Authors: Kay Brooks
19
Over the weekend, I’d hoped that Theo would want to spend some time with me so I was overjoyed when he phoned asking if I fancied going out on Saturday. Theo seemed to be the only effective distraction from Amelia and thoughts of school. Already, even with a weekend in between, I was dreading the return of Darren Pierce. In the little time I’d been teaching the class without him, I’d actually grown to quite like them. I’d even found myself taking a liking to Phil and Scott, who weren’t too busy playing at being the big men to show their personalities. Scott had revealed a silly sense of humour and Phil was actually much brighter than he chose to let on.
Theo had suggested that we do something peaceful so that we could talk without interruption or distraction. He’d asked me what my favourite thing to do was during the day and my answer, feeding the ducks at the local park, luckily hadn’t sounded too boring to him.
It was a beautiful winter day. The air was chilly, but the sun compensated by being so bright. We both were wrapped up complete with gloves, scarves and hats. Theo asked me how I was.
“Bored of talking about myself!” I replied, honestly. “Sometimes I feel like all I do is talk about my mental-ness and work! Tell me how you are. I’m sure your job is equally or more interesting than mine.”
“It can be really hard, but it is always interesting.” He stopped, pulling some
bread out of the bag before throwing it to some mallards that were following us, swimming slowly around the perimeter of the lake. “We tend to get a lot of elderly people on the orthopaedics ward, coming in for our physiotherapy clinic. Some of them we get to know because after they’ve had big operations, like a hip-replacement, they need a lot of help to adapt to their ‘new body part’. I’m not boring you, am I?”
“No, not at all. Do I look bored?” I widened my eyes and dropped my jaw in mock amazement, which made him laugh.
“No, but I think you may be the first woman I’ve spoken to about my job, and that includes my own mother, who doesn’t look bored!”
“I’m really not. Carry on.” He was genuinely interesting, but he could talk about the changing of the leaves and I would still hang on to his every word. I just loved the sound of his voice.
“We get some real characters. I have my favourites and before you say anything, I’m not a teacher so I’m allowed! Thora is one that always makes me smile. She has a lot of problems with her hips and knees, so she’s in and out a lot, usually brought by her rather embarrassed daughter. I’ll always say the same line to her: ‘Fancy meeting you here,’ and she always replies, ‘if I wasn’t here so often not only would I get bored but you’d miss me.’ When she stays on the ward overnight, I’ll always make an effort to see her and say goodnight and then she’ll say…” He broke off laughing and I couldn’t help but join in. Then he put on a high-pitched voice and a Scottish accent. “If I were fifty years young, I’d still be letting you tuck me in!” We both laughed.
“How funny!”
“The sad fact is that I’ve overheard her saying it to other doctors on the ward, too. I told her so and complained that I didn’t feel as special now I knew it wasn’t just me! Her daughter is always mortified, but that makes it all the more funny. She’s a lovely old dear. There’s this other one . . .” He paused and looked over at me. I nodded for him to continue. “She’s called Rita and my goodness is she a diva. There’s a reason for that, though. Apparently she used to be a beauty queen, entering competitions and she used to sing for films. There’s rumours, and she does nothing to quell them, that our diva had affairs with several famous actors who she worked with in her heyday. She mingled with the stars! Now, she gives advice to the girls on the ward about their hair and make-up. They adore her. They can’t do enough for her and she just laps it all up.”
“She sounds wonderful.” We’d come back round to the exit of the park at this point. I didn’t know whether we were going to be doing something else together or whether Theo would be taking me home, but I did know that I didn’t want to leave his company yet. There was a bench just before the exit and Theo gestured to it. Perhaps over-enthusiastically, I plonked myself down close to him.
He smiled and joined me. “She is wonderful and I bet she could write a book about her life, but she’s probably quite lonely, too. I get the feeling that she sacrificed a lot to live that kind of fast, glamorous lifestyle. She’s never been married although from what she tells me she’s been engaged several times, and she has no living family now.”
Theo started to talk about the value of family and I was listening to him intently, but then I couldn’t really comprehend what he was saying. It was almost as if the more I concentrated on the words, the less meaning they held. Why was I doing that with my hands? I was washing them, rubbing a non-existent soap into them over and over. I knew I was sitting on a park bench with Theo and I couldn’t feel any water on them, but reality was starting to feel further and further out of my grasp.
I was still with Theo, but we weren’t in the park anymore. We were in a huge department store, like one out of American movies set in New York. There were glittery, sparkly Christmas decorations hanging from the ceiling and covering every surface, but that wasn’t what we’d come for. We were looking for something in particular and I was excited to find it. Theo was saying to me, “I’ve read that those are the safest ones to use and the most convenient when you want to transfer it into the car too.” I felt my head turning upwards to smile at him, but I wasn’t in control of any of my movements or the feeling of jubilation that seems to inhabit every part of me. It didn’t belong to me yet.
“I like the patterned ones,” I was saying, fighting back the urge to laugh through pure happiness. Theo stopped abruptly and pointed up at a sign, but before I could read it and store it to memory, he’d taken my hand and was dragging me towards an escalator. I felt slightly dizzy and disorientated as I struggled to find my balance on the moving step. Theo was looking down at me and asking if I was ok. I knew that was what he was saying because his lips seemed to be moving in slow motion and the shapes they made matched those words. Contradictory to this, I could hear his voice and that was calling my name. I wasn’t standing anymore. I felt lighter and more in control. Theo was rubbing his hand up and down my back, which was rigidly straight.
Slowly, the trees and grass of the park returned back to my vision. I could smell pine needles again and not mixed perfumes. As I came round, I slumped sideways partially through overwhelming exhaustion and partly because I needed the comfort of Theo’s arms. At that point, he stopped saying my name, realising that I was back with him.
“Did you phone for an ambulance?” I murmured.
“If you’d been alone, would you have phoned for one?” he asked. I shook my head in response. “I can call for one if you like, but I thought it would be better to try and bring you out of it gently. I’m not sure they can do anything more than take you in and run the same tests.”
“I don’t want that,” I said, sleepily.
Theo nodded and pulled me to him tighter, protectively.
“What did you see?” he asked.
I told him while it was still fresh in my mind, slightly embarrassed by the fact that he’d clearly made the future me feel so happy simply by being with me. I would definitely need to write this vision up; who knew how far into the future I’d just seen. As I talked, I couldn’t help but be irritated by my future being revealed and it must have shown on my face.
“We could have been doing our Christmas shopping together,” Theo suggested, when I’d finished explaining. “Don’t read too much into it. Besides, would it be that bad if it did mean that we would end up living together?”
“No,” I gasped. “You’ve misunderstood me. It’s not
that
worrying me at all. It’s more the fact that there are some things I would rather not know. I’d rather just be able to find out what the future holds as time passes like normal people do. I don’t want my whole life mapped out for me. I quite like the idea of free will to some extent. This way it kind of feels like a choice which should have been mine to make has already been made for me. Do you understand?”
He nodded. “I do but I wouldn’t read into it to that extent. I’m sure that you could change what you saw if you wanted to
.
There’s nothing stopping you from simply saying that you’ve had a nice time so far, but don’t want to see me again. Then there’s absolutely no way that what you saw could happen, no matter how vivid or convincing. Of course I’m not telling you to do that!” He smiled, gripping my hand, tightly. “It was just an example, that’s all.”
“Trust me, I’m not going to do that. What I am going to do is forget all about that vision, trance, prophecy…whatever it was and take it all as it comes.”
Theo gently kissed my head and got to his feet, holding out his hand.
“I was going to offer to take you out to dinner, but you look exhausted. How about I cook for you instead?”
“You don’t need to do that.”
“Takeaway it is then. Probably safer, anyway. It would be very embarrassing if I had to take you to my place of work because I’d poisoned you.” Then we were laughing again and I pushed the nagging thought that I needed to contemplate this much more to the back of my mind. It could stay there. At that point, I wanted to focus on whether we were going to have Chinese or Indian.
20
Monday came around too quickly and with it arrived a sulky, miserable Darren Pierce. Absence clearly hadn’t made the heart grow any fonder on either side. I fought the urge to heave as he walked into the room, sneering at his mates who immediately bristled. The change in their attitudes as he entered could be seen in their body language and when Scott stuck two fingers up at Darren in greeting, I knew that I was in in for a difficult hour. Darren saved his blatant rudeness for when I started to address the class. I’d just handed out their recently finished assignments, complete with comments for improvement and of course, Darren didn’t have one as he’d been out of class when we did the work. “Sorry about this, Darren,” I said, acknowledging that he was going to be bored for five minutes. “We’ll just have a very quick look through and then I’ll get over to you and explain what you’ve missed.”
“S’alright, Miss. I’m not really arsed if I’ve missed anything. You carry on. Just ignore me.”
“I said I’ll be over in a minute, Darren. Right class, if you look at the first mark I have given you, that’s for your…”
“Just pretend I’m not here, Miss. You’d prefer it that way anyway, wouldn’t you?” His face was twisted into a menacing sneer.
“For God’s sake, stop being such a moron, Darren! She can’t even speak without you opening your fat trap,” Ally snapped.
“Thank you, Ally. Darren, if you can’t be quiet while I explain this to the
class, then you might as well wait outside until I’ve finished.”
“Fine by me!” He scratched his chair noisily across the floor and took his time walking out of the room, knowing full well that he had the attention of the full class. As soon as he’d left, I continued explaining the marks awarded.
Once they were all ready to start redrafting, I went outside to speak to Darren. He ignored me at first, until he saw me out of the corner of his eye. I realised he was listening to music on his iPod. He plucked one earphone out.
“Can you turn that off and put it away?” I asked, trying for a polite tone.
He did as was asked extremely slowly, not breaking eye contact with me at all. Had he been an adult, I would have interpreted this as deliberately intimidating behaviour, but I wasn’t sure that Darren was really aware of why he did anything.
.
“I think we need to talk, Darren. I’m probably going to be your English teacher until you leave Logford, so that means that, if you want to get a decent grade, we’re going to have to sort whatever problem it is you have with my lessons out.”
“So, what you really mean is that you need to talk,
I
need to listen,” he scoffed.
“No, if that was what I meant then I would have said that. The rest of the class is working hard on this assessment piece, so we have time for a chat now. I want you to tell me what the problem is.”
There was an awkward silence while Darren tried to think of what he was going to say, but I was determined not to say anything just to fill it. After a couple of long minutes, he started to chuckle.
“What’s so funny?” I asked, unfortunately in a slightly less polite tone.
“You are. You think I’m going to tell you something like, I struggle a lot with English so I behave badly so no-one will notice, don’t you? It’s a pile of bollocks. I hate your lessons and I hate you.”
What shocked me more than his actual words was the tone in which he said them. He was perfectly calm, as though what he was saying was rational and factual, not something that could be argued against. He chuckled once more and put his ear-phones back in. Even though I knew the worst response I could offer was one that showed how affected I was, I was pretty sure he’d seen it in my expression anyway. Back in the classroom, I wrote a simple note, explaining that Darren was outside my classroom and needed removing from the lesson. Ally offered to take it to the office for me. Again, Darren had managed to disrupt my entire lesson. Try as I might to get the class back on track, they were more interested in predicting what would happen to Darren now.
At dinner time, Morgan was already sitting in the staff room, with Carrie. They were deep in conversation, so I went to sit with Hazel, instead.
“Crisp?” she offered, tilting the packet towards me.
I shook my head. Darren had knocked my appetite.
They’re talking about Amelia Carr,” she said, following my gaze. “Something big has happened because we’ve had police in this morning…” She stopped speaking as Corinne walked over.
“Gillian, was everything all right once Darren Pierce was removed?” Corinne asked.
“Yes, thanks, Corinne. I’ll write down in detail exactly what happened before I leave today.”
“That would be appreciated. We’ve had a really busy morning with one thing and another,” she explained, glancing over at Carrie and Morgan. “Darren has been sent home and we’re looking at moving him from your class into mine now. He won’t be working at the same level as the others, but they are far too sensible to pay his stupid behaviour any attention and I’m guessing that without an audience, he won’t feel the need to put on the circus act.” Her words lifted a massive weight off my mind. My job would be much more enjoyable without having to worry about Darren.
“Thanks, Corinne. That will make a massive difference to the class.”
“Get it written down, pass it on to me and forget about it for now. That boy’s caused enough trouble around here for one day!” Corinne walked away, taking one of my burdens with her.
“Well, that must be a relief!” exclaimed Hazel.
“Definitely. I know he’s got issues and I understand that, but the boy gets to me somehow. He’s…” I couldn’t think of the right word to describe him.
Hazel nodded as if she knew what I meant. “Sinister?” she suggested.
I nodded enthusiastically. She had just summed up Darren Pierce in one word. He wasn’t putting on an act to impress the girls, like Scott seemed to do, and he certainly wasn’t cheeky, which was how I would describe Phil. There was something malicious and cruel behind Darren’s behaviour.
When Morgan and Carrie had finished talking, Morgan came over. Carrie gently put her hand on my shoulder and smiled as she left the room.
“Do you want to see that activity I did with our year eleven class?” Morgan asked me, gesturing towards the staffroom door. She didn’t wait for an answer, so I followed her. She stopped when we got to her classroom door, kicking out some year eleven girls who had snuck in from the cold outside. “Sorry, I didn’t want to say anything in front of Hazel,” she explained. “She’s great and I trust her, but Carrie has absolutely made me promise not to say anything to anyone not directly involved.”
I nodded, knowingly. I wasn’t about to admit that I’d been about to ask which activity she meant.
“So this is about Amelia? Is she okay?”
“She’s fine, actually. She’s still in a lot of pain, but she should be going home soon. It’s just that they haven’t decided where home will be yet.”
“Have they got him?” I asked, crossing my fingers.
“They found him in Manchester at his sister’s flat yesterday. He’s been hiding there. Ms Carr swears blind that she didn’t know where he’d gone. The police went round to question her straight away. Carrie thinks they’ve threatened to prosecute her with something because it seems she’s told them what’s been going on. She could be charged with withholding vital information from the police or hopefully worse. Collins is going to be charged with assault on a minor, but it looks like the information Amelia’s mum has put forward is going to incriminate him for this being an on-going form of abuse, which is what we suspected. The social worker involved has been round and said there’s hardly any food in the house, although there’s plenty of alcohol
.
He said Amelia’s bedroom is worse than it was the first time he visited. It looks like she practically lives in that room and, for some reason, the bed she’d been sleeping on has gone. She has a mattress on the floor with a dirty blanket over it.”
“My God, that’s awful.”
“Ms Carr’s going to have to stand as a witness against Collins, but I’m doubtful she will. She’s got a broken wrist herself from somewhere, although she’s sticking to the ‘falling over’ story. I can’t find any sympathy for her, though.” Morgan took a deep breath. “She knew what was going on and allowed it to happen. Amelia has been hurt before. She may not have beaten her daughter with her own hands, but not providing food is still a form of child abuse. Amelia weighs less than most of our year seven pupils.”
“So what’s going to happen?”
“The social worker is looking at transferring Amelia straight from the hospital into a temporary foster home. He thinks that would be better for her than putting her in a children’s home, where she would probably struggle to integrate. He’s admitted to Carrie, though, that it isn’t a certainty, but the positive thing is, it’s looking unlikely Amelia will return home. The police don’t trust that Ms Carr will stay away from Collins even after what he has done; in fact, she hasn’t said that she will. She hasn’t even bothered to visit Amelia and Amelia’s uncle, her only other living relative, didn’t know she was in hospital. Her daughter is hardly high on the priority list.”
“What about the uncle? Could he not take her in?” I asked, contemplating how scared Amelia would feel going to live with someone completely new.
“He’s in the army and moves around a lot, so it’s not really feasible. Plus, he’s not shown any interest in caring for her. He seemed more interested in getting revenge on Collins. Carrie said he didn’t even ask how Amelia was when he was contacted. She’s had more compassion from the staff here than she has from her own family!”
“At least she knows some people care about her. Her English class, especially little George Clark, ask me how she is every single time I see them.”
“She’d probably be a popular girl if she had the energy to be sociable,” Morgan mused. “To be honest, wherever she gets placed will probably do her good. There can’t be many places worse than where she’s already been.”
Everything that Morgan had told me needed to remain confidential until the police released the information. I realised this meant that Stuart Eckells probably wouldn’t know yet, but I imagined he would be elated when he did. Neither Morgan nor I had told anyone about my conversation with Stuart. Now Collins had been arrested it probably didn’t matter, but I wasn’t going to risk any trouble by going to see him. He would find out soon enough.