Fran joined her. ‘Off the bus.’
‘She’ll be getting free fares now,’ Jane muttered. ‘You know, she’s not as attractive as I thought at first.’
‘She’s glamorous,’ Fran said. They watched her vanish indoors, the light go on. Fran thought about pulling the kids in since it was starting to get dark. ‘I saw that straight away when we first met her in the Copper Kettle. She’s definitely got something about her. Charisma. She’s got something about her that you don’t see very often.’
Jane swivelled the blinds open again, narrowing her eyes to look at Peter, who was up a climbing frame. ‘He’s showing off for the girls. Like his father. Yeah, there’s something about her. But not just glamour or charisma. I’m not sure what it is, but it’s something else.’
‘What now then?’ Penny asked as the school started to fill up with the smell of disinfectant. The cleaners emerged in their blue overalls for the end of the day. Their chemical smell masked the fug of dirty hair and sweat. ‘What are you doing tonight?’
‘I’m going home to Daddy Dearest,’ Vince replied, cramming his Victorian novel into an overcoat pocket. ‘Another nightmare.’
‘Do you fight much?’
‘Oh, you know. Two men together.’ He shrugged.
‘Why is it I know so many one-parent families?’ Penny asked. She asked this as they came, last of all, down the cement staircase and pushed through the airlock doors at the bottom. ‘Where do we all come from?’
‘I think it’s more of a case of where we all go to. And it’s usually places like this. That’s why.’ He pulled up his coat collar, shivering under the darkness of this part of school.
She considered this as they passed the staff-room rose bushes, following the crazy paving that hadn’t started out that way. ‘Sometimes I wish I knew some normal people.’
‘Yeah,’ he said, with a harsh laugh. ‘Right.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘When you get to college you’ll meet people there more normal than you’ll ever meet. More space cadets too. And everything in between.’ He sniffed appreciatively at the teatime sky.
Penny asked, ‘Is that what it was like for you?’
He smiled. ‘Oh, yes.’ They were standing by the incinerator at the edge of the field.
She studied his face. His bruises were showing up again, and there was something else there. He looked flushed. ‘Something’s happened this afternoon, hasn’t it?’
‘It’s nothing really.’
‘Tell me.’
He looked at her and smiled. Penny looked fierce and… loyal. He realised he trusted her. ‘Oh, in the staff room, as I was leaving just now, Melanie Bell had a little word with me.’
‘Is that what she’s called, Melanie?’ Penny asked.
A whole gang of fifth-year boys were coming past, lighting cigarettes, ripping off their ties, their shirts untucked and hair mussed. They jeered at Penny and Vince standing together by the incinerator. One of them, the tallest, called out loudly, ‘Queer bastard!’ The others were straight on to this. There was a spate of mumbling and hissing and then a ragged, deep-throated chant of ‘Queer bastard, queer bastard’ until they were gone.
Vince’s face had drained. ‘That’s what she wanted to talk about.’
‘Oh, God!’
‘The lass in the toilets who overheard us talking about Andy is seeing one of the fifth-year lads. Now it’s everywhere. Today’s news.’
‘What was Mrs Bell saying about it? You’re not gonna get the sack?’
Vince smiled ruefully. ‘No, she was really good. She talked about the implications of being out at school. She was shit-hot, actually.’
‘Good.’
‘She wanted to make sure I knew what I was taking on, being out here. I said I thought it was important. She wanted to remind me what our school was like. And she was good, you know. She remembered what a rotten time I had when I was going through this school myself. When the kids ganged up on me without really knowing why. She said, Don’t be surprised if it’s worse now. Even worse. She said, Don’t think that being grown-up makes you any more brave.’
Penny was fishing in her bag for her own cigarettes. She lit them one each. Vince didn’t want to tell Penny the rest of it. At that point the PE teacher had loped into the staff room, leering at him. He had just left the boys’ shower block after taking the fifth-years for rugby. In the showers he had caught up with the gossip. He called across to Mrs Bell and Vince, where they were standing, ‘You can forget what I said before, when I warned you about hanging around the lasses you taught. No one’s gonna worry about you doing anything with them, are they?’
Melanie Bell bridled. ‘Are you talking to me, Mr Ariel?’ His eyebrows knotted. ‘No, Mrs Bell. I’m talking to him. Your little mate.’
‘Perhaps it would be better not to shout across the room,’ she said. ‘You aren’t out on your fields now.’
‘It’s a staff room. It’s after four o’clock. I can do what I want in here.’
‘You can’t harass other members of staff.’
‘Harass!’ He laughed and looked around for support. Beside him was the other, older PE teacher, who was deaf. ‘Was I harassing you?’ he asked Vince.
Vince just wanted to get away rrom there. It was too much like being fourteen. But to see him looking so bluff and aggrieved, shouting his mouth off, made him stop and say, ‘No, you aren’t harassing me. You’re threatening to. And I’ll warn you now. If I start getting hassle from you, if I get any more hassle from you, I’ll fucking report it. But before that, I’ll fucking deck you.’
And that had been that. The PE teacher snorted and started to pack his Adidas bag, slinging piles of first-year maths books in with his dirty boots and towel. He stomped out past Vince and Mrs Bell and mumbled under his breath, loud enough for the room to hear, ‘Arse bandit.’
Mrs Bell looked up at
