Kiara, her view half restricted by the bookcases, followed my astonished gaze, as the classroom door, which had been opened with unexpected violence, banged hard against the nearest desk.
‘What on earth –’ I began, taking in the slim forty-something woman who was paying me not the slightest amount of attention, and appeared to be on something of a mission. She looked fraught – not to mention hot; there was a damp sheeny glow about her. Unsurprisingly, as even in the June heat she was wearing a coat.
She made a beeline for the boys’ table and, when she reached it, grabbed the shoulder of a startled Tommy’s shirt. ‘Tommy, come on,’ she commanded. ‘We gotta go, and we gotta go now. The bastard’s found us. Come on – now! He’s fucking found us!’
I emerged from where Kiara and I had been sitting, just behind the bookcases, wincing automatically at her choice of expletives in front of the children. No wonder Tommy’s colourful vocabulary was so unrestrained. More importantly, I needed to regain control over the situation. ‘Mrs Robinson?’ I asked. Tommy’s slight nod confirmed it. ‘Mrs Robinson, please! I can see you’re upset, but please don’t come flying in here swearing and shouting and upsetting the children. Can we step out into the corridor, please?’
There must have been something in my tone that brought her sharply to attention. Which was gratifying. I was obviously getting the hang of this ‘quiet authority’ lark. She let go of Tommy’s shirt. ‘Look, I’m sorry,’ she said, starting to try and nudge him out of his seat instead. ‘Only we really do. We really have got to go.’
I rounded the nearest tables, walked to the door and looked out into the corridor. It being halfway through second period and, my room being where it was, you could have heard a pin drop. ‘Jonathan,’ I said, ‘Can you shut and lock the French doors, please? And Mrs Robinson, perhaps we could have a word outside the classroom? There’s nothing to worry about. There is absolutely no one around.’
‘Not here, perhaps,’ she pointed out, once she’d grudgingly come and joined me outside the classroom and introduced herself as Cathy. ‘But I’ve left my girls round the neighbour’s and we need to get moving. Honest, love, every second matters. I need to take Tommy out of school and I need to do it now.’ Then, without any warning, her face seemed to fall in on itself and, with a huge gulping sigh, she burst into tears.
I put my arm around her shoulder. There was nothing of her. It was like grasping a bag of shaking sticks. The avenging Boudicca of my imaginings she wasn’t, not at this moment, anyway. The door opened then, and Tommy appeared from behind it. Seeing his mum crying he threw himself at her as well. Which now made three of us, as if in a pre-match motivational huddle, Tommy and I taking it in turns to pat and say ‘there, there’ to the poor woman, who, now she’d started crying, couldn’t seem to stop.
‘Mum, shush,’ he kept saying to her. ‘Don’t cry – we’ll think of something. Where is he? How did he find us? D’you know where he is now?’
This seemed to galvanise her slightly. ‘I don’t bloody know, Tommy! That’s exactly it – I don’t know! The girls are all round Mrs Taylor’s, and that’s a worry in itself. What if he starts knocking on doors?’ She wrung her bony hands together and I wondered if she got enough to eat. Probably not. Probably gave it to her kids. ‘She’s been a brick,’ she said, ‘but she’s, like, eighty, and I can’t have him – can’t even think about him getting in there. Tommy, love,’ she said, turning back to her son, ‘I know you hate this, but what choice have we got, eh? We need to grab what we can and go. Now.’
‘Mum, I’m sick of it!’ Tommy answered, the pitch of his voice rising, as what was happening was beginning to sink in. ‘Why can’t you just get the cops on him like Mrs Taylor says? I like it here! I’m sick of running away! An’ I’m not doing it no more! Get the police on him, Mum, please!’
‘Oh, if only it was that easy!’ she responded. ‘Like they can just magic him away! Son, you have no idea …’
‘Look, Mrs Robinson,’ I said, ‘I think Tommy could be right. There’s a man here –’
‘What would you know about it?’ she snapped back. ‘You don’t know what he’s like! Oh, it’s all fine and dandy when they’re round, promising this and that. All “Oh yes, Mrs Robinson, we’ll put a restraining order on him, don’t worry, and then this!” She scraped a hank of damp hair back from her temple, then, seeing Tommy’s anguished face, quickly lowered it again. But not before I glimpsed the pearly squiggle of a scar there.
‘Look,’ I said again, ‘at least let me take you down to Mr Clark’s office. He’s our Child Protection Officer –’
‘I know who he is, and how is he going to help? I told you. He’ll find us. We have to leave. Get away from here …’
‘Mum, please!’ Tommy pleaded. ‘He might be able to do something. Please just speak to him, will you?’
‘Please,’ I echoed. ‘Because Tommy could be right. That’s his job, after all, and I now he knows people who can make sure you’ll all be safe. Honestly. Why don’t we go along for a chat – all of us, right now – and if you still feel that you have to go, then you won’t have lost anything, will you?’
Tommy’s mum looked as though all the fight had suddenly left her. ‘Okay,’ she said finally, ‘but I can’t see what he can do. That bastard is sneaky. He knows every loop-hole there is. And the fact that he found us proves that, doesn’t it?’
‘Nah, Mum,’ Tommy said with what I felt showed great insight. ‘It just proves that someone you trusted has a big fucking mouth! Sorry, miss,’ he added.
I let it go.
I had to send Kiara haring off to track down Kelly so she could cover me, but within ten minutes I was bowing out of a rather incredulous Gary’s office, leaving him and Tommy and his mum to thrash out some kind of plan; a plan I hoped and prayed didn’t necessitate them doing another runner, because they could, after all, keep running for ever. At some point they had to stop. I hoped that point was now.
My only frustration – and it was a big one – was that I was once again on the periphery. Having delivered them to Gary’s door I had to turn around and leave them, when every fibre of my being wanted to be in there in the thick of it, helping sort everything out. I’d seen enough of that scar to incense me and make me want to forget the language – help get that bastard what he deserved.
But if I’d thought I’d had to step away and let the professionals step in instead, to deal with the fall-out (in my job, it was ever thus), I was about to get something of a rude awakening. And if I’d thought that my day so far had been a little out of the ordinary, it was just about to get a whole lot stranger. As I hurried back to class, Kelly was waiting for me just outside the door, holding it almost closed.
‘About turn,’ she commanded, making a little circle with her index finger.
‘What?’ I asked her. ‘Why?’
‘You need to head back to the secretaries’ office,’ she explained. ‘I’ve just had Barbara on the phone.’ She lowered her voice further. ‘Says you need to call Kiara’s mum. She’s apparently been on the phone wanting to speak to you urgently.’
‘Kiara’s mum? What on earth does she want?’ I asked. ‘And why the rush? I should probably find out whether I should speak to her at all – I don’t know the protocol, but given the ongoing investigation … Anyway, I can do that at lunchtime.’
‘Casey, you’ve already lost your break twice this week, catching up with paperwork, and that’s on top of losing it every Wednesday when you go over to the Reach for Success centre – I know all these things for a fact. Go and do it now – Kiara and Jonathan are absolutely fine here – probably busy gossiping, truth be known. Go and sort it now, then it’s done.’ She grinned at me. ‘And don’t hurry back. And that’s an order!’
I did as I was told. Kelly was right. No time like the present, and as I hurried back to the admin block I wondered just what Kiara’s mum had called about. Wondered what was happening with her, period – as far as I knew there was an ongoing investigation into her lifestyle, wasn’t there? I thought back to the catalogue of pictures – part of her ‘brochure’? – and wondered what sort of involvement the police currently had. At the very least, she was in big trouble for neglect and abuse, and probably a whole list of other things too. Was she calling to try and get me on side? Explain herself? What?
Gary was obviously otherwise engaged with the Robinsons, and when I fetched up at Donald’s office, he wasn’t there either. Off-site at an education authority meeting all day, it turned out. So that kind of put the lid on it anyway. No matter, I thought. If and when I returned Mrs Bentley’s call, it would be in my own good time. I probably did need to speak to Gary first, and he had enough on his plate. So instead, I just put my head round the door of the secretaries’ office to let them know I’d got the message and was on the case.
‘Take this, then,’ Barbara said, passing me a post-it note bearing a phone number. And good luck with her – what a rude, aggressive woman!’
You don’t know the half of it, I thought as I took it from her, because obviously almost no one in school did. In fact, I was just reflecting on how much might lie beneath the surface of so many of our hundreds of families when the office phone rang again.
Jane, one of the other secretaries, answered it just as I was about to return to my classroom, when the frantic flapping of her hand stopped me. Barbara turned as well.
‘Is that her again?’ she said.
Jane nodded. Then she beckoned to me. ‘Might as well, while you’re here,’ Barbara suggested. So I took the phone from Jane, more to spare her – I could hear Mrs Bentley’s voice screeching at her even from a distance of a few feet away – than from any desire to communicate with her myself.
I held the receiver to my ear, intent on letting her know that I wasn’t in a position to tell her anything about Kiara, but as soon as I said hello, off she went.
‘Ah, you’re there, are you?’ she said straight away. Had she been drinking? It certainly sounded like it. ‘You fucking nosey bitch!’ she railed. ‘You think you’re so fucking clever, don’t you?’
‘Mrs Bentley,’ I began. ‘Look, I’m sorry but I can’t really speak to you, I –’
‘’Ooh, you can’t really speak to me,’ she parroted back. ‘Well, that’s fine, because I’m not interested in anything you have to say! No, let me tell you something, shall I? You clever-arsed bitch. You’re not half as fucking clever as you think you are.’
‘Mrs Bentley –’ I tried again, more firmly this time. ‘I’d be grateful if –’
‘Just shut up and listen for a minute, will you? She was fucking fine while she was with me and you fucking know it! No matter what I do for my fucking living. But no, you had to interfere.’ Fine? I thought. FINE? In what warped, parallel universal might that be? ‘And now she’s straight out of the fucking frying pan and into the fire!’
‘Mrs Bentley!’ I barked at her. ‘Please try and calm down. I have no idea what you are talking about, and I won’t do if you continue to scream at me like this, will I? I’m not sure you should even be calling the school.’
‘I’ll call who I fucking like!’ she snapped. ‘And you don’t have any fucking idea, do you? Why? Because you’re fucking thick, that’s why. You’re fucking thick! Take her from me, and put her with him – like, I go down and he’s the avenging fucking angel? Give me strength! He’s a piece of fucking shit is what he is, and you are seriously going to regret this, you mark my fucking words. I hope you’re hap –’
And, then, a single click. The line went dead.
I stared into the receiver like the idiot I’d just been called, and wondered what the hell that had all been about. Then at the hand that held it, which I realised was shaking.
‘Well,’ Barbara said. ‘Gave you both barrels as well, did she? What is that woman on?’
‘A bottle of something 40 per cent proof, would be my guess,’ Jane observed, taking the phone from me and putting it back on its cradle. ‘You alright, Casey?’
‘I’m fine,’ I lied. ‘Just shell-shocked.’ I dragged up a weak grin from somewhere. ‘I think my ear’s still ringing.’
‘She’s always been a funny woman, that one,’ Barbara said, sniffing. ‘I hope she gets everything she’s got coming to her, frankly. How dare she! You sure you’re alright, Casey? Nasty, having someone yell at you like that.’
Though only sticks and stones would break my bones, I thought, remembering Tommy’s mum. ‘It’s just adrenaline,’ I said. ‘Natural reaction. Fight or flight and all that. I’d better get back, I suppose …’
‘Yes, but what did she say?’ Barbara asked. ‘What was all that about, exactly? Sour grapes?’
I tried to think on my feet. There would have been gossip around the school, among both pupils and staff – that was all quite natural. Though no one outside the immediate circle of personnel involved would have been told more than it was necessary for them to know. Hence they’d know about the social workers, about the removal, about the return of the pupil, and, in the case of the office staff, the logistics of the case, i.e. that Kiara’s ‘next of kin to be contacted in an emergency’ had changed a couple of times over the past few weeks. And now this. Tongues would be wagging, and that was natural as well.
‘Sour grapes for sure,’ I said. ‘Goes with the territory. I’m the resident busy-body, poking my nose in, for – God forbid – the good of the children. Anyway, she’s said her piece and hopefully that will be the end of it.’
‘You wish!’ Barbara said, her words accompanied by the sort of knowing grin that only a long-serving school secretary who’s seen it all before and more can pull off with an air of complete authority.
And I knew she was probably right.
It was the end of the day before I managed to catch up with Gary again, by which time the precise meaning behind those of Mrs Bentley’s words that didn’t begin with ‘F’ had been very much occupying a corner of my mind. That and the sheer force with which a whimsical expectation about how a school term might end can be blown right out of the water.
But that was school for you. Anything could, and often did, happen, and as I’d gathered up my paperwork and filled my satchel for home, I reflected that it was perhaps all that production of adrenaline that contributed to that sense of ‘burning out’. One thing was for sure – that now I worked in a school, I would never again make any kind of throwaway comment about teachers with their apparently enviably ‘short days and long holidays’. In fact I felt like slinking away right there and then, and hibernating till the autumn.
Right now, however, I had to run through what Mrs Bentley had said to me, and try to figure out whether it was anything we should be worried about. After all, it had been odd – because what did she have to gain from it? From what I’d heard, she’d already made it pretty clear that if Kiara was taken away from her, then so be it – an unthinkable notion for the overwhelming majority of mothers, but, sadly, not unheard of. A tragic fact of life.
So why the call, then? What was her motivation in wanting to speak to me? Just sour grapes because she’d lost her ‘assistant’?
‘I think you’ve hit that nail on the head,’ Gary said. ‘I’ll pass the information on to social services, of course, but I think we can assume she was just drunk and ranting.’
‘She was certainly ranting,’ I agreed.
‘And I imagine she’s under stress over the forthcoming court case. It must be galling for her, however completely deplorable what she’s done, that her ex is being portrayed as the perfect father after years of not having anything to do with her. Or, I imagine, contributing a bean. But they’ll review it. They’re more conversant with all the facts than we are. We can let them decide what to do. And, on the plus side, it’s also looking better for the Robinsons, so, in fact, it’s been quite a positive day.’
He went on to explain that they were being installed in a local refuge even as we were talking, and that Mrs Robinson had been persuaded to report her ex to the police. ‘We’ve no way of making them stay there, of course,’ Gary cautioned, ‘but I think Tommy himself is key there. She’s obviously terrified, but now he’s an adolescent – bit bigger and stronger – perhaps, I don’t know, perhaps she’ll feel braver. They might still do a flit, but my instinct is that his feelings on the matter might just hold sway. Let’s see in the morning, eh? Keep your fingers crossed, okay? Oh, and Casey,’ he added, smiling, ‘go home and put all of it out of your mind. And that’s an order.’
Obviously my day for being given orders, then. Which I was only too happy to take – as my mum would say, what would be would be …