I wished for Josh’s reassuring presence but knowing he wasn’t there I made an effort to bring myself under control. ‘Don’t be silly,’ I whispered aloud. ‘It’s an old house with its own creaks and groans.’
I forced myself to walk to the centre of the room where the noise had come from. A gasp escaped me as I saw, there on the carpet, another shadowy shape. This was larger and darker. A pine cone.
The sound of my mobile ringing made me jump. When I answered it, Corinne’s gravelly voice brought me back to my senses. ‘Sorry, Sarah. Another nightmare. He’s fine now.’ Then, hearing my breathy pants, ‘You all right, chick?’
It was right on the tip of my tongue to tell her about my dream but in that instant I knew what she would say, and somehow right then, Corinne’s dismissive but sensible advice was the last thing I wanted to hear. She’d done enough for one night and she had more than a handful in Ewan.
My voice was scratchy and dry but I managed a squeak. ‘Yes, sorry. Hayfever.’
‘Quite bad this year I’ve heard. Rachel’s had it awful and she’s even had these injection things that are meant to clear it up for years, poor thing …’ And she was off and into the night, chatting about our mutual friends, oblivious to my silence.
When we’d said goodbye I went around the house and locked up carefully. I crept to my room and turned on the television, the radio and both of my night lights.
As I sank under the duvet and closed my eyes against the light, I couldn’t shift the feeling that I was waiting for something.
It would take another seven nights for me to find out what that was.
Chapter Three
Looking back, all the signs were there. Human beings have a tendency to forget what they can’t explain: the misplaced key, left on the sideboard but found in the lock; the lost treasured trinket, carefully tracked and then suddenly gone; the darkening shadow in the hot glare of day. But they’re alarm bells.
Would it have all turned out differently if I had paid heed? I think not. The chain of events that would carry me across seas, to foreign shores and through time, had already been set in motion.
But I didn’t know that then.
In fact, as I contemplated the past week from the end of my summer garden, things seemed so obvious and straightforward. To my mind they were almost bordering on the mundane. But then I had cosseted myself in the flower-boat, one of my favourite places to be: a hammock strung between an apple tree and the fence post, beside an ancient pink rose bush. Alfie christened it the flower-boat as I’d fashioned it from a faded tarpaulin with a swirl of daffodils and gerbera printed upon it. In its saggy hug, when the sun sank and the jasmine that wound itself around the fence scented the air, it was impossible to feel anxious. I had even fixed a shelf into the lower branches of the apple tree so that we could reach toys, drinks and magazines as we gently rocked. The scent of floribunda and ripening apple fruit, the faint gurgle of traffic and life that wafted along on the breeze, couldn’t help but soothe the nerves.
It must have been Alfie who had left the shell and the cone about the house; there were only two people who lived here, after all – me and him. And I hadn’t done it. It is the kind of thing that kids do. My attention had been drawn to them as the house creaked that darkened Friday night. The seasonal heat had surely disorientated a winged insect, which had flown into the window, hence the cracking sound. The groan of a floorboard, contracting as it cooled in the night air, had alerted me to the cone.
The burn was more of a puzzle. But I’m scatty at the best of times and in the rush to get dressed, pop Alfie to nursery and scoop up my lesson plans, it was quite possible that I’d simply imagined the scar, a residual phantasm created by the dramatic dream.
I’d tell the neurologist.
I took my anti-depressant, minus 10mg.
All too soon the week’s mundanities had me.
I don’t like using the term ‘roller coaster of a ride’. Whenever I see it on the back of books it makes my bottom tighten. So without using crappy marketing-speak, let me tell you the week that followed was so frenzied it was easy to forget about the cockleshell and pine cone incident.
St John’s was busy. It was the last week of lessons and the students weren’t interested in their work. Not that they had much at that point in the academic year. I was half inclined to let them do as they pleased, but the college executive herded us in to the Grand Hall at 8.30 a.m. Monday morning and instructed us that this was no time to let standards slip. According to the management, this week was the perfect time to introduce students to next year’s curriculum.
McBastard suggested that if we wanted to relax a bit we could carry out summative assessments in the form of quizzes. ‘Party on, dude,’ said John, in a rare moment of rebellion. The management made him stay behind.
They were like that at St John’s.
I’d come out of the music business, which doesn’t have the reputation of a caring profession, and thought that perhaps teaching might be a less stressful, more wholesome career. Ha ha ha.
On the Tuesday I sneaked Twister in to my Textual Analysis lesson. The kids were enjoying it until McBastard caught us and hauled me into his office. If that sort of thing continued, he growled at the floor, I could end up on the Sex Offenders Register.
I laughed.
He fixed his strange brown eyes on me. Ambers and reds swirled within them like fiery lava.
‘This is serious,’ he said. ‘You should be careful.’
I frowned and shifted on the stool where I was sitting in front of his desk. ‘What do you mean?’
McBastard leant back and clasped his bony hands in a prayer-like fashion.
Malevolence glittered beyond his volcanic eyes, anger preparing to erupt.
‘You need to keep your job.’ He stayed motionless, hard, like a statue.
I wasn’t absolutely sure what he was trying to say and told him so.
Finally he spat out, ‘A woman in your position.’
It took me off guard.
‘Yes? What exactly is that?’ My eyebrows had raised and I’d assumed an expression of confusion.
Thin white lips pushed themselves into an arrangement that almost resembled a smile. ‘A single mother, after all.’
Reading my puzzlement he seemed about to say more but stopped. ‘You’d better toddle along to your class.’ Then he dismissed me by spinning his chair round and staring out of the window.
Gawping at the back of his head, I was shocked into silence, as his meaning dawned.
It was true, I needed to earn money and I couldn’t afford to lose my job. But I didn’t need reminding that whether I stayed in it or not was largely up to him. The shit had used this opportunity to warn me: fall in line or fuck off.
I quivered at my impotence in the face of such barefaced blackmail but with great self-control I thanked him and ‘toddled’ back to my students.
The following day McBastard stalked me like a wolf. Thankfully there wasn’t much I could screw up: end of year shows, graduation ceremonies, leaving lunches and then on Thursday, a trip to Wimbledon.
On Friday the school was shut to students and staff were subjected to what the management term a Development Day, but what we call Degenerate Day on account of the stupefaction factor – the programme comprised policy talks and lectures.
I took my place at the back of the staff room between John and Sue, who was pregnant and perpetually pissed off that she couldn’t smoke or drink.
‘Do we know how long this will be?’ I squeezed into the cramped makeshift seating.
John