Flightsend (13 page)

They were to be treated as sixth form from today. No
uniform, and they were allowed to use the sixth-form
common room.

'Wow! A sink and a kettle!' Angus said. 'Now I know
why the year twelves look so smug.' He put on a
pompous swagger. '
Hey!
I'm in the sixth form and I
can make my own coffee. Get out of my way, you
insignificant little year-eleven squit.'

'I'll pretend I didn't hear that, Angus,' said Ms
Winterbourne, the Head of Sixth Form. 'It's time to
move off to your subject areas.'

Each of them had been given an individual
timetable. Charlie's programme showed English and
History for the morning, with Art in the afternoon. In
each of the first two sessions the teacher outlined the
course and handed out a list for suggested summer
reading. On Thursday and Friday, there would be
sample lessons.

The art session in the afternoon was different.
There were two groups of students, and two teachers
– Ms Pearson, the Head of Art, and Oliver Locke.
All available space in the art rooms was given over at
present to the exhibition of work by the year thirteen
students, those who'd just finished their course.
The new pupils were encouraged to look at the
work in detail – not just the framed and mounted
pieces, but the sketchbooks, folders and critical
studies.

'To do well in this course, you've got to regard yourself
as an artist,' Ms Pearson said. 'Don't think of it as
lessons and homework. Just as your work. Draw every
day. Look. Notice. Experiment.'

Charlie thought: I already do think of myself as an
artist, if that's what it means. It had become a habit to
draw something every day. If she had to miss a day, she
felt feel itchy and restless. She rarely went out without
putting her sketchbook and pencils into her rucksack.
Comparing herself with some of the others, like Lisa
Skillett, who was doing Art because she didn't fancy
anything else, Charlie felt a surge of confidence. She
could do this.

'Oh God, look,' Lisa was saying, leafing through a
critical study on Fauvism, with page after page of
elegant italic writing. 'All this
work
. I'll never do it. I'll
have to choose something really easy.'

'I've never yet known anyone choose Philip Wilson,
Charlie.'

She jumped. She hadn't known Mr Locke was standing
behind them.

'Steer by Steer,' he said. 'How about it?'

'I don't know yet. If I chose him, I'd do John Singer
Sargent and Gwen John as well.'

He looked pleased. 'You've been reading the book?'

'Yes. It's interesting. I love that painting of
Walberswick. Not the girls running. The golden misty
one, of the man and the woman looking out at the
river and the mud flats and the boats.'

'Mm, I know the one you mean,' Oliver Locke said.
'Come and look at this. Let me show you some
stunningly good A-grade work.' He touched her shoulder
lightly, guiding her out of the room. Charlie
wondered if he meant Lisa to come, too, but Lisa
stayed where she was, pulling a sarky face at Charlie
behind Oliver's back.

The work he wanted to show her was by Francesca
Abbott, a girl Charlie knew by sight. It had been given
a prominent position, occupying a whole section of
corridor. Folders and notebooks covered two tables.
The mounted work was dominated by a large stylised
landscape with cypress trees, in pointillist style.
Alongside there were several studies of a female nude.

'She's already been accepted for a foundation
course. And she'll get an A for sure.'

For the first time, Charlie felt daunted. 'It's
brilliant. Miles better than I can do.'

'But not better than you
will
do. Remember she's
two years ahead of you.'

Charlie could see what marked out Francesca's work
as special: it had the confidence to be what it was.
There was no fussing, no hesitancy. She tried to
explain this to Oliver, who nodded and said, 'And she
understands light. Look at that, the tones of the grass
as it recedes into the distance. The colours of the
shadows. And here, and here.'

'I'm going to have a really good look at her critical
study, and her folder,' Charlie said.

'OK. I'll be interested to hear what you think.'

Oliver left her, and a few moments later Lisa
appeared. 'Oo
oo
oo!' she jibed. 'What are you, Locke's
special pet? Does he fancy you or something?'

Charlie ignored that. 'Look at this work. Francesca
Abbott. Doesn't it make you want to give up now?' she
said, although it didn't.

'I'll give up before you do,' Lisa said. 'Francesca
Abbott – that's the weird-looking tall girl who gets her
clothes from the Oxfam shop?'

'She looks good in them,' Charlie said. 'Different.
Like a – well, like an art student, I suppose.'

'She was always down here. I wonder she had time
to do any other subjects. Hey, she was
this
year's
teacher's pet,' Lisa said. 'You're next.' She frowned at
the nude studies. 'Are
we
going to do this? If I had
thighs as big as those, and such a scrawny chest, I
wouldn't want to sprawl naked in front of a bunch of
teenagers, would you?'

Charlie had asked Fay for Thursday night off, so that
she could go to
A Midsummer Night's Dream
with Rowan
and Russell.

'As long as it's understood that the love interest
takes place on the stage, not in the audience,' Charlie
specified to Rowan. 'Maybe I'd better sit between you.'

'You can come round after school and have something
to eat,' Rowan offered. 'Then you needn't go all
the way home and back. My dad can take you home
afterwards.' Fortunately, Rowan's dad never seemed to
object to her casual way of using him as taxi-driver.

After the last lesson on Thursday, waiting near the
front entrance for Rowan, Charlie saw Sean walking
back from the athletics track with two of his PE
colleagues. She hesitated, wanting to attract his
attention without yelling his name in front of the
dozens of pupils funnelling out of the side doors. She
walked quickly towards the reception door, so that her
path crossed his.

'Oh, Charlie . . .'

To her surprise, his smile of greeting turned quickly
to a look of edginess. The other two teachers, Mr
Wade and Ms Grear, walked on towards the staffroom;
Charlie heard Mr Wade complaining: 'And I could
have done without losing my one free period, with
sports day coming up . . .'

Charlie said to Sean, 'I just wanted to—'

'Yes, we need to talk. But not here.' He lowered his
voice. 'PE office, in five minutes? Oh – no, you've got
to get your bus.'

'No, it's OK,' Charlie said, mystified. 'I'm not
getting the bus.'

Sean nodded, and walked quickly after his
colleagues. Charlie, glimpsing Rowan, went to tell her
that she'd be a few minutes. She had no idea what
Sean could possibly want to tell her. Thinking of
Anne, Charlie now half-regretted approaching him.
What had she meant to say? How delighted Kathy was
with the lilies? With the note?

No. She shouldn't interfere, as her mother had told
her on countless occasions. She just wanted to talk to
him, that was all.

Sean came along the corridor and unlocked the
office. Inside was a muddle of noticeboards and
cluttered desks and odd bits of equipment, whistles
and a wicket-keeper's glove and a box of rounders
bats. He gestured for Charlie to go in, then followed
her, leaving the door to the corridor open. He stood
facing her, fiddling with his bunch of keys. To fill the
rather awkward silence, she said, choosing her words
carefully, 'Those lilies are gorgeous. Mum's favourite.
They came early on Saturday and she's got them
arranged in a vase. They'll last ages.'

Sean gave a short, humourless laugh. 'Yes. Well. I
must be incredibly thick-skinned, mustn't I? To keep
pestering her.'

'Sean, no!'

'That's how she must see it. Anyway, I didn't mean
to talk about Kathy,' he said. 'I wanted to see you
first, to warn you – just in case Mr Fletcher says anything.
He hasn't, has he?'

'No, about what?'

Mr Fletcher was the head teacher, a remote dark-suited
figure rarely seen in a classroom; Charlie had
had no personal contact with him through her entire
time at the school, and couldn't imagine why he'd
speak to her now.

'He called me into his office this morning,' Sean
said.

Charlie looked at him, puzzled. He picked at the
leather tab on his key-fob, then said, 'Apparently – you
know last Friday, when we went to the pub? Well,
someone saw us. A parent. And got the wrong end of
the stick. And thought the Head should be told.'

'Got the wrong end of the—' Charlie didn't understand.
'You're entitled to go the pub at lunchtime if
you want, surely? As long as you don't come back
drunk.'

'No, it's not about having a drink. What this parent
saw was a teacher coming out of a pub with a sixteen-year-old student.'

Charlie flushed. She remembered coming out of
The White Horse
with Sean, giving him a hug and a kiss,
without a thought that there was anything wrong in it.
That was what the parent had seen.

'What business is it of anyone's? Of Mr Fletcher's?
What did he say, then? Accuse you of – of—'

'He had to follow it up. If a parent makes an – an
allegation like that, he has to at least ask me about it.
I think he was a bit embarrassed, to be honest.'

'So what did you say?'

'Well, obviously, I told him it was
you
I was with, and
that we're practically family. This parent didn't give
your name. Just recognized you as a student of this
school, I suppose, or else just assumed. Of course the
Head knows Kathy, so once I'd explained, he was quite
OK about it. I mean it's not up to him where I go and
who I see outside school – he made that clear. But he
also said . . .' Sean stopped, frowned.

'What?'

Sean looked at her. 'That it's open to
misinterpretation.'

Charlie felt outrage welling up inside her. 'So he
is
telling you where you can go and who you can see!'

'Think about it, Charlie. I lived with you and Kathy
for five years but now there's no official relationship
between us. What am I? Not your stepfather, not your
mum's husband or even partner, any more. I'm only
your mum's ex-boyfriend, and that's not enough, really,
if people start nosing around. I should have thought. It
was an – indiscretion, I suppose. I wanted to tell you first,
just in case he decides to warn you, too.'

Charlie thought of politicians caught out in sordid
affairs.
Indiscretion
. That was the euphemism they
used.

'No! Don't use that word,
indiscretion
! It makes it
sound wrong, shameful!' she burst out. 'You bought
me a sandwich and a Coke, we talked about Mum's
birthday, that was all – we even bumped into each
other by accident! I hate the thought of people watching
us, thinking horrible suspicious thoughts!'

'I know—'

'Mr Fletcher can warn me if he likes, but what am I
supposed to do if I see you in town? Ignore you?
Pretend I don't know you?' she flared. 'He ought to
get on the phone to that parent and say
Yeah, so what?
They know each other, they're friends, and what business is it
of yours?
'

'I expect he will, only a bit more politely. The point
is,' Sean said, 'he's had the chance to put the bloke
right, this time, but what if the parent hadn't phoned?
What if he told other parents, spread rumours? Said I
was unprofessional, taking advantage of my teacher
role?'

'So you're
agreeing
with him? You're telling me I
can't speak to you in public in case some nosy parent's
watching?'

She thought: this isn't just to warn me about Mr
Fletcher. It's to tell me he's going to treat me like any
other student.

'No, I'm
not
,' Sean said. 'I'm not going to start
ignoring you. I just have to be aware of what people
might think.'

'Let them think what they like!
I
don't care – why
should you?'

'Because it's different for me. It wouldn't matter if
you weren't a student here. You're sixteen, not a child.
If we were just two people, no problem. But I'm a
teacher, and that means hundreds of people – parents
as well as kids – know me by sight. Whenever I go into
town I'm recognized. Teachers have to be aware of
that. It's a bit like being a social worker or a doctor –
you have a professional relationship with people and
it's wrong to take advantage.'

'But—'

'You have to be careful not to put yourself in a
position where people might
think
you're taking
advantage.'

'But you're not—'

'I know, I know.'

Arguments circled wearily in Charlie's head. She
could go on repeating the same points, but she saw
that it wasn't simply a matter of standing up for Sean
against Mr Fletcher, nor a matter of dismissing what
onlookers thought. Sean's reputation could be called
into question, whereas she would be seen as gullible
victim. Sean was the teacher, the adult.

'Then how am I going to
see
you?' she appealed. 'I
can't see you at home because of Mum, and now
I can't see you anywhere else because of what people
might think. Don't expect me to make do with the odd
glimpse around school, because it's not enough. I miss
you! I want to see you! You're my—' Her what? 'My
friend
.'

Sean looked at her without speaking. She wanted to
cry. Everything about him was so familiar – the bones
of his face, the set of his mouth, the way he stood with
feet firmly planted and hands thrust deep into the
pockets of his shorts. His muscular brown legs, with a
scar on one knee where a dog had bitten him when
he was eight. His way of tying the laces of his trainers
in a double knot and bow. She thought of the card
he'd written to her mother; imagined him in the
florist's, writing it. The only answer was for him
to marry Kathy, but that obviously wasn't going to
happen.