The House on the Cliff, page 4
‘You OK?’ he manages, in between scrolls and swipes.
‘Yes, fine,’ she says, wondering if he’s going to ask her where she’s been. After all, she never usually goes out at this time of day.
‘Good. The first parents are arriving at eight thirty,’ he says, sounding as if he’s answering a question.
Amanda turns and heads into the bedroom. She needs to change out of her sweaty clothes, but mostly she just needs to let out her frustration. Getting into an argument with Mike would be a mistake. He needs her support at the moment, and she knows he has zero bandwidth to deal with her emotions. So instead, she throws herself down onto the mattress, gripping the bedding so hard she’s afraid it might rip. Then she opens her mouth wide and imagines a primal scream soaring out of it. It’s nowhere near as gratifying as actually screaming, but it’s all she can do in such a confined space with her stressed husband just feet away.
After Mike departs to begin the process of welcoming more than fifty new boarders for Year 9, Amanda decides to continue the dull, frustrating and emotional task of trying to unpack the remains of their pared-down belongings. This is how she’s spent most of the days since they arrived, interspersed with cooking, cleaning, scrolling through Facebook (to feel closer to her friends) and Instagram (to check on the kids). She’s also driven to the supermarket in Redruth on several occasions, an activity she is pathetically grateful for. The peninsula the school inhabits is beginning to feel a bit like an open prison. She misses the real world. She knows she can’t continue this daily routine much longer before the isolation and the boredom consume her.
At eleven, she sends what she hopes is a breezily non-desperate WhatsApp message to both Julia and Luke asking if they’d like to come down at some point to visit their parents’ new pad. She attaches some pictures of the cove, hoping to tempt them. Neither responds quickly, however, although the blue ticks tell her they’ve both seen the message.
Then, at about twelve thirty, the responses arrive. Almost, she feels, as if they’ve been conferring. They’re jolly messages, saying how lovely the beach looks and asking questions about the new flat and school, but they both say they’re too busy with work and study to come. Cornwall is a long way away, they say. They need a clear week to visit, and they just don’t have one at the moment. Perhaps reading week, Luke suggests, along with a smiley face emoji. He promises nothing, however.
She checks. Reading week is almost two months away.
Amanda misses them both desperately. There is no use pretending otherwise when she’s alone. She sobs into the boxes and the old photo albums and the chipped crockery and then decides that enough is enough. What she needs, she thinks, is something to do. Something meaningful. She’d thought she’d need more time to settle first, to set up home properly, but she’d been wrong. She needs to be busy. Mike’s suggestion of an admin role in the school, something she had rebuffed just a month ago, is now actually seeming appealing.
Amanda ceases her eternal sorting, dresses in smart jeans and a nice shirt, applies her make-up with unusual care and leaves the flat. When she pulls the door closed behind her she feels a rush of adrenaline and a sense of purpose.
A few minutes later, after wandering around the site and asking a few boys for directions, she finds the school’s administration office. It’s in a small modern building adjacent to the main block. She pushes the door open and enters. There are two women in the large open office, both tapping away at keyboards. She’s not surprised to find no men in this office. All of the schools Mike’s worked at have been run behind the scenes by a team of capable, clever, underpaid women. In her experience, however, they are usually more friendly. Neither of them looks at her when she opens the door.
‘Hello?’ she calls out, wondering if they’re wearing headphones, and so didn’t hear her enter.
‘Good morning,’ says the woman who’s sitting furthest away, finally looking up from her work. Amanda estimates her to be in her late fifties, with grey, poker-straight hair held back from her face with an Alice band. ‘Parents need to send all enquiries via reception,’ she adds. ‘I thought this was communicated to you in the headmaster’s summer newsletter.’
‘I’m not a parent.’
The other woman, who is considerably younger than her colleague, is still typing away, apparently unaware of the conversation.
‘Well, teachers are supposed to make an appointment…’
‘I’m not a teacher. I’m Michael Chapman’s wife. The new deputy head?’
The woman’s eyes narrow. ‘I see. What can I do for you, Mrs Chapman?’
Not feeling quite so brave now, are you, thinks Amanda.
‘Mike – Mr Chapman – suggested I should come to see you about any work you might need doing. I have extensive experience of exam timetabling, roster management and database maintenance from my post at our last school—’
‘I see,’ says the older woman, interrupting without apology. ‘Well, thank you for letting me know. I shall bear you in mind. We are absolutely fine at the moment, however. Aren’t we, Miss Store?’
‘Oh. Yes,’ replies the younger woman, who seems surprised to be spoken to. Amanda decides this must be a miserable place to work.
‘OK,’ says Amanda, feeling a mixture of relief and frustration. Clearly this office is nothing like the hive of activity, laughter and friendship that she left behind in London. She wouldn’t want to work here anyway. And yet she knows this room also probably represents her only chance of paid work in the vicinity.
Her marriage to Mike straight out of university and their decision to have children early meant she never did anything meaningful with her history degree, which had been very interesting, but which hadn’t equipped her for any specific career. Then like billions of other mothers, she’d discovered that finding a job flexible enough to accommodate parenting responsibilities was incredibly difficult, particularly because Mike’s profession was what economists called a ‘hungry job’, one that meant he could never be reliably around to help her. She’d ruled out following him into teaching as an option a long time ago, after a disastrous month spent working as a classroom assistant at one of Mike’s schools. It had taught her that she had no natural authority and that a classful of children had the capacity to become a beast of mythical proportions. Teaching, she thinks, is a wonderful option for those who are good at it, but that most certainly is not her. And so she’d settled into admin roles in schools, a job which was flexible, restricted to school hours and terms, and which she’d enjoyed, by and large. This is the first time her offer to work has been rebuffed, however, and it stings.
‘I’ll let Mr Chapman know if we need anyone,’ the woman adds. This insinuation that Amanda is not a person in her own right infuriates her.
‘Don’t worry,’ Amanda replies, breezily. ‘I’ll see if any of the local schools need help.’
Amanda knows that the nearest secondary school is about ten miles away and that the local primary school only has two classes, but she’ll be damned if she’s going to be forced to be grateful for any crumbs this woman can throw at her feet.
‘As you wish.’
And with this, Amanda is dismissed. She turns on her heel and marches out, taking large gulps of air as the door swings shut behind her. She feels as if she’s been slapped. Tears threaten to form and she shakes her head, urging them to stay hidden. She can’t afford for any students or teachers to see her crying. She has to maintain the illusion that Mike is married to a solid, dependable, unshakeable team player. She smooths down her hair and clothes and sets off at pace back to their flat. Their horrible flat, she thinks, and then tries to dismiss this thought, knowing that if she goes further down this path she’ll definitely start to sob. She’s turning a corner around the main school building when she hears someone call her name.
‘Mandy?’
Amanda turns, and sees Rosie, the school nurse who she met on the cliffs, is about ten feet behind her.
‘Oh, hello again,’ says Amanda, trying to put on her bravest face.
‘Are you all right? You look…’ She can see Rosie is struggling to find the right word.
‘You’re going to say tired, aren’t you?’ says Amanda with half a laugh. She feels unusually relaxed with Rosie, and it feels right – not to mention good – to let down her guard a little. ‘I am tired, as it happens. I haven’t slept properly for ages.’
‘I was going to say bothered,’ Rosie replies. ‘You look… annoyed.’
‘Ah, yes. Well, I am annoyed. I’ve just been into the admin office.’
‘I see. You’ve encountered Mariam Newton, then.’
‘Oh, is that her name? She didn’t even introduce herself.’
‘Yep. And Miss Newton is enough to make anyone cross. What were you trying to get her to do? You weren’t asking her to process an unauthorised form, were you?’ asks Rosie with a twinkle in her eye.
‘Haha. No. Actually, I was there about a job. Mike suggested I might be able to work there part-time. I realise I need something to do that isn’t unpacking and cleaning.’
‘Oh goodness, you don’t want to work there. There be actual dragons.’
The two women laugh, and Amanda feels some of her frustration begin to lift.
‘So I’ve discovered.’
‘But if you’d like a job, I was just about to advertise for someone to help me out in sick bay. Just during school hours, sticking plasters on cut knees and reassuring anxious boys that they’ll be OK. That leaves the actual medical care to me. Do you fancy it?’ Amanda is taken aback, and doesn’t respond immediately. ‘Sorry, that probably gives you something to think about…’
‘No, no, I’d love to. That would be great. But you don’t know me at all. Don’t you want to interview me? To see if I’m suitable?’
Rosie looks her up and down.
‘Oh, I’m assuming, given your previous work in a school, that you’re DBS checked?’ Amanda nods. This is a standard police check that all organisations caring for children require of their staff. ‘You just need to formally apply. I can send you a link to the form. I always think, anyway, that you know when someone’s capable of empathy and care. They exude something intangible. And in my experience, it’s self-selecting work. People leave the job of their own volition if they’re not suited to it, anyway.’
‘I’d love to. Give it a go, anyway. If I’m rubbish at it please feel free to tell me.’
‘Wonderful. That’ll save me all that time interviewing people. I’ll get the ball rolling paperwork-wise and we’ll get you started as soon as possible.’
‘I still can’t believe how rude Miss Newton was to you,’ says Mike, as they both brush their teeth in preparation for bed. ‘I mean, she’s got a reputation as a bit of an old bag, but she’s been all right with me so far. Well, nicer than Bede, but that’s not saying much.’
Poor old Brother Bede. Mike mentions him a lot. He was recently passed over for the headship, which went instead to fellow Credan Father Paul, a few years his junior. Being leapfrogged in this way has made Bede very angry, and he’s been taking it out on everyone, but most of all Mike, who, because of his civilian status, is an easier target than Paul. Mike’s handling it well, Amanda thinks, but she knows it must be quite wearing to put up with so much passive aggression every day.
‘Well, at least I won’t have to go back to her and beg,’ says Amanda, washing her toothbrush under the tap and placing it in a little mug on the windowsill. ‘Thanks to Rosie.’
‘Yes, that’s a real stroke of luck,’ says Mike, before he takes a swig of mouthwash and gargles.
Amanda is already tucked up in bed with a book when he comes into the room. As Mike sets about taking his dressing gown off and then lathering on the face cream she bought him for his birthday, she examines him. He has dark circles under his eyes and it looks like the muscles around them are contracting, like a drawstring bag closing, and the muscles in his jaw keep flexing, suggesting he’s grinding his teeth.
‘Thank you so much for being here for me,’ he says, leaning over and drawing her into a hug which goes on for slightly longer than a perfunctory goodnight. When he pulls away she sees a flicker of something in his expression, but whether it is sadness, gratitude or a mixture of both, she is unable to discern.
‘Mike?’
‘Yep?’ he says, picking up a book from his bedside table.
‘Can I ask you about the boat tragedy? The Towan?’
‘What about it?’
‘Just what happened. I saw the memorial plaque over by that cove I was telling you about.’
‘Oh, right. I don’t know much, to be honest, but I do know a bunch of kids went out on a boat trip with a couple of teachers – they were the winners of a competition of some kind, I think – and they never came back. It’s a pretty dark part of the school’s past. You could ask some of the older monks about it, maybe? They might have been here then.’
‘That’s a good idea. I will.’
They don’t speak much after that. He falls asleep almost as soon as they turn out the light, and Amanda drifts off soon afterwards. Her early start and emotional day have tired her.
She doesn’t remain asleep for long, however.
Because someone is crying. Sobbing, in fact.
It must be one of the new boarders, she thinks, and the thought that they’re by themselves, roaming the school buildings ridden with homesickness, tugs at her. She can’t leave them alone out there. That little boy needs comforting, she thinks. The poor, poor thing.
Amanda looks across at their digital alarm clock and sees it’s half past midnight. Then she checks on Mike, who’s still asleep, apparently undisturbed by the noise. She considers waking him, but decides against it. He’s never been great at getting back to sleep. So, she inches the covers back and tiptoes out of bed. Then she puts on a fleece over her pyjamas, slips on a pair of trainers she’s left at odd angles in the hallway, grabs her keys and her phone so she can use the torch, and heads out of the flat.
When their front door closes behind her, she stands still in the corridor and listens. At first, she can only hear wind whipping up the staircase. She’s noticed the door at the bottom is badly sealed. But then there it is again, the sobbing. It’s coming from the main school teaching area, which is part of their building, the two sections separated by a fire door secured with a keypad lock on the school side. She goes through this door and enters a corridor lit only by the dim green light of fire exit signage, with doors leading to classrooms running down on each side. What on earth is a student doing out of their boarding house at this time? she wonders. The fact he’s obviously managed to get past alarmed doors without being intercepted by staff is a major concern. She’ll have to tell Mike about it in the morning. The housemaster has some serious questions to answer.
Amanda sets off down the corridor, shining her phone torch through the glass panel in each door. Every time, however, the boy’s crying seems to be coming from some distance away, and her cursory checks reveal only a series of rectangular rooms furnished with neat lines of shiny desks and utilitarian chairs. Where is he? she wonders. Perhaps he’s going back towards his boarding house, as she’s heading towards him. She really hopes that is the case. She’d much prefer him to be safely tucked up in bed and asleep, rather than out here feeling wretched. As she reaches the end of the corridor, however, and pushes open another fire door, she can hear his cries getting louder. She follows them round to the left and realises she’s standing outside the door to the boys’ toilets.
This makes sense, of course. If you were looking for privacy and somewhere you felt safe, the loos, with a lock on each door, would be the place to go. But now Amanda has a dilemma. It would feel wrong, going into the boys’ loos, even though this student absolutely should not be in there at this time of day. She stands outside for a minute, just listening, hoping he will calm down. Unfortunately, his agony is not abating. If anything, the crying is getting worse. Eventually, she can’t bear it any more.
Instinctively, she pushes the door open a crack and calls out, ‘Hello? I’m Amanda. Are you all right?’ This is a silly thing to say, she realises, given that he’s clearly far from all right, but she doesn’t know how else to put it.
The child does not respond, but she can hear what she thinks is sniffling.
‘I’m not one of the teachers,’ she continues. ‘I’m just married to someone who works here. You won’t get into trouble.’ She pauses to see if he responds, but he doesn’t. ‘Come out,’ she urges. ‘Come out and we can talk about it. Everything always seems so much worse at night. It will be OK, I promise.’
There’s absolute silence now. The sniffling has stopped. But certain now that a boy is inside and that he’s deeply unhappy, Amanda decides to break with social norms and steps inside the room. Then she turns on the light, hoping that this will encourage the student to come out, now that his whereabouts have been discovered. But it doesn’t. So she goes along the row of six toilet stalls, pushing each door open gently, and checking behind. Nothing. There’s nothing and no one there. When she reaches the sixth door, she is sure she’ll find it locked, but she pushes it open with the same ease as all of the previous five. When it’s fully open, she looks all around the cubicle, above and below, just to check that someone hasn’t just climbed under or over its sides to evade her. But there isn’t enough room beneath to crawl under, and when she emerges from the cubicle, there definitely isn’t anyone in any of the other stalls. She’s alone.
And then Amanda feels a twinge of fear. Because she definitely heard the crying, and it had definitely come from this room. She’d heard it. But if that’s the case, she thinks, what had been making the noise? It can’t have been a student. Perhaps it’s dodgy plumbing, she thinks, seeking to reassure herself, to soothe her jangled nerves. Yes, that’s common in Victorian buildings. That must be it. She will ask Mike to call a plumber in the morning.
