The grounds of the Waikato Presbyterian School for Boys were silent and calm, just as the man liked it best. Holidays and weekends carried a different atmosphere for him, when the whole place felt like his own. No noisy students or aggravating teachers; just peace and solitude, as if the land was asleep. Time to finally think straight.
He sighed and ran a hand through his curly hair, feeling the glossy blonde locks under his palm. Vanity momentarily distracted him as he caught sight of his smart figure in a reflection from one of the expensive framed watercolours, donated by a past student who was now incredibly famous and sought after. “Nice,” he chuckled to himself, remembering how he coerced the poor man into parting with it. “The painting, not you. Mind you, you’re not bad either, you old bugger,” he said to his reflection, adjusting the angle of the toupee to his particular satisfaction. He surveyed his empire from the upstairs landing in the main building. The heavy bannister rail under his palms shone in the light from the high, stained glass windows. “This school wouldn’t cope without me,” he muttered under his breath, running his hand over the kauri wood beneath his fingers. He had always loved this staircase. He blew at an imaginary speck and wiped at it with his sleeve.
Even in a hurry, dashing from class to class or simply storming about, catching out errant boys and staff in equal measure - the man always stopped there. The stairs swept away from him on either side, completely identical, cascading downwards at a steep angle for a school. The health inspectors raised concern over it every year. One hundred and thirty years of existence and yet they wrung their hands with the imagined fear of some lump of a boy, falling down it and breaking his neck. At the bottom, each staircase curved around to greet the parquet floor of the administration corridor, like a pair of arms rushing to enfold it in a loving embrace, the antique wood intricately carved and delicate. He never knew until he reached this spot, which of the staircases he would descend to the ground floor. It was enlivening - that moment of choice. Life hadn’t allowed him many choices, not since the day his heart was broken. “No, don’t go there,” he chastised himself, straightening his spine and clicking his heels together.
Someone with a good business head would have rented the building out for weddings at weekends and in the holidays, making a fortune. The bride could have swept down either staircase of her choosing, gliding elegantly into the Great Hall at the end of the corridor to make her grand entrance. The building was filled with stained glass windows, beamed apex ceilings and all manner of expensive heritage, left to the city by Hamilton’s founding fathers. It was one of the few places preserved in this throw-away-culture.
The man turned once again, checking his shiny hair in the reflection of the delicate brush strokes of a watermill scene, before choosing the staircase to the left. In truth, it was his favourite. He loved the stained glass window on that side, glinting at him from above. The Virgin Mary smiled down on him with gentle, tender eyes, offering him absolution. The window on the other side depicted a sword wielding Christ, which filled the man with fear and regret. Still, when he walked down his favourite staircase he was careful only to look at Mary’s face and no other part of the picture window; especially not the bouncing baby boy in her arms. The child’s eyes could drill into his conscience with terrifying astuteness if the sun was at the right angle. Yet it remained the better route. He only chose the other staircase periodically to tease himself. “If you get what you want all the time, you don’t properly appreciate it,” he muttered, a familiar, time-worn mantra.
He teetered on the top step, the toes of his shiny black shoes poking over the uppermost tread. It was the staircase designated for staff. Boys used the other one, which is why the teacher occasionally deviated to it. He loved the way the adolescent males surged out of his way in both directions, irritated, but too afraid of him to display it openly as he forced himself right through the middle of the narrow space and caused a bottleneck. They hated it. He loved it. Power.
Listening to the silence was calming but perplexing, because it shouldn’t be silent at all. The intruder alarm should be clanging out into the surrounding area with deafening peals of distress. The school nestled into a suburb on one side with gully and fields the other. The Waikato Presbyterian School for Boys existed first, out in the countryside for years until the city encroached on its sanctuary, bringing arterial roads and ugly modern housing.
The phone call came early, as he washed his car and enjoyed the peace of a Saturday morning. “One of the local residents reported the alarm sounding. Want us to check it out?” the alarm company co-ordinator asked, making a horrid slapping sound into the phone with whatever he noisily chewed.
“Don’t bother!” the teacher snapped. “Not at your prices for a callout.” He finished smoothing the paintwork with a leather cloth and told his wife where he was going.
On the top step he listened for a moment, still hearing nothing. “Thanks for the wasted trip!” he spat. “Idiots!”
His body jerked as a sound from behind made him turn sharply, almost overbalancing and pitching down the staircase. The faithful bannister helped him right himself, grappling to hold onto the smooth wood at the last minute. The experience left him shaky and disquieted.
“Well, hello.” The man’s eyes widened and he whipped around to face the speaker, the last of the colour draining from his face as cold eyes regarded him, shrouded in a characteristic smugness.
“You!” He gulped, forgot where he was and took a foolish step backwards. The last thing he saw was the flash of silver in the visitor’s hand as sunlight glinted through the stained glass window and reflected a myriad of prism colours, enticingly beautiful. But it was a hated thing, the cursed metallic object, and it caused a deep frown to cross his features as his flailing body hit the first of many hard-edged wooden steps.
The seasoned oak did not yield, but the teacher’s fifty-eight-year-old body did. By the time he rolled awkwardly down the final, curved embrace of his beloved staircase; he was already unconscious.
The teacher might have survived if the visitor cared enough to ring for help. The bang to his brain from the sharp edge of the newel post would ensure a different kind of life, but he would have lived to labour it.
With a small smile of satisfaction and a casual, “Oops,” the visitor slipped stealthily away, thoroughly delighted with the unexpected outcome of the not-so-chance-meeting.