I drive into the school car park at twenty past seven. It’s still very empty. I don’t get out immediately; first I look around. There’s no one to be seen, the playground is deserted. The beautiful wisteria covering the fence is blossoming early this year.
I walk across the playground. The door is still closed to the students, but Dan, the caretaker, unlocks it for me.
‘You’re early!’ he says.
‘I just couldn’t wait any longer,’ I say with a weak smile.
‘I can imagine,’ Dan chuckles. ‘I find the silence at this time of the morning difficult too.’
‘It won’t last much longer.’ I glance at the clock in the corridor. ‘Shall I fetch us some coffee, Dan?’
‘Lots of milk, lots of sugar.’ Dan goes back to his caretaker’s office where the phone is ringing.
I watch him with affection. Dan Riemans could have retired long ago, but instead he’s still faithfully guarding his post. He’s a small, plump man with light blue eyes that usually sparkle with fun. He’s often telling jokes to the students; they like him. But if he’s angry, it thunders through the corridors. The students aren’t afraid of him, but they like him too much to want to cause trouble. With a few exceptions, of course.
‘If you want to skive off, you’ll have to do a better imitation of your mother’s voice, Ayesha,’ I hear him say as I bring our coffees back from the staffroom. ‘I’ll be expecting you at exactly five past eight. Bye, Ayesha, see you soon.’
He hangs up and smiles at me.
‘Thanks, lassie. Sit down and tell me what that was all about yesterday.’
‘Did you already hear about it?’
‘The school’s buzzing with it.’
Dan sinks into his comfortable chair from where, with a swivel, he can survey the corridor as well as the playground.
I sigh and blow onto my coffee, then tell him all. Dan listens in silence, shaking his head from time to time. I also tell him about my conversation with Jan. When I get to our disagreement about whether to go to the police, Dan looks up.
‘And? Did you go to the police?’
I shake my head and think I glimpse something of relief in Dan’s eyes.
We drink our coffee and gaze out at the playground where the first children are arriving on their bikes.
‘Assrouti won’t get in here anymore, don’t worry about that,’ Dan says.
‘Did Jan ask you to make sure?’
‘Yes, very clearly. You just go and teach, lass, and I’ll personally make sure that Bilal Assrouti doesn’t set a foot inside this school.’
I smile gratefully at him. Dan once had to face a student with a knife and I know that it made a deep impression on him. Bilal will have to use all his resourcefulness if he wants to force his way in.
At seven-forty-five I see Jasmine approaching. I finish my coffee, ready to leave, then pause in the doorway.
‘Dan?’
‘Hmm?’
‘Do you think I should have gone to the police?’
Dan looks at me. I’m expecting him to say ‘no’, but he doesn’t. ‘For you, personally, perhaps you should have.’ He pauses. ‘But I’m glad you didn’t for the school.’
I wait for Jasmine in the corridor and as we go to the staffroom I find myself talking about it again. I once read that people who have had a traumatic experience need to remember every detail of the event and find an explanation for it. Coming up with answers is a way of processing the trauma.
‘I hardly dared get out of my car once I’d parked,’ I tell her. ‘That’s bad, isn’t it? And I’m constantly looking at the playground. Do you think Bilal would have the nerve to simply show up, as though nothing had happened?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Jasmine says. ‘No, we won’t see him again, Lydia. Don’t be scared.’
I’m not scared, I want to say, not here with my colleagues in the staffroom where there’s a large cake box in the middle of the table. We arrive just in time to see people wishing Hans, an older colleague, a happy birthday. I join in, but before Hans has finished cutting his cake, I tell everyone about Bilal.
‘Hey you, can’t it wait?’ Jasmine says, but I won’t be deterred. It’s weighing down on me too much, it has to come out.
The atmosphere changes immediately. Not everyone knows about it yet and the consternation among my colleagues is great. Everyone is talking at once. Hans sits there with a plate of cake and a surly look. He’s one of the old guard on the staff. He’s not usually the most cheerful person, but now he looks like one of his test tubes has exploded and covered him in whatever type of acid corrodes a good mood.
I realise I’m ruining his birthday, but I can’t help it. It’s important that all my colleagues know what has happened. More important than singing happy birthday to one person.
‘I really wouldn’t have expected that from Bilal,’ Nora, my departmental head, says, shocked.
‘Didn’t he once throw a chair at your head?’ Luke asks.
‘That wasn’t Bilal, that was Ali,’ Nora says. ‘He’s gone off the rails. And he can’t aim either, that chair missed me by miles.’
‘Quite a feat,’ I say, not thinking anything of it until I catch Luke’s reproving look. Nora’s quite large. She gives me a cool look too. I’m about to apologise, but then a couple of colleagues come in and are immediately filled in on the Bilal situation by others.
Luke moves closer and smirks, ‘Ouch.’
‘It just popped out,’ I whisper. ‘I’ll make it up to Nora later.’
‘Don’t worry about it. She’s not that tactful herself,’ Luke says. ‘And another thing, why didn’t you just have a nice day at home today?’
‘What would I do at home?’ I say. ‘It would only make it harder to come back afterwards. If you fall off a horse, get back in the saddle.’
Luke nods understandingly. He teaches Dutch as well. He came to the school halfway through last year, replacing a colleague who’d had a serious burnout. In the beginning, I thought he was ten years younger than his thirty-two years, and I wondered whether the students would accept him. To my astonishment, he’s had no discipline problems at all and has even given me tips on how to keep my class quiet.
As well as being attractive, Luke is also gay, which thankfully he told me in the early stages of our friendship. That slammed a few doors shut in my
