by David Belbin
“You were good too,” Rachel said, shyly. “Thanks for everything.”
Then, before she had the chance to think about it, before he had the time to turn away, Rachel leant forward and kissed him on the lips. It was a soft, quick kiss. In her daydreams, this was all she needed to do. The next moment he swept her into his arms and they were tearing each other’s clothes off. Now, in real life, the teacher stared at her, looking scared. Rachel was suddenly embarrassed.
“Goodnight, sir,” she said, grabbing her bag from the floor, then opening the door to the wind and rain. “Thanks for the lift.”
Rachel stood in the dark road, watching as his car drove off, letting herself be pelted by the heavy rain. She had an awful feeling that she’d blown it, that the teacher would never let her get that close to him again.
Five
During Wednesday morning’s lesson, Mike avoided looking at Rachel. He was afraid that his face would betray him in some way. Afterwards, though, when the class had gone off to lunch, he thought about her. He’d been thinking about her on and off since she kissed him the night before. He couldn’t decide whether ...
“Still here?” The door had opened without him hearing and Rachel had come back into the room. “I meant to ask,” she said, her voice not quite natural, “what was the concert like, sir?”
Mike tried to smile and began clearing away.
“Pretty good,” he said.
“What did they play?”
Mike stumbled over his reply. He described the films that the group used as a backdrop. He didn’t say that one of the films showed a teenage girl who reminded him of her. He didn’t say how he’d spent a lot of the show trying to sort out his feelings for the teenage girl standing in front of him now.
“Sounds brilliant,” she said. “Are you going to anything else?”
“Not for a while. You?”
She shook her head, but lingered, as though she was about to say something else. “I’d better go and eat my lunch then,” she said. “Bye.”
“Bye, Rachel.”
He’d thought, for a second, that she was going to say something about kissing him last night. Mike kept going over that kiss in his head, again and again. He wondered if Rachel was doing the same. That moment, when her lips met his, he had frozen. Did she understand the fear, the blind panic which didn’t allow him to kiss her back the way he wanted to? Or did she take it as a rebuff?
Unless he’d got it all wrong. What if her kiss was only meant as a friendly peck - a thank you for a lift home? If he had responded the way he wished he had, Rachel would have been embarrassed. The story would have been all over school by the next day. Yet Mike didn’t think so. Rachel was too mature. But she was only sixteen, he had to remind himself: a girl one minute, a woman the next.
Which one had kissed him?
“I hardly see you out of school these days,” Carmen told Rachel, in maths on Friday.
“I thought you were spending most of your time with Darren,” Rachel said. He was a boy who Carmen had started going out with over Christmas.
“I chucked him at the weekend,” Carmen told her. “He was only interested in one thing.”
Rachel lowered her voice. “Did you give it to him?”
Carmen smiled enigmatically. Her smile implied that she and Rachel were close, but not that close. Rachel was hurt. They might have drifted apart a bit recently, but she’d always told Carmen everything. Carmen looked around. No one was listening to them.
“Twice,” she said. “Actually, I don’t think he was very good at it.”
“They say it takes practice,” Rachel quipped.
“Well, he can find someone else to practise on.”
They both laughed. “How about you and Nick?” Carmen asked. “Did you ever ...?”
“No!” Rachel protested, as though the idea were unthinkable.
“How is it, working with him on the play?”
“All right,” Rachel said. “No, that’s not true. It’s a bit funny at times, but we deal with it. Romeo and Juliet aren’t on stage together all that much.”
“Any chance of you two getting back together?”
Rachel shook her head. “I think he’s over it now.”
Carmen laughed. “You don’t see the way he looks at you.”
“Still?”
“Still. I’m telling you, Rachel, he’s got it bad.”
Rachel buried her head in her hands. “I don’t want to hear this.”
Carmen whispered, “I’m sure you don’t. But why do you think that he’s in the play? He does loads of acting, but he’s never been in a school play before. It’s because of you.”
Rachel swivelled her head round sharply. Carmen was right. Nick, at the other end of the room, was staring at her. His face went red and he pretended to return to work.
“So,” Carmen said, “if you’re not interested in Nick, who are you interested in?”
Rachel put on a silly, luvvie sort of voice. “There are more important things than men,” she said. “I am an ac-tress. While I’m working on a play, I am devoted only to my art.”
“Oh, all right,” said Carmen, returning to her work, “don’t tell me then.”
Rachel was trying to figure out an opportunity to see Mike Steadman on his own again. She’d nearly bottled it, but eventually worked up the nerve to go back after Wednesday’s lesson, ask him about the concert. And he’d been nice to her. However there hadn’t been a chance since then. On Thursday, the rehearsal finished early. It was still light and the weather was good, so there was no chance of a lift home. In today’s lesson, the teacher went over the Mock exam papers. Rachel had done well in the exam: not quite scraping an A, but near enough. When she called for help, Mike stood closer to her than was strictly necessary. Her query was trivial, but he answered it in a lot of detail. Their eyes kept meeting. They were both stringing the conversation out so it would last as long as possible. Rachel didn’t think that she was imagining it any more.
There was no way that Rachel was going to tell Carmen any of this. Rachel would be opening herself to ridicule. Also, Carmen was a woman now, while Rachel was still a virgin. Her friend would think that she’d become a fantasizer like Lisa Sharpe, who’d had a crush on Mr Hansen all last term. The crush only ended when it became common knowledge that Mr Hansen had a girlfriend, who was a friend of a friend of someone’s elder sister. Tracey was eighteen and worked as a dental receptionist, or so the gossip went. Rachel worried: maybe Mike Steadman had a girlfriend. Even worse, suppose he lived with someone?
This is where daydreams lead you, she told herself. You fantasize about getting off with someone and end up half-believing it. I got away with the kiss, but if I really made a play for him, it’d be awful and embarrassing and I’d never be able to look him in the eye again.
Still, Rachel couldn’t stop herself figuring out ways she could get to see the teacher on his own. What harm was there in it?
Six
On Wednesday, Mike had a free period before his year- eleven group arrived. He was sitting in his classroom, reading up for the next lesson, when Rachel arrived early. Her face was animated. A week and a day had passed since she had kissed him goodnight. Mike had nearly convinced himself that, whatever his fantasies, her kiss had been meant as a polite peck. The girl liked him and he liked her: it was a normal teacher/student relationship. Now he gave her a relaxed smile. Seeing Rachel made him feel more alive. She was letting her hair grow for the play. It suited her.
“Hi, Rachel,” Mike said, casually. “How’re things?”
Rachel perched on the edge of his desk, her long, black-stockinged legs at a right angle to him.
“I’m a bit nervous about tomorrow’s rehearsal, sir,” she said. “There’re so many lines. I’m not even sure about what half of them mean most of the time.”
“You needn’t worry,” Mike assured her.
He hesitated. Rachel was breathing heavily. Mike tried to remind himself that she was just a chil
d. But she wasn’t.
“If you like,” he added, “I could go over the speeches with you after school tonight.”
“Could you?” Rachel jumped off the desk and straightened her skirt. “Here? That’d be brilliant.”
The rest of the class began to arrive.
In the staffroom, at break, Mike told Phil that he’d have to take the bus home.
“I’ve got some work to prepare in school,” Phil said. “I don’t mind hanging around until your rehearsal’s over.”
“I really don’t know how long it’ll take,” Mike told him. “Could be ages. You’d be better off getting a lift from someone else, or the bus.”
Phil gave Mike a peculiar look, but it wasn’t his car. He couldn’t argue.
The afternoon lasted for ever. Mike was too distracted to teach properly, and the kids ran him ragged. Next week, Ms Howard was doing one of her “mentor” lesson observations. He’d have to do better if he wanted the option of keeping his job for another year.
When school was over, Mike waited anxiously for Rachel. His classroom had big red curtains. They blocked the sun which streamed in during the mornings. Mike closed them so that he and Rachel would have some privacy. Then he panicked and half opened them again, in case it looked suspicious. He put the chairs on top of tables, something he always forgot to get the kids to do. Then he took two down again and put them in a shaded corner where no one would be able to see them straight away, not even if they opened the door.
Next, Mike picked up a few bits of rubbish from the floor. His classroom was noticeably less messy at the end of the day than it had been last term. Even so, there were still more sweet wrappers, balls of paper and discarded particles of pen than you saw in most classrooms. He didn’t want Rachel to notice. Finally, Mike put the bins outside. The cleaner would recognize this as a message that there was a meeting going on and he shouldn’t come in.
Rachel was late. Perhaps she’d had second thoughts. All of this could be totally innocent, Mike reminded himself. But what if it wasn’t? He had no idea what to do. Making a move here would be like playing with fire. Best to wait until he gave her a lift home, and he was parking outside her house. But what if they were seen there? Oh, he must stop doing this. It wasn’t real. It was ...
“Hi, sir,” Rachel said, slipping quietly into the room. “This is really good of you.”
“No problem,” Mike said.
He saw at a glance why she had taken her time. She’d been making herself up. Her hair was carefully brushed and she was wearing blusher. He hadn’t read the signals wrongly. He really ought to stop this now. Rachel smiled nervously and Mike began to sweat.
“Please,” he said. “Sit down.”
Rachel took the seat which Mr Steadman offered her. The teacher looked edgy. He’d taken his tie off. He had a copy of the play by his side but made no effort to open it. The school was quiet. Last lesson was long over. Most people were gone. Mr Steadman stared at her, the same frightened expression in his eyes that he’d had the week before, when Rachel kissed him. She knew that he knew.
But this wasn’t real yet. This was the game she and Becky used to play when they were kids, at the swimming pool. They’d stand on the high diving board, daring each other to get closer and closer to the edge. There was always the risk that one would push the other and she would topple into the deep end. But it never happened. What usually happened was that an attendant came along, and told them to get off there before he threw them out.
Then, one day, the deep end no longer seemed so scary. First Becky, then Rachel, dived in, and swam. It was no longer a game. Now Rachel stared at the deep blue pool from the top of the diving-board ladder.
“I can understand you being nervous,” Mr Steadman said, opening the book. “This is a demanding scene. And a lot of the lines are so well known that it’s hard to take them seriously any more.”
“I know,” said Rachel. “It’s a bit ... intimidating.”
“Why don’t we read it through,” the teacher suggested. “At first, you’re reacting while Romeo stands beneath the balcony. I don’t think Ms Howard’s decided how to stage that yet. Your first words are Ay me. How do you want to say them?”
In a longing voice,” Rachel said. “She’s not sure whether he’s there or not.”
“Fine,” the teacher said. “Say it.”
Her chest quivering, Rachel breathed the words. Mr Steadman read Romeo’s lines. His voice was totally unlike Nick’s. It was assured, poetic, powerful. When he’d finished, Rachel paused.
“Come on,” the teacher said. “We’re alone. Go for it.”
Rachel read the dreaded words:
“O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name.
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.”
“That was fine,” Mr Steadman said. “You sounded excited and earnest.”
Their eyes met.
“Let’s carry on,” the teacher said.
There was a banging noise outside. Rachel and Mike glanced at the door, as though they’d been caught in some clandestine act. But no one came in. If they had, all they would see would be teacher and pupil sitting unusually close together. Rachel read. The words in the scene seemed to set their own pace.
Rachel read them faster and faster. Mike leant forward. “Slow down a little. You’ve got to give the audience time to enjoy the lines. Let them breathe.”
“It’s hard.”
“Yes. The scene’s very urgent, very serious. But it’s also very ...” He paused and took a breath before completing the sentence. “Very sexy.”
“I know what you mean,” Rachel said. “Where shall I take it from?”
“After do not swear."
Rachel read more slowly:
“Although I joy in thee,
I have no joy of this contract tonight.
It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden;
Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be
Ere one can say ‘It lightens’. Sweet, good night!
This bud of love, by summer’s ripening breath,
May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.
Good night, good night! As sweet repose and rest
Come to thy heart as that within my breast!”
Mr Steadman read Romeo softly, slowly moving his chair nearer to hers. “O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?”
Rachel replied, lifting her head so that their eyes met. “What satisfaction canst thou have tonight?”
But, before Mr Steadman could reply, she corpsed. The tension was too much for Rachel. Mr Steadman laughed too. Then there was an awkward silence.
“It feels like we’re flirting with each other,” he said, in a careful voice.
His face was inches from hers. Rachel could feel the heat of his breath on her forehead. She wanted to reach over and touch him.
“Are we?” she asked.
Neither of them was smiling now. They stared into each other’s eyes. “This is very dangerous,” Mr Steadman said, his head tilting towards hers.
They kissed.
At first it was a soft, gentle kiss, but it quickly became more. Mike’s arms reached around her waist and he pulled her to him. Their lips parted for a moment as Rachel slid out of her chair on to his lap. Their tongues met hungrily. Her breasts swelled against his chest. Rachel slipped her hands inside the teacher’s shirt, gripping the teacher’s back as he lifted and pressed her closer to him. At that moment, the only thing she wanted in the world was to make love with him, there, and then. She would die happy.
There was a clattering outside and they broke apart like frightened animals.
“Let’s get out of here,” the teacher said.
Rachel said nothing. She adjusted her blouse, put her coat back on, and picked up her bag. Mike slid on his jacket, then pushed the door open a few inches.
“It’s all right,” he whisp
ered to Rachel. “The cleaner’s in the next room. Let’s go out the side way.”
They hurried down the corridor into the car park. It was five past four and the sun was only just beginning to set. Several cars remained in the car park, Mike’s being the oldest one. He got in and opened the passenger door. Rachel tried to remain calm, to look as though it was the most normal thing in the world for a young male teacher to be giving a lone female pupil a lift home. Inside, though, Rachel’s body was shaking with excitement. Mike started the car, stalled it, then they raced out into the busy main road.
“Is there somewhere quiet we can go?” Mr Steadman asked.
“Your place?” Rachel whispered.
He shook his head. “I share a house with Phil Hansen. He’ll be there.”
“My mum’s not home yet,” Rachel said. “But there are kids from school on our street. Someone might ...”
“Isn’t there somewhere we can just park? I don’t know the city very well yet. The Forest, maybe ...”
“No,” Rachel said. “I know a place. Get on to Mansfield Road.”
They skirted round the ring road.
“It’s a car park,” Rachel said. “Never very busy. Left here, then it’s a right turn just after the brow of the hill.”
They turned into the car park. Mike stopped the car in a corner, away from the other vehicles. Then they kissed again, as hungrily as before, despite their cramped conditions. “This is insane,” Mike said, as their lips parted. “What are we doing?”
“We’re doing what we’ve been waiting to do,” Rachel told him. She gripped his hand. He couldn’t back out now, not when they’d only just started. They kissed again, for several minutes this time, their hands exploring each others’ bodies.
“What is this place?” Mike asked, when they finally broke apart.
“A park. Quite a big one.”
“Can we go for a walk? Is it safe?”
“I think so,” Rachel told him. “We’re far enough from school.”
They walked up a hill into the park itself, self-consciously holding hands but saying nothing. Rachel knew this park well. Today, though, she felt like she was seeing it for the first time. To their right was Woodthorpe Grange. To the left there were some small, formal gardens. In front of the couple was an expanse of grass, with a pitch-and-putt on one side and a tiny play area on the other.
