The Mistress - Jill Childs Page 0,11
the head of Upper School, ran a notoriously tight ship. Elaine scraped back her chair and gathered together her box and lid, fork and mug, her eyes glancing across to the clock.
Hilary said, ‘Sports club? On a Friday?’
Elaine shook her head. ‘Fifth year revue. Can you believe it’s come around again already?’
Hilary munched on a hummus salad roll and waited until Elaine had left before whispering, ‘They’ve got the police involved.’
Olivia choked. ‘The police? Why?’
‘It’s so out of character. You know, teacher, family man…’ Hilary sounded knowing. ‘He wouldn’t just take off.’
I finally stabbed another forkful of pasta and dared to look up at them both, trying to sound natural. ‘Who told you that?’
‘Jayne. I was in the office this morning, photocopying. She got it from Matty.’ She caught Olivia’s blank look. Olivia had only joined the Lower School in September and was still catching up, especially with Upper School staff. ‘Matilda Campbell in the Upper School office. Tall with long, dark hair? Very nice. Worth getting to know.’
Olivia, eyes wide, said, ‘So what’re the police saying? About where he is?’
Hilary pulled a face. ‘No one knows. Watch this space.’
I packed up my lunch and just made it to the staff toilets before I was sick.
Eight
That evening, I went online and started trawling for news. I couldn’t find anything about Ralph that I hadn’t read before. I tried not to linger over the articles I already knew so well. In those early weeks, when I’d first met him, I’d relished spending time at home in the evening, googling him, examining his face, his body, in private in the photographs posted there.
His picture on the school website, a black-and-white portrait of Ralph leaning one shoulder nonchalantly against a wall, his hands deep in his pockets, his hair flopping forward across his brow. Ralph the poet. The photograph of him on the community news website, standing on stage, surrounded by a glowing teenage cast. I loved that picture. He looked younger in it and desperately handsome. That was three years ago, before I’d really known him, when he’d directed a school production of Romeo and Juliet.
But about his disappearance, not a thing.
I didn’t bother trying to cook. I couldn’t eat. I sat, glassy-eyed, in front of the television for a while, taking in very little.
Ten o’clock. I should think about bed.
But I couldn’t. I was too restless. Too haunted. I was frightened of the stillness of my own bedroom, the bed where Ralph had once made love to me, but where I’d also shed so many tears, first when he left me, then again when I discovered what he’d done. When I tried to doze, all I could see were images of his body, twisted and broken at the bottom of the steps.
Even as I got in the car, I was pretending to myself that I was just going out for a drive, just to be out in the world, surrounded by the living, to calm my nerves. When I came to his road, I slowed to walking pace. Coloured light from wall-mounted TV sets flickered through the gaps between closed curtains. Cars were neatly parked. Gates closed.
His house looked no different from any other on the street. The downstairs curtains were drawn, a fringe of light brightening the gap between them. I strained through the darkness, trying to see movement. Nothing. He’d paced there, just three days earlier, agitated because I was with him, because I wanted him and he knew he wanted me too.
A horn made me jump out of my skin. A car had slid up behind me in the road and was impatient, hurrying me along. I gathered speed and kept driving, this time heading for the coast.
My senses heightened as I drew close to the sea. Everything seemed more intense, more vivid. The sharp tang of salt in the air. The depth of the shadows. The ghostly outline of shabby huts and a scattering of abandoned cottages, derelict now, set here and there along the marshes, on land which was steadily eroding as the sea surged and encroached.
I parked the car outside the small parade of shops, a short walk from the entrance to the car park and the boathouses. A security light clicked on as I walked away from the car and I ducked out of the beam into the shadows, then wondered if that just made me look even more suspicious and if there were security cameras recording everything I did.
It was a mild evening