A Trick of the Mind (23 page)

‘You OK, Ellie?’

‘I’m fine thanks. You?’

‘You look like you didn’t get much sleep last night. Out partying, were you?’

‘You could say so, I guess.’

She smiled and winked at me.

I nipped into the staff loos and looked at my neck in the mirror. A pink mark beneath my ear which did indeed look like a lovebite. Then I remembered, vaguely, the pressure of Patrick’s
thumb on my throat as he spoke into my ear:

‘You wouldn’t leave me, would you, Ellie?’

I covered it up with make-up as best I could, and plastered some concealer on the bags under my eyes.

I dumped my bag in the staff room and went to the urn to make a cup of herb tea.

Very few teachers had arrived yet.

‘Ellie. At last! Mrs Patel been looking for you – she’s been wanting to talk to you.’

I turned. Betty, one of the TAs, was filling her mug with water, the label from her herbal teabag dangling over the edge. She’d lined up her Cup-a-Soup and her Weight Watchers crackers on
the counter.

‘You won’t have heard about Timothy, it’s ghastly. None of us can quite believe it.’

Betty was a gossip – every day she had some new drama to relate. I didn’t feel like this now. I pulled the teabag out of my mug, looked around for the compost bucket.

‘Timothy. It’s unbelievable what that child has gone through.’

I turned. Caught her unawares. She was enjoying this, I could tell. There was a wicked gleam in her eyes. She was dressed as usual in bright turquoise, with her trademark costume earrings
dangling from her ears. The colours felt too bright for my delicate head this morning. I felt uneasiness crackle up through me. Fear about what might have happened to Timothy on top of my own
worries. I couldn’t bear the thought of his coming to any harm.

‘Last Friday’ – she crossed her arms over her bust, half closed her eyes so she avoided meeting mine as she went on – ‘his sister was supposed to be picking him up,
but she didn’t turn up. Decides to walk home on his own. Gets home to find his dad drunk as a lord beating up his mum so bad she ends up in hospital. Has to witness it all. All by
himself.’ Betty was obviously relishing being the imparter of bad news.

‘That’s not right.’

She looked at me through tightened, triumphant lips.

‘Timothy’s sister
did
pick him up. I saw her.’ Even as I spoke, doubt crossed my mind.

She shrugged. ‘You were taking the class that afternoon so I’m sure you would know.’

‘Where is he? I noticed he wasn’t in on Monday – has he been in school at all this week?’

‘Nope. Poor little chap, he’s really struggling to get a word out. The speech therapists are flummoxed. They reckon it’s a kind of elective mutism. Caused by trauma.’

‘That’s awful.’

‘Yes it is. Everyone’s asking who was responsible for letting him go home alone last Friday afternoon – I told Mrs Patel you were teaching. She wants to talk to you.’

‘What do you mean?’

My mind rewound to last Friday. I’d been desperate to get away, to get back to Patrick. He had asked me to get home early so he could take me out of town to a new restaurant he’d
heard of.

And Timothy had been trying to talk to me.

And I’d told him I didn’t have time.

I went over the end of the afternoon, tiny detail by tiny detail. I remembered – of course I wasn’t responsible. Timothy’s sister
had
been there, on her phone, I could
remember quite clearly because I noticed her funny outfit with those bits missing from the shoulders – I’d seen her before, that night I’d gone down to Suffolk, I knew what she
looked like.

Timothy had wanted to carry on talking, and perhaps I had been too preoccupied to listen. But then most teachers were too busy to listen. Usually I was the exception. Last Friday I had wanted to
appease Patrick. Get back quickly as he’d asked me to. I hadn’t had time to hang around or to listen to Timothy, who must have wanted to tell me about his stepdad.

I didn’t want to spend any longer in the staff room with Betty. I couldn’t bear to feel her eyes on me, I needed to sort it out. I walked out of the staff room not bothering to take
my cup of tea, a familiar sort of dread stirring in my belly.

The uncomplicated smiles on my children’s faces and the funny things they liked to show and tell would be a welcome distraction.

I hoped to see Timothy’s little pale face, his eyes fixed on me, searching for an opportunity to talk. But he didn’t come.

Again I tried to relive last Friday’s home time in minute detail. Timothy said his sister was picking him up and taking him to Westfield. I saw her.

Her back, only, now I thought about it.

I hadn’t spoken to her.

Had
I seen her?

But the children were coming in. ‘Miss Stanley,’ came their voices, one on top of another, ‘can I show my stickers, miss?’ ‘Can I show my new trainers?’
‘Miss, I got a picture of Charles and Camilla on horses’, ‘I got lollies to give out, it’s me birfday’, ‘I’ve wet me pants’, ‘I spy wiv my
little eye something beginning wiv ler . . . litter . . .’ and I had to put all my anxiety aside, for the morning at least.

As I passed the head teacher’s office after the school day had finished, she called me in.

‘Ellie, we’re not accusing you of anything. Timothy’s version of events is of course unreliable, but I do need your account of what happened last Friday.’

I liked her, this motherly-looking Asian woman who you imagined might have loads of children of her own. Instead she had had none, and had once confided in me that she regarded her own
childlessness as one of her life’s tragedies. She made up for it, she said, by treating every child in the school as though they were hers. Or at least as special to her as if they were her
own. But I knew she had a ferocious side when it mattered, when there was any hint of injustice. Either on behalf of the children or on behalf of her staff. I admired her. I wanted her
approval.

‘You were teaching last Friday afternoon, weren’t you?’ She looked at me over her glasses. I noticed she’d done her hair differently, she looked prettier than usual,
she’d curled it or something, it fell loose to her shoulders where normally she wore it tied back.

‘Yes, I was.’

‘And you dismissed the class at three thirty?’

‘Yes.’

‘Martha Humphries was on duty on the gates. Making sure none of the children left without an adult. But she says she doesn’t remember Timothy coming out?’

‘He stayed behind for a few minutes to talk to me. He often does.’

She frowned.

‘And you didn’t tell him it was time to go home?’

‘Of course I did. But it’s hard to hear him properly in class. The others all have so much to say, and he can’t get a word in edgeways. I like to give him a chance. It’s
become a bit of a routine on a Friday afternoon. He was telling me about his stepdad. He doesn’t like him much by all accounts.’

‘Yes. It didn’t occur to you to report that to Paula? The Child Protection Coordinator?’

My mouth had gone dry.

‘I’d already talked to Paula about it. She was going to report it.’

‘Right. I’ll chase her up. Now, what I need to get to grips with is exactly what happened on Friday afternoon in as much detail as possible, if you can, Ellie. Why didn’t
Martha see Timothy leaving?’

‘It was about three thirty-five. I remember looking at the clock. No later. I saw the other kids had all gone, the playground was empty. Martha must have left the gates assuming everyone
had gone. But I checked Timothy’s sister was waiting for him. She was there.’

‘Did you speak to her?’

I felt myself getting hot and uncomfortable. I’d only seen her back.

‘No.’

Because I’d wanted to leave.

I was desperate to get away.

To see Patrick. To keep him sweet.

‘Because as far as we can tell, Timothy walked home by himself that day. Which might not have been a problem, though of course it isn’t sensible to let a child with his needs go home
alone . . . if he hadn’t walked in on the scene he found when he got there.’

I waited for her to elaborate. She didn’t, she left me envisaging something horrible, Timothy cowering as he witnessed whatever unthinkable things he had seen. Perhaps even becoming a
victim himself.

‘Ellie, it’s a fair assumption I make of all my staff that they put the welfare of the children before everything else. It seems you were in rather a hurry to get away last
Friday.’

I could feel my palms grow hot. The raw, skinned feeling. I had the urge to look behind me three times. To find something to tap. I wanted Timothy to be safe.

I tried to swallow.

‘Is he OK?’

‘Timothy? Not really. Social Services are involved. My only concern at the moment is to clear your name – I could do without a disciplinary hearing. I value you, Ellie, I just want
to get the facts straight in case I have to put it to the governors.’

‘I left as soon as I saw his sister.’

‘You didn’t talk to her? Ask if she was with anyone? She’s only eleven herself.’

Eleven! The girl I saw looked older than that. But then they matured early these days.

‘Ellie?’

‘His sister often picks him up. Mum’s got five of them. She can’t always be there.’

‘Timothy says his sister didn’t come that day. That you’d gone off in your car, so he’d walked home alone.’ She was looking at me intently. ‘I’d like to
feel I could trust my staff to stay until they know every child is accounted for.’

‘I know, of course . . .’

‘It didn’t occur to you to go back to the classroom to tidy up, to be there in case there were any further problems? Children leave things behind sometimes, you can’t just
assume that because they’ve gone, you can rush off.’

I couldn’t speak.

‘Well I think I’ve made my point.’

There was a silence. I wished I could be anywhere but here. I wished I could turn back the clock, reverse time, do things differently. Again!

I’d not only put Timothy in peril, I’d let down one of my favourite colleagues.

‘We’ll let it pass for now and if there’s any questioning of your conduct by the governors I’ll stand up for you, Ellie. I know you would never deliberately jeopardise a
child’s safety. Perhaps though, try to hang around till four in future? Have a chat to whoever is picking up? However exciting your weekend is going to be.’

She winked at me.

I blushed, stupidly, thanked her and left, to go and finish up in the classroom.

What I’d do, I decided, is I’d pop over and see Chiara, she finished work at six in an office near Covent Garden. I’d apologise for being a bit snappy with
her when I’d moved out, and explain to her that Patrick was sensitive about his disability. That it might make him look unfriendly, but that he was actually a very sweet and passionate person
if only she would take the time to get to know him.

Patrick needn’t know I’d ignored his request for me to stop seeing my friends. And once he met Chiara properly he would see how lovely she was.

I needed female companionship, I realised. A bit of normality.

With this thought, I felt a little more relaxed as I got back to my classroom and pushed open the door.

Inside, someone sat with his back to me at my desk.

Instead of the usual delight I felt at the sight of him, I felt the blood drain from me and a lurch of alarm.

It was Patrick.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

I opened my eyes, screwed them tight shut again. The sun was blinding, streaming straight in, light from above, light from below. It was white light. It pounded against me,
making my head throb and ache. There was the smell of ozone, dizzyingly clean, and I remembered we were at Aunty May’s. I felt Patrick’s big strong hand on the small of my back. I
opened my eyes and looked up into his. I felt my pupils contract, everything come into focus. He was laughing down at me. Leaning over me, his weight on one elbow, his shoulder muscles bulging. His
old self.

And I found myself dragged towards him, I could smell the tang of him, as he sank his teeth into my shoulder. He moved his hand between my legs, pressing hard, so it almost hurt, but at the same
time he was lifting my hair tenderly with his other hand and kissing my neck under my ear.

‘Patrick.’ I tried to push him away, surprised by how very strong his hold was.

‘Please . . .’

‘Ssshh.’

He clutched me tighter, and I gave in. He wasn’t hurting me, he was being firm, but gentle. The more I tried to wriggle away the tighter he held me. Protesting was pointless, I realised.
I’d come too far down this road. I could do nothing but give into him, let our bodies meld with the bright white sea light and the warmth of the room. Part of me liked it. Part of me knew
instinctively it was safer to go with it.

We’d driven down to May’s the night before.

When he’d turned up in my classroom I’d challenged him. Folded my arms across my chest.

‘What are you doing here?’

He grinned. ‘Oh, so this is you in teacher mode? You look fierce. I like it.’

‘Really, Patrick. I mean it. Why are you here?’

‘We’re fetching Pepper from my apartment. You’re to get some clothes, and then we’re going to Southwold, to Aunty May’s cottage for the weekend.’ It was as if
we’d discussed all this the night before. As if it was a plan.

‘Hang on, Patrick! I need to think about this, you haven’t given me any notice. And I still feel rough. We drank far too much last night! Things got . . . out of control.’

‘I’m sorry, my darling. We were both a bit carried away.
I
got a bit carried away. It was shame. Pride. About my body. The fact it’s not as . . . whole as it was. It
was silly, I can see that now. But I’ve given myself a talking-to.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. And I realised what my problem was. It was that I need the sea. I get so stressed when I’m landlocked for any length of time. So I thought, it’s the weekend, what’s
stopping us? The air will clear our heads. After you left this morning I thought, bloody hell! What am I thinking? The date we were originally going on, before the accident, remember? It was
supposed to be down there, in Southwold! Eating seafood, sailing, shagging our arses off . . . and we never made it! And I thought, we’ll do it now. This weekend.’