When did I say I didn’t want it? I do want it.
Here then, he says.
I don’t want it now. And when I say this I realise I’m being rude, like the fact that he’s touched it has contaminated it somehow.
I think, says Samuel, I think it’s time I left. It was nice to meet you.
Yes, I reply. That’s all I can say. He leaves and everyone else seems relieved but I just feel like a fool.
The thing with Samuel, you see, is that he had opinions. Have you noticed how these days nobody has an opinion? People say too much and they don’t listen but when they speak they talk about nothing. Samuel seemed aloof because he was quiet but if you were ever to talk to him – and I mean talk to him, not chat with him, not try to pass the time – he would talk to you right back. He would listen to what you had to say, genuinely listen, and he would consider it and often dismiss it and he would tell you what he thought himself. And his opinions could seem conceited or misconceived or sometimes a little scary but at least he had an opinion.
Here’s what I think, I tell him when I catch up with him in the staffroom on the first day of term. Here’s my opinion, since you value opinion so much. Mozart was the second greatest composer who ever lived. He was a genius. Tchaikovsky was a moron and Rachmaninov a sentimental fool.
What about Prokofiev? he says, no hesitation, no surprise in his tone.
Second tier, I say. B list. Also a sentimental fool.
And he nods and I say, just don’t tell the kids I said that. If they ask, tell them I said Prokofiev was a genius too.
After that we talked more and more. Never in company. Never if anyone else was around. If we happened to be in the staffroom and someone else walked in, we stopped talking, we just did. I don’t know why. I think I assumed he preferred it that way and maybe he assumed that I did too. Maybe he assumed it would be easier for me. You know, because of who he was, because of what the others thought of him. But we were fooling ourselves. Everyone knew. All the teachers knew, the headmaster knew, even the kids knew. Somehow the kids always know.
I was the one to ask him out of course. He would never have asked me. It took some courage, I can tell you. Some courage and, from the bottle we keep hidden under the sink for emergencies, a nip of whisky.
The first time, I ask him to go to the movies with me. There’s something European on at the Picturehouse and I think that because it’s European he’ll like it. I don’t know, I just assume that he’ll be into foreign films. As it turns out, I love it and he hates it. He calls it pretentious. I think it’s exquisite. It’s in French and I love French. Such a musical language, so lyrical. I find myself just listening, not following the subtitles, not really knowing what’s going on. He takes in every word, I suppose, because afterwards he’s all why did they do this, no one would ever do that, who in the world talks like that? So analytical, so overly analytical.
The next time I ask him to an exhibition, to the Caravaggio at the National Gallery. I almost don’t but I feel guilty about not asking him out again because I don’t really want to, not after the film. So I decide an art gallery will be just the place. You know, quiet, formal, an afternoon not an evening. I’ll make it clear that I only want us to be friends.
It’s wonderful. I have the most wonderful time. Do you know anything about art, Inspector? I know nothing about art. I know what I like and I admire most things I could never do. Samuel, though – he can paint. Did you know that? He’s a painter. What am I saying? He was a painter. He was.
No, I’m fine. Really. I’m not crying because of that. You know, because of him. It’s just, I don’t know. The whole thing is just—
Well. Anyway. Samuel, he could paint. He said he hadn’t for some time but he knew so much about it and he was so enthused, so delighted by the whole thing. Isn’t it refreshing to be with someone who has passion? And to be surprised by someone having passion whom you’d assumed had none? Or not none exactly. I mean, I knew about the teaching, I knew how important he thought teaching was but I had no idea there was anything else that inspired that same enthusiasm in him.
We stay in the gallery until it closes. We sit and we walk and we watch the other visitors. Samuel is so funny. He talks about the paintings and he talks about the other people too, making jokes, constructing little caricatures – you know, the pompous art student, the wannabe actor turned tour guide, the philistine American. I thought at the time that he was being funny but maybe, thinking about it now, maybe he was actually being cruel.
We had sex once. Not that day, another day, months later. He wasn’t good at it but I didn’t mind because I’m hardly an expert myself.
You’re recording this. I keep forgetting you’re recording this.
What does it matter? We had sex and it was bad. It was awkward before and it was awkward during. I was a little drunk. Samuel was too. He didn’t drink much as a rule and neither do I but we’d finished most of a bottle of shiraz. We’re at my place and I’ve made him some dinner and we’re watching a film but it isn’t very good so I turn it off and I put on the stereo—
You know what? I don’t want to talk about this. Can we not talk about this?
We broke up. That’s how this ends. I say we broke up but that sounds so conventional and our relationship was anything but conventional. Apart from that one time, there was no physical involvement. We didn’t even kiss. I’m embarrassed to say that, I don’t know why. But it’s the truth. We didn’t kiss, we didn’t hug, we didn’t even hold hands. Once or twice we held hands but only if we were crossing a road or he was helping me from the bus or something silly like that. And it wasn’t just that. In a normal relationship, you don’t hide your affection like it’s something to be ashamed of, you don’t hide your lover from your friends and from your family and from yourself sometimes, even from yourself.
We argued. I suppose in that sense it was a normal relationship. Samuel was having a difficult year. There was the headmaster and there was TJ but also there were the kids. Although with the kids I couldn’t help. I didn’t try because it was beyond me. What they did – what they would do to Samuel – I just couldn’t understand it. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it for myself. No, when we argued it was about nothing in particular. It would start off as being about something – about TJ maybe, about his pranks – but in the end it would be about nothing. Nothing and everything.
I would probably have broken up with him sooner had he not been having such a difficult time. There it is again, you see: pity. I’m a hopeless judge of character, Inspector. I must be a hopeless judge of character. Everyone else could see he wasn’t normal. Why couldn’t I?
No, thank you, I’m fine. Let’s just get this finished. Can we please just get this finished?
Was he angry? What makes you say that? He had no reason to be, if that’s what you mean. No reason at all. I mean, he expected it. He must have expected it. He wasn’t the easiest of people to read, that was part of the problem, but surely he must have expected it. I don’t know though. He didn’t seem angry at first but things got bad for him afterwards, which can’t have helped. They were bad before but they got worse. So maybe his anger grew. Maybe his bitterness festered. Maybe he talked himself into resenting me because I know one thing for certain, Inspector, I’ll tell you one thing. They say he was aiming at TJ when he shot Veronica. That’s what everyone thinks. I know better. He wasn’t aiming at TJ, Inspector. He was aiming at me. He was aiming at me and Veronica died instead.
.
The gates were open; the playground had become a car park. It was full of vans: white vans mainly, vans that would have been white had they not been so encrusted with grime. Cleaning contractors, rubbish removers, flooring firms, a plumber. Men in paint-stained clothes sat in the shaded sanctuary of their cabs, the cigarettes that dangled from their sunburnt arms adding to the heat of the engines, the tarmac, the sun. Crumpled Coke cans and tabloid newspapers lined the dashboards that Lucia passed. She caught a headline, something about the weather and the temperature and the beginning of the end of all things.
She ignored the stares. The shadow of the Victorian red-brick loomed and drew her in and all of a sudden she felt chilled. She climbed the stairs to the entrance, passed the uniforms and pushed through the doors.
There was no one she could see. From the assembly hall she heard scraping furniture and baritone voices
