The boy crossed the front of the classroom, the red in his cheeks deepening as he became aware of the eyes of thirty older students following every step. He passed the folded paper to the teacher with a trembling hand and waited until the man had read the contents.
‘Okay, off you go.’ The boy speed walked back to the door and closed it noisily behind him as Mr Jackson cleared his throat. ‘Tom Cleaver. You need to go to reception. Take your things with you.’
‘What…?’ Tom started to ask but Jackson cut him off.
‘I have no idea. I’m not your personal messenger service. Just go.’
Standing up and stuffing his books into his bag, Tom eased his chair under the desk and stepped out into the corridor. Normally he liked being out of lessons while everybody else was working. The school was quiet and he felt like he was doing something covert, sneaking around and spying through classroom doorways. This was different. He’d never been summoned out of a lesson before other than for something expected like his year nine options meeting, and he just wanted to get to reception as quickly as possible. Something didn’t feel right.
His disquiet was amplified by the presence of a police officer in the reception area. She had her hands in the pockets of her uniform trousers and she glanced up as he pushed the door open.
‘Tom.’ Mrs Warnesford, the receptionist greeted him with a warm smile. ‘Your dad wants to see you.’
Tom looked at the closed door of his father’s office and then back at the receptionist. The closed door was usually a sign that the headteacher was in a meeting and couldn’t be disturbed.
‘It’s okay. Just go in,’ she urged with a smile.
Something was definitely wrong.
Tom tapped on the solid wood door and turned the handle before his dad had the opportunity to call him in. He was shocked to see another police officer in the room – this one a man – and his father in tears, proper sobbing tears. He looked from his dad to the policeman, not wanting to have to ask what was wrong, but a small corner of his brain already knew. Dan’s comment about an accident blocking the main road. The police. His dad’s tears.
‘Sit down,’ the police officer said gently, gesturing to the chair.
Tom mutely obeyed, fixing his eyes on his father who was sitting on the opposite side of the desk, head in his hands. ‘Dad?’ His dad looked up and stared at Tom as though he’d never seen him before, searching his face for something.
‘What’s going on?’
The policeman put a steadying hand on Tom’s shoulder and then knelt down so that his face was on a level with Tom’s. ‘Your mum was in an accident an hour ago. She was on the A595 and it looks like she swerved to avoid something in the road. She couldn’t correct the direction of the car and she hit the side of a house. I’m sorry but, despite the best efforts of paramedics, she was pronounced dead at the scene.’
The words were forming sentences. Tom recognised what was being said in an objective way, but he couldn’t make them apply to himself, to his mum.
‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’ the police officer continued, his grey eyes clouded with concern. ‘Your mum’s died in a car accident.’
‘Dad?’ Tom tried again. ‘Is this right?’
His dad’s eyes widened almost as if he’d only just fully grasped the full meaning of the policeman’s words. He nodded. ‘I’m sorry. Don’t know what to do.’
Tom was stunned. This was more shocking than the news of his mother’s death. His dad didn’t know how to respond. His dad, who was always so in control of everything, so uptight, so organised, had no idea how to behave.
‘Do we need to do something? Go somewhere? Do we have to see her, identify her?’ Tom’s questions tumbled out into the room as he tried to break the awful stillness and silence with the sheer number of queries.
The policeman shook his head and struggled to his feet. Tom’s mind wouldn’t let him think about what was happening; instead he wondered if the man’s uniform and stab vest were weighing him down. He almost got up to give the man a helping hand and then the enormity of what was happening hit him again, pinning him to the chair.
‘You need to go home. Everything else can wait. Just go home and be together. PCSO Hilton’s waiting in reception to drive you.’
Tom’s dad smiled. ‘No need. I’ve got my car. We don’t want to trouble you.’
‘It’s standard procedure, sir. I don’t think you’re in a fit state to drive and we can’t have you causing…’ He stopped and closed his eyes, scrunching up his face as he realised what he’d been about to say.
Tom giggled at the inappropriateness of his dad being told he might cause an accident and then remembered where he was and what was happening. What was wrong with him? There was nothing funny about any of this. He didn’t think he’d ever find anything humorous again.
The wait until the funeral had seemed an indecent length of time. Minutes had stretched into hours, into days and still nothing seemed to happen. Tom stayed in his room as much as possible, playing on his Xbox or scrolling endlessly through messages on social media, none of which seemed to bear any relevance to anything that was happening in his life. Sympathy from friends and jokes made by anonymous strangers about unrelated subjects all seemed to blend into one and Tom was outside all of it. Suspended. He hadn’t been back to school and he hadn’t spoken to any of his friends. What was the point? What could they possibly say?
And then the day finally came. He woke up after yet another restless night to the morning of the funeral, another day that he had to ‘get through’ before things could get back
