by Matt Drabble
She grabbed a thick pair of socks from her nightstand before daring to put her feet on the cold floor. Her nightgown was hanging on the end of the bed and she wrapped herself in its warmth.
The day was cold but still actually milder than yesterday, but Maurice had warned her that the slight rise in temperature would come before the snow fell.
She wandered to the window and yawned as she pulled back the curtains, exposing the day beyond. The skies were dark and foreboding and she felt a chill in her bones that didn’t seem to come from the weather.
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Barnaby walked the Ravenhill grounds on the last day of term. His head ached as though he’d had a heavy night, but save for the occasional single malt whisky nightcap he didn’t drink, especially when on duty. His memory was patchy about last night’s party but everyone had seemed to be in good spirits.
Normally it would have felt like they were wrapping the old girl up for the winter, but this year there seemed to be more people staying in school over the holidays than ever before.
His job was the education of the next generation of valuable and important minds, and he took his job seriously. Here they produced leaders and dominators, the essential select few who would have great influence and power. He knew that he held a great responsibility to help shape the future of the country and lessons were not just taught in the classroom.
His feet crunched on the frosty gravel and he glanced up at the darkening skies overhead. He was confident in Maurice’s weather predicting abilities and he was sure that there would be enough time to pack the children away before the snow fell.
He wandered around the school building deep in thought with his hands behind his back. It was an unconscious gesture that accentuated his Headmaster persona and gave him an air of gravitas.
He had moved around to the rear of the building when something out of place caught his eye. The graveled pathway was covered in a thin frost coating, except on one fairly large patch. It looked for all the world like someone had recently disturbed the area whilst sweeping or possibly cleaning. The spot was between the kitchen rear entrance and the covered bin area. He could only assume that someone had spilt something last night or early this morning while cleaning the main hall and had at least cleaned it up. The only thing was that the area seemed too large and too spread out to account for a simple spillage.
He knelt down, took some dirt between his fingers, and raised it to his nose. The smell was strong and chemical based as though someone had used an industrial detergent. It seemed an overly excessive use of expensive cleaning material and he made a mental note to check with the kitchen staff and with Maurice as to just what had been cleaned up here.
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Maurice stomped his way grumpily around the grounds and into the school. Soon the whole place would be flooded with outsiders messing the place up and getting in the way. Just because they paid for their kids to go here gave them no right to ownership of Ravenhill.
Barnaby would be riding him all day about every little nook and cranny being spick and span. He hated to be robbed of his routines and having to bow and curtsey to the Lords and Ladies of the manor.
The school dance had apparently been something of a success but he had kept far away from the noise. There was also a lack of willing helpers this morning to clean the main hall. Normally everyone would have chipped in but today, volunteers were scarce.
He made his way to the disaster area and found only the kitchen staff in attendance, along with the school nurse. Rosa Marsh was leading the team with a beaming smile that had no place at this ungodly hour. She was the one he remembered that had gone missing and everyone flew into a flap about.
“Good morning, Mr. Duncan,” she greeted him, like they were old pals.
He was also Maurice to everyone and nobody ever used his surname, unless Barnaby was particularly pissed about something. “How’re you doing,” he muttered as he passed.
“Isn’t it a glorious day, Mr. Duncan?” she enthused. “Such a morning reaffirms one’s faith in a higher power, does it not?”
“Yeah, lady, whatever you say,” he replied, raising his eyebrows as he headed through to take out the bagged rubbish to the bins beyond the kitchen doors.
He had to suffer further enthusiastic welcomes and comments as he passed by the other kitchen staff members. Normally the place would be a morgue at this time of the morning with sullen pinched faces, but today was a real kick in the ass for his naturally miserable disposition.
“Well, good morning Mr. Duncan,” another sunny voice piped up as he headed back into the main hall to collect another haul.
He turned to see Hannah Marks beaming back at him like a Jehovah’s Witness knocking at his door. “Yeah, yeah, glorious day and all that crap,” he grumbled, shaking his head.
“Oh, but it is, Mr. Duncan,” she said forcibly as she gripped his arm.
Her hand was pudgy and soft, but her grip was iron. Normally the school nurse was the most gentle of creatures but today her face was hard and her eyes were flint. He suddenly noticed that the other kitchen staff had all stopped cleaning and were staring straight at him. It was a room full of middle-aged women in pink tabards, but suddenly he felt inexplicably afraid.
“You wanna take your hand off of me, nursey?” he said in a low warning tone.
“Why now, Mr. Duncan, that’s not exactly a Christian attitude,” she replied happily.
“Well I ain’t exactly a Christian,” he growled.
She released his arm and he brushed past her through the kitchen and into the centre of the hall. He felt all of their eyes on him and he resisted the almost overpowering urge to run from the group of elderly women. He would have laughed aloud, if he wasn’t so scared.
They formed a loose circle around him and started to move in. It was the plastic smiles plastered across their faces that he felt afraid of, smiles that never touched their eyes. He wanted to run or fight, but his brain couldn’t quite process the ridiculous nature of his predicament.
The pink tabards moved in as quickly as their arthritic hips and knees could manage. Maurice braced himself for something, but he knew not what.
“This place isn’t going to clean itself you know, ladies,” a man boomed out loudly as he entered from the back of the hall.
Maurice turned and Barnaby’s angry voice had never sounded so sweet. The women broke their circle and were about their work in a flash, sweeping and cleaning. The sudden turn in their demeanors made Maurice’s head spin, leaving him wondering if he had imagined the whole episode.
He felt a fresh set of eyes burning into him from behind and he turned quickly to stare out of the window. The new American boy was watching in from the garden and Maurice saw a ghost of pure hate flitter across his angelic face. The expression was gone in a millisecond but Maurice had felt it as much as seen it and suddenly he realised what real fear felt like.
Stuart Keaton raised his thumping head from the pillow. He groaned as vague memories of the previous night came strolling back with shit-eating grins on their faces. He cringed as he tried to remember just what the hell had gotten into him. He hadn’t felt that drunk since he’d been part of the Culverhay Rugby Team on its annual tour of Corfu. The odd thing was that he couldn’t recall drinking last night. He had been acting like he was off his face and he had a stinking hangover this morning, but he hadn’t even touched the small glasses of wine on offer to the faculty. He had spent the night acting like an idiot when all he’d wanted to do was to talk to Sarah.
He rolled his legs out of bed ignoring the cold until it bit his bare skin hard. He dragged the duvet with him meaning to wrap himself in its warmth. A soft moan stopped him in his tracks and his heart skipped a beat as soft female hands pulled the duvet back.
He turned hoping to see Sarah’s face, only for Jemima’s to greet him poking out beneath the covers. “Morning,” she smiled happily and his hopes turned to a sour taste in his mouth in one foul swoop.
&nbs
p; ----------
Sarah headed out into the corridor wrapped up warmly against the impending storm. The hallways were full of shrieking and excitable kids all venting excess energy in anticipation of going home. The whole boarding school idea left her a little cold as she couldn’t imagine having children and then sending them away for months on end.
She did her best to maintain a little order as she descended, but it was pretty much hopeless and she soon gave up.
Despite the reputations of exclusive schools such as Ravenhill, the kids were far from mollycoddled. They cleaned their own rooms before the break and prefects would check the quality of their work. They were all responsible for their own packing and lugging their bags down to the front door. Expensive luggage was carefully labeled and awaited collection.
She was surprised to see that Jemima wasn’t in attendance as dictated by the rota. She was concerned about her young friend’s wellbeing as it wasn’t like her to be late.
“Hazel?” she said to a passing older pupil who was organizing some of the younger ones.
“Yes, Ms Mears?” Hazel answered politely.
“Have you seen Ms King this morning?”
“Sorry Miss, no,” Hazel replied, shaking her head.
“Are you all on your own organizing this floor?”
“Not quite,” the girl replied, blushing furiously. “Joshua Bradley is helping me.”
Sarah looked to the end of the hallway and saw the object of Hazel’s obvious schoolgirl crush. Joshua was doing a decent job of maintaining a sense of order as usually overly exuberant girls were following his directions and filing down the stairs calmly and determined to please.
She strode over to the boy. “Joshua,” she said greeting him. “We’re very grateful for your assistance, but it’s really not necessary.”
“It’s ok Miss, I don’t mind helping out,” he smiled. “There seemed to be a bit of a mess going on to be honest; I don’t know who was supposed to be on duty but poor Hazel was struggling.”
“Nevertheless, it is not your place to be in charge of these girls,” she replied sternly, despite his obvious best intentions.
“Where is Ms King this morning?” he asked pertinently. “I do hope that she’s not unwell.”
She was touched by the new boy’s concerns and wanted to reassure him. “I’m sure that she is fine, just running a little late I assume.”
“I’m sure that’s it, Miss,” Joshua smiled infectiously. “I suppose that she must have had a particularity late night after all.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s just that…, well, it’s not really my place to say Miss.”
“You can tell me,” she said, leaning in close.
“Well, it’s just that I heard quite a commotion when I was in bed late last night. I peeked outside of my room and I saw Ms King and Mr. Keaton on the way to his room. They were a little…, well a little amorous I suppose is the word,” he shrugged, embarrassed.
The idea suddenly struck her hard somewhere deep in her chest. She had no right to pass comment on what either of them got up to in their spare time, and yet she felt betrayed somehow.
“I’m sure that it was nothing, Miss,” Joshua said and she felt his concern and was touched by it. “I’m sure that she didn’t stay the night.”
That comment hit even harder.
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Jemima dressed quickly and was confused by Stuart’s coldness towards her. She couldn’t remember much about last night, but she couldn’t hide her excitement at finding herself in his bed this morning. She felt a stab of guilt that her first thought had been a selfish one ahead of a concern for Sarah. But after all, Sarah had gone out of her way to show that she didn’t want him and Jemima did and wasn’t she entitled to a little bit of happiness after all?
“Hurry up,” Stuart snapped. “We’re both running late.”
She reached out and tried to touch his arm, wanting to feel his warmth, but he snatched it away quickly.
“Look, about last night,” he started ominously. “I genuinely have no idea what happened between us or indeed why.”
“Don’t say that,” she said a little sulkily, already fearing the worst.
“Look Jemima, we’re friends you and I and it’s a friendship that I value highly.”
“Oh spare me,” she snapped. “Spare me the whole ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ crap, spare me the whole I like you better as a friend because I’ve heard it all too many times,” she said, perilously close to tears and hating the feeling of weakness.
She snatched up the rest of her clothes and stumbled to the door whilst trying to put her shoes on.
“Jemima, please,” he said as her hand touched the handle.
She turned back to him hearing the desperate plea in his voice.
“Please don’t tell Sarah,” he said, finishing the sentence in the worst possible way.
She positively leapt through the doorway and out into the corridor beyond, before slamming the door behind her with a loud bang. She stood there and tried not to cry when she suddenly felt that she wasn’t alone. She looked up to see Sarah standing at the far end of the hallway and even from this distance she could feel her friend’s hurt. Sarah turned away and hurried back down the stairs without speaking. As Sarah disappeared, Jemima noticed that she hadn’t come alone; for some reason, the new American pupil was standing there with a small odd smile upon his face.
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Mavis Merryweather tore her office apart looking for Joshua Bradley’s paperwork. She was not scheduled to be working today but she had made the trip in nevertheless. Mr. Merryweather had protested from his armchair, but not enough to stop her, or even enough to bother climbing to his feet. He had retired from his Water Board job last year and now sat growing fat by the fire. The last thing in the world she wanted was to be put out to pasture by Mr. Barnaby and have to spend her days sitting beside her husband. If they were locked in a room together day in day out, it was going to be a steel cage death match.
She dragged cabinets open and always slammed them shut again after searching fruitlessly for the files. She was growing increasingly angry and frustrated that a simple job apparently seemed beyond her. She couldn’t even remember meeting the boy or his parents which just wasn’t like her. And now, to top it all, she had seen the look in Mr. Barnaby’s eyes; it was a look that bordered on pity. She knew that she was rapidly approaching retirement age and she didn’t want to give the Headmaster any excuse to push her out of the door early.
“You sure do look busy, Ma’am.” A voice startled her from the doorway.
She turned to see a slender blonde boy whose accent gave his identity away. “Ah, just the young fellow,” she said gratefully. “I need your information my boy; we appear to have mislaid it.”
“Oh I don’t think that will be necessary,” Joshua replied with a smile as he entered the office and closed the door behind him.
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Stuart couldn’t remember a time when he felt worse. He hadn’t meant to sound harsh to Jemima but it had come out that way nevertheless. She was young and impressionable and he should have recognised the look in her eyes that morning. She wasn’t waking up mortified at the night they had spent together; her eyes had been full of happy hope.
Breakfast had been an affair chock full of awkward glances and bitter avoidances. He could feel Jemima’s anger radiating down the table, as could everyone else; he only hoped that he was the only one who knew why.
Barnaby sat deep in thought, occasionally rubbing his eyes. Jemima was sitting as far away from him as possible and his heart had sunk when Sarah joined the table late and sat at the opposite end to her friend. Dora Tibbs was positively bristling with interest in the flowing emotions and Hannah Marks sat beaming like an idiot. He couldn’t remember a stranger meal table. He was sat in the middle of the table, literally and figuratively, between the two women that he desperately wanted to explain himself to.
As so
on as the breakfast was over, Barnaby roused himself from his thoughts and led a prayer for the safe travel of everyone leaving. Stuart wasn’t one for religion personally, but he could see the merits in the ideals.
After Barnaby released the hordes, Stuart wanted to speak to both Jemima and Sarah but they headed off in opposite directions. In the end, chivalry won out and his mother would have been proud; well, as proud as she could have been given the circumstances.
“Jemima. Jem,” he called after her as she walked away. “Please,” he said, daring to raise his voice a little and hoping that the passing kids were too excited to pay him any attention.
She stopped outside of the chemistry lab and nodded curtly inwards through the door. He followed her in and was suddenly a little concerned, as she closed the door behind him.
“Look, I’m sorry ok? The last thing in the world I wanted to do was to hurt you,” he apologized.
“Well, you certainly have a high opinion of yourself, now don’t you?” she replied haughtily. “I hate to shatter your illusions Mr. Keaton but I’m afraid that the world does not revolve around you.”
“Then why are you so angry with me?”
“I’m not angry with you, I’m angry with myself,” she lied. “I came after you last night and it was my idea and now I’ve hurt my friend in the process.”
“Then you remember what happened last night?” he asked, surprised.
“Yes, well mostly, I think,” she said, unsure but covering it quickly.
“I don’t know about you Mr. Keaton but I don’t tend to lose my self-control and not remember the next morning.”
“I’m still sorry,” he said awkwardly.
She walked to the door and opened it for him, standing there with her arms folded across her chest. “Good day, Mr. Keaton,” she said coldly.
“Jem, please,” he tried.
