I dried my hands with a paper towel. I walked back along the corridor and back to the art room, only to find the door locked and the room in darkness.
‘Goddamn it.’ I patted my pocket, but I already knew I had left my phone in there.
I started to feel the panic rising inside.
‘You are okay. The room has only just been locked – you are going to be okay. Nothing terrible is going to happen,’ I said aloud to myself. The build of panic at something so silly was so strange and sudden. But I was overwhelmed with the thought of feeling out of control, not being able to call anyone, or have my purse to get the train home. I was literally stuck.
Then I remembered, Will had told me where his room was located in the college, should I ever get lost. I made my way back to the main reception and main hall where he said his classroom was situated. But it was so late, there was no way he would be there.
I popped my head around the door whilst giving it a little knock, and I almost jumped out of my skin when I heard Will’s voice.
‘Yeah?’ He looked up and saw me. ‘Regi!’ He jumped up out of his seat from behind his desk and was at the door greeting me.
‘Have you been staying late to start your piece? How’s it going?’
‘Well, it was going, but I popped to the loo and the bloody cleaners seem to have locked the door, locking all my stuff inside.’
‘What? Surely not, they know they have to leave all the rooms unlocked until last thing, someone was obviously trying to get ahead of themselves. Come on, I can help you.’
‘What, but no, you’re busy.’
‘No, not busy as such. It’s just quieter here than… than where I live.’
I was intrigued by Will’s hesitation. What was it that he wasn’t telling me?
‘Follow me.’ We left the classroom and headed to the main reception. Will jumped over the desk and crouched down and unlocked a cupboard to the left.
‘All the keys to the art rooms are kept here.’ His voice was muffled and strained. ‘It was Textiles 1 you were in, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, how did you know?’ I was slightly unnerved.
‘I only say that because it should be the only one they keep open – I wasn’t stalking you or anything.’ He turned and jumped back over the counter, clutching a key with a flat rectangular wooden key ring. ‘There we are.’
‘Great, thank you.’ I felt relief pour through me.
We walked the few minutes back to the art room and I began to make small talk. Now the anxiety had lifted, my body tuned in to the nerves I felt at being alone in the school with Will at such an hour.
‘Your hair.’ I touched my own hair to demonstrate where hair was as though perhaps he wouldn’t know. ‘It’s different.’
Will tugged at the small amount of length that was left. ‘Oh yeah, I had my ears lowered.’
I smiled at the expression, which never failed to amuse me no matter how many times I had heard it.
‘Suits you.’
‘Er, well, I couldn’t get my usual barber and this one got a bit trigger happy with the old scissors, if you know what I mean. If I hadn’t been on the ball, he would have chopped my whole bleeding barnet off. I like it a bit longer, you see.’
‘I see,’ I said as I turned to look at some of the displays along the corridor walls.
‘Right, here we are,’ he said as we arrived at the door. He put the key in the lock. ‘Let’s hope this works…’ He gave the key a quick fiddle and it opened.
‘Thank you so much.’
Will turned the light on and I walked into the room to find all my things as they were.
Then he was behind me, looking at the scrapbook I had open on the bench.
‘Looking good. Work-in-progress, obviously, so I won’t ask too many questions.’
‘No, it’s fine. I have it all pretty much mapped out now. But I don’t suppose there’s much point carrying on today. I was only going to stay another hour and I’ve kind of lost my flow now.’
‘Right, well, then, I mean, you can say no if you like, seeing as you’ve turned me down a couple of times now, but that offer for a drink is still open and, well, I’m pretty free now.’
I looked at Will’s face, taut with anticipation.
‘Okay then,’ I said.
We found seats in the bar that Will had told me about. It was not full of students and there was a certain chic to it, which I liked. I would almost go as far as to say that I felt comfortable. Will brought us both a bottle of pear cider with ice and I gulped mine as though it were a soft drink, realising I was thirsty.
‘So what is it that is keeping you here so late then?’ The alcohol loosened my tongue almost immediately.
Will cleared his throat and looked down. ‘It’s a bit complicated.’
‘Okay,’ I said and looked around to get a feel for my surroundings.
‘Actually, no, that’s bullshit, it’s not complicated. I just said that because, well, I feel awkward talking about it, which is not the same thing at all, and you asked me, so the straight-up answer is I am going through a divorce and my wife is still in the house at the moment. We’ve been living in limbo like this for about six months now. There has been a delay at her end, so we’ve sort of been stuck with each other.’
‘Okay, well that’s a bit awkward and annoying, I guess.’ I felt both shocked and weirdly relieved to hear that Will was going through a divorce.
‘So I sometimes hang on longer at school to catch up on my work, work through the holidays, you know time I would normally be
