietly.
She was alarmed by Pete throwing open the back door and stepping through before he realised Hana was there. He stopped himself abruptly in the final second before he bowled her over, looking surprised. He glanced back into the room and said, “Cruella’s gone to teach,” and pushing past Hana, left.
Hana could almost taste the bitterness and hatred in the room as she went back in. It hung like fog around her, damp and eroding, in a place Hana once loved. She contemplated handing in her notice and leaving. It would solve a lot of her problems but bring others instead. She only needed to keep going until the end of the term. Then Rory would be back, lovely Rory. Hana longed for the days of just the four of them, getting along with the odd bicker, remembering suddenly Sheila still hadn’t showed up. She checked Sheila’s unlocked office in case she came in and out while Hana was outside but her bag, usually slipped under her desk, wasn’t there.
Hana heard Angus’ voice out in the common room and resolved to get on with her work. She didn’t really require Sheila’s leadership or direction. They worked together long enough that Hana was largely self-sufficient, apart from the odd significant funding crisis; like which teacher used a course budget to buy reams of paper from the school shop instead of the wood saw he requested. She went back to her desk and pottered away, processing appointment requests for the guidance counsellors, which she emailed through to them.
The comforting and familiar hum of boys’ voices in the room next door, dulled and then ceased entirely. Hana heard the door creak open and as she looked around, Angus poked his head through. “All well, working hard? Good, good,” came his broad Scots lilt.
Hana nodded and smiled. “I’m ok thanks. Is Sheila sick today?”
“Aaahh,” came his slow reply. Pushing the door closed, he strolled across to Hana’s desk and plonked himself down on Pete’s chair. Hana winced. Pete made light work of a packet of gingernuts shortly after she left the room. She knew that because she watched him through the little window, gorging away. He would have left a huge mess and Hana feared for Angus’ expensively tailored wool suit. What would she do when he stood up to walk away and she saw the seat of his pants covered in reddish-brown crumbs? She could hardly smack the principal’s backside to get them off.
“Sheila,” began Angus with an uncharacteristic awkwardness. “Sheila is possibly not going to be back this term.”
The consequences hit Hana squarely in the face like a brick. When Sheila went on holiday for six weeks the previous year, Rory covered the careers and guidance role for her. That would mean potentially Caroline could be Hana’s boss. Hana leapt to her feet with her hand over her mouth. The thought was too dreadful. “Not Caroline Marsh,” she heard herself whisper, “please God, no!” She astounded both herself and her principal by adding the words, “I quit.”
By the end of the period, Angus was in possession of a number of facts. “So you think Miss Marsh deliberately singled out my school in order to get near to Logan?”
“Logan thinks so,” Hana scoffed. “I’m amazed nobody else realised. Well, Pete did straight away but I was a little slower on the uptake.”
“It explains certain things,” Angus nodded his head like a toy. “But I’m somewhat confused. I heard from another quarter she was…no, never mind. Don’t concern yourself with that.” Angus drummed his fingers on the table and then smiled at Hana. “You say she’s deliberately intimidating?”
“Well she was today!” Hana snorted, conveniently forgetting her own refusal to do Caroline’s typing. “She burned holes in the back of my head. She won’t be happy until I’m out of the way, giving her a clear run to my husband. I can’t work with her, Angus. I’m sorry.”
“I’m in a quandary,” Angus stated. “It’s usual for the Year 13 dean to step into the careers role during a crisis. The administrative running of the school is purely down to Donald Watson and the management team, in which case Caroline will certainly be asked.”
“My situation is already intolerable, without giving her even more authority over me.” Hana bit her lip and ran her fingers over the tension headache beginning over the bridge of her nose.
“I know and in that case, the school will be failing in its duty of care towards you, as a long service employee. I think for now, the best idea would be to do nothing…” He raised his hand as Hana’s mouth opened to spill protestations. “I feel the end is possibly in sight. Not Armageddon, just the end of Miss Marsh’s employment.”
“How…?” Hana began. Angus put a forefinger to his lips and raised his eyebrows at her. Then he patted Hana’s hand gently as he rose and made for the door, turning at the last moment to say, “It was a shame you weren’t in briefing.”
Hana wondered if he was reprimanding her, but his eyes were kind. “The other staff took the news of your wedding with great enthusiasm, if a little surprise and wish you all the very best.”
The proverbial penny dropped quickly into the slot and Hana’s heart sank. That was what set Caroline off then, the announcement. As her skin paled to a ghastly white, Angus reappeared. �
�Just so you’re aware, your new husband is letting them think he broke his arm carrying you across the threshold.”
He laughed and then was gone. Had a comedian appeared and done a comedy act only for her, Hana would have struggled to see the funny side. Before her eyes, her life began to twist and writhe in complication and upset and fleetingly she wished for the boring, lonely but steady existence she so easily wished away. “I’ve never been carried across any threshold,” she whispered, with genuine sadness. Catching sight of Sheila’s empty office, Hana threw her head back in irritation at herself. “I didn’t ask what was wrong with Sheila!”
Hana was on her own until eleven thirty when the bell rang for morning tea. She texted Sheila to ask if everything was ok and received no reply. A permanent knot in her stomach tightened as she anticipated Caroline’s return. She steeled herself for it, tried mentally practicing clever sentences and intelligent responses to pretend arguments in her head, but nothing felt satisfactory. To her surprise, the next person through the door was Logan.
“Hey babe, please could you sort this out for me?” The sling had come adrift around his neck and from the pain in his face, Hana saw he was struggling. Logan looked at the devastation on Pete’s chair and elected to sit on the corner of his desk instead, while Hana wordlessly opened her drawer and pulled out a packet of painkillers. She popped two into Logan’s hand and gave him a half-full bottle of water, watching as he bravely swallowed down the pills. Hana resisted the urge to tell him how wretched he looked.
A Year 13 called in for a brochure and eyed Logan sideways. Boys were immensely perceptive, picking up extra-curricular activity between staff almost instantly. Hana felt safe in the knowledge she was immune to accusation, as she sat and chatted to her husband.
Logan sat in Hana’s chair a while later as she attempted to refit the sling around his neck. Hana giggled as he caught hold of her soft fingers and left a sensuous kiss on her wrist that tickled her skin. She froze in the middle of the knot she was making, feeling her stomach clench as Caroline breezed in like an ill wind. An unexpected wave of pity gripped her heart at the look on the other woman’s face at their intimacy, refusing to be beaten down by Hana’s inner protestations. She rejected him! She left him at the altar for goodness sake!
To Hana’s relief and Caroline’s chagrin, Logan completely ignored his ex-girlfriend, waiting for Hana to finish the knot and getting to his feet leisurely. “Thanks beautiful,” he said to his new wife, leaning in for a long lingering kiss on the lips. He put his mouth to Hana’s ear and whispered, “Happy sixtieth-hour anniversary, gorgeous.” He left with a smirk on his lips and a subtle backward glance at Hana, who couldn’t help smiling at the veiled promise in his eyes. Not that we need any excuse to celebrate, she reminded herself, with a flush of colour lighting her soft cheeks.
When Ethel Bowman spotted Hana’s back retreating into the post room, it was all she could manage not to have a heart attack. She scuttled down the corridor of H Block like a tornado, photocopying in hand and voluminous dress billowing out behind her. Boys skittered out of her way in all directions, recognising an out-of-control-missile when they saw one at close range. She fair blasted into the room, cannoning the tiny teacher aide called Barbara, out of the way without apology. Barbara had just given Hana a congratulatory hug and wished her all the best, but Ethel Bowman was not to be trifled with. She was indignant she wasn’t invited and desperate to know every last detail. “I knew it!” she crowed. “I knew you would end up together! I want to know everything.”
Barbara widened her eyes and scurried to safety, leaving Hana alone with the dreaded woman. As for telling her everything, she was the last person Hana wished to impart information to. The woman was an absolute gossip and Hana may as well publish it in the newspaper herself. The elderly woman fired questions at her like a machine gun.
“When did you start seeing each other?”
“How did he propose?”
“Where did you get married?”
“When did you do it?”
“Why didn’t you tell Aunty Ethel?”
Hana gave scant detail where possible. Ethel burbled on about someone else and Hana recognised the name of her old street, followed by her house number on Achilles Rise. With her mind temporarily disconnected from the boring diatribe about one of the science teachers, she tuned in to listen with more care. “Well,” Ethel said, “I told him, I have no idea where Hana Johal has shifted to. I didn’t even know you’d shifted…although I think somebody mentioned it here one day and I was so surprised…so surprised, because of course you never said…but anyway, if you would give me your new address, he’d love us to pop round, he said, yes he positively did say he would like to catch up with you.”
“Who would?” asked Hana, interrupting as Ethel stopped to draw breath. Swiftly the older woman grew coy and shy, her cheeks flushing pink. She rolled her eyes in an attempt at a seductive look. “You…know,” she whispered.
Hana shook her head. The whole conversation left her miles behind.
“Our mutual friend, Mr Laval,” said Ethel, spreading her hands as though Hana was thick and didn’t get a maths question. Hana shook her head again.
“I don’t know any Mr Laval. Sorry, I think you’ve made a mistake.”
Hana turned to go, but Ethel Bowman grasped her wrist. “But he asks me about you all the time,” she said, genuinely perplexed. “He knew you’d changed your car and got a young man. I just didn’t realise it was our dear Mr Du Rose. Mr Laval knows all sorts of things from before; when he knew you properly. He’s been to your house, he told me. I need your new address now.” Mrs Bowman moved conspiratorially nearer to Hana. “You see dear, after the untimely death of Mr Bowman some years ago I have been sadly alone. Until I met my lovely gentleman. Mr Laval is my…my…well, my…” Mrs Ethel Bowman, mistress of the twisted English language, strained to find the word for what Mr Laval represented to her.
“Friend?” obliged Hana and Mrs Bowman beamed.
“Exactly!” she said satisfied, “Now if I could have your new address?”
She stood there expectantly and Hana panicked. In a masterstroke, she blurted, “I can’t remember the full address and postcode. I’ll have to ask Logan.” She excused herself hastily and fled in a blur. A dreadful realisation occurred to her about Mr Laval. It was highly possible he was one of the men hounding her. Hana’s heart pounded as she ran back to the office and, despite the acid glances aimed at her by Caroline, she quickly texted Logan, trying to remember if he had his phone on him.
‘Don’t tell ANYONE our phone number or address. Talk later. It’s important.’
Then with shattered nerves and shaking hands, she ran down the front steps to reception, aware she had given only one other person her new address lately. Angus’ personal assistant sat primly at her desk typing, as Hana rushed into the room without knocking. The woman rose to her feet, taking seriously her role to act as the principal’s Rottweiler. She remembered Angus was strolling around the site at present and sat back down again.
“Have you typed out the new staff list yet?” Hana asked her, exhaling with with relief as the woman shook her head and adopted a defensive stance.
“I’ve been much too busy, she began. Hana felt sick with the release of tension and begged her to take her address off altogether. “I can’t do that!” the Rottweiler said with irritation, “You have to be contactable. Staff regulations.”
On a whim, Hana asked her to change it to the Gordonton House with Logan’s, feeling cowardly as she did it and praying she would not rain all her present troubles down on that household. The woman’s eyes bulged in indignation until she remembered Angus’ announcement at briefing and then she became almost frighteningly jovial.
“Oh, that’s right,” she simpered, “congratulations.”
But Hana was gone.
Back in the office Hana located everyone she needed to speak to, Boris, North, even Henrietta and Angus, texting them to ask - no, to
beg them - to tell people she was living at the Gordonton House and promising to explain. She knew she wouldn’t settle until she spoke to them all.
The final text went off to Bodie.
‘I think I know who the crooks work for. Call me tonight. Please. Mum. X
’
Hana Du Rose
Chapter 5
“I don’t know if it’s enough to go on,” came Bodie’s voice down the crackly connection later that evening. “And it might just be the name he gave her. It could be fake.”
Hana was silent. It was not what she wanted to hear. Bodie went on, “A photo would be best really,” while his mother quietly despaired.
“How am I supposed to get that?” Hana’s pout was wasted as Bodie couldn’t see it.
“Is Logan there?” he asked, dismissing his mother in one sentence. The men continued the conversation while Hana sloped off despondently to run a bath. If she was annoyed when ten minutes later, Logan disconnected without letting her say goodbye to her son, she didn’t say.
Logan came and sat on the edge of the bath, dangling his right hand in the bubbles. He looked thoughtful and Hana pottered around him, turning on the heated towel rail, getting her stuff ready, stripping down to her knickers and blouse before turning towards him expectantly, hoping he would leave before she got completely naked. She felt self-conscious as his grey eyes studied her with interest.
Hauling himself up awkwardly, Logan pulled her in close. There were dark shadows around his eyes from the strain of the day and he held her tightly. Hana ran her hands through his hair behind his right ear, keeping hold of a handful and feeling it slide through her fingers. “Would you like a glass of wine?” Logan asked her, biting his lip in concentration, running his good hand up her waist and along the base of her spine. He leaned in and kissed the side of her neck and Hana heard the small exhale that betrayed her.