

The Scars

By William Tennant

Copyright 2010 William Tennant

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Copyright 2010 William Tennant

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"You see, the problem with you, Mags, and people like you is that you don't know what you want. You fall in _love_ " the word was spat "You proclaim your love, as if some great revelation, but you don't know what it is, what it involves."

Mags watched as an arm arched back and dealt her a forceful blow, she tried to turn, but was bound so tightly that she could only move the flat of her cheek towards the oncoming strike.

"Love is a sickness, a cancer. It tore into me and I was nearly destroyed." cracked lips spoke, flecked with white saliva. "Everything I did was in the name of love, everything I _thought_ was for love, but love has _never_ helped me."

The voice rose to a hysterical, threatening pitch. "As lust and liking fades away, love is supposed to be what remains. An incandescent core, something we use to bend the cold steel of out lives." Mags felt an unexpected kick crash viciously into her shin, another punch land hard in her ribs.

"Love is a hollow sham, a name that we put to our hatred of loneliness, a word that we use to make us accept all those things that we hate." Mags' shoulders were being gripped harshly now, she could see her own reflection in a vast pair of pupils and she could see the deep heart of lunacy that was a dancing black flame, the other side of reflection.

"And I am so much stronger now that I no longer have love." The tone had changed to that of explaining two plus two to a child. "Don't you see that? If you shut love out, you have a power at your command that is mightier than a thousand swords. A power that everyone could have, but no-one knows about." A knife was raised, harsh fluorescent light playing along its clinical blade. "You can transcend all this..." the knife traced a thin bleeding line above Mags' left breast, "You can become something higher, an angel, a god, a demon." A harsh ball of spit hit Mags full in the face; a hurt more than the blows she had received.

"We are born alone Mags, and I believe we should die alone." A knife was raised and allowed to play across a palm and a throbbing sickness rose in Mags schoolgirl throat.

"You are mine, Mags, and you will never see the sun shine again..."

1. The River

This could be an English rainforest.

The river meanders lazily off to the back right. The banks that lead down to it look populated by creepers and vines, but closer inspection would tell us that they are merely ivy and rotting oaks. The banks are so steep that they lend the vast panorama of the river an intimate and subtle air.

The foreground of the picture shows a different beauty entirely.

Jade is smiling at the lens, the long fingers of her left hand raised in either caution or admonishment.

She is wearing a simple white vest top, a pair of jeans we can only see the waistband of, and a small silk scarf.

The bright Northern sun is behind her and has given the picture a soft misty focus. Jade's pale blond hair looks like threads of woven milk.

To the right of the picture, a girl with a whistle and a clipboard swelters in the sun.

Durham is a beautiful city, thought Peter as he rested the oars and lay back in the boat, but it is wasted on students. As he shuffled his shoulders to a more comfortable position and stretched out his long legs, he accepted a glass of pink wine from Jade and sipped thoughtfully. He looked past her, looked to the steep banks that pinned down the Wear on either side, looked up to the thin ribbon of concrete that is Kingsgate bridge, turned his head back to the stout stone majesty of Elvet Bridge, and he liked what he saw. This place has Magnificence, he thought; it has History etched into every stone.

Over four years of living there, Peter had nursed a gentle contempt for a great number of his fellow students and their lack of awe with their beautiful surroundings; they were either obsessively academic, or frustratingly carefree. Never noticing the breathtaking splendour within which they walked.

He looked at Jade, who was settling back, knotting her legs with his and flicking through a well-thumbed novel from beneath her pink framed sunglasses. It would be nice to say that he had found a kindred spirit in her, that she too was someone who not only studied the leaves but liked to watch them fall, but she was not.

She was the most Sloaney, pearl wearing, horse owning, public school, spoilt brat that Peter had ever met. She had not the slightest concern for the quality of degree she received and had a frustrating habit of falling on her feet at every turn. Peter loved every single inch of her.

They had met in a frenzy of alcohol and self-expression nearly four years previously, had fallen headlong into a sweep of lust before they knew anything about each other, and spent the rest of their time at university in a cocoon of ever-expanding love. They shouldn't have made a good couple; she had been born into money and high society and had lived the first eighteen years of her life in a rambling country mansion. Peter had been born into lower-middle class and a small suburban semi. She had attended a famous public school; he had attended an infamous school with the rest of the public.

For each of them, though, something clicked about the other. She loved Peter's grounded honesty and self-awareness; he loved her sheer passion for life, a passion that had come from never having had to worry about anything.

She saw him looking at her and paused in her reading. She pushed the pink sunglasses further up her nose and looked back.

"What's up, Pete?" she asked as she took a sip from her own glass of wine. She smiled gently and his heart almost broke, she was so beautiful.

"Nothing. Just nothing." A wide smile spread slowly across his face and he ran the instep of his right foot up her left leg. "Just happy. Content." He closed his eyes and stretched a little more. He was determined to take in every tiny detail about this day, so that in years to come he could bring out the memories and cherish them. He had no idea how important these memories would become.

Today was part of a tradition for Peter and Jade. Every year after their last exam they would hire a boat, drift down the river and soak up the world. They always hired the same numbered boat, they always bought the same bottle of wine and drank it from the same slender flutes. At the end of their second year they had waited for 'their' boat for over an hour, such was the importance of lucky number 9.

Today would be different. Every so often, Peter let his hand brush against the small box nestled deep in his jeans pocket, let himself feel the future unfold from the tiny diamond resting in the silver band, and allowed himself another smile and another sip of wine.

A sudden shift in the boat and a kick against his outstretched leg told him Jade had moved. He opened his eyes to see what she was doing and couldn't believe them.

She was on one knee, glasses on her head, looking at him with love in her pale blue eyes.

"Peter Everett, will you marry me?" He looked at her with wild incredulity and let out a laugh that rang the length of the river.

"Yes Jade, I will."

She had beaten him to it. Peter laughed and laughed and laughed. This was so typical of Jade's joy in life, she wasn't going to wait for him to ask her, she knew what she wanted and cared nothing for convention. As they clambered out of the boat an hour later, he showed her the ring he had bought. The tiny jewel sparkled fiercely in the dappled sunlight and she slipped it straight onto her finger, vowing to never take it off.

He fumbled self-consciously with the heavy watch she had bought for him. It felt awkward now, but he would grow to love it, would grow to love the reassuring weight that would be an anchor in the storms to come.

That day, they emerged from a chrysalis of clumsy youth. Jade had finished her masters degree, Peter his teacher training. She would be starting work for a publishing house in Newcastle in the middle of August and he would be taking up his first teaching post at a small secondary in September. They were adults, they were grown-ups, they were no longer students. They felt intoxicated with their own maturity.

They would spend the next day spreading the good news far and wide, running from house to student house, telling the friends that they had huddled around them, but this day, this shining golden day was just for them. They climbed slowly through the city, ambling through its narrow streets, floating in their own bubble.

They made love for the first time as an engaged couple, the sweet smells of the summer flowers drifting through the open window of their house. Jade's father had bought a house in the city rather than pay rent and the pair of them had lived there for two years now. The house would become a wedding present from Jade's father, and Peter could never recall any time happier than that he spent living there.

The day drifted on lazily – it felt though it should never end, such was its delicate beauty. They watched the sun go down over the castle and drank champagne on Palace Green. Waking together the next morning seemed like such a different experience than before. They had confirmed that they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together and the feeling of love and safety that gave them was immense. Peter watched Jade silently for five minutes before even moving, he studied every line of her face, could not believe that she was going to be his, that he was going to be hers. Her hair was tangled and knotted, but Peter could not remember ever having seen a greater beauty. They breakfasted on croissants and sticky jam and sat in a blissful, comfortable silence. They spread the news of their engagement fast and wide, happiness reflected from every party.

Their weeks of indolence, the limbo between student and professional, flew faster than either had imagined. Jade was soon making the daily trek in her tiny yellow car to the centre of Newcastle, and Peter was back in the classroom, cleaning the whiteboard and reading last year's graffiti.

They were blissfully happy in those days. Their commitment to each other was such a serious thing, but it made them feel so free and joyful. Jade danced through her days at work; she was only a junior copy reader, but she loved the feeling of reading first drafts, the smell of the paper, heavy with correcting fluid from experienced authors, pristine and on impressive heavy watermarked paper from the newer writers.

Peter found that he could take a great amount of pleasure from his teaching, he loved it so much. There were parts of it that were miserable and frustrating, but the shaping, the moulding and the helping, tickled his soul and polished his heart. His colleagues in the English department were friendly and kind, helping with teething troubles and pointing his needs in the right direction. Not that he had many problems, and those that he did have melted away whenever he walked through the door of his home with Jade.

The pupils would tease him gently about his 'girlfriend'. They would maintain the beautiful blonde he had been seen with was a sister or a cousin, they didn't reckon that someone like him could attract someone like her. They always smiled as they said it.

Not that Peter was unattractive; he had long strong limbs that looked good in a suit. He had a floppy demi-quiff of brown hair and a narrow pair of bristly brown sideburns, that neatly framed a face that – whilst not classically handsome with its slightly beaky nose – was certainly appealing, with a twinkly sweeping charm.

The wedding approached with the force of a runaway train. Peter looked interested when he felt he needed to and made occasionally arbitrary choices between types of identical flowers and napkins. Jade and a wedding planner took care of all the fine details, though they both agreed on Durham cathedral being the perfect venue.

To Peter's mindset, such a thing was an unobtainable dream, but Jade became so hooked on the idea that she made a few calls to family contacts, and once again, the world began to spin her way.

A very great deal of Durham's beauty lies in the cathedral, thought Peter, as if it were an anchor for the entire city. From the outside it was always a mess of scaffolding and green netting as a perpetual cleanup was being performed, but stepping into it was like being immersed into a thousand years of history in one dizzying shot. But for the fourth dimension, you would be rubbing shoulders with the great and the good. Peter always liked the poetry of an idea like that.

As Peter waited patiently at the high altar, he looked at the rough stone pillars and blocks that felt older than any man-made things should. His eyes drifted lazily, as the rough Stonehenge of the cathedral body gave way to the delicate columns and flutes that surrounded his exalted vantage point. He felt as if he could have spent the rest of his life counting the tiny castles that they made and never reach the end.

Beyond the main altar is the chapel of St. Cuthbert where Cuthbert himself is buried, Peter had always nursed a secret desire to break the tomb open and smell the lilacs.

Peter had no religion to speak of, but during his time in the city, the cathedral pulled at his core with the power of gravity. War, heat waves, famine and Rapture could have been tumbling outside, but the cathedral would have remained the same. The temperature was constant, the air had a steady hint of incense, it was a place of _permanence_.

But not today. Today the cathedral was different, for changes had been wrought from within. Every surface, every hanging, every inch of the old wooden pews were festooned with a plethora of sunflowers. How Jade had managed to make it happen was something Peter would never know; he had a notion that the Archbishop of Canterbury was involved at some point in the chain, but like many grooms before him, Peter asked no questions.

A hush fell in the flowery chancel, and Peter turned his head...

This picture is big, it takes in a thousand years and more besides.

The black and white flooring around the high altar gives way to the rough stone of the rest of the cathedral.

Jade has progressed halfway down the aisle arm-in-arm with her father who is looking to the left and nodding at an acquaintance. She wears no veil or headdress and is carrying only a small bunch of three sunflowers. Her dress is so simple that it could have been made from a bed-sheet, no frills or lace just sheer white fabric.

Jade's golden-white hair is tumbling about her, something sheepdog-esque about the utter disarray it is in.

Everything about her appearance should be wrong; she has dispensed with tradition as freely as her father has dispensed money – she is wearing a pair of sparkly trainers rather than high heeled shoes – but the congregation that day, had never seen anything or anyone more beautiful.

Her face is caught at an angle, not quite in profile. Her lips are a fresh fulsome red and are pulled back over her teeth in a sweetly infectious smile. Her face is oval in shape and though her features aren't stunning in themselves, they are set with such perfect proportion below her large round eyes, that the wonder of the congregation seems well deserved.

One of the laces of her wedding trainers has come undone and is trailing on the ground behind her.

Peter's greatest memory of his wedding was that of laughter. The sheer joy of what they were doing overwhelmed both of them. He started giggling as soon as he saw Jade, noticing her trailing shoelace. She laughed back as she saw him holding the biggest sunflower she had ever seen, ready to present to her. The mirth ribboned as Peter took three attempts to pronounce matrimony, and the imp inside Jade pointed her to nibble Peter's lip as he kissed his bride.

The presiding clergyman – a Canon of the cathedral – confessed to the pair of them that he had never been to nor officiated at a wedding that spoke more of the joy of life and love than theirs. "Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing: then said they among the heathen, The LORD hath done great things for them" he had said after the service.

"Do you know how to do the trick with the loaves and the fishes?" asked Peter by way of reply. "Or failing that, the water and the wine?" The Canon walked away, laughing even more.

The day was well documented by a hundred cameras and four hundred guests. It wound across the clock, the great hall of Hild and Bede providing ample accommodation. The speeches were long, but rich with humour and detail. Jade's father gave a tender potted history of her life – her first words were "Biscuit now!" and her first dolly was an action man – and nearly choked when he spoke of 'letting his little girl go.'

Peter gave a standard but eloquent thank you speech, and his elegantly dishevelled best-man-brother Ed spoke for a full ten minutes of the virtues of his sister-in-law and the vices of his brother.

The meal was roast pheasant with a raspberry confit – both Peter and Jade heard one of Peter's elderly aunties asking why someone had served jam with the chicken – more of those sweet ringing peals. The dessert was a whisky crème brulee in a butterscotch sauce. Peter had a vague recollection of this having been his choice, although he wasn't sure if those words had instead been applied to the colour scheme of the invitations.

Their first dance was briefly to 'All along the watchtower' as the DJ hit the wrong button, but quickly became the tender strains of 'Waterloo Sunset'.

Peter held his wife on the dancefloor, he held her and shuffled her round, and they gazed at each other, with eyes open so wide as to take in the rest of their lives.

Suddenly it was one a.m., the guests were leaving for their billets and Peter's bride was gazing at him with a wine misted smile.

It seemed like too luscious an evening to end there. A set of large doors that led onto the rolling banks of the college had been opened, and sweet spring scents were mingling with the loving cold that was gliding through the room. Peter wanted to walk with his wife beneath the stars before he made love to her beneath their own private heaven.

They strode down from the college, still in their wedding clothes, and walked along the deserted streets, cars slowing down to marvel at their beauty. They walked down to the river, taking pleasure in the gentle flow that would become a lolloping torrent in a few hundred yards. They walked up through the beautiful city and stood on the parallel lines of the Kingsgate Bridge. Just below was the spot they would yearly dwell in their boat, and looking over the edge they both fancied they could see themselves gently floating across the water.

Suddenly, Jade leapt up. She was drunkenly holding an orange bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne and she clambered awkwardly onto the thin ledge of the concrete bridge, waving it at the stars. She stood, gazing up at the clearest sky she had ever seen, tipping her head back rowdily, and for a moment of horror Peter thought she was about to lose her balance and tumble into the river, but she did not.

If Jade had been able to record her feelings at that point she would have said that she had an urgent feeling of being in tune with the universe. She didn't feel as if she could _do_ everything, she felt that she _was_ everything. She was the stars and the trees, the ground and the air. She stood on six inches of dried cement and grit, and let the wind blow through her hair and the moonlight drift through her soul.

2. Falling from grace

When she eventually fell, Jade fell forward not backwards. Given another chance to describe these moments, she would have screamed a sudden sickness, a nausea that swept over her and knocked her from the ledge. She fell painfully on her knees, fracturing a kneecap. Her head was in a vice, a metal band tightening, squeezing the life, even the thoughts from her.

It took Peter some heartbeats to realise what was going on. He thought the fall from the ledge was a dramatic jump and was laughing with wonderment at his fiery spark of a bride; but suddenly, her hands were around her head, pressing down on the crown of the skull, trying to release pressure and save her from the ache splitting her in two. Peter flapped wildly, tried desperately to pull her arms and hands away, but the strength that kept them there was beyond human.

Then it was gone. Her arms fell limp, clutched to the point of bruising by Peter's powerful hands. Her head rolled sickeningly, and she looked up at him.

The stars are swirling, she thought, as her husband's eyes swam in and out of focus. The stars are swirling and coming down to dance with me. Ursa, Betel, Crux and Virginis all fly to my hand. He's made of his own stars, a trillion rolling flying boiling stars, hustling each other to make their own space, all of them themselves nothing but space.

He's dimming, now, one by one his infinite stars are snuffing out. He's just a fading outline, but still the stars fly to me, surround me, lift me, and they gather me up, make a shell for me, make a shroud for me, and now they are carrying me.

They will carry me further than I have ever been before, as far as anyone ever goes, that final journey will take me through the stars and beyond.

Jade rolled her eyes around and stretched out her arm, trying to reach across space. A harsh guttural sound gurgled in her throat, no words, only pinprick emotion. There was light in her eyes, more light than there had ever been before. She felt the tight swallowing sickness, a harsh ripple was stifled in her throat.

The light faded, and Jade Everett was flying away, her golden hair racked into one last desperate tangle.

He had been a husband for less than twelve hours, and now he was a widower. Peter felt as though everything he had ever been told, everything he had ever felt or known, was spinning away on the eddies of the wind.

It was raining gently, a soft pattering of the tiniest of drops that soaked Peter's body faster than any rain should. Peter was crying, the salt flowing from eyes and running with the rain. Someone was behind him, someone was talking, someone was shaking him and then running, running away from the cathedral, running to the phone box sticking up from the Elvet like a battered red candle. He crouched, cradling his wife in his arms for an eternity. Someone tried to prise him away from her, reassured him, told him he could be with her.

His memory faltered. No longer were events a chain, no longer was his life the subject of cause and effect. He was on the phone calling his parents, he was on the phone calling her parents, he was looking on as the wedding dress was cut away from her body, he was hearing the phrases "Arterial aneurysm," and "circle of Willis", phrases that would haunt him for the rest of his life. He had stopped crying, he was crying again, he was pacing the halls and filling out forms.

Years later when Peter looked back to gain a more solid understanding of how he had lost his wife, he understood it like this: There had been a time-bomb in her brain, a vicious, snarling, brooding bomb that could have exploded at any point in the previous ten years. That he had met her at all was impressive, that she had lived long enough to get married was nothing short of a miracle. It was her joy in life, he decided, it was how much she was alive. She forced herself to live every day, and one day, just one day, she relaxed, and Death took a bride for himself.

He remembered seeing her body lying on its hospital bed, shreds of wedding dress still on her, remembered thinking that she looked so pale compared to her surroundings, remembered making himself think that this wasn't his wife, that his wife was somewhere else, this was only her body. Everything that had made her the beautiful vibrant person she had been had gone, drifting away on the stars.

Peter had no previous experience of funerals before attending his wife's. All four grandparents were still alive, had all been at the wedding. He watched numbly as, a week after the wedding, the same people that had been there were packed into the small parish church near to Peter and Jade's house – Peter's house now. He had insisted on carrying the coffin and had asked Jade's father and uncle, and his own brother to help him.

When he looked around the church he realised how much he needed Jade in his life. He had been determined to organise every aspect of the funeral himself, knew that that was what a husband should do, but he looked around at the church, at the lilies now resting on her coffin, at the hymns he had chosen and it was wrong.

He had picked things that were so sombre, so unlike her. She would not have had lilies for her funeral. It would have been vibrant tulips of every colour, or else her beloved sunflowers.

He had insisted that he would make a eulogy, and had a typed sheet weighing heavily in his pocket, phrases like "Strength of spirit" and "Warmth of character", pulling at the page. He realised now that that wasn't Jade. He walked to the lectern and looked out at his family and friends – Jade's family and friends, and he was transported across the years...

They were on one of their yearly boat trips, possibly the second time or maybe the third. Peter was rowing with long powerful strokes, and Jade was facing away from him, watching the world slip by.

She slipped a battered green book of poetry out of her bag and opened it at a marked page. From there, in an ever more dramatic voice, she began to read 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner.'

She took such delight in the tale of the poem, loved the ever expanding and ever more weird story of the mariner and his crime against the albatross. All Peter could do was laugh as her enthusiasm rocked the boat. They sailed down the river, gaining more and more strange looks from the bank, and Peter remembered the words...

The bride hath paced into the hall,

Red as a rose is she ;

Nodding their heads before her goes

The merry minstrelsy.

The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,

Yet he cannot choose but hear ;

And thus spake on that ancient man,

The bright-eyed Mariner.

"Jade loved that poem." said Peter after reciting those two verses. "She loved the words and the story and the supernature." He paused and gripped the edge of the lectern gently. "She loved the idea of someone not going to this wedding just because some crusty old sea dog had started telling a story." He laughed, his first one in a week, and the congregation laughed too. "I remember thinking that if there had been someone outside our wedding telling wild stories that Jade might never make it in." A stronger laugh here, the red raw wound of Jade's passing growing faintly less so.

"Jade loved life with an intensity that I have never seen before. She was incandescent, she never cared what anyone thought of her, she is the only person in history that I know of to manage to deck Durham cathedral with a thousand sunflowers." A bigger laugh here, tears of reminiscence. "And I loved her just as much as she loved life." Tears had begun to stream down Peter's face now, but he was barely aware of them. "I loved her so much."

Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched

With a woful agony,

Which forced me to begin my tale ;

And then it left me free.

Since then, at an uncertain hour,

That agony returns :

And till my ghastly tale is told,

This heart within me burns.

The rest of Jade's day passed in a fog of tears, laughter and booze; Peter had never felt so alone. Not only was Jade missing from his side, but he could not believe that anyone could begin to feel the hurt that he was feeling. He found himself staring at his hands, turning them over and over, as if he could read some small detail of his future in there, but the lines and grooves made no sense. He always found romance in the notion that you could tell your future from your hands – he didn't believe it, but he liked the idea. Peter often wondered; if it was true, then could you change your future by scarring your hands?

He raised his head and looked at the people around him. He looked through the windows of the room he was in – he wasn't even sure where he was – and in the distance he could see the river flow down towards the point where he and Jade would sail. He could see the town square where they would walk and laugh, eating hot fried doughnuts. He saw himself and Jade looking over Framwellgate bridge, flicking acorns into it for some long forgotten reason. He could see them snuggled into a corner of the Market Tavern, enjoying thick black pints of 'Old Peculiar', Jade rejoicing in the treacle. Everywhere his mind's eye took him, he could see himself and Jade enjoying a sliver of life. He had taken great pleasure in this before, had loved that the city held so many memories for him, but these reminders were now stinging barbs of grief, tearing at his skin. He couldn't even bear to think about the house that he and Jade had shared, the house that was now his and his alone.

He looked again at his hands, balled them into fists and left the wake and Jade behind.

3. Homecoming

They were sitting round a rough wooden table sipping mugs of tea. The table was one that used to stand in the entrance to Peter's college in Durham, but now it was inside the house Peter and Jade shared. This was odd, as the table was 20 feet long, but somehow they had got it into their house.

They were not talking, just enjoying each other's company and silence. When Peter looked more closely, Jade was wearing her wedding dress, which was funny because he knew that that dress had had to be cut to bits when... when...

Suddenly, he realised, he knew what was happening, knew she was back and knew he might only have moments. He clambered onto the table, crawling across it, but now he was at the opposite end, and Jade was twenty, thirty, forty feet away. He ran down the table, gathering speed all the time, but when he reached the throne she had been sitting in, there was nothing there but the tatters of her wedding dress.

The bells of the cathedral began to ring...

Peter sat bolt upright in bed, a thin layer of clammy sweat clinging to his body. The dream lingered for long enough to twist into a thousand fragments of meaning limping round his head. This was not the first dream he had had and he suspected it wouldn't be the last. He pulled aside the rough blanket in the room he was renting a mile from his school and stood to splash his face in the basin. He knew now, that whatever he did, he couldn't stay here.

They had married just before Easter and Peter now handed his notice in as soon as he could. He could just about manage serving out till June. He didn't have to go into Durham itself, but being in that environment, the environment that Jade belonged to, was difficult for him. She was standing on every street corner, sitting in every pub and crossing every road.

He instructed an agent to sell the house for him, had asked for Jade's father's permission – which had been given freely – to do this. He asked his brother to retrieve certain items and hired a clearance team to empty the rest; he never re-entered the house, never even saw it again.

He knew he couldn't stay in Durham, but didn't know where else to go. He had been born and brought up in Manchester, and though going anywhere made little sense to him, going back there made more sense than anywhere else.

In August he moved into a small house ten miles from the city centre, a three-bedroomed terrace on a quiet unassuming back street.

He didn't have to worry about money; he and Jade had straightened out their finances at Jade's dad's insistence before the wedding, and this had included life insurance for the pair of them. He found it upsetting that it seemed he had been rewarded for losing his wife. He still had to work, knew that working would be good for him, but the prospect of taking another full time permanent teaching position was too difficult.

"Teaching can be such an emotional job," he said to his brother Ed one night when they were holed up in a quiet pub not far from Peter's new house. "You become so tied up with the lives of everyone you're involved with. Its not even just the kids, its the people you work with too. Its so intense in that respect." He gestured vaguely with the bottle of Bud he was holding. "I'm just not really up to that sort of thing at the moment."

Ed snorted, seemingly in agreement. He had been staying at Peter's new house with him for the past week, had been quite vocal about getting away from their mum and dad – Ed was two years younger and had just come home from university to work for a financial firm – but Peter knew that Ed was keeping an eye on him and was grateful for the company.

"So what will you do then?" asked Ed, emptying the dregs from a packet of peanuts into his palm and tossing them into his mouth.

"Dunno... I suppose I could go on supply and get with one of those agencies."

Ed snorted again, took the empty bottle out of Peter's hand and went to the bar for a refill.

Peter looked through the window that was now revealed by the movement of his brother. The pub was on a hill, the window facing down it. From here he could see for a few miles, a typical grey cityscape. He could see an endless grim viaduct, snaking into the distance, could see an industrial estate of heartless blocks and map-planned roads. He could see a gas-cooling tower, dropping slowly in the setting sun, he could see a round, soot stained factory chimney. He thought briefly of the kind of view he would see back in Durham, thick leafy green and stone carved history. He knew that Manchester had that too, but right now this was the view he needed, something different, something that wouldn't remind him of Jade everywhere he looked. He could see the low sun glinting brightly off a distant window and suddenly it was gone as Ed sat down with replacement drinks.

"Yes, I think I'll go on supply." he said, and then took a long slow swig from his bottle.

Peter Everett stands alone at the front of an empty classroom.

He is wearing a pair of dark rimmed glasses with long rectangular lenses and a dark blue suit. The suit accentuates the length of his limbs and makes him look taller than he is.

The classroom bears the unmistakeable signs of neglect. The displays either side of the whiteboard are torn, and even at this angle we can tell that the desks are covered in graffiti.

Peter is casting his eye around his surroundings, appraisingly. His face isn't set in the grim slab of unhappiness one might expect. He is seeing an adversary, seeing many adversaries in potential, but the classroom is his starting point, the place from which all will begin. Despite himself, he is looking pleased, he needs the challenge.

Behind him, the whiteboard is covered in black, blue, red and green graffiti – 'school's out' is a common theme as is some ritual abuse for someone called Harry who appears to 'like cock'.

Peter contacted 'Ignition' supply agency a few days after his conversation with Ed. They didn't ask why he needed work at such short notice and he didn't volunteer the information, they cared only about his bodily health and clean criminal record. They had said that they were sure they would be able to find him something, but Peter didn't believe a word of it. The phone call that came with a six week stint starting on the first of September, was a shock. Peter accepted without thinking about it and had a meeting with the head of English a few days later, a tiny Scouse woman who seemed over the moon that he had two arms, two legs and could string a sentence together.

There had been an unfortunate accident, one of her teachers, Lauren Young, had broken her leg badly, skiing somewhere Peter had never heard of. The break was sufficiently bad to be taking a minimum of six weeks to heal. Cindy – the head of English – said that they were absolutely desperate and were so glad they had been able to find someone who would actually be able to take classes, like Peter. Peter said little during the meeting, which was conducted over two mugs of thin instant coffee in the deserted school staff room. He smiled, nodded and tried not to take any compliments too deeply.

He was surprised at how much free reign he was instantly given. He had a set of keys to a classroom, the alarm code to the school and the phone numbers of three senior members of staff who would be able to help him with any requests. Cindy said that the kids at the school were tough, but that was alright, because the staff were a real team, they really pulled together and sang 'from the same hymn sheet'. Peter found himself thinking that every school he had known had always said that, he thought it might be refreshing if they said "The kids are bastards and we can't really control them, oh aye, the head's a tosser too..."

Cindy came with him to 'his' classroom, dumped a dozen schemes of work and left him alone. Peter wasn't even sure she knew his surname.

As she left, Peter pressed the palms of his hands to the painted grain of the door. He pushed it fully shut, turned and rested his back against it. This was something he'd forgotten, he loved this moment, the empty classroom, ready to be filled up. He drew in deep lungfuls of air, caught a slight scent of must and a heavy dose of something rotten. He followed his nose and made his way across the back of the classroom, letting his fingers drift across the scored surfaces of desks. He extended one hand down the back of a radiator and was able to pull out a small plastic sandwich bag filled with what probably used to be sandwiches, but were now a rotten, green furry mess of mould. Peter pulled the sleeve of his suit across his nose and examined them more closely.

"I dunno, what do young people eat today, looks like it's rotten, macrobiotic I suppose. Give us 'and with this will yer?" Peter turned to see a gargantuan man jerking his thumb over his shoulder at an old grey filing cabinet leant against a wall. The man had a faint patina of sweat and had clearly been struggling.

Peter shifted quickly across the classroom, grabbed one end of the cabinet and heaved. It was a big old-fashioned job – like the bloke at the other end – but it came up lighter than he expected. Peter had grabbed the wrong end and was forced to walk backwards through a series of heavy double doors. The school was quite deserted with few other people to contend with. The only person that Peter had seen, apart from Cindy, was a small dark haired woman lifting box files at the other end of the corridor.

"You Lauren's replacement then?" asked the man at the other end of the filing cabinet.

"Erm... yeah, I suppose so, for a little while anyway." Peter backed painfully into another set of doors.

"Nice girl Lauren, nice looking. Terrible what happened to her, they reckon she was going at 100 miles an hour as she came off her skis."

"Blimey." Peter didn't believe a word of that, but this man seemed to take it as gospel. Peter tried to rearrange his face to suggest that he really was sorry that Lauren had had to be injured for him to get a job.

"Its just in here." A sideways nod indicated the classroom that the filing cabinet was destined for. They struggled getting it in, and as they came through the door frame, Peter's left hand caught part of the door lock that cut a long but shallow piece of skin from the back of is hand. Glancing at it, it looked fine, but by the time that the filing cabinet came down with a great thump there were thick dark blobs of blood along the length of the cut.

"Aaagh." moaned Peter, wincing as he prodded the cut with the index finger of his right hand. The man at the other end of the filing cabinet seemed supremely unconcerned.

"You'll be fine." he said taking a closer look, "Just wrap this round it." He threw him a clean hanky from his pocket and Peter accepted it gratefully. He took a long look at the man he had just helped. He was tall and heavyset, with slight jowls to his face that wobbled as he spoke and moved. His hair was gently fading from light brown to grey, but was still all there, quite closely cropped to his head. He was probably somewhere in his forties, although Peter wouldn't like to commit to where. He had probably been quite handsome ten years ago, but he looked as if he had gone to seed. Peter glanced and saw no wedding ring, although this didn't mean anything. He had taken to wearing his on his right hand rather than his left, it seemed wrong to abandon it entirely, and he felt a sudden stabbing pang as he thought about it.

" Bernard, Bernard Quick." The man proffered his hand and Peter had to simply nod to him rather than shake it.

" Peter Everett." Peter looked around the classroom. You could always tell a lot about a teacher from the state of their classroom. This one was quite bare, but extremely tidy. A few tattered posters round the room suggested that Bernard was a teacher of Business Studies.

"Right then, cheers for that mate, sorry about yer hand, dyer fancy a pint?" Peter was taken aback by the invitation.

"Erm... well." Peter thought about feigning an urgent need to plough through the schemes of work he'd been given, and he looked back into Bernard's eyes.

That was where his charm was, the eyes themselves were a pale slaty grey, but they twinkled with a sparkling magnetism that pulled at Peter.

"Yeah, alright." said Peter. "I'll just get my stuff."

"You know where the staff room is? I'll meet you there in ten minutes, I've just got to..." Bernard motioned vaguely back at the corridor, needing to bring some more items in from wherever the filing cabinet had come from.

That was the moment Emma chose to walk in.

4. Raking over the Past

She stands in the doorway, electricity coming from every pore.

She is five foot two, and has an air of dark attraction.

Her hair is raven black and hangs in large loose curls. She is wearing a low cut pair of jeans and a thin jumper with wide multicoloured strips. Between these items, at the hips, there is a slight stomach bulge. We can be sure from this picture, by the way that she is standing, that she knows and does not care.

If her face was a poem it would be written all in capital letters. Her features are large and fighting for space, but this does not make her ugly, it makes her interesting.

There is no doubt that this is a fascinating woman, the glare she is giving, directly at the camera lens, jumps out of the picture and shakes the viewer by the throat.

"Hello." she said, entering Bernard's room. She stood demurely, hands clasped in front of her. Peter looked her up and down and his first impulse was to apologise for something. He had no idea what, but such was the force coming from her that an inner reflex kicked in. He racked his brain desperately for where he might know her from, but he should have realised that no such racking was necessary; if you had met this woman you would never forget her.

She had seen the pair of them coming down the corridor towards her, struggling with something heavy. She couldn't see him clearly, but she recognised him immediately, despite how long it had been.

She ducked quickly out of sight, into the classroom that had, five minutes ago, been an emerging source of pride and pleasure, but now seemed cramped, small and stuffy. She needed to face him, she knew that, but she had to compose herself first. She took a deep breath, ran her hand across one of the twenty-four computer screens in the room.

How could he be here? She thought she had left him behind forever, thought she had left behind the trauma that had been her involvement with him.

She caught her reflection in the computer screen and wiped her perfectly varnished left index fingernail across an immaculate eyebrow.

"Now." she said to her reflection.

"I didn't know that you worked here." She spoke quietly, but even the traffic outside seemed to quiet itself so that she could be heard.

"I..." Peter started, but was interrupted by Bernard.

"I've been working here for a few years, when did you... what...?" Bernard's twinkly-eyed charm had evaporated entirely, he looked wrong-footed and off-balance.

"I got the job in May, I'm the new IT teacher, did you not..." A sudden thought dawned on her face "I'm called Carter now, I got married last April." She subconsciously pulled at the rings on her left hand.

"Riiiight," said Bernard, visibly shifting mental gears."Emma Carter. I remember seeing it written down now." He looked diminished.

"Well, it looks like we'll be working together then, I'll see you in September." She turned on her heel and left the classroom. Her shoes clip-clopped down the corridor for a full minute before Peter could speak.

"Well, I reckon you'll definitely need that drink now. Staff room in ten minutes was it? See you there." Peter waved at Bernard and went the same way as Emma.

Some time later, Peter found himself sitting opposite Bernard in 'The Half-Moon Inn' with a pair of pints between them. The pain in his hand had subsided to a dull itch, and he had been able to remove the makeshift bandage from it. The wound was angry and red, but he had cleaned it and it looked ok, maybe it might scar, he thought absently.

When they had met up in the staff room, Bernard had regained his bluff air of twinkly charm. He brushed over the arrival of 'Emma' and the event of wounding Peter, and let fly a barrage of comments about his dissatisfaction with this or that aspect of the school management. Now they were sat down, though, the façade seemed to crack and Bernard sagged visibly. He was twisting a beer mat round and round in his hand, and looked like a different person to the one Peter had carried a filing cabinet with.

"So then Bernard, what was all that about then? Emma I mean..."

"Well..." said Bernard, and he seemed to be relieved that he had been asked the question. "It 'appened like this..."

It had been a few months ago, maybe a year. Bernard didn't normally go in that pub, but he was glad he had today. He had a friend who worked behind the bar and had spent a few pleasurable hours sinking pints and passing the time, shooting the breeze, an American might have put it. At some point he had noticed Emma at the other end of the bar, drinking with a will, drinking to forget, Bernard had thought. Even through his haze of alcohol he could recognise that she was a very attractive woman.

He wasn't sure that he had initiated contact, or if it had been her, but he knew that it had been him that had first bought them both a drink. She poured out her troubles, some problem with a fiancée, Bernard remembered now, he had presumed the relationship had folded...

Bernard for his part, poured out his troubles, he had been alone since his wife had divorced him at some point in the last decade, and he missed the companionship, missed the company and missed the sex.

This indiscretion had upped the temperature of their conversation instantly, Emma had bought more drinks, and their talk had grown more personal. The sort of woman Emma was, the sort of things she did, the sort of things she liked...

Then there must have been a taxi, Bernard supposed, because suddenly they were back at his place, clambering through the house, flinging clothes with wild abandon. They 'did it' right there on the living room rug, Emma moaning like a 'good un'. Then they had gone upstairs and 'done it' again on the bed, falling asleep in post-coital exhaustion.

They had woken early in the morning, and Emma had left quickly, taking only a piece of toast as breakfast. She had left a number scrawled on a pad, but Bernard had never rung it. He wasn't sure why, but he thought it better that they just left it at one night.

Bernard may have talked about missing the company, but in reality, he didn't think he could share his life with anyone again, let alone his house...

"So that was it really, a drunken one night stand." He polished off the remains of his pint and let out a long sigh. "I know I should have rung her, but it just didn't feel right. I suppose she's a bit narked, she'll get over it. Another one?" He waved the empty pint glass and Peter nodded.

"Just a half though." Peter watched as Bernard carried his heavy frame to the bar and bought more drinks.

He thought about the story that Bernard had just told him, thought about the callousness that it seemed Bernard had dealt out to Emma. It was not a nice thing he had done, but hardly the worst thing in the world. Peter decided to give his new acquaintance the benefit of the doubt, and greeted the full pint that Bernard brought back with a resigned smile.

5. September

"I love the smell of pencils in the morning." There was no one else in Peter's classroom as he said this, but he chuckled all the same. He laid the last of the 20 pencils he had sharpened in a plastic compartmented box and stood up, straightening his glasses and smoothing his suit. He turned to his now immaculately clean whiteboard and wrote 'Wednesday 3rd September 2003' in the top right hand corner. The first two days of the week had been staff training, where Peter had tried to familiarise himself with the school and his colleagues.

Peter hadn't realised – until he had turned up on the training day – that the erstwhile Lauren Young, was due to be a year 7 form tutor, and everyone had assumed that as part of his 6-week stint with the school, Peter would pick up this duty.

If there was one thing that Peter disliked about teaching, it was dealing with the school's youngest pupils. Once they were further up, they had discovered how the environment worked, but when they were fresh faced and 11-years old, they still thought they were in primary school, where teacher was their companion throughout the day and filled the roles of mother, father and tutor in one. They would need you, sticky fingered and wanting a hug, and Peter wasn't interested. At least it was only for six weeks.

He locked his classroom and headed to the assembly hall. It was 8.15 and pupils were already beginning to throng the hallways of the school. He walked through with his long stride and noticed that he drew a few looks. He knew from experience that anyone new on the staff would be the subject of great interest from the pupils and his experience also told him that he would draw more than a few admiring glances from the females of the school. It would evaporate soon, familiarity breeding contempt, but it always sat uneasily with him. When he had been a scruffy student in jeans and a t-shirt, women had never given him a second look, but it was something to do with wearing a suit, it worked so well on him. He was wearing a slightly shiny black number today, and as he made his way to the hall, a few sixth formers, and a few of the younger girls, gave him lingering glances and collapsed into fits of giggles as soon as he had passed.

The young pupils were filing in to the school hall as Peter arrived, and he realised that in his haste he had let bitterness overrule him. They were being shepherded by various friendly-faced members of staff, and the looks of wide-eyed innocence and awe at being in the big school made Peter's heart melt just a little bit.

Peter and the other year seven tutors had been asked to stand at strategic points around the hall, looking menacing and imperious. Peter couldn't help himself but alternately give out mock harsh stares and grinning winks. He looked at the other tutors and saw Emma Carter across the hall.

He had only been half surprised to find that she was on the year seven tutor team; it was quite usual for new teachers to any school. There had been a meeting the previous day, Emma had given Peter a noncommittal wave, as if she couldn't quite remember where she knew him from, and had then sat with him as she had watched the other tutors – long serving teachers all – file in to the poky classroom they were meeting in.

Peter looked around at the other four tutors that he could see round the hall. He wasn't sure how old Emma was, but he knew that the pair of them were the only two even in vaguely the same age bracket. To Peter's left was Daniel Palmer, a tall thin Maths teacher with hair that looked as if it was supplied by Lego – early forties at least. After him, skulking by the fire doors was Emily Chapman, the head of the science department, who had announced her impending fiftieth birthday seconds after meeting Peter and had then instructed him to only call her Emmy whilst defying him to tell her she looked anything older than 35. Between 'Emmy' and Emma were Chloe MacDonald and Sophie Griffiths, two retirement-age doddering old dears who, between them, seemed to run the music department in a manner that would have put Hinge and Bracket to shame.

Then Emma. Peter assessed her slowly. He looked closely at the way she had chosen to dress herself. The previous day, most of the teachers had come into school in a variety of clothing on the theme of jeans and t-shirts, but Emma had come in a sharp trouser suit and today she had had a serious attack of corporate lip gloss and bright red nail varnish. She looked like a samurai warrior ready to declare war against his Shogun; such was the effect of her war paint armour.

"Good Morning year seven, welcome to Smithfield High. As you all know, my name is Mr. Lloyd..." Without Peter realising, the 170 strong year group had filed in to the hall and taken their seats. Peter turned his attention in the direction of Zach Lloyd, the head of year, and tried to look like he hadn't just been shocked by the sudden intrusion into his consciousness.

Zach was an ambitious art teacher in his mid thirties who had looked less than impressed by the generally decrepit state of his tutor team. When he had accepted the position two terms previously, he had envisioned a young vibrant and cogent team of professionals, now he seemed to be stuck with a bunch of cast-offs that no-one else wanted, plus a few new bods that he still wasn't sure about.

Peter found himself daydreaming whilst Zach outlined the plan for that day, he looked around the hall, taking in the battered paint and the caged clock. He counted eleven shuttlecocks lodged in various parts of the ceiling, and almost missed it when Zach introduced him.

Zach started reading out a list of pupil names, and Peter's teacher instincts kicked in. His temporary form was gradually assembled and Peter led them off, watching the tiny people walk around him.

They wound their way through the school, Peter finding himself looking at the various pieces of pupil artwork and wondered how long some of them had been there.

They got back to Peter's room, he let them in, had them stand in their places and shut the door.

Even six months after this picture was taken it would evoke nostalgia from the people in it.

The picture is a class photo, twenty-eight pupils, some sat cross legged one the floor at the front, some stood on chairs at the back.

Peter is stood on the far right of the photo, looking like he doesn't know why he is there.

Time will dull the memory of all the names, but some will stand out forever, fiery strands of memory binding them.

The twins, Jessica and Isabel Jackson have long dark straggly hair, that covers too much of their faces. Kyle Brown's blue eyes are open wide, as if the photo has come as a shock, Tyler Davis is sat on the front row with his knees smartly together and his hands folded awkwardly in his lap. Margaret Donne is stood in the middle of the back row, her ash blonde hair beaming like a silver beacon. Jack Ross is in the middle of a sneeze and we can see up his nostrils.

They all wear Wallace and Gromit grins and, at least now, they all look happy.

The watch on Peter's wrist has caught the flash of the camera and shines as bright as Margaret's hair.

Again, the magic of shutting himself in his classroom, in his own kingdom. Politics and backstabbing might reign outside, but inside Peter's room, he made the rules. As he flicked his head to the windows in his door, he could see Emma bringing her form past. He could only see her left side, but she was writing busily on a clipboard as the pupils trailed docilely behind her.

He turned to look back at his form, and once again, their shiny newness twisted inside him.

"Good Morning Year 7, my name is Mr. Everett, and you are form 7PE."

He smiled widely at the class and they looked frightened, not sure if they were allowed to smile back or not. Peter scanned his eyes down a heavily annotated list that Zach had given him. It was a three-page list of the pupils in the form and carried comments and facts from the primary schools they had come from.

Some pupils seemed to have so little information about them; others had long rambling paragraphs that detailed everything from their birth weight to their preference for ice-cream flavours. Joe Palmer was a 'Top sportsman with great potential in that area'; Emily Morris was 'Quiet and hardworking'. Tall Margaret Donne came from 'a broken home after dad walked out' and Marcus Hughes had 'a pushy mother'. It had been with mild consternation that he had noticed that Kyle Brown had been expelled from one primary school for punching a teacher in the playground and in the back of the head aged 9, and that Dylan Williams had problems with his bowels and kept shitting himself. Zach had already made sure that Mrs Williams had supplied them with a spare uniform in the case of just such an emergency. Peter thought to himself that it was probably better to be a boring pupil with nothing written about you than to be the smelly one who kept crapping his pants.

He looked up again at 7PE; they looked so perfect, as if every single one had a glowing golden future ahead of them. They were immaculately dressed and so innocent, but experience taught Peter that statistically, half of them would have lost items of their uniform before the end of the week, two of them would face a suspension before the end of the year, and one of the girls would be pregnant before they left the school. These ideas, flying across his mind, conflicted unpleasantly with how polished and fresh they looked.

"So then, this morning, we've got some icebreakers to play, but first we've got to do the official stuff..." The rest of the morning was a paperstorm directed at the pupils. Zach had given all the tutors a host of mini games that they could play with the kids to try and break the ice after they had delivered timetables and school maps, but such was the extent of copying this thing to there and that thing on this, that it only left them with half an hour for authorised icebreaking, before they had to move to their first lessons.

Smithfield had an army of helpful sixth formers and year elevens who were ready to guide the pupils around the school as they found their feet. One appeared at the door – a thin redhead with long tumbling hair and pouty lips who informed Peter that she was in his year eleven class – about five minutes from the end. She spent too much time twirling her hair round her fingers for Peter's liking, but marshalled the form away, enjoying her mother goose role, and Peter was left alone in his classroom again.

He walked to the window and looked out. His classroom in Durham had had a fantastic view across the city that contained a sudden unexpected dip down to the river; it had been a view of leaf and stone. This view was one of brick and smoke. He was on the ground floor, looking out across one of the school playgrounds, the paint that marked out the courts for 20 different sports was scuffed and dirty. At the edge of the yard was a tall wire fence with gaps and holes big enough for footballs to get through. After the fence, the ground fell away quickly to a sweeping industrialised landscape that brought no joy to most people, but did to Peter, because it was so different from his view in Durham.

His next class were jostling outside the door now, trying to catch a view of Miss Young's replacement, Peter bad them come in.

"Good morning class, I am Mr Everett and I am your temporary English teacher." Peter hitched his smile up to warp factor nine and began to teach.

6. First hurdles

Friday afternoon found Peter lingering in his classroom at the end of the day, straightening the desks, and sweeping some stray pencil sharpenings onto the floor. He gazed again at the view from his window.

"So how was it then?" The voice made him jump, and he turned to see Emma in the doorway, looking more like a beautician than a teacher, such was the effect she had created. "Your first week I mean." She smiled gently and he swept a few more pencil shavings from a desk.

"Not bad." he replied. "I'm trying not to get too in to it really, I'm not really here that long." Peter gave a one-shouldered shrug as he said this. He had, in truth, enjoyed his first week at Smithfield. It wasn't that all his lessons had been amazing, or he had found himself a new joy in life, it was just that it was nice to be amongst people again, new people, people who didn't know his history, people who couldn't see the weight of his wife on his shoulders. It was nice to be anonymous.

"Well, if its not 'getting too into it' for you, there are a few of us going to the Half-moon, thought you might like to join us." She smiled, and Peter found himself wishing that she wouldn't wear so much make-up, she was very pretty, beautiful even, but she hid it so well.

"No thanks, maybe another time. I've got to..." He made vague motions behind his head that spoke of some pressing appointment.

"Ok, well..." she started, but she was silenced by the sudden appearance of Cindy the head of English.

"Hi Peter how was your first week, Good?" She didn't wait for an answer and steamrollered on, "Look, I've just got off the phone with Lauren, and it looks like she's got some kind of infection in her leg, and its going to take a little bit longer for everything to heal up properly, she says she doesn't think she'll be back before Christmas, how do you feel about staying on until then? We really need someone who can actually teach these kids, and you're doing so well at that!" She looked at him plaintively, pleadingly, defying him to say no.

"Ok, then," said Peter stiltedly "I suppose that Christmas would be fine." He subconsciously ran the tip of his index finger round the face of his watch.

"Great." said Cindy, "I'll go and tell the Head." She span away quickly, without even acknowledging the presence of Emma.

"So, we've got you till Christmas then?" Emma grinned widely and Peter was a puppet with its strings cut.

"Pub?" asked Peter, sheepishly.

"Pub." confirmed Emma.

Peter and Emma made a quicker escape away from school than most and found themselves sat either side of a pint of lager and gin and tonic ten minutes later, waiting for other teachers to arrive.

"So how was _your_ first week then?" Peter looked at Emma searchingly, wondering if her façade would crack.

"It was fine, I'm not quite sure what total fuckwit some of the kids have had teaching them before, but they haven't made my job any easier." She swirled a stirrer round in her drink, dislodging a pip from the slice of lemon. "It seems like they were allowed to get away with anything, god knows what went on. One little shit from year 9 asked if I would be doing the 'Games club' again, it seems that whoever taught them before would charge them a quid to let them come in and play games on the computers at lunch times. I asked my head of department about it, and he had no idea, and it doesn't look as if any of the money ever went to the school." She had leaned in to him as she spoke, and upon delivering her snippet of gossip, leant back in her chair folding her arms.

"Scandalous" Peter observed.

"Scandalous indeed." she said, and she gave Peter a genuine smile. He could see the make up straining under the pressure, but it was a nice effect all the same. She continued to talk on, swearing constantly and speaking of almost all aspects of the school with withering disdain, but she did speak with passion and excitement about her teaching. Peter found this refreshing compared to the jaded and bitter viewpoints he'd heard from other colleagues at Smithfield. The word 'jaded' went through Peter's head and caused him a small wince of pain.

Several of their colleagues joined Peter and Emma, but they were only paying lip-service to welcoming the new staff and left before their seats had had a chance to get warm. Peter and Emma barely seemed to notice or acknowledge their presence in any case.

The two of them stayed, and now that Peter had accepted that he would be at the school for a little longer, he put aside the reservations he had had about making friends there, realising that Emma looked like she might become one. She was, he knew, absolutely barking mad, with an opinion on everything and fear in nothing. She seemed quite driven and ambitious, quite determined to reach the top. He found himself wondering about her husband, about what kind of man he would have to be to contend with her, what he would think of her spending the evening drinking with another man rather than coming home. Not that there was the suggestions of any sexual tension between them, Peter still wasn't in a frame of mind where he could imagine himself _with_ another woman, but even then there was something about Emma that rung warning bells in Peter's head. She was high maintenance, fun to have as a friend and to be around, but not someone Peter thought he could spend long periods of time with.

"So what about you, then, what's your _thing_?" She put such heavy emphasis on the word that Peter wasn't quite sure what she meant. It was somewhere around their fifth round now; Peter had despatched a text to Ed, saying he'd be late home, and Emma hadn't bothered texting her husband, merely saying he would ring her when he was hungry.

"What... what do you mean?" He took a long sip from his pint to hide his confusion.

"I've been watching you this week Peter, I've been looking at you walking around school." She eyed him thoughtfully across her drink. "You don't really interact with the other staff, you don't _talk_ to them, and it's more than the fact that you think you're leaving soon. You stalk around the school like some kind of..." She waved her hands trying to think of suitable words, and then clapped them together as they came, "Ha! Like some kind of lonely god, but you don't get involved with anyone. You clearly enjoy teaching, but you don't seem to be letting yourself be a people person. You've clearly got a _thing_. There is an enormous chip on your shoulder that is crushing you and I'm just wondering what that is." She drained the last of her drink, and rose to get replacements for them both. "I'll give you a few minutes to work out how much you want to tell me." She smiled lopsidedly and headed to the bar.

He looked at the glass that he too had just drained. He looked at his warped reflection in the pint glass, saw his beaky nose spread by the bulge of the pot. He saw his dark brown eyes balloon from tiny pinpricks to saucer-like discs as he twisted the glass. He looked through the glass at the hand that was holding it, focussed as suds of beer drifted slowly down.

Another drink was put next to it.

"Sorry, if I'm being nosy, I just thought you might want to talk."

And Peter did. He told her everything, he told of his marriage and how his wife had died. He told her about how the sunlight would bounce off her golden hair and how beautiful she had been on their wedding day. He told her of the idyllic life he had seen for them, that would now never happen. He spoke of the deep pit of pain in his stomach that he had to edge his feet around daily, and he spoke of how much he had loved Jade.

Emma was stunned when Peter had finished his revelation.

"I noticed you wear a wedding ring on your right hand, and I wondered what that was all about. I presumed you'd been married and she'd run off or something. Fuck." She cradled her chin in her left hand and focussed her eyes somewhere in the middle distance.

"Well... you know." Emma was the first person that Peter had had to tell the whole story to. It wasn't that it felt good, he would have given anything not to have had that pain in his life, but just talking about it, being _able_ to talk about it, made living with it a little easier.

"So what's your _thing_ then?" asked Peter, a mischievous grin cutting a little of the tension.

"Oh nothing in particular." Emma shrugged.

"Now, don't give me that. I've watched you this week as well, and you are ready for war!" He gestured expansively, nearly knocking an empty pint pot from the table, "You dress, walk and look like you are expecting to be attacked at any moment, and don't want to be caught at anything less than defcon three."

"Oh, its... nothing really." She swirled her drink, clearly uncomfortable at the raw nerve Peter was picking at, clearly unhappy that he had seen a chink in her armour, that he had even seen the armour in the first place.

"Look, I'm sorry if I'm butting in on something that's nothing to do with me." The alcohol in Peter's blood was making it difficult for him to think coherently, "But is it to do with Bernard?" Emma froze completely, and Peter fancied he could even see thoughts stop their progress from one side of her brain to the other. "Only..." Peter wondered if he should say what he was thinking. "Only, well, he told me what happened, told me about you and him."

She unfroze now; he could see a tic in the corner of her left eye begin to twitch wildly. Her face hardened, her skin seemed to tighten but still she didn't speak. Peter was too drunk to appreciate these warning signs and carried on regardless.

"I don't want to be funny, but, I don't think its something that you should really still be stressed about, I mean, it was a while ago and lots has happened since then, and its not like its something that's totally unusual. I mean, I've never done something like that, but I know lots of people that have."

She turned her gaze fully on to him, her eyes full of hurt and feral energy.

"You don't think its anything to worry about." Her voice was so small now, but it had more condensed power than ever.

"Well, no." Peter felt small as he spoke, wishing he had never spoken up, that he had never commented on someone else's life.

She looked at him again, her mind spooling fast. She closed her eyes and took a few seconds to compose herself. She opened them again and there was fire there, there was fury, she looked at her watch.

"I'm sorry Peter, its time for me to go."

She drained her drink in one swift movement, and without another word, swept out of the pub, leaving Peter alone, feeling empty, heartless and cruel.

Peter didn't move for a full five minutes after Emma's departure. He knew he had said something that had offended her, but wasn't sure exactly what it had been. He supposed that she felt far more wronged by Bernard's actions than Peter had thought, although there could have been more to the story than Bernard had given him.

He walked over to one of the pub windows, to look out onto the car park. He had expected to see Emma there, waiting for a taxi, but she was not, nor was her car parked there as it had been next to his. This meant that she must have driven off, full of alcohol and rage. He had no means of contacting her, had no means of contacting anyone who might stop her. He knew she didn't live that far away, so if he had rung the police, they couldn't have acted fast enough. He had to sit back and hope.

The lager left in his glass no longer held any appeal. He dropped the glass on the nearest table and using a phone number pinned to the pub telephone, rang himself a taxi and left the Half-Moon.

"Bloody Hell Pete, did you drink the brewery dry?" This was Ed's greeting as Peter rolled up to his house half an hour later. "And if so, why didn't you call me to help you?" He grinned widely and looked genuinely pleased that Peter had had a good time somewhere.

"I just, I was having a few drinks with this girl Emma." Ed's eyebrows shot up his face as Peter had said this, and Peter spent a few minutes telling Ed the whole story as Ed made both of them a cup of tea.

"She went mad over that? About being reminded about a one-night stand?" Ed looked thoughtful, and stirred his tea. "Well... Women are funny aren't they? I'm not surprised she went mad really." Ed, the man of infinite experience with women laid his spoon down noisily. They were in Peter's kitchen; it was long and narrow, clearly an afterthought to the rest of the house. It was done out in a white with grey flecks colour scheme and had a long counter on one side and various large cumbersome white goods down the other.

"No, I mean, it was more than that Ed. It wasn't like I'd just reminded her she'd been naughty, it was like..." He cast around for some words to describe the strength of feeling he'd evoked in Emma "It was like I'd told her that she was adopted or something, like I was telling her that her life wasn't true." He hugged himself and looked thoughtfully into his mug.

"I think that's the booze talking Pete." Ed rubbed Peter's shoulder jovially, "I think you know what we need to do now." He looked seriously at Peter.

"Ok, then, but I warn you, I may have to completely kick your ass, I'm in the zone mate." He made some flat-palm karate chop motions, that Ed supposed were supposed to speak of his imminent prowess.

They moved into the lounge and Ed flipped up the top of his games console, sliding a game in. The console had been bought some years previously and on first purchase had been a cutting edge, futuristic item of kit, but Time is never kind to computers and over the years it had gradually grown more outdated and clunky. Not that this mattered to Ed and Peter, for them the console was their way to properly connect with each other, talk about their feelings even – though neither would admit this.

They had a few staple games that they would play for hours at a time, and it was during these long sessions, that they would be able to unhook their brains and talk. Today's choice was a driving game, where Ed and Peter raced miniature cars around exaggerated landscapes. For half an hour, they spoke little, save for various 'ooohs' sucked over their teeth as someone crashed, or 'get in!' exclaimed loudly as one brother beat the other.

After a while though, Peter spoke up as he negotiated a particularly difficult corner involving a breadstick and a saltshaker.

"They've asked me to stay on for a bit."

"At the school?" asked Ed as he hit a special powerup that inexplicably turned his car into an uncontrollable ball of flame.

"Yeah, they were talking about Christmas."

"Well that's a good thing isn't it? Regular job..." Ed wasn't sure if he was playing devil's advocate to Peter or not, but he wanted to get him to talk about some of the things that were bothering him.

"Yeah, I suppose." He took a bend badly and his miniature car fell to its death with accompanying sounds affects. "I just..." He seemed to forget about his controller for a moment, letting his car get left behind, "I'm just not sure if it's what I want. I was enjoying knowing that I was going, knowing that it was only a short term thing." He had regained his concentration now, and took the next obstacle with such aplomb, that Ed was forced off the course.

"Well you don't have to take it of course, you could always just sack it off and look for something else." He let the last two words linger in the air, and knew that now, his brother just needed some convincing that he had made the right choice.

"No, I mean..." Peter shuffled his shoulders deeper into the knackered green sofa they were sitting on. "I don't want to let anyone down. I suppose it'll be alright." Ed smiled to himself, thinking he had accomplished a tricky mission, but then a shake of the sofa made him turn to look at his brother.

Peter was crying great long sticky tears; they were rolling down his face, and dampening his shirt.

"I just miss her so much Ed, so much." Ed turned away, finding it difficult to look at his weeping brother. "I can't get through a day without thinking about her constantly, I can't get through an hour." The inside of Peter's head was a spinning tumble of images, the still active alcohol rolling his life up into one thin tube and pushing it through his consciousness with sickening speed.

Ed stretched out his arm and put it round his older brother's shoulder. He pulled Peter's head to rest against his chest.

"I know mate, I know." He could think of nothing else to say, but for Peter it was just enough that his brother was there. "I know."

7. Visions

The sun was coming through the window so softly that it felt like butter on Peter's skin. It streamed through, but seemed to go around Peter's head, because he didn't have to squint in any glare, he liked that. Jade was next to him, sleeping, and he looked at her and smiled.

He drew in a great lungful of breath and could tell that the window was open, such was the taste of the air. He looked again at the window and realised it wasn't the sun streaming through the glass, it was the host of giant sunflowers that had grown overnight. They were so tall, their leaves were like great long arms that reached through and caressed him. The leaves wrapped around him, comforting him, keeping him warm, keeping him happy.

He smiled and closed his eyes, allowing the leaves to cover him completely. He might have been there an hour, it might only have been minutes, but he felt the happiest he had in a long time, letting the astonishing strength of the plants hold him securely.

It was funny, because he couldn't remember planting the sunflowers, but they had grown so well. He couldn't normally stand to look at sunflowers these days, because they reminded him of... they had been...

The gears shifted in his head, and now he was fighting the flowers, pressing against them trying to get out of them. He burst through the final leaf, elbowing a great yellow and brown head out of the way, to stand on his bed, looking around him, looking at the sunflower devastation, looking for Jade, but she had gone. The flowers had taken her.

Peter awoke with a start. The alcohol had punctuated his sleep and filled his bladder, and he stumbled to the toilet, knocking over the bottom inch of a pint of water as he left his bed.

He made it into the bathroom, switching on the harsh fluorescent light. He stared hard at his reflection, his eyes were still red from the tears that he was only this moment recalling, and his eyeballs were a crawling mess of throbbing capillaries.

He ran his hand across his slight stubble and down to his large Adam's apple. He was looking for something in his own face, but he didn't know what it was. He was looking for a sign, some kind of indication that he was doing the right thing, that he was letting his life go in the right direction, but there was nothing, just his brown eyes at the centre of a bloodshot motorway.

He crawled back into bed five minutes later, standing in the soggy carpet that he made a silent vow to clear up as soon as he woke up in the morning. He drifted back into an uneasy sleep, but dreamt only of tiny racing cars going round and round a giant red eyeball.

Now that Peter had accepted that his job was a little bit more than a temporary diversion, he spent the weekend doing various tasks and fiddly jobs that he considered necessary to the role of a teacher. He copied long class lists of names into his planner, wrote detailed seating plans, worked out which novel he was going to teach when and exactly how often he was going to have a reading lesson.

He was back in his class early on Monday morning, filing away various bits of paper and sorting himself out.

"Morning Peter, how are you?" Emma had put her head round his door and was the very image of smiles and happiness. "Did you have a good weekend?"

Peter mumbled a vague reply about doing a lot of work, and Emma countered with the fact that her and her husband had gone for a lovely Sunday lunch. Then she was gone as quickly as she had arrived, a pressing work appointment calling her.

She clearly had no desire to relive or revisit any part of the conversation they had had on Friday, and Peter took his lead from this. He didn't know whether she would acknowledge the things he had told her about himself, he would have to wait and see.

This picture is a collage of several pictures, several tiny snapshots into Peter's early days at Smithfield.

In one, at the top, he is performing a wild stretching mime, illustrating a point from a text he is holding open in his right hand. In another few he is sitting in the pub with Emma again, no deadly seriousness to their conversations ever again. In another he is chatting with Bernard over a coffee, leaning against a filing cabinet.

In one near the bottom, he is sat laughing with Bernard, putting on paper hats at a Christmas meal, unfathomably held in November.

But in most of the many pictures here, he is with students, of all ages. Not all of them are happy, not all of them are learning, but in every single picture, Peter is happy. He is with people and he is happy. He is immersing himself in life again.

In one picture, at the bottom right, he is teaching his form and every single one of them is looking at him with delight.

Peter always felt that classrooms and classes were microcosms of societies. Pupils clump together in groups, at first built only out of familiarity, but later, subtle shifts occur and like swims with like. He would look at 'his' form in the mornings, would watch them chatting away in their friendship groups, and found himself predicting migrations from one to another. Paige Gordon would soon be far too cool to still be friends with Rachel Lawson, and Danny Green had 'bad lad' written though him like a stick of rock, which Peter thought would effectively end his friendship with Alex Kelly within two years.

He still couldn't _really_ talk to them though. They were the people in the school that he spent the most time with, but there was still such a gulf between them, young as Peter was. Sometimes he would try and engage them at their level, either talking about music or computer games, but they point blank refused to enter into conversations like this with him. Other times he tried to gently make fun of the things they liked and did, but this was even worse and put him in a bracket with their dads. On one occasion he tried to point out to them that at only twenty-four years old he was not nearly old enough to be anyone in the room's dad, but they refused this too. He was an adult, he was 'dad' aged.

When he wasn't trying to relate to them, he did a much better job of getting to know them. They were taught in forms for English, and Peter had their pleasure three times a week. He listened to what other members of his department did with their young English groups, and was frequently disappointed. There was no fire, no pizzazz. Peter knew that he had virtually no teaching experience compared to the rest of his department, but whenever he did ask anyone, they didn't seem to see these pupils as being terribly important, as if they were saving all of their 'good stuff' for when the pupils were older.

Despite his initial misgivings, Peter thought his lessons teaching year seven were some of the _most_ important. You had a chance to inspire, a chance to kindle something in them that might fan to a fire. English should be a subject that is easy to get people to love, Peter thought, it could be so chock full of love and romance and creativity and blood, that everyone could convince themselves they could be good at it. Maybe time would dull this opinion in him.

With Peter, 7PE would act out poetry with their own wild characters, they would rewrite their own 'Jabberwocky', they would spend lessons correcting bad grammar pretending to be highly paid Fleet Street editors – Peter had to explain what Fleet Street was – they would read novels as a group delighting in dark visions and mysterious characters.

"Heard something nice about you today Peter." This was Bernard now, a regular visitor into Peter's room. He never seemed any different to Peter, always the bluff but charming curmudgeon Peter had met and carried a filing cabinet with. Now that he came to think about it, the only time he had ever seen Bernard close to upset was just after his initial meeting with Emma.

"What was it? Someone likes my glasses? Wants me to do some spelling for them?" He dropped the stack of novels he was holding and looked up at Bernard with a playful grin on his face.

"No, nobody likes those glasses mate, maybe you should be letting the National Health have them back." Bernard bobbed his head slightly, happy with this piece of verbal jousting, "No, it was your form, I had them for a cover, science, 'Emmy' is off again." He pulled his face and then spent a full minute talking about how much he hated covering science lessons, Peter let it wash over him.

"... so anyway, there wasn't anything like enough work left and I spent the last ten minutes just talking to them about school. I was asking them what their favourite subject was and a few of them said English, they said your lessons were really good and you were really funny." He smiled warmly at Peter.

"Which kids?" asked Peter, interested despite himself.

"Oh, some of the girls, those twins, the pretty little dark one and that tall blonde girl. You're obviously doing something right with them, as a teacher _and_ a form tutor. Just thought you might like to know." Bernard slapped the wall by way of an end to the conversation and ducked out of the room.

Peter knew Bernard was only really being kind, knew that the girls had probably only professed a mild interest in his subject, but he felt a rosy glow rising in his stomach, such was the pleasure of being told you were doing a good job.

He pulled the class photo from its perch on the wall. 'The twins' were easy to pick out – Jessica and Isabel's hair was now under considerably better care. The 'pretty little dark one' he supposed had to be Ella White, she had dark olive skin and shiny brown hair, and was indeed – now that Peter looked – very pretty. It was odd, however, that Bernard had commented on this, it didn't seem a very teacherly thing to do. Peter shook the thought out of his head, he was probably being over sensitive to anything even slightly lecherous from Bernard after hearing the story about him and Emma. As he looked again at the photo, he realised that 'that tall blonde girl' must have been Margaret Donne. There were a few other blondes in the form, but her hair was _so_ pale, so platinum, that she would be the one you would describe like that, plus she was at least six inches taller than any of the other girls, that this made her look older too.

Margaret. Such an odd name for a little girl, Peter thought, far too old for her. She clearly thought so too, as she roundly instructed everyone to call her 'Mags', although that was hardly any better Peter thought, it put him in mind of aging divorcees waving gin and tonics wildly. He looked at Mags closely in the picture, smiling so sweetly, tiny dimples racking up on her face. She reminded him of someone he knew, but he couldn't think who. He paused for a moment and tried to think who it might be, but he couldn't, it was like hearing a few notes in a song that you know you have heard in some other tune, but you can't think where.

He scrabbled about in his brain for a detail or two about her, and could only recall a lesson they had had the previous week, where Peter had managed to create a discussion with the pupils about family. They had been reading some excerpts from 'Spring and Port Wine' and had been focussing on some of the scenes where Rafe, the father, comes into conflict with his younger daughter Hilda, a conflict which springs from the fact that Hilda doesn't want to eat a herring.

He knew it was a difficult text for such young children, but he had seen good results when a colleague in Durham had done it and was delighted to find a half-set of class texts hidden away in one of the English storerooms.

"But why doesn't she just do what her dad says?" Mags had asked, not able to contemplate her own answer.

"Well, at first it comes across as her simply questioning whether she has to or not. She sees herself as part of a new generation, a new way of living that hasn't quite reached Bolton yet." Peter had laughed as he had had to explain where Bolton was, it was less than fifty miles, but to 7PE it might as well have been on another world. "And as we see, her father gives in, eventually. Now, who can..." He had begun to ready another question, but Mags' hand had been raised again. "Yes Mags?"

"But she should do whatever he says shouldn't she? She should shouldn't he? He's the dad." she said this as if it was a statement of fact that could not be denied.

"Well, as I said last lesson Mags, she does later turn out to be pregnant, its supposed to be that really that stops her actually wanting to eat the fish, it would probably have made her sick."

"But that doesn't matter!" She had almost stood up as she had said this, and was clearly quite agitated, "She has to eat it anyway."

"Ok then... well lets just accept that she should eat it. Anyway, when Wilf..."

At the time, Peter had brushed the incident off as a daft little tantrum from a daft little girl, nothing to worry about. Bernard having mentioned her made this event surface again. It seemed very odd, now that he thought of it in isolation, but a knock on his door put it out of his head.

It was Cindy telling Peter that she had just got off the phone with Lauren Young once again.

"Is she ok?" Peter asked, dreading the answer – part of him railed at the fact that he realised he _was_ dreading the answer.

"Yes she is Peter." Cindy had an expression on her face that said she was about to talk about something difficult. It was early December now, with only a fortnight left of the term, mentally Peter began to pack up his classroom and sling it over his shoulder in a bindle. He then began to think about the etymology of the word 'bindle', and suddenly he realised that Cindy had been silent and waiting for him for over a minute.

"She is Peter, but I'm not." He looked concernedly at her and she swept away all offers of sympathy. "I've got to go for an operation, cataracts, my eyes keep playing up." To illustrate her point, she removed and cleaned her thick glasses. "The thing is Peter, the operation is booked in for early January, and it's likely to knock me out of service for the rest of next term at least." Peter felt a soft glimmer deep in his stomach.

"Well... I've just got off with Lauren like I say, and well, if we need to, we'll get another supply person in for me and have Lauren go to the timetable she should have had, but it does seem like a bit of a pity to mess around more kids than we have to." She paused and looked at Peter pensively. "How would you feel about staying on and carrying on the timetable and classes you've got, and Lauren taking over my timetable?"

8. Snares and traps

This was how Peter took on another term at Smithfield. Even though he was only employed until the end of next term, he had a good feeling about the job. He was hardly surprised when, whilst a bitter April squall was raging outside his window, Jimmy Wilson – the second in charge of the English department – came to Peter with two announcements; that Cindy would be out of school for most of the following term due to complications with her cataracts and the need for a secondary corrective operation, and also that he himself would be retiring. His position of second in department was almost certainly to go to another member of the department, but that would mean that they did need another 'permanent body' as Jimmy put it.

Peter assured Jimmy that he did indeed have his own permanent body, and Jimmy went away, leaving Peter with an application form and a head full of thoughts. He walked over to his window and looked out, the perpetual Manchester rain battering against his window. Peter had been halfway through cleaning his whiteboard before Jimmy had come in. He hadn't been teaching in there during the first period of the day and so he hadn't written the day's date. "Monday 5th April 2004", was just about the last thing he had to clean, and it was only as he walked back to finish it off that the date clicked in his head. Today was his wedding anniversary, today was one year on from Jade dying in front of him. He felt a sickening lurch in his stomach, as if gravity had suddenly given up its grip on the world.

He just about managed to drive home without crashing. He prowled his house, agitatedly waiting for Ed. Ed had never moved out after the initial trial run of six weeks. They had never talked about Ed's exact tenure, but the arrangement had suited them both well. Ed, close as he was to Peter's age, wasn't ready to get his own place yet, and Peter liked the fact that he didn't have to go home to an empty house. Today, Peter needed Ed.

As he walked through the door, Peter started ranting.

"Its her anniversary Ed, our anniversary, I nearly missed it, I forgot about it, I hadn't realised it was coming, I should have seen that it was round the corner, I should have done something I should have been prepared, I should have..." He ran out of things that he should have done, hot angry tears rolling down his face

Ed walked over to him, walked past him into the kitchen.

"I didn't forget, Pete." He spoke with his back to him, rooting around in the bottom of the fridge. "I realised a week or so ago, that this was coming, and" He straightened up holding a green bottle with a pale cream label "I knew you hadn't realised yet, but I thought that you would eventually." He stretched up to one of the cupboards, and pulled out two slender flutes. He did this with difficulty because they were well hidden by a large blockish piece of board.

"I tried to think what would be fitting." He pulled back the foil on the bottle of champagne he was holding, and gently eased off the wire cap that was holding the cork in place. "I thought we could maybe go to her grave, or maybe we could go up to Durham, or maybe we should go and camp in a field of sunflowers." He smiled at this, and Peter even managed a weak, wet laugh. Ed popped off the cork, skilfully in his hand and poured some into each glass.

"But I thought, 'that's not right, that's not what Jade would have wanted', she would have wanted us to celebrate Peter. She would have wanted us to celebrate her life, not mourn her memory, I'm sure of that. You always said that she was more alive than anyone else you had met, and that's still true, even in death." He handed Peter one of the flutes, as soon as he had hold of it, Peter recognised it for what it was, it was one of the flutes that they used to drink wine from on the river every year in Durham. He twirled the glass round in his hand.

"But how did you, where did you?" He couldn't finish the question but was amazed by the feeling that these glasses, these objects, these _things_ , brought forth in him.

"I took them from your house in Durham, when you asked me to go and get a few things. They weren't on the list but I thought you might want them again someday." More tears fell down Peter's face, but still he didn't drink.

"But I forgot, Ed, I forgot." His body was shaking with the weight of what he felt he had done.

"NO!" said Ed forcefully, "No! You cannot feel bad about this. You have spent every day of your life for the past year thinking about her, every single dawn you have worshipped her, and that's right, that's what should happen, your love for your wife, doesn't evaporate just because she died Peter."

"No, every single day you love her, and for one day, just once, you didn't look at the calendar and realise what the numbers meant. There's nothing wrong with that, we should be worried about lives and loves, Peter, not numbers and dates."

"You've done nothing wrong." He raised his glass level with his face, "To Jade."

Peter raised his and clinked it against Ed's.

"To Jade."

They spent the evening in a glorious fug of booze, computer games and pizzas after that. Peter reminisced, with tears of happiness never far from his eye. Ed listened and offered his own stories and reminders where he could.

Peter was not over Jade, he thought to himself as his on-screen fighter took Ed's with a nifty triple claw attack, but it was becoming easier to live with her memory. He would never be over her, he supposed it was the kind of thing that you didn't ever get over, but it was the kind of thing you found yourself able to live with, the kind of thing that you began to make part of your life. Ed's few words had done Peter more good than a thousand from other people ever had. It was ok for him to have a life after Jade, he wasn't betraying her in any way. It was whilst thinking along this line that he remembered his conversation with Jimmy Wilson about the possibility of a permanent position at Smithfield. It was quite late by this point, and the pair of them had both consumed a fair amount of champagne, lager and a cocktail Ed would only refer to as 'X'.

Ed turned to Peter as he had told him, and looked him in the eye.

"Do you want the job?"

Peter had been trying to weigh up pros and cons in his mind for a few minutes now, he was trying to spin mental plates, offsetting this thing against the other. He wasn't expecting the frontal attack that Ed gave.

"Yes." he said quickly and looked surprised at his own words, floating out there in the world alone.

"Go for it then." said Ed distractedly as Peter shot him in the face.

A celebration, Peter getting the job at Smithfield, assorted members of the staff sit around him in the Half-Moon.

They are around a large long table, and Bernard and Emma are both there, the first time Peter has seen them in the same place at the same time since the day he met them – they both want to congratulate their friend and celebrate with him – but they are sat at opposite ends, and in such a way that they never fall into each other's eye line.

Peter has been caught in this picture in mid laugh and we can see yet more growing slivers of happiness in his creased features.

Over his shoulder, every single light has lit up on a fruit machine as someone wins a jackpot.

This was how Peter came to have a permanent teaching position at Smithfield. He applied for the job he had been doing for more than six months now, and the school called no other applicants. Peter was technically, interviewed, but there were only three questions.

"Do you still want this job?"

"Yes."

"Would you be able to carry on the exam classes you have started with?" Peter had expected this.

"Yes, that would be fine, great really." He tried to look enthusiastic.

"Good, and... would you be able to carry on with the form you have? Year 7 isn't it?"

Peter had not expected this, had not even thought that this would be asked; he had always assumed they would be passed on to someone else.

"Yes." The affirmative had escaped his mouth unbidden once again, letting out his true feelings.

"Excellent, now we need to discuss..." The interview dissolved from there on into a complicated wrangle regarding him being a supply teacher, Peter just nodded and signed things when he needed to.

So this was how Peter came to be a permanent member of staff at Smithfield, and how he came to continue to be 7PE, and then 8PE's form tutor.

9. Acting

The last term of any teaching year is like losing your virginity every twelve months. There is a frenzied rush of activity and preparation, an all too brief moment where the world hangs on a knife edge as you hope that all the work you've done will pay off, and then a tense period of wiped-out tiredness where you wonder if you were good enough and feel slightly sticky in the summer heat.

The summer itself was a haze of blissful monotony. Peter spent time decorating his house, now that he had admitted to himself that he owned it and wanted to live there. Ed helpfully pointed out when he had missed a bit, saying that he was only a lodger before grudgingly picking up a paintbrush.

Their life wasn't quite the solid flood of fast food, beer and video games that might be expected. Ed usually had a girlfriend on the go somewhere, and even Peter managed a short fling towards the end of the summer with a typist called Carole, which imploded when an ex of hers reappeared and she dropped Peter quickly and cleanly over the phone.

He should have felt annoyed, the relationship had been a pleasant diversion, but he felt no lament as the phone clicked down. He supposed it was better that she had ended it before it had become serious, and he found he could shrug off his concerns as easily as taking off his coat.

'Blissful monotony' became a blueprint for Peter's life for the next few months. September rolled around again, with a fresh box of sharpened pencils, and Peter tore into it, knowing he was there permanently. The first term span by in a thoroughly pleasant, thankfully uneventful way. The kids could still be badly behaved, but Peter had gained a great amount of stature with them over the summer, just for returning. The first term would have been perfect if it hadn't been for Margaret 'Mags' Donne.

He found it hard to describe his concerns about her. She was by no means badly behaved; she could be obstinate and stubborn but nothing worse than that. Behaviourally speaking there were far worse to worry about in his form, Dan Green and Kyle Brown had formed an unholy alliance that could disrupt even the most unflappable teacher's lesson and Dylan Williams would use his well publicised bowel problem to escape any lesson he couldn't be bothered with. Peter's problem with Mags ran deeper than simple misbehaviour, he could feel, running deep in his veins, the culmination of a hundred little signifiers. She would never look him in the eye, she was meticulous about her appearance in a very clinical way, and he had noticed that there was never any physical contact with other pupils. This in itself wouldn't have registered had Peter not witnessed Mags nearly break Megan Jones' fingers when she had put her hand on Mags' shoulder as she was talking to her.

Mags was a decidedly average child, still the little girl that had walked through the doors a year ago, but for Peter, she had an indefinable sense of age about her. He was used to overhearing conversations amongst his pupils about topics that were unsuitable for their age, but this was usually full-footed bluster and, sexist as it was to say, usually boys. Once or twice Peter thought he heard Mags make a few comments to her friends – all girls, never boys – that seemed to indicate some experiences that were far more adult than she should have been exposed to.

Mags had been involved something not quite right. Peter never heard enough to raise 'serious' concerns, but there was a distant flicker on his radar that worried him. Maybe she had found and secreted a copy of Playboy, the teenage girl fascinating herself with the full grown female form; something that you wouldn't choose for her to see, but nothing to _really_ worry about.

Peter would probably never have noticed any concerns if it hadn't have been for the intervention of Jasmine 'Jazz' Griffiths, one of the school's drama teachers, who appeared at Peter's door one day to compliment some members of his form to him.

"Hi, its Peter isn't it? I'm Jazz" Peter had never had cause to speak to Jazz before now, but he smiled warmly as her head bobbed at the frame of his classroom door.

"Yeah, Hi, what's up?" He winced inwardly as she stood there, assuming an impending torrent of abuse about one of his naughty lads.

"Nothing's up, I just wanted to compliment your form in their drama lessons, they've been really good." Peter's eyebrows shot up his forehead. "No need to look so surprised." Peter looked at Jazz properly for the first time. She had an impossibly wide smile that revealed a large number of teeth. Her face was framed with lots of long thin brown hair that mostly fell vertically down from her face, but some of which was teased into scruffy loops. Her face was pale and almond shaped and she dressed in what seemed to be a series of elegant rags, completing her tatty air. Peter noticed a biro twisted into a bun of hair at the back.

"No, there are some really nice kids in there, some good actors too." she continued, "In fact I _do_ have an ulterior motive in coming to see you." She elevated her smile to force-five cheeky grin, and Peter could feel the sting coming. "We only start any drama with them in year 8, and even then we don't get a lot of time." Peter began to expect Jazz to ask him to petition the head for more drama time due to the talents of his form. "We get a bit more in year 9, and then still not enough if they take the option in year 10 and 11." Her face had become shrewd now.

"I don't think I'll be able to help you get anymore time for Drama Jazz..."

"No, its nothing to do with that." She laughed a visual laugh "No, we run lots of after school sessions for the 10's and 11's that are pretty much compulsory for them, but we do like to try and encourage pupils lower down to come as well – hand picked ones obviously." She gave the tiniest of long-lashed winks, "I was really impressed with two of yours, Ella White and Mags Donne, so I mentioned to them at the end of the lesson, would they want to come. Without being funny Peter, its usually something that kids jump at." Her face slid to a worried tangle "Ella White did, she seemed very excited, but Mags didn't, she didn't seem to take the praise very well."

"Well..." said Peter "A lot of kids are like that aren't they?"

"Yeah, they can be, but they don't normally pass up opportunities though. Mags said there was no way she'd be able to stay after school, as she had too much at home."

"Too much to _do_ at home?" asked Peter, his own face becoming a stressed knot now.

"I presumed that was what she meant, but she did say 'too much at home'".

Some cogs began to turn slowly in Peter's head and he tapped his teeth absently with a pencil.

"Zach's organised to take the kids bowling at the end of the month." He spoke with his eyes focussed in the middle distance. "but she's not coming to that either, and when we went to the pantomime, she didn't come. I hadn't realised." His eyes refocused into his present and he looked again at the rather pretty Jazz.

"I was wondering if maybe you could speak to the folks at home, maybe she just _thinks_ she can't come to stuff like that, maybe they'd be fine." Jazz had finally made it to her request of Peter, "She's very talented Peter, and I'd like a chance to do something with that talent."

"No worries Jazz, I'm on it." Peter saluted Jazz with his pencil

"Thanks Peter." She turned to leave Peter and let her hand drift across the front of his desk for just a little too long.

Jazz left Peter with a lot to think about. An hour later he had found the phone numbers he needed, and sat pensively in front of a school phone before ringing. He rang the number listed as 'home' and was about to hang up at the 9th ring.

"Hello." This wasn't a greeting, it was barely a word, more a slur of rotten syllables.

"Erm, hi. My name's Peter Everett, I'm your Margaret's form tutor at Smithfield."

The sound of air being sucked over teeth came to Peter down the phone. "She aint mine mate, I'm just with her mother."

"Oh er, right, is her mother there then? I do need to talk to someone." Peter drummed his fingers no the phone table and looked absently out of the window.

"Nah, she's just gone out, works the night shift dunt she?"

"Well, perhaps you could talk to her for me?"

"She in trouble then? What she done?" The accent was a thick Mancunian drawl, full of sneer and heavily hit vowels.

"She's not done anything wrong, erm, sir." Peter's voice skipped a beat as he fought hard to hide the ill feeling at calling this man 'sir'. "Its just that I've been speaking to one of our drama teachers who would like Margaret to join..." Peter thought carefully about the words heading this way in the sentence, 'extracurricular' would result in a tangle of misunderstanding from the other end of the line "... join one of her advanced after school classes, and Margaret..."

"Mags got chores after school, kids do chores after school, she got 'em as well. Goodbye." The voice that had been lazy and disinterested, suddenly became sharp as diamond knives. The phone slammed down and the abrupt end to the conversation shocked Peter. He sat, twiddling a pencil in his fingers, not knowing quite where to go from here. He resolved to talk to Zach or Jazz next time he saw them, and see what they thought would be a good next move.

"I dunno, what you're worried about Pete." Ed had said to him as he had tried to discuss it over a Playstation session.

"Yeah, she is a bit of a funny one, I've never actually taught her though." Bernard had been decidedly disinterested.

"Hmm... I don't know Peter, I'm sorry, but I've got bigger things to worry about than some stroppy year 8, who doesn't want to stay after school." Emma had been far too busy to talk to Peter as he leant on her doorframe looking for advice.

Jazz had thanked Peter for taking the time out to ring and resigned herself to Mags not being a part of her drama group, and Zach had taken a strict party line that unless Peter had any 'serious' concerns of mistreatment or neglect, then there wasn't a great deal that anyone could do, other than talk to Mags herself.

Peter had tried this already, had tried it the day after talking to Mags' mother's boyfriend. Mags had come in the day after the phone call wearing a long sleeved uniform jumper. This had struck Peter as odd as the golden autumn air was tinged with a pleasing warmth that left most pupils in short sleeved shirts. When he tried to talk to her about the matter, she just looked blankly at him and then blankly at the wall behind him and had blankly repeated that she had 'too much at home'.

Peter felt out of his depth. He didn't feel qualified to deal with something like this, hadn't developed enough instincts to trust, but he knew, he knew in his bones that there was something wrong, but he had no idea what it was or how to deal with it. He was still only twenty-four years old, and though he had felt pain and grief tear at the core of his soul, all that that had taught him to deal with was the same pain and grief, he didn't know how to go about remedying anyone else's.

With a twist in his stomach he realised he would have to sit back and watch until he could find out anything more.

10. Christmas presents

The four members of the Everett family are sat in the family home.

Jack and Mary, the parents, are sat on an ancient brown chesterfield sofa. The sofa may have seen better days, but it bears those memories like a badge of honour. It is delightfully shabby rather than artfully tatty and Jack in particular, has sunk into it with undisguised glee.

Jack himself is wearing a pair of threadbare slippers and a tatty grey cardigan, he is holding a glass of buck's fizz and eyeing the small stack of presents before him, knowing that a replacement for both slippers and cardigan lie nestled amongst them. Jack has given Peter his beaky nose, and toothy smile, but he looks more like Ed than he looks like Peter.

Mary is sat primly on the edge of the sofa. She alone is wearing a party hat ahead of the meal and has a tight grip on her drink. Her hair is dark brown with a greying wave and holds around her head in two pence sized curls. But for the nose, her face is Peter's and here she is wearing a tiny closed lips smirk.

Peter and Ed sit on the floor, not even slightly put out at this apparent demotion. They have larger piles of presents in front of them than either of their parents, and Ed has been caught rattling one whilst trying to look through the wrapping paper.

Peter holds his glass at an angle and appears to be considering something that no-one else can see.

Outside the diamond leaded window, the landscape falls away to a lush green hillside, and two small robins hover expectantly at the window ledge.

Christmas was upon Smithfield soon enough. Another staff Christmas party, more paper hats, Peter and Jazz Griffiths huddled in the corner of an ill-chosen Indian restaurant, Jazz politely fencing Peter's drunken advances.

Peter liked Christmas; he had loved Durham because of the sense of history and tradition that fell with the rain and rose with the sap, and Christmas was where families built their own history and traditions, Peter thought. He loved the formula and the procedure that there was to Christmas, even if the individual items made no sense. If anyone had ever suggested to a member of the Everett family that they have anything other than Spaghetti Bolognese for Christmas Eve tea, and anything other than bacon sandwiches for Christmas Day breakfast, the Everetts would have thought them mad. They had their own traditions and quirks and they loved them.

Christmas was just the four Everetts this year, but this didn't make for a subdued event. They laughed, drank and enjoyed each other's company, the present circle the centre of their day.

"Well what the bloody hell is it?" Jack was asking as he tried to work out what the funny cuboid of metal and plastic he was holding was.

"Its an mp3 player dad." Ed explained of his and Peter's joint present to their dad, "Its like a mini computer that only stores music, you can get hundreds of songs on there, hundreds of concerts too." A wry smile cracked his face, Jack liked to think he was an expert on classical music. He knew very little about it, but he enjoyed the sound of it so much, loved losing himself in the music.

"I'll show you how to use it dad."

"Thanks." Jack looked very confused, but thankful the same, Peter knew his dad well enough to know that the player would be an inseparable companion, once he had mastered the basics.

"Right, my turn." said Peter, knocking back his bucks fizz and having it instantly replaced by Mary.

They were halfway through opening their haul, and so far Peter had opened nothing any more exciting than a soup recipe book that his mother had highly recommended. He tore the paper from a small, but excitingly heavy present and his jaw physically dropped when he realised what it was.

"I have no idea what it is." Mary said, half a second after it had been opened, "But Ed said it was what you wanted so we've all gone in on it." Mary waved her hands expansively in an attempt to explain.

The package had contained a small, handheld personal computer, a PDA. It could work most programs that desktop computers could work, and would fit neatly in Peter's jacket pocket. It was something that he'd had his eye on for a while.

"This'll be great mum, thanks guys." He looked from one family member to another, his eyes wide open with delight. "This'll be really good for school, I can have all my registers on it, all my mark-books, everything."

"Hey, that's just like mine sir." Marcus Hughes had said excitedly as he had waved his identical PDA at Peter a fortnight later. Peter had spent the time since Christmas day being very professional with his new piece of kit, he had loaded spreadsheets and databases, and tailored the computer to be a grown-up's machine. To suddenly have exactly the same thing waved at you by a twelve year old felt incredibly depressing.

Christmas day had melted into the usual joyous ramblings and habits. Mary had made some gentle hints that maybe Peter should be looking to find himself a nice young teacher lady at that school he was working at now, and Peter deflected these hints with practiced good grace. After Christmas day, he and Ed had spent every other day in their usual joint exploits of sitting in the house and playing games, and every _other_ day catching up with friends and acquaintances. Peter had met up with a few friends from school, had lunch in Manchester with Emma, a pint another day with Bernard, and had exchanged a few stilted emails with Jazz Griffiths. Peter had enjoyed Christmas, but to be winded by the rather spoilt Marcus Hughes like this on the first day was decidedly unpleasant.

"Excellent Marcus, well done, now do you mind if I get on and use it to do the register?" One of Marcus' cronies sniggered behind him, and Marcus laughed too. Peter felt the sticky feeling of a joke he had missed.

After the register, Peter wandered around the classroom trying to talk to his form. It was getting a little easier with some of them these days, they were getting a little more ready to converse, but it still wasn't the kind of relationship that Peter wanted to have with them. He did, however, like to try and speak to each pupil at least once a day, even if it was something as little as "Hiya Josh, how's it going? You ok?"

He circulated for ten minutes, trying to insert odd snippets into conversations here and there. Mags was still a worry for him, she was deliberately making herself isolated from him, and it seemed now, from her classmates as well. She sat slightly apart, listening but not joining in. Peter worried about what might happen if this continued, worried that she might become so withdrawn that she would turn inwards, and Peter was afraid that there was only darkness inside.

The bell sounded, a harsh metallic clang that made Peter jump if he wasn't expecting it, and 8PE slouched out on their first day in school in 2005. Peter straightened a few chairs, swept a few items of debris into a bin, and with a free lesson first in the day, sat down to read a paper and ease himself into the working day in a gentle leisurely fashion.

"You got a minute Peter?" Emma had materialised at his door. He folded up the paper, knowing that this wouldn't be a quick minute.

"For you Emma, anything." He smiled widely, but Emma still hopped from foot to foot.

"Can we talk, not here, in the staffroom? Please?"

Peter assented and followed Emma, they entered the staffroom and Emma made two cups of strong coffee. Peter was delighted to see Jazz Griffiths fiddling with something by her pigeonhole and he shot her a rogue-ish grin as she looked up and saw him. She smiled, but turned away quickly, and Peter accepted the coffee from Emma, sitting down on one of the threadbare red chairs that the room offered.

"So what's up then kidder?" Peter had taken to calling Emma 'kidder' as a nickname after he discovered she was a few weeks younger than him. "Didn't have a good Christmas? Santa didn't bring you that dolly?" He knew he was being too flippant, but over his coffee he could see Jazz. She had just straightened her hair, shuffled some papers, and was trying to look more efficient, but she kept glancing at Peter with a small flirty smirk.

"I think Cam's having an affair." She spoke so quietly, but again demonstrated her knack of making the world stop and listen. Cam was Emma's husband, Cameron, Peter always imagined the words 'long-suffering' in conjunction with him, and the breeze block severity of what Emma had said tore his gaze away from Jazz.

"What makes you say that?" He was serious now, concerned for his friend.

"Well..." and she began to talk. She outlined what sounded to Peter, like the most improbable set of 'clues' that he had ever heard, that all seemed to centre around the phone that she had bought him as an early Christmas present at the beginning of December. There were so many calls from withheld numbers, he never used it when she was in the room, always went into a corner to talk softly and quietly, he never had any texts saved, always seemed to delete them after he had them, "Who does stuff like that?" she had asked. There were numbers and names on there that Emma didn't recognise, that always rang dead or were answered by young women whenever she'd sneaked out to a phone box to call them.

"And more than that..." she had continued. He always seemed so disinterested in her, or angry with her, or disappointed with her. He didn't want to touch her, or else wanted to touch her too much.

"And he bought me this beautiful bunch of flowers the other day," She spat the word 'beautiful' as if it was acid on her tongue, "Must have cost him about thirty quid. For no reason. Says it was 'cos he loves me, guilty conscience." She seemed so unburdened after telling Peter this, but he had no idea what to say next. It had sounded like the ramblings of a paranoid lunatic; though this was because Emma probably was a certifiable paranoid lunatic. He paused for a moment and stretched out his long arms above his head. He cast his eyes up at the ceiling, noting for the first time, the battered polystyrene tiles that covered it. They had been punctured and battered many time, but had also been resolutely painted again and again, until it was hard to distinguish the strokes of the paintbrush from the original grain.

"Well? What do you think?" she asked him, an agitated tension in her body making her shake.

"Erm..." Peter decided that avoiding this question was probably best. "Have you tried talking to him? Have you tried asking him about any of these things?" Peter could tell from the look on Emma's face that he might as well have asked her if she had tried juggling hippos.

"Talk to him about it? Ask him about it? That's going to be a great conversation isn't it? 'Hello Honey, tea's on the table and are you having an affair?' I can ask him whilst I'm wearing my pinny can't I?" Her words were white hot and shot with wrath. It was as if she wanted to find something wrong in her marriage, like she wouldn't allow herself to be happy with her husband.

At that moment, the staffroom door opened and Bernard walked in. The change in Emma was instantaneous, she had let down her defences as she had been talking to Peter, but the minute that Bernard was in the room, they came sailing back up, and her air of cool invincibility returned.

"Morning Peter." said Bernard absently as he fumbled for a coffee cup.

"Anyway, I've got to go and do some planning." and with this, Emma was out of the door before Bernard had even found himself a cup.

"Was it something I said?" asked Bernard sarcastically as the door's latch clicked shut.

"Don't mind her Bernard, she's having a bit of man trouble." Peter looked around the staff room, but it was only him and Bernard now, Jazz obviously long since gone.

"With that husband of hers? Well, they were having trouble before they were even married, I could have told you that." Bernard spoke a little too quickly for Peter's taste; he seemed to be too ready to speak the words. Not for the first time, Peter felt that he was missing a chapter of the Bernard and Emma story. Surely this level of animosity didn't spring from one unrequited one-night stand, there must have been more to it. What could it have been? There must just have been an extra dimension or consequence to the story that Peter didn't know about, but he didn't suppose that either of them would ever tell him.

"Well, yeah." said Peter, "They're having some kind of trouble now." Not the slightest sign of sympathy or concern from Bernard.

Yes, there must be more to that tale, Peter thought as he left the staffroom.

11. Computing computers

Peter would find out the full story about Bernard and Emma, but that revelation wasn't due for another few years yet, there was time for other revelations first.

The next came about a month later, Emma's insane jealousy appeared to have settled down, as she didn't mention it to Peter again. He asked her a few times, but she merely shrugged it off.

"Marcus, can you turn that off please?" Peter asked calmly during one registration as Marcus Hughes had been slyly showing a friend his PDA as he held it under the desk. Peter had caught the act out of the corner of his eye whilst talking to another pupil and hadn't even raised his head to look at Marcus.

He could just about register that Marcus had put the thing away and carried on his conversation, a minute later and Peter knew the computer was back out again, could tell from the hushed silence in one corner of the room that something was occupying some people's attention, just a little too much. He even heard this attention build into a few sniggers and rushes of silent awe.

"Right I'll have it then." Peter spoke calmly, his words a prediction of the future, not a request. He had walked around behind Marcus, but hadn't been able to see what it was that he and a few cronies had been looking at.

Marcus looked like he had been shot in the stomach and motioned first to put the PDA away.

"No, Marcus that wasn't what I said, I said that I would have it." You could have used his voice as a sprit level.

Marcus grudgingly handed it over, knowing Peter well enough to know that no argument would deter him. As Marcus handed it over, he ran his thumb over the power switch, turning it off. Peter took it from him and returned to his desk. He pretended to be concerned with some paperwork, but Peter was wrestling a mental quandary. If the PDA had been on when he taken it and Peter had naturally seen whatever dodgy item it was that Marcus and friends had been looking at, then that would have been ok as far as Peter could see, that was ok for him to look at and then deal with. Now, however, the thing was switched off, switching it on just to look at whatever Marcus had been looking at would be prying, the equivalent of busting open someone's diary just to see if they'd been thinking about you. He toyed with a few options, but reckoned that the safest route was just to give the thing back at the end of the day and try and catch Marcus out another time.

"You having one Bernard?" Peter waved a jar of coffee at Bernard as he walked into the staffroom, and Bernard nodded his assent. Bernard took his accustomed spot in the far left corner of the room, and Peter followed him. Peter had to edge round a heavily papered table and double chair to get to Bernard and ended up having to lean across one of the chairs to deposit the coffees safely. As he did so, his wedding ring, a simple golden band, clinked against the handle of the cup Peter was handing to Bernard.

It caught Bernard's attention, and the way he noticed it he was sure that Bernard had never seen it before. "What's that then Peter, that a wedding ring? I never knew you'd been married."

Peter had a few precious seconds as he manoeuvred round the chairs again, but when he sat down he was caught in the full force of Bernard's interest.

"I was Bernard, but she..." a knife twisted deep in his stomach "... She died, not long after we were married." He stared hard at his coffee, could see a thin rainbow sheen floating across the top, but when he drank all he could taste was bitter water.

"Oh god, Peter, I didn't know, I mean I... well I should have, I mean..." He had begun to gibber, but the look that Peter gave him, the ancient look of pain and loss stopped him instantly. "I'm sorry." He finished and Peter knew that he meant it.

Bernard too was staring at his coffee now, and Peter felt that strange guilt of the grieving, the guilt that made him feel the deep need to find something else to say to fill the chasm his life had created.

"You were married too weren't you Bernard? What happened there?" He knew that this was hardly any better, but would at least clear the heavy air that was now circulating them.

"Hmmmph." Bernard snorted thickly as he took a long sip of his coffee. "Not much to tell mate, I came home one day and she was having it away with the milkman, Ha!" His false laugh had been so forceful that he slopped a small amount of coffee down his fingers "The fuckin' milkman. I packed her bags for her that night, well when I say packed, I don't think throwing everything she owned onto the lawn counts, but you get the idea. Never saw her again really, 'part from meetings with solicitors. Never looked at her again, certainly."

Peter looked at Bernard and felt some pity for this great hulk of a man, staring moodily into his coffee, but Peter couldn't help feel that once again, he hadn't got the full story, he thought that he might have been carrying his prejudices from a different situation, but he felt he could sort of see the shape of the story from the size of the missing pieces.

The end of break bell rang, and Peter and Bernard walked ever more slowly back to their classrooms.

"Hiya sir." Even before he looked at him, Peter knew that Marcus Hughes would be the perfect study of humble contrition.

"Hello Marcus" said Peter without even turning his head "What can I possibly do for you?" Peter was sitting at his desk marking a large stack of green A4 books.

"Can I, Can I have my computer back sir? Please?" Peter laid down his red pen and turned to look at Marcus, he was actually staring at his own shoes, wearing perfect uniform, and Peter could have sworn that he'd actually been to the toilet to smooth his hair with water. Peter affected an air of great indifference.

"Yes, Mr Hughes you can." He turned his attention back to the books he was marking and his left hand snaked out to one of his desk draws. His attention was focussed on Hillary McCartney's Romeo and Juliet essay that even on this third draft still had a mention of them using guns in old Verona. His hand found the desk draw, rooted around, but could not find the PDA, it reached around a little more, Peter's heartbeat rising slightly, and closed upon it satisfyingly chunky cold frame.

"Here you go Marcus." Peter held it out, still not looking at Marcus. Marcus reached out his hand to take it and the second he touched it Peter's grip intensified, and he turned his head to look Marcus straight in the eye.

"You mess me about like that again Marcus, and it'll be confiscated for a month, and your mother will have to write to the head to regain it. Do you understand?" His voice was honeyed with liquid venom and Marcus looked suitably as if his world was teetering on a knife-edge.

"Yessir, Sorrysir." He took the PDA gingerly, as though the possession of it might burn his fingers, stuffed it in his pocket quickly, and ran from the room.

Peter returned his attention to the work of Miss McCartney, and didn't notice that his questing hand had opened the wrong desk draw and that Marcus Hughes was even now walking away from school with Peter's PDA.

12. Twists

"Gold dust." whispered Ed Everett as he sneaked a PDA from his brother's jacket. Working for the financial firm that he did was not always the most stimulating activity, and when Ed had espied that a colleague in the next cubicle had the same PDA as Peter, Ed had spent an instructive half hour learning the exact sequence of keystrokes that would turn the set language to Turkish, German, or even Finnish. Ed saw endless possibilities for amusement, and his only worry was if Peter had set up a password. Ed sneaked the computer away to his room, to spend some time guessing.

As he hit the power button he was surprised that it sprang to life instantly. This was most unlike his brother and Ed's smile widened even more.

The smile froze entirely, when he saw the wallpaper that adorned the PDA. The screen was only two inches by three, but there was no doubt, that on the PDA in his hand, the image that dominated the screen, was that of a young redheaded lady, who appeared to have picked nursing as a profession, yet hadn't managed to keep tabs on all of her official nursing uniform, as she was being taken roughly from behind by a tall lithe looking young doctor gentleman. She appeared to be in some small amount of pain as far as Ed could tell, but she did at least have some pleasure in her expression, which was something, Ed thought vaguely.

Had the PDA belonged to anyone else in the world, Ed would have taken the mature route of replacing the mini computer and saying no more about it. People were entitled to their own peccadilloes, Ed thought, and if they liked looking at pictures of consenting adults consenting, then that was their business. This however was a different matter, this was his brother.

" Peter's got porno, Peter's got porno," sang Ed in a grating sing-song voice as he burst into the living room and ran repeatedly round the sofa holding the computer aloft.

Peter was momentarily bewildered, paused in the act of raising a biscuit to his mouth, but quickly he was running and diving round the room, chasing his brother, trying to regain the PDA and trying to work out what was going on. He managed to wrestle Ed to the ground just outside the bathroom, and knelt heavily on either arm – no-one fights like brothers – pulling the PDA from Ed's grasp.

" Peter's got Porno." Ed continued in a hysterical voice, despite the fact that Peter was now cutting off the circulation to both of his hands.

" Ed, what the hell have you done to this? Why have you..." Peter stared at the screen, he was at a complete loss as to why Ed would have played this bizarre piece of sabotage.

"Ha! It wasn't me mate, don't try to pretend, I never knew nurses were your type." He received an extra forceful jab from Peter's right knee for this comment, but had been forced to submit.

Peter hauled himself off Ed sensing he need fight no more. "No, seriously Ed, why have you done this?" Peter was at a complete loss as to this pointless vandalism. Ed explained about wanting to re-set the base language, but still Peter didn't understand.

"... and then when I switched it on, this young lady here was being seen to by this chap here." He might have been presenting exhibit A in court as he pointed seriously to the individuals on the screen.

"But I..." Something other than this state of his computer was bothering Peter, his fingers could feel a series of rough scratches on the back of the PDA. He flipped it over, angled it up to the light and could see that the initials MH scored into the back. Peter's brain did back flips for three seconds before it was up to speed with what had happened.

" Ed, you absolute genius! I'll be able to completely slam that little bastard." He explained quickly about what he now realised as the path that the PDA had taken into his possession. He told Ed how much of a devious annoying git Marcus Hughes was, and how he deserved some kind of comeuppance. Peter decided that he could go to Zach and then the Head the next day and see that Marcus got the bollocking of a lifetime. Peter knew that he was taking too much pleasure in this, but he also knew that bringing even just this small amount of pornography into school was a serious misdemeanour.

Back in the kitchen, Peter poured a glass of red wine for himself and Ed, – Peter found the thick grainy purple-ness of the wine slightly surprising – and apologised for inflicting the bruises that would soon start to flower on Ed's arms. They settled into a series of wild theories and stories about what would happen to Marcus and how he had come by the pictures, and drank their wine in sweet pleasure, watching a Blackadder DVD for the hundredth time. The PDA sat on the arm of Peter's chair, still clinging on to a few last secrets.

At eleven O'clock the computer crept into Peter's consciousness again. He turned it round and round in his hand, examining it from every angle, as if the sixty watt bulb in his living room could seek out Marcus' wrongdoing. He had realised that it was unlikely that the wallpaper was the only piece of inappropriate material on it, and, his earlier qualms quashed, resolved to examine it thoroughly before turning it in. He started to look, but found the size of the screen too small to do a systematic assessment and took it to his own computer to examine more closely.

He ascended to the small office-cum-bedroom at the back of his house, and flicked his desktop computer into life. As he entered his password and logged on to the computer, he let the PDA rest in its docking cradle, programs on the computer springing alive as he did so.

"Now that's more like it." he said as the directories of the computer came to full life before his eyes. He pulled on his glasses and peered at the details. There was no directory marked 'porn' and even the 'My Pictures' folder was sadly missing any tender young nurses.

He set his computer to search through the PDA for any images, guessing that the file names would make them obvious. The first ten results were disappointing, a series of pictures that detailed a trip that Marcus and friends had made to a local Laserquest. On the eleventh, Peter struck gold – teenfuck1.jpg – then there was a twelfth picture, then a twentieth, then a hundredth. As the search ground to a halt, it informed Peter that it had found 1589 images on the computer. As Peter scanned down the list he could find only the first ten that didn't contain words like 'red hot', 'gagging' and 'swallowing' in the title.

Prompted by half a bottle of red wine, and the spirit of scientific discovery, Peter decided that he should have a good look at some of these pictures. He opened the directory, noticing that the folder containing all Marcus' dodgy pictures was carefully hidden under eight levels of subdirectories, all with increasingly boring titles.

As he scanned through the pictures, Peter took an intellectual approach to their appraisal. This first batch was clearly on the topic of the loss of innocence in the twenty-first century, this next was the ancient theme of forbidden fruit as a forty-year-old woman was seducing an eighteen-year-old boy. As Peter scanned further he was impressed to see the universal scope of Marcus' fetishes. He seemed to be the ultimate broad-minded young man, taking in everything from soft-soap lesbianism to harsh dominatrix beatings. Peter's computer picked its way through the varied layers of filth, and tripped lightly through the sweating conjugating bodies.

After 50 pictures, Peter began to get bored. One scene blurred into another, but always the eyes remain, looking directly at the camera. Eyes of a young lad who couldn't believe his luck, eyes of an old buck who knew how good he still was, eyes of someone's wicked mother, eyes of someone's cheating wife. This had always been something that bothered Peter about pornography; it was arousing, certainly, Peter would never have denied that, there was some part of his brain that wired his eyes directly to his crotch, but in theory, it _should_ all be about the body parts, about the breasts, jiggling, wobbling, pancake, drooping, or else about the vagina, hairy, hairless, lipped or trimmed. So much of it though seemed to be about the eyes, staring back at the camera 'You could be doing this to me' they seemed to be say 'You could have me like he / she / it / they do'.

Peter often thought that pornography really could be degrading to women, in that it brought them down in the minds of so many observers.

He found the female form beautiful and enticing, but again, it was always about the eyes. If someone saw a picture of their own sister's body, with a different head digitally stitched on, would there be some halt to arousal? Of course not, thought Peter as the glasses of red wine raced around his brain, so it wasn't about the body at all, every female body would arouse someone, but put the right head on the shoulders and that changed everything. There's something wrong there, Peter thought.

The mouse under his control was still clicking its way through Marcus' extensive catalogue. He looked at the search program and saw he had only gone through about one hundred pictures. He saw a long series entitled 'hot blonde 01, hot blonde 02 all the way up to hot blonde 95 and resolved to finish off his scientific enquiry with the 'hot blonde' series.

"See, this is what I don't like about this stuff." said Peter quietly to himself as he flicked through the first few. The pictures he was looking at were gynaecological in their detail, a series of close-ups of the hot blonde's most private parts. The pubic hair was absent, presumably removed to follow male fantasy 101, and for the first few pictures, all Peter could see was the presumable blonde's naked vulva, standing slightly proud from the rest of her body. He envisaged technical labels shooting in all directions, detailing the Latin names of the various parts. As he flicked through the next few pictures, he examined the cleft enclosed by the _Labia Majora_ ever more closely, and in extreme close up, thought that it almost looked non-pornographic, as if it could be one of the gaps present in a closed fist between bunched fingers.

Still, thought Peter objectively, there was a certain beautiful purity in what he was looking at, this _was_ all about the exquisite female form, and coming out of his boredom, he began to feel arousal again.

The pictures flicked further by, zooming slowly out from the body, now to include the thighs and the belly button, further out after another ten pictures, now encapsulating the blonde's small breasts with puffy nipples that stood further away from the breasts than the breasts did from the body. He lingered on the first few torso pictures, examining them critically, swigging back another mouthful of wine.

This girl looks virtually pre-pubescent, Peter thought as he scanned a few more, the camera zooming slowly outwards. It now encapsulated strands of the girl's very pale blonde hair, it now reached upwards taking in the faint bulge under her chin, it rose to her mouth, absence of smile, misery the catalyst, now her nose, her eyes her whole head. Peter took it all in, took in the full image of the girl in front of him, he knew that he knew her, he couldn't believe that this was what he had now been looking at for forty pictures, and with the first picture that held the full face, he knew that he had just been aroused by Margaret 'Mags' Donne.

13. Sickness

Peter had broken his leg once; he had been around 10 years old and had fallen heavily down a long flight of stairs, coming to rest at the bottom with a sickening twisted squelch. He had been lucky that it had only been his leg broken, and even now could remember the intense splintery pain and the sickness that came with it. His greatest memory, though, was the moment he had to pull himself up and try to crawl to the next room to get help and attention. That had been an eternity of dull hot pain and stomach rending nausea.

Realising that he had been looking at, even liking, a long series of nude pictures of a thirteen-year-old girl, was a reawakening of that twisting flattening horror, with the weight of guilt and mental sickness pushing hard on his broken body.

He wrenched the PDA from its holder, throwing it across the room, as if destroying it could remove the images from his mind. He screwed up his eyes but the memory of a young body was burned into the under-colour of his eyelids.

He opened his eyes and looked at the screen, it had frozen on the last picture, Mags' doleful eyes pleading with him to take the pain away. His eyes widened to take in the fuller details of the picture. She was kneeling, but arching her body, taking her weight with the heel of one hand. He noticed now, how the other arm sneaked away with forceful perspective to the top left of the picture, he could scarcely believe it as he realised it was crooked above the lens of the camera, she looked to have been clicking the button of the camera herself.

As he looked again, he noticed now that whilst every inch of her body had the smooth taut pinkness of youth, her right arm, was a pitted mess of small round burns, each seeming to have been inflicted with insane regularity along the length.

His eyes caught another detail, lost in the murk of the world that wasn't caressed by the flash. At the back of the picture, hardly visible in the gloom, was a high backed wooden chair, and slung over the chair was a school tie from Smithfield.

Whatever had happened, whether she had willingly done this to herself, by herself, or whether it had been done to her, it had been done in her home.

Peter drank himself to sleep that night, swigged down his wine and brought forth more, swigged whisky from the bottle, trying to blot out the memories, wanting the alcohol to soak up the evil things crouching in his mind.

He didn't know what time he had passed out, but woke early, his bladder pulsing a painful rhythm. He pulled himself off the sofa he had passed out on, spilling the dregs of the whisky bottle as he did. He was still in his work clothes from the previous day, but didn't stop to change or shower, he ran up the stairs, barely registering Ed's protests at the noise, grabbed the PDA and left the house at a run, jumping into his car, speeding towards school.

Teacher training had instructed Peter how to deal with many difficult situations, but not one like this. It had taught him how to deal with malicious allegations made about him, about what to do if he found cigarettes on a child and what he should do if he ever thought a pupil's parents might be splitting up. Only Time and experience can teach you how to deal with something like this, and someone somewhere should be praying that Time had few people on his list to be receive this bullet of a lesson.

Peter knew that he had an immense problem on his hands, knew that this went beyond him, beyond the school. At whatever level, for whatever charge, this was a criminal incident.

He abandoned his car in the car park at the school, ran in, seeking authority, someone who could tell him what to do, was there anyone? Would there be a single person who had the ability to deal with a problem of this magnitude?

The first person he ran into, he ran into literally, knocking them over, he helped them up and realised he had knocked over Ben Pearce the school headmaster, but Peter was too wild to care. He helped Ben to his feet, and Ben looked Peter up and down.

Ben had been a great success as a headmaster, and the key to this was the fact that he was an excellent judge of character, and a man of firm action. He was softly spoken, in his mid fifties with floppy grey hair and a bristling peppered beard, but when he needed to be he was a holy terror, and the pupils of the school respected no one more than him.

He looked at Peter, took in the state of his clothes, the smell of his breath and the beast behind his eyes. He didn't shout, he didn't ask Peter what the hell he thought he was doing. He simply placed a hand on Peter's elbow.

"Let's go to my office." Whatever else was going on in the world of Smithfield that morning, Peter knew that Ben would make it wait.

They walked down to his office, several early bird staff trying to catch their eyes and look for gossip. Peter hopped nervously from foot to foot, looking at nothing but the ceiling and his shoes. Ben remained completely calm. They entered his plush office and sat about a round board table.

"So, Peter, what is up? You look extremely worried about something."

"I think a member of my form is being sexually abused at home, and I think I have proof of it here." He lifted the PDA from his pocket and slid it across the table.

Just having spoken the words, just having released his possession of the computer felt like a change in the world for Peter. His memories of the next few hours blurred, but there were some things he remembered with razor sharp clarity.

Ben never doubted Peter for a second, never questioned the veracity of what he was saying. Many men would have taken the PDA and demanded to see some proof straight away, before they launched themselves headlong into a police investigation. After Peter had explained the basics of what he had seen, Ben picked up the phone to his secretary. His appointments were to be cancelled, someone was to take Peter's classes for that day, someone else was to find Marcus Hughes and Margaret Donne as soon as possible and isolate them from each other and the rest of their schoolmates with a minimum of fuss.

He put the phone down and looked at Peter again.

"OK, Peter, lets start from the beginning." A numbness that had been spreading in Peter blossomed to full catatonia. A few days later, he read the statement that he must have given to Ben at that moment, but he couldn't remember saying a word of it. Peter told Ben everything he knew about Margaret Donne, he told her as much as he knew about her home life, he told him of the fact that her family had never let her stay behind for extra-curricular, he said that after talking to her mother's boyfriend she had come in wearing an improbable jumper that only made sense now that Peter had seen the burns on her arm. He told Ben about how Mags had become withdrawn and quieter with both him and her own friends, he told him about his own private suspicions about how he had felt as if there was something dead inside her. He told him exactly how he came by the PDA, told him of Ed's attempt to change the language, told him of his own viewing of the pictures he found, and he told him of the moment he had realised what he had been looking at.

Ben patiently wrote down every single word. He expressed nothing but concern, didn't even raise an eyebrow when Peter said he had sat and looked at a great deal of 'normal' porn before getting to the pictures of Mags. He told Ben about his personal horror and his feast of alcohol.

As Ben wrote the last word down, on the third sheet of paper, he drew a double line under his own writing and laid the pen underneath it.

"I'm going to phone the police." he said calmly. Peter would remember that moment forever.
14. Flashgun

Mags liked her mp3 player. It was a small one, half a gig someone had told her, not very big at all, but she liked it all the same. She had spent a few days of confusion as the two meaning of the word gig (concert and computer storage) battled for space in her brain, before she realised they were separate things.

She was listening to it now; she had no idea who the song was by, but she liked the wallpaper of noise that the little machine could produce. She liked the way that when you listened to it, it felt like the music was already in your brain, and you were only tuning in to it.

She sat on the bus, surrounded by friends, but totally alone, staring out of the window at the terraces that wound their way in and out of her view.

The bus stopped at Smithfield, and she walked up to the school with some of the other girls from her form, with them, but not in their company. She got to the school gates only to be greeted by a teacher she didn't know, a deputy head who had just had her pointed out by another pupil.

"Margaret?" Mags nodded her head in confirmation, pulling out her mp3 headphones, preparing to hand them over, assuming they were about to be confiscated.

"Can you come with me? The Head would like to see you." The deputy spoke slowly and clearly with a kindly smile that put Mags on edge. She glanced worriedly at her classmates, but they could only look on as she was led away. She was led through the school, through the shut down classrooms and the empty corridors that were beginning to beat with life. She was led into an office and asked to sit and wait.

She sat back on one of the low comfy chairs, and decided that there were worse places to spend a morning. She had been left entirely alone and reverted to her mp3 player. The music flowed through her and took the edge from the nervousness she had been feeling. The box-like office belonged to the deputy who had fetched her; she looked around from her seat and noticed a few family pictures on the desk, the deputy's wife was surprisingly fat, Mags thought.

Her eyes took in row after row of dusty looking box files, and the great number of them gave Mags the impression that this office must belong to someone very important indeed. She saw, tacked to the wall next to the computer screen, a small laminated poster that exclaimed, with humorous drawings that: "It takes 43 muscles to frown, 17 to smile and 4 to extend your arm and punch someone in the face for telling you to 'chill'."

She looked at it for over a minute, thinking what an odd poster it was. Surely if someone told you that you needed to chill, you should just chill, not punch them? And why would you frown and smile at the same time as punching someone? Very weird, she thought. 'Weird' was a new word to her that her mum told her she was overusing. Mags liked the shape her mouth made when she said it, a purse of the lips for the 'W', sliding out fast to a grimacing 'eird'.

The head appeared at the door of the office that Mags had been in for over an hour without realising it. She could have stayed there all day and not noticed, content to sit and stare at the walls forever.

"Hello Margaret, will you come with me please?" She obediently followed him, thoroughly calmed now, not thinking she was in trouble at all; trouble was all at home. Mags found school to be the calm rock in her storming life, and she drifted along behind Mr Pearce, letting her fingers run along the wall into the occasional pits and scratches that it provided.

As she was ushered into the head's office she noticed that it was 'weird' that Mr Everett was there, huddled into his chair. She smiled at him, and he turned his head away from her, which wasn't like him at all. Normally she found Mr Everett to be over-friendly more than anything else, "He's trying too hard to be everybody's friend..." one of the twins had observed quietly to Mags the previous day, as Peter had been doing a round of the room cracking jokes. She had a sneer on her face as she had it, but Mags didn't feel like that, she preferred to see it as someone who just wasn't quite getting things right, someone who still didn't have that total understanding of how to talk to young people.

Today was different; he didn't seem to be able to bring himself to look at Mags at all. A chair shuffled softly across the carpet, on the other side of the room and it was only then that Mags noticed someone else, a woman she thought she had never seen before. The woman looked, to Mags' young eyes like she was very old indeed. She wore her hair in tight curled ringlets that always reminded Mags of other people's grandmothers. She was wearing a grey cardigan and had a pair of glasses on a chain around her neck.

"Margaret, this is Georgia Russell, she works with the police and its her that wants to talk to you about something very serious." Behind Georgia, Mags noticed Peter twitch, and _now_ she began to worry. She began to think of the few times she had copied homework, that time she had found a fiver in the street and not handed it in, that time she had kicked a cat away from her garden. Had they come along to take her away for all of that? She felt a cold prickle as she worried about anything else she may have done to offend.

"Hello Margaret, or would you prefer Mags?" Georgia had a very kindly smile and Mags found herself nodding and smiling slightly, but her grip on the arms of her chair intensified.

"Now the thing I would like to talk to you about, the thing that _we_ would like to talk to you about, is some pictures that have been found, some pictures of you. I'd like you to tell me about them."

Her brain was seized by a bludgeoning throbbing headache, as if blood was pouring in and out of it, trying to reclaim the memories she herself had managed to suppress.

"Has someone been taking pictures of you that you haven't liked them taking? Has someone made you take inappropriate pictures of yourself?" Georgia retained her kindly air, and Mags' eyes sank down to her shoes. A vein pulsed heavily in her left temple, and the blood kept flowing.

She looked up, letting out a small nod, her eyes sinking back down.

"Will you tell me about it please?"

The pressure that had been building burst forth in a torrent of miniature tears.

"I'm sorry, I'm really sorry I know I shouldn't have done it, I should have been better, but... but... I'm sorry."

Peter's hand landed roughly on her shoulder, but was quickly removed.

" Mags," he said, looking at her with his bloodshot painful eyes, an cloud of stale alcohol surrounding him."Mags, you have nothing to be sorry for."

Mags gave a large involuntary shudder as he spoke, but could feel the tears dry up. She could feel everything dry up; all emotion, all feeling, all sensation fell away from her and she felt as though she was drifting in space, looking down at a company of players treading the boards of her life. She began to talk slowly, but definitely. All the worry had disappeared but so had the smile she had briefly worn. The tears remained, but they were streaming no longer. She spoke without moving her head, hardly blinking, as if reading a script of something that had happened to someone else.

It started happening just after I started at Smithfield, after a month or so. We had P.E. last that day and during it, I don't know, I must have started my first period, cos some of the girls were pointing and laughing and calling. I had blood in my knickers. The other girls just shouted and laughed. I still don't know why.

I cried all the way home, I walked rather than sit on the bus with those girls, and I walked and walked and cried and cried. It started to rain as I was walking and the rain was mingling with my tears, and I was afraid that any minute blood would start to pour down my legs, I was worried someone would see, I was worried someone would say something.

I let myself in the back door, straight into the kitchen, but because I'd walked I'd missed my mum, she'd already left for the night shift she did. I sat on the tiles on the kitchen floor, holding myself and crying. I didn't want to go anywhere else in the house, in case I bled all over the carpet and ruined it, so I just sat there crying for my mum. Mum's never been really any good at talking about that sort of stuff, girl stuff, but I wanted her then, I wanted her more than I had ever wanted anyone else in the world.

I don't know how long I was there, but eventually, Ryan, my mum's boyfriend came home. He'd been living with us for about two years, and I'd gotten really used to having him around. He saw me crying and put his arms around me and just held me. He didn't even mind getting himself wet from the rain and the tears, he didn't even talk, he just held me.

I liked Ryan; he was always nice to me, always complimented me and bought me special sweets. He's kind of tall with a funny wedge head, and he's got this dead short brown hair. I don't think I've ever seen him in anything other than trackie bottoms and a t-shirt. As he held me I could feel the bristles of his stubble brushing my hair.

I told him what had happened, told him about the blood, told him about the girls teasing me, told him I didn't know what to do, and I asked him where mum was, even though I knew the answer. "Don't worry, It'll be alright." he said that over and over, again and again.

He took me upstairs. He lifted my hand and pulled me softly away from the kitchen. I tiptoed across the living room so that I didn't dribble down onto it. He put the shower on and left me alone to undress and get in, told me to call him when I was clean.

I was in that shower for so long – it could have been a lifetime – and I let the water run over and over me. I didn't want to touch myself, I really didn't want to touch 'down there' in case any more came out. I called Ryan when I was clean, but I stayed there, stood up in the bath, the shower curtain wrapped around me. I was still crying, I could feel my body shake against the bath and was worried my feet might slip. I was sure I would only stop crying when the bleeding stopped.

Ryan came into the bathroom, he looked frightened, he looked worried, he looked nervous. "How are you doing? Are you ok?" He seemed really like a father and a friend then, just worried about me. I nodded, and I remember my wet hair swinging backwards and forwards, hitting the flowery pattern of the shower curtain.

"I need a... I want..." I knew that women wore towels and tampons and things when they were bleeding, but somehow, there and then, I couldn't remember the words, couldn't remember any of the things I'd ever been told.

"Hang on," he said, and he stretched up his long hairy arms to the top of a cabinet and pulled down a box of sanitary towels. "I don't know a lot about all this stuff, but these might be best Maggie." He always called me Maggie, he was the only person that did, I used to like it and I thought it made him and me special. He held the box out, but not very far, I had to reach out to grab them. I can't really remember what happened next too well, but I must have been putting my weight on the shower curtain, reaching out to get the box, standing on one leg, and I think that the rings of the shower curtain broke. They were around a kind of plastic rod and that came down too, and I was really worried that I'd broken it all. Ryan laughed at me, but it was a nice kind of laugh, made me feel all right.

"Don't worry about that Mags, don't worry." His voice was just so nice, it was like that cream you put on if you've got sun burn, it just made me feel better. I'd grabbed the plastic, but it was only then that I sort of remembered I had no clothes on. I think I blushed really badly and I tried to grab a towel, but he moved dead quick and stood between me and the towels.

"Come on Maggie, don't worry about that now. Its not like we have any secrets any more is it?" His voice was still so calm and kind, and I just felt like I was being so ridiculous about something so stupid. "Come on," he said as I tried to cover myself, "I'm nearly your dad aren't I? And its ok, its normal for dads to see their little girls like this sometimes. Its ok, its normal. Don't worry, it'll be alright." He was saying those words, again and again, and, every time he said them, I felt a little bit better.

I'd opened the window when I was in the shower, and just then some wind must have come in through it, strong wind, and I shivered cos it felt so cold. Ryan was right, I didn't have anything to hide from him, I didn't really have anything to hide anyway, and he had always been so kind, he had always been so nice. I sort of relaxed, I remember bringing my arm down from around my chest, and sort of untwisted my legs.

"Now don't you feel better?" He was so calm, so nice, I felt like I just wanted to do what he said, cos he would make things all right. I nodded, even though I didn't really feel any better, but I just wanted to say the right thing.

"Now I'll tell you what, don't worry about these yet." He put the box of towels down on the toilet and handed a bathroom towel to me. "You dry yourself off, but don't get dressed, I have a surprise for you." He left the bathroom for a moment, but I didn't move, I had one arm out, holding the towel, but it was like I just didn't know what to do with it. My mind was buzzing, it felt like it was made of electric glass all cracked and sparking. Ryan came back in and gave me that soft nice chuckle he had done before.

"Ok then, don't worry about that." He took the towel from me, and just kept on smiling. "I've got a lovely surprise for you, now that you're a woman there's so much more you can do. Lots of stuff will change, especially with you and me, but that ok, its normal, its what happens. Don't worry, It'll be alright." he laughed. "I want to show you something." He waved a camera at me, a big black clunky digital one with a big window in the back. He was pushing buttons and turned the screen to show me. He kept pushing a button with his thumb, flicking through picture after picture.

"You see Mags, this is what women do, this is what grownups do and this is what your mum does, its ok, its normal." I looked at the screen and there were just loads and loads of pictures of my mum. She was always on her own, always staring at the camera, looking, loving, laughing, smiling. There was loads of different clothes that she had on, sometimes she had none on at all. She was playing in front of the camera, sometimes she was wearing like black lacy stuff with all pink bows and ribbons on it, and she was always staring at the camera, with big eyes.

I was looking at her as all these pictures went by, and I remember thinking that she had so much power, 'here I am, I can do what I like, I can wear no clothes if I want'. She looked like there was no one that could push her around, no one who could tell her what to do. Sometimes after she's been out with the girls and has drunk loads of Lambrini, she'll start talking like that: 'I don't need a man' she says and all her mates say the same thing, and she really seemed to be saying it really loudly to that camera.

I was pretty shocked to see my mum like that, to think of my mum like that, but, I dunno, I suppose I'd never really realised she was a woman before.

"Don't you want to be grown up? Don't you want to be like your mum?" He was still hitting the buttons and more pictures went by, and on one, Mum's eyes were all shut tight and she looked like she was really really happy. "Don't you want to be grown up? Don't worry, It'll be alright."

And I nodded. I don't know why, I sort of knew it wasn't right, but Ryan had been so nice, so kind, I just wanted to be nice back to him, to do what he wanted, it sort of seemed right, and Ryan seemed really pleased as I nodded and so I nodded again.

"Ok. Just a few today? Its fine, its normal. Don't worry, It'll be alright." He smiled really nicely and held up the camera.

Click.

The camera had one of those fake clicky sound effects.

Click.

15. Clicked

"And he took some pictures and told me not to worry it would be alright, told me it was normal." Mags spoke in a dead dull tone into the thousand miles that separated her from the rest of the people in the room. Her head had been inclined at a constant angle for the entire time she had been telling her tale, but now that she had stopped, Peter noticed a tiny shiver run through her.

"And how did you feel about that?" asked Georgia "How did you feel about the pictures?"

Mags paused for a moment, and looked Georgia in the eye.

"I don't remember, I didn't feel like I was really there, I felt like I was watching it all, like it was happening to someone else."

"And did he ever take any more pictures?" Georgia's tone was so flat and calm. Peter thought he could have told her the world was exploding and all she would have done was scribble it on a note.

"Yes. He took lots, lots of times." It clearly pained Mags to admit this, to admit that she had let herself be a victim.

"And how did you feel about him keeping taking pictures."

"It never felt like it did that first day, it felt wrong, it felt bad, but I'd already let him take some, he told me that I couldn't stop, told me that he would tell people and that they wouldn't understand, and they'd call me a slag, and that I should never have let him take any if I wanted to stop now, and that I was only teasing him, told me that I _did_ want him to take them really and..." but now her voice broke on a fresh wave of tears. The numbness in her voice had gone and Peter could see the glut of emotions driving her.

"Did he ever touch you in a way you didn't want him to?"

Mags shook as the words came out, each one of them a harsh body blow.

She stretched out her right arm and peeled back her jumper and then her school shirt. All along the length of her arm were a series of burns, small round burns that appear with great regularity, as if someone had measured them out with a tape measure.

"Sometimes... sometimes when I didn't want to do it, he'd hold one of his cigarettes against me, and then he'd get even more angry after he'd done it, telling me I'd made him, that he had no other choice." Peter's stomach lurched violently, as he couldn't prevent the images of Mags he had seen and the burns along her arm, rising in his mind.

"Did he ever touch you in a sexual way?" so calm, so smooth.

"No." The answer came so gradually from her that Peter felt he could see it rise up her throat and crawl out of her mouth. She looked up at Peter after she had said it, she looked at him across the room, she fixed him with her gaze and Peter knew, he knew with a communication that needed no words, that she was telling the absolute truth, no lies or doubt.

As Mags had spoken, Georgia had written some definite notes on her pad.

Mags twitched at the sounds of the scratching pen and she spoke again, as if desperate, now she had started, to condemn him utterly.

"But sometimes, after he burned me he'd make me take pictures of myself, told me he would do... things... to me if I didn't, and then... then... I did." This was too much for Mags now, and she dropped her head and wrapped her arms around it. All Peter could see was a sobbing shaking mound of grief, and with twisting black snake stirrings he hated himself. He hated himself for not having spotted this sooner, for not stopping it, he hated himself for every time he had encountered an upset pupil and had ignored them, but he hated himself more for being a man, for having that in common with the monster that had done this to her.

Mags was spirited away after that, and Peter's mind refused to hold onto any more definite memories. Ben must have told Peter that he was excused from teaching for the rest of the day and the next at least; he told him that he would have to go to the police station to make an official statement, but that he could go home after that. Peter had nodded and Georgia had told him exactly what he would need to do when he got to the station.

When Peter had some of the details filled in for him over the next few days, he found out that it had become clear to everyone concerned that Marcus Hughes' only part in the chain of events was possession of the photos. He had confessed, in the presence of his harsh and domineering mother, that he had been in the practice of surfing for pornography on the internet and had met someone in a chat room, who gave him a link, and the link had led him somewhere else, and then he had found the pictures of Mags. He too had taken some time looking at them before he realised that he knew the 'hot blonde' in question, but his reaction had been one of jubilation rather than the twisting horror that Peter felt crawling in his stomach.

Ben confessed to Peter a month later that the pushy Mrs. Hughes had tried condone Marcus' actions as normal teenage interest, wasn't it normal for him to want to look at things like that? At least it was girls his own age. It was then that Ben had forced Marcus to show his mother a selection of the photos, she had tried to decline, but Ben had pressed his point. The look of horror on Mrs. Hughes face had been "terrible to behold", and Ben had fancied that he could see sickness rise in her throat.

Peter returned to work after his two-day absence amid a flurry of concern and worried faces. He found that most of his colleagues were more concerned for him than for Mags and a feeling in his stomach hated the injustice in that.

Ryan had been remanded in custody due to the severe nature of the accusations made against him, and when Peter attended a meeting with Mags and her mother – Helen – he though that Mags looked like a different girl, he thought that she didn't really look any happier as such, but that she looked like a great crushing weight had been removed from her shoulders. She looked like someone who had finally discovered how to breathe.

Helen looked like her world had been turned upside down and inside out. When he had met her previously, Peter had thought of her as rather attractive. She had a light brown tumble of hair that came to just below her chin, and was always very natural looking. Upon seeing her in her grief, Peter had realised that her attractiveness was almost all artifice. She looked as if her beauty, even her being, had been stripped back to the bone.

At the meeting her hair was scraped back into a harsh ponytail and she wore a dark blue baggy tracksuit. She, Mags and Peter had listened as the school's educational psychologist outlined a plan for a return to school that would involve some counselling for Mags. The psychologist had been the only person talking, and the most that anyone else could manage was a series of weak nods as Mags' immediate future was detailed.

The exact nature of what had happened to Mags was kept miraculously quiet. The staff had been officially informed of the bare minimum details, but the pupils never really got a hold of it, they only found themselves repeating their own twisted Chinese whispers.

"You know, that blonde girl who started smoking and got caught with some porn."

"That one whose dad got locked up giving her cigarettes."

"... wasn't she the one who nicked one of the school cameras, but got caught cos she was bragging about it on the internet?" The voices of children gave a harsh spin to the repetition of the rumour. Peter heard endless variations on a theme over the next few months, but nothing that ever came close to the truth that so few people knew the fullness of.

Mags returned to school after a few weeks, jerky and awkward, but as he watched her, he thought he noticed a peace settle upon her, or rather a peace of mind. She cut her hair into a short blonde bob and confessed to Peter in one of the regular chats they had, that she had just wanted to do "something different, have a bit of a change". She would probably grow it long again eventually, but for the moment, she would keep it short.

Peter would smile and nod and fight a great compulsion to hug her and hold her and tell her that everything would be alright, that the monster who had done this to her would be going to prison for a very long time.

But Peter knew, he knew in his bitter beating heart, that there was no certainty whatsoever about this.

Jade was wearing a stripy set of pyjamas today, they were grey and blue, with none of her usual colour or verve, but worse than that, she looked so miserable.

Peter looked at her and he could see her crying. That really upset him and he had to go and comfort her. When he looked at her again, she was trapped in a glass box, it must have been soundproofed because Peter started to shout, but she couldn't hear him. He tried to move towards her, but he found he was in his own glass box, but it was different to hers.

The glass in Jade's box seemed, now that he looked properly, to be made out of a million fragments of glass, each producing their own faint light, so that the effect was that of a broken mirrorball.

Peter's glass was a thick heavy looking crystal, but now that his attention was on his own box, he could see fractures begin to form, spreading through the glass, splintering everything that was protecting him. He looked down and all he could see was black. He looked back at Jade and she had gone, all that was left were the fragments, twinkling gently on the black velvet upon which they lay.

And the cracks in Peter's crystal spread ever more quickly.

Another night, another dream. Peter thought that he might never stop having them, and a part of him never wanted to, it was the only time he ever got to talk to Jade. He listened to the advice and the consolations that people gave, "Well, no-one's ever really gone are they?", "Sometime I think they've just gone into the next room...", "Its like they're everywhere, yeah?" and sometimes this advice made him sick. He wondered who these people had lost, had it been like him, a shining star that he had only just found? Or had it been a hundred year old grandparent drifting off in their sleep?

It was one thing for people to try to _share_ their pain with you, but it had to be comparable, it had to be on the same scale, and Peter knew that so few people bore that level of pain.

As his midnight eyes looked now to his clock he saw the date flick over, to the 5th April 2005.

16. Trial

"The problem is the lack of evidence..." Peter had explained to his audience of Jazz and Bernard a few weeks before the trial. It was late June and the unlikely threesome sat at one of the tables in the beer garden of the Half-Moon. It was pleasantly warm, with Peter and Bernard sporting rolled up shirtsleeves and Jazz looking unusually impassive beneath a large pair of sunglasses.

Despite initial feelings, Peter had received great comfort from some of his colleagues at school. Emma had found the story too difficult to listen to at first, but had returned to strength a few days later, presenting Peter with a whirlwind of literature and helpline numbers that he could pass on to Mags. Peter was touched by this practicality and had tried to get her to come to the pub this day, but she had politely declined due to the presence of Bernard, though she hadn't said as much, citing a burning issue she needed to talk to her husband about.

Bernard had been a great sounding board for Peter, always listening, always showing on his face the emotions of revulsion and sickness that Peter felt beneath his skin. He never offered any help, but he was always there, ready to listen, an immovable anchor in the sickening storms.

Peter had begun to see quite a lot of Jazz outside of work. The fresh horror in Peter's life had forced any relationship they might have on to a very slow burn, but Peter found he enjoyed spending time with her, found that she would provide a welcome diversion at just the right moment. He didn't discuss his feelings, or Mags, or his life with her, because he liked the feeling of having someone around who didn't know all the terrible details.

Today however, was different. He had had a conversation with Ben who had told Peter that the trial was going to be "difficult".

"Lack of evidence?" Jazz asked.

"Yeah... the thing is, aside from the pictures that... that I found." He paused here and had to take another swig of his drink. "Aside from those there's nothing really in the way of actual evidence. They haven't been able to find any pictures on any cameras at the house and it boils down to her word against his." He sat back heavily in his chair, ruffling his hair in frustration.

"And to make it worse, they've dug up some old girlfriend of his who has a kid a similar age. Apparently he lived with them for a few years, and the mum and the kid are all ready to appear in court as character witnesses." He sighed a long sigh, "I just don't know what's gonna happen."

Bernard snorted as he drained his pint and made for the bar to purchase another round.

"I'm sure they'll find something on this bloke soon." said Jazz with a soothing purr to her voice. "I'm sure they'll be able to get him."

"I don't know Jazz, I don't know, all he has to do is keep all his stuff... all that..." He made a sour face "On some memory card or something the size of a postage stamp, and he can either keep it hidden forever, or throw it in the river." Jazz's face creased slightly, but Peter continued. "And there's a few circumstantial things as well..." He paused for a moment, clearly finding some difficulty in what he was about to say. He ran his finger around the rim of his empty pint pot and Bernard returned with a replacement.

"You see... the weird thing is..." Bernard slurped his pint noisily as Peter spoke quietly "The defence are trying to say that this Ryan bloke doesn't know one end of a computer from another, that he can barely work a camera, let alone load and host pictures on to a website. Ben says that what they are saying _seems_ very convincing."

"Well he's lying, or else he got someone else to do it for him." Peter loved the fact that Jazz didn't question the man's guilt. She set her own drink down with a decisive thump that suggested she thought the matter settled.

"Well, yeah, obviously, although it seems that the police think he's too stupid to lie and that... that people like him usually work alone, that its rare for them to be in real-life 3D-world contact with other people like that."

Bernard gripped his pint with fearsome anger, muttering, "It's not right." He shivered in his emotion.

"People don't get away with stuff like this Pete." soothed Jazz "You'll see, it'll all be fine, he'll go down."

She rubbed his arm consolingly and Peter looked at her, wishing that he could believe as definitely as she could.

The trial started on the last day of the school year. Peter dressed himself in his most sombre and reserved suit; he was not required to give evidence or witness, but he _had_ to be there to see the outcome as it happened.

The brevity of the evidence meant that the trial lasted an entire, but single day. Peter watched the legal experts bat jargon back and forth, it seemed as if it was only sport to them. He felt his jaw slacken as he listened to Ryan's defence that he had no idea about the pictures or anything 'inappropriate' until he was arrested. The only explanation that he could offer was that Mags must have grown jealous of his relationship with Helen and taken the pictures herself to try to split them up, or maybe as something she thought she was going to be able to entice him with. He could offer no explanation of the cigarette burns, and the only pictures in evidence definitely seemed to be taken by Mags. An objective part of Peter's mind found Ryan very convincing, he had exactly the right measure of timid humility, but the rest of Peter's mind was reeling at the injustice that this man hadn't already been strung up and castrated. If Mags had taken the picture to try and split them up, why hadn't she given them to her mother rather than posting them on a website where they might never be seen? And what kind of thirteen year old girl takes pictures of herself and posts them on the internet?

Peter watched in horror as medical evidence was given; a bespectacled doctor dealing out hands in someone else's life. Yes, the burns were commensurate with having been delivered by a cigarette, and no, he could find no evidence of sexual abuse of Margaret. An examination had been done despite Mags' firm statement that Ryan had never touched her like that. The absence of any such abuse seemed to work in Ryan's favour, as if abusing her would have been a natural progression for anyone who had taken pictures of her. Peter watched as members of the jury took this evidence with guillotine nods and felt his stomach twist to a spiky knot.

Mags' evidence came via police statements and a TV link up. Peter watched as she spoke and wished that the jury could have been there on that first day, wished they could have seen the raw emotion coursing through her as she unburdened her woes. Wished that they could have seen the electricity of fear and hurt that had powered her words, but they only saw a limp washed-out grey version on a TV screen. Peter thought it didn't do her justice and didn't look as convincing as he _knew_ it was.

Mags' mother Helen was up next, and at least here Peter felt some measure of passion. He was looking at a woman wracked with emotion, but sadly for the cause of the trial, it was a woman who hadn't seen anything happen, and even now was justifying to herself how it could have happened under her roof. She believed her daughter, there was no question about that, but a dark hole had been cut into her world and she was trying to find out where the edges were, groping wildly in the night. She was forced to admit that she never saw any inappropriate behaviour from Ryan to Mags, and that Mags had always seemed like a 'normal' kid to her, she had never noticed any depression or detachment.

More people followed, Georgia Russell got up and gave her account of meeting Mags and assessing the situation, and Peter was glad to hear a convincing witness. Georgia knew the right things to say in this situation and the right way to talk, but it was too little too late and a few short hours later, the foreman of the jury stood before the court, and admitted that they had found Ryan Chancel to be not guilty of all charges.

"I just don't get it Ed, I just don't get it. I don't see how he could have gotten away with it." Peter swirled his pint and raised it as if to drink, but then set it down again, too distraught to finish the dregs. His head was a churn of impotent lethargy and furious anger as the day's events swirled round his head.

Ed had no idea what to say. He had watched his brother's emotions be torn to pieces by the tribulations and then the trial of Mags, and found that his experiences of life had not taught him how to deal with this. He knew that Peter felt some guilt for having been in Mags' life and not having spotted what was happening, but Ed had no idea how to comfort Peter in his dislocated misery.

They sat in a dingy basement bar in the centre of Manchester. Ed had met Peter at the Minshull St courts and they had walked a short distance through the grubby streets, Ed suggesting stopping for a drink, Peter flowing with the wind.

They walked into the first bar that they came across, a science fiction theme bar. Ed had been expecting quiet musty darkness with gloomy corners to sit in, instead he was greeted with a riot of garish film posters and the most esoteric bar decoration he had ever seen; there was even a Dalek in one corner.

Peter didn't seem to mind or notice, he slumped himself behind a table that was actually an early space invaders game and Ed returned swiftly with two pints of surprisingly good lager.

Ed could see that his brother was in a mess, that there was something eating him up from the inside, but Ed had no idea of anything he could do to help.

"Look, I'm meeting some of the guys from work in an hour or so, we're gonna go for a curry, why don't you come with us? Have a few beers?" Ed said after a while. He knew it was a weak thing to say, but a vague attempt to take his brother out of himself was the best he could do.

"I'll get some more drinks." was the closest Ed got to an answer. He stared around the bar whilst Peter got a second round. To Ed's left was a display case containing a large Darth Vader head and a series of Star Wars figures all ranged in poses of triumph. He leaned closer to see if that really was a ghostly Obi-Wan and accidentally knocked into someone who was leaving from the next table.

"Sorry mate." said Ed as he shifted his body so the man could get past.

"No Worries, no worries." The man reeked of downed whiskies, and seemed to be in rather a mood for celebration. He was an inherently scruff looking man wearing a cheap suit who appeared to be on his own. Ed grinned to himself at the thought of the pissed up idiot and, sitting back down, watched the man wind his way out inexpertly through the stark forest of tables and chairs. As he reached the door where a large ice-monster stood sentinel, he turned his head to look back at Ed just as Peter was sitting back down.

"See you mate." said the drunkard, as if he had been talking to Ed all evening.

"See you mate." said Ed in reply.

Peter looked up and looked at the man. Most people would have asked who the idiot leaving the bar was, but not Peter, because he knew him.

It was Ryan.

17. Fight and flight

Peter's searing debilitating post-trial trauma had been born out of the fact that he felt so powerless, that there was nothing he could do. He had been a major part of the uncovering of the abuse of Mags, but come the trial there was nothing he could do, no way he could usefully involve himself. The sight of Ryan Chancel in the basement bar transformed him, changed him from a helpless bystander to a potent force. As Ed observed it, Peter dropped the drinks he was holding and started running after the man who had left the bar. The sight of Ryan leaving had tunnelled Peter's vision. He forgot about Ed, he forgot about himself, he even forgot about Mags and the pain she had been caused, he thought only of Ryan, and how to visit some pain upon him. He flew at the door, and would have caught Ryan if it hadn't have been for the twenty strong hen night heading through the door. Ryan had managed to slip out before them, but Peter was delayed for a full minute under the pressure of wings, wands and L-plates.

He burst on to Portland Street, wild and full of pent up frustration. His head span in every direction looking for Ryan, seeing him a hundred yards up the road, heading towards Piccadilly. Peter's body was no longer under his brain's conscious control. His legs propelled him towards Ryan, and his mouth let out an almighty cry, Ryan's name bellowed with inhuman volume. Ryan turned, the whisky in his bloodstream rattling in his head. He paused for half a second, and saw the person who had shouted his name running towards him. Drunk as he was, Ryan recognised Peter, recognised him as someone he had seen at the trial, recognised that he wasn't someone wanting to give him a congratulatory hug, and an ancient reflex in Ryan's feet made him run.

This was an early summer evening in Manchester city centre and the streets were thronging with those looking to embrace life with both arms. Both men were soon sprinting wildly, dodging, diving, ducking and wheeling. As they approached Piccadilly, Peter collided heavily with a tall man with a shock of white hair putting up fly posters for a club night, but Ryan was forced to detour around a be-quiffed drummer piling his gear out of a black cab.

Peter ran and ran and ran. He could feel his heart thumping madly in his chest, could feel it ready to pop out of his mouth, but his anger propelled him on wings of vengeance and he continued the chase.

They ran on, Ryan going straight ahead, his fear not letting him think through the twists and turns of the streets. They reached the junction where Portland St becomes Newton St and Ryan dodged wildly in front of a 192 bus whilst Peter had to leap across the bonnet of a car to avoid losing his quarry.

Peter remembered only flashing lights and pumping blood, he heard no noise, caught no protest as he chased.

Suddenly Ryan was on Ancoats, and Peter just managed to see Ryan take a sharp left, and was able to follow him. As Peter made it to the busy road, he pushed himself left and looked forward as he ran, looked for Ryan and just managed to see him take another left. His bones were complaining, but his fury made him carry on. Ryan had turned left down the side of a pet shop and had moved onto Tib Street. It took Peter a few seconds to make it to Tib Street, but when he did, he noticed two things; an angry looking bald headed man walking towards him and a crumpled heap further down the street.

A hand has been held close to the camera, and it is clear that it belongs to the face that we can see.

The hand is entirely white, its purity dazzling in the darkness, but the face is riddled with fear, every line and wrinkle increased tenfold by the thought of what is about to happen to him.

The body attached to the face is crouched upon a rough flagged street, a polystyrene cup and a kit cat wrapper keeping the body company. The eyes of the face are entirely black; no hint of colour as the pupils best the iris.

Rising up from the pavement is a rough green shop front that turns into a formidable looking shutter keeping the shopkeeper's wares safe. At the top of the pictures, right at the top line, we can make out the bottom of a rusted iron sign spelling out the shop's name, but we cannot see enough to work out what the shop is called.

Peter never found out exactly how Ryan came to be in a crumpled heap on Tib street, presuming he'd run afoul of into the bald giant he himself had just encountered, or else maybe he had tripped and hit his head.

Peter was still running when he drew level with Ryan and with a delicious horrible curl in his stomach, Peter noticed that there was no way that Ryan had enough strength in him to fight back.

Peter stalked over to him, feeling like the lonely god again. He reached down and grasped a lapel of the cheap suit Ryan was wearing. He noticed dispassionately that there was a large tear by the left elbow and smelt a bloody wound beneath. As Ryan rose, Peter grasped the other lapel and slammed him violently into the shop front. Ryan's face was a wash of sweat and tears, and Peter felt the thrill of knowing that someone is afraid of you, of knowing that you have another being entirely in your power.

"Who are you? Who are you?" cried Ryan as Peter slammed him bodily again into the shutters of the shop. Peter had never felt such strength before, he felt luminous, he felt like all his body was energy and he had only to wish for something to happen and the cosmos that ran in his veins would make it so.

"Me? Me?" Peter spat the words and Ryan seemed to liquefy in his grasp. "I am someone who cares Ryan. I am someone who cares about what happens to people and about what is done to them." A sickening thud to the stomach caught Ryan unawares.

"I am someone who has seen the what you have done, and has seen that you have not been punished, and who knows that you should be." He grabbed Ryan's bleeding elbow and twisted it harshly, a world of pain descending on the squirming man.

"That little girl might never recover _Ryan_. She might never grow to be the whole entire person she might have been, she might never be able to look at someone she loves without remembering what you have done to her, she might never love again. You have done that. And. You. Must. Pay." Each word accompanied with a bitter thump into the shop front. Peter could see the painted green shutters buckle slightly with the force he was exerting.

An observer might have expected Ryan to become more passive now, now that he knew that Peter knew what he had done, but as Peter looked up at Ryan, looked up at him through bloodied hair, he saw his badly shaven, stubbly mouth twist into a smile and a laugh. He gave a soft shaking chuckle that might make you think he had just understood a slow burning joke, or else seen a humorous dog wearing a humorous hat.

"Oh, that's who you are isn't it?" His smile was now a leer "You're one of _Hers_ aren't you? Well let me tell you something mate, you weren't there, you never lived with them, she was always prancing about, running round, pushing her body at me, she wanted me to do it, she's always wanted to make a show of herself and I did that in the most natural, painless way possible."

"She's a little girl, she's thirteen years old." Peter was pleading with him now, wanting him to deny, to take the facts away.

"She's a woman. And I never _touched_ her, I never did anything like that, I didn't want to be one of _them_ , I knew she was underage."

Peter couldn't believe what he was hearing, the man, the person, the horror in front of him thought himself justified because he had never 'touched' his model, he saw delineation between taking the pictures and doing the deed.

"Not all torturers use knives and pokers, _Ryan_. You had your camera lens for that." He saw the idea flit across Ryan's face and saw it pass on, you can't do something like that to someone without building the barriers in your head, you can't cause that much hurt without becoming a little bit numb yourself. "You had your camera lens and your burning cigarettes." Peter pushed Ryan and his balled fists further to the shop front.

"No. No." Ryan looked normal for a second, looked like there were still some strands of sanity poking out from underneath the cruel madness. "No. I didn't do that to her, I really didn't." There had been a black gem of psychosis in Ryan's eyes before, but now there was only pleading, a flickering desire for Peter to hear him out.

"You don't know anything anymore, you don't know who you are or what you've done." Peter caught him a heavy handed slap around the face, his wedding ring catching on Ryan's cheek, his watch getting a smatter of blood. He raised his hand to deliver another such blow, but Ryan somehow ducked his head, and Peter's hand met with a sharp edge of the shutter, tearing a line down from the bottom of his right index finger to the centre of his palm, blood started to pour out, but Peter barely noticed.

"But I know I never did that." Before, Ryan's face had burned with righteous ire, but now it went quite cool, the sweat running cold "I took pictures of her, I know that, I did it a few times, but I never _hurt_ her, and _I_ always took them. I wanted to remember her, to think about her as I had seen her, to keep how beautiful she was then. But she never took any of them, I wouldn't let her near my camera, I wouldn't let her use it, I wouldn't give her the chance of breaking it, and all that was on it." Peter couldn't help but listen, and Ryan knew it, knew that his words were all that was keeping him alive.

"I saw those pictures they had in the court today, and I didn't take them. You have to believe that, I wasn't there. I had nothing to do with _that_."

It was hard to explain, but Peter found himself believing him. Something had been bothering Peter for a long time, maybe it was the fact that taking the pictures must have been an act of power over Mags as far as Ryan was concerned, so why would he have ever let her have the camera in the way that she had on the pictures that he saw?

But all the belief in the world would not erase the single fact that Ryan had admitted to whilst in Peter's clutches. Even if he hadn't taken the pictures that Peter himself had seen, he had abused this young fragile girl. He had indulged in the torture of the lens.

"But you did take pictures of her didn't you? You did? So whether you took those ones or not, you have been the abuser!" Ryan flinched noticeably at the use of the word. "So for that, even if it is for that alone, you must pay."

Peter moved his left hand to the top of Ryan's head grabbing his hair, and he pulled his body to the left so that it was in front of the rough chipped brickwork, his right hand gripping Ryan's tie, smearing it with Peter's own blood.

"Goodbye Ryan. Goodbye." With one swift movement he grabbed a fistful of hair and slammed Ryan's head hard into the bricks. His body crumbled instantly, falling to the floor. As he fell, he twisted and revealed an improbable handkerchief in his top pocket. With a steady hand, Peter removed this and used it to clean first his glasses, then his face and then bandage his right hand. He stepped over Ryan, and walked away without looking back.

18. Healing

Peter had never had any intention of killing Ryan, and knew that he hadn't when he had seen Ryan's battered chest rising and falling slowly on the pavement. He walked away slowly, walked down the street and heard his own footsteps fall like the softest leaf drops. The street was deserted, but it could so easily not have been. He walked further down and caught his reflection in the window of another bar. The bar was set on a mezzanine floor above the street with a dingy looking basement below, Peter looked at his own reflection and wiped a small spot of blood from his cheek. He looked himself in the eye, and he felt no guilt. He had done something that needed to be done, he had delivered a punishment that was still not one percent of the pain that had been dealt out, but he had done it when no-one else had been prepared to.

Whether Ryan was guilty of taking the pictures he had been charged with taking or not, he had definitely abused Mags and Peter even felt pride in what he had done.

He reached in to his pocket and took out a phone, he called Ed but got no answer, leaving a message telling him that he was fine and only half explaining what had happened. Then turning round and looking at the prone, unconscious body of Ryan Chancel, he rang for an ambulance telling them he had just come across and injured and unconscious man near the top of Tib Street in the city centre, he then walked off, deciding that the night air and the long walk to the hospital on Oxford Road would do him some good.

Peter looked down at the ten stitches standing proud from his hand. It was two days after the trial and he was busy changing his bandage. The wound had initially been a bloody bulging pulsating mess, but now it had calmed to a shiny red throb and he would have the stitches out within a week. He had felt oddly dispassionate about the injury, he had watched calmly as a nurse who seemed more squeamish than himself had sewn his hand up and tried desperately to chat about the weather. Flexing his fingers made the blue stitches move in an odd way, and as he wrapped and taped a large bandage around his hand, he turned it this way and that, examining the effect.

He had arranged to go and see Ben at school that day and was mentally preparing a story in his head about losing his key and having to break a window. He was able to drive, and was walking through the school doors towards the head's office an hour later. The head had made a great pretence of wanting to hear about the trial in detail as he hadn't been able to attend, but Peter knew that he was only really checking up on Peter, once again, Peter was glad of the concern.

"Oh! Hello Mr Everett." The surprised voice that greeted him was that of Helen, Mags' mother. Peter had been massaging his injured hand and hadn't realised that she was there; he looked up and saw that Mags was cowering behind her.

"Are you ok?" she asked, looking towards his hand. A puzzled look crossed her face, and Peter could tell that she was trying to remember if he had had the injury at the trial.

"Yeah, it's fine." he said, turning it over and over. "I did it after the trial, just after." As he said it, the word 'just' felt conspicuous, pointing to a guilt he had no wish to divulge. Helen appeared not to have noticed, but he wasn't sure about Mags.

"Well, we're off, going into town for a McDonalds, aren't we Mags?" Mags' head flicked absently from side to side, as if she was prospecting with her brain. She didn't look distraught, Peter thought, just slightly absent. Helen was holding Mags' hand tightly and waggled it as she had spoken. They walked away, out of the school and Mags looked back toward Peter and waved, Peter waving back with his injured hand. Mags looked so old to Peter at that moment, she had a tall long slender frame and was barely and inch shorter than her mother. They looked like the before and after shot for the best makeover in the world.

"I have no idea how you cope with that." said Ben as he walked up behind Peter.

"Mags or her mother?" asked Peter without taking his eye from the pair.

"Either." replied Ben, and putting his hand on Peter's shoulder led him away to his office. Ben explained that Mags and Helen had been in school to discuss Mags' immediate future at the school.

"We discussed a change of form, and Mags was most insistent that that didn't happen." Ben smiled "She thinks a lot of you Peter." Ben sat back in his chair and ruffled his hair "We did however, agree that a move of form for Marcus Hughes would be a good idea, how would you feel about that?"

Pretty good, Peter thought. He had found it difficult to deal with Marcus objectively and his mother had previously been a thorn in his side anyway.

"I suppose that's the right thing to do." he replied guardedly.

"Good." said Ben, without looking up from the piece of paper that he was reading.

Ben asked Peter for his account of the trial, and Peter gave it. Ben looked interested at all the right points, but Peter knew he was merely looking for Peter's reactions and feelings about it all, he must have known about the trial already.

".. and then they took him away, right after the verdict." Peter shrugged his shoulders as he said this and Ben made a sympathetic face.

"Well...there is an epilogue to all of this," Ben looked down at his desk again and shuffled a piece of paper out of the pile "Ryan Chancel was attacked the evening of the trial."

"Really?" said Peter, not an ounce of emotion on his face.

"Yes, Peter. The police seem to think that it was connected with the trial, that somebody has attacked him because of what he was accused of, apparently Mr. Chancel was rather shaken up by the event, but strangely he doesn't want to take it any further. I believe he wants to leave it all behind."

"And does he know who it was that attacked him?" Peter felt that the words leapt to quickly from his mouth, he was damning himself.

"Apparently not, he said he was walking through Manchester and somebody, 'jumped' him." Peter heard the quotes around the word 'jumped'.

"I can't pretend I'm upset, Ben, or shocked. There were a lot of people in that court that disagreed with the verdict, one of them must have been more upset than the rest and followed him." Peter was determined to hold Ben's gaze.

"Yes, they must have." Ben stared hard at Peter as if trying to read the back of his eyeballs. He looked as if he was about to speak, but thought better of it.

"Well I think that's all we need to talk about today," Ben rose from his chair and Peter did the same. Ben proffered his right hand and without thinking, Peter did the same. Ben held Peter's bandaged hand lightly in his own, and without taking his eyes from Peter's said "Make sure you look after your hand Peter. I think that now, if ever, is the time for some healing."

Peter didn't say anything in reply, he just met Ben's gaze for a few more seconds.

"Goodbye Peter, I'll see you in September."

Peter did little apart from eat, sleep, drink and try to forget about the school that summer. His hand healed quickly, but left a shiny scar on his right palm. He would often find himself running the tip of his left finger up and down it. It was all thin and spidery, and looked to Peter as if a centipede had burrowed just beneath the top layer of his skin.

He saw Jazz a few times, spent a few long afternoons lying on comfortable couches in trendy bars. The time he spent with her felt like an indulgence after the trial and Peter enjoyed it. It felt wrong to be enjoying something so light-hearted after he had watched Mags' world be shattered and attempt to be rebuilt, but he knew he had to get over that. The light-heartedness of his budding relationship with Jazz was something that he began to treasure; he had seen so much darkness recently, that a little frivolity was appreciated.

August flew faster than it ever seemed to have before and soon, Peter was back in his classroom writing 'Tuesday 6th September 2005' in the top right hand corner. He stood back to admire the effect, and was considering a different kind of underlining, when Emma walked into the room. A few members of staff had already been in, just to say "Hello" to Peter. It was the first time that he had seen the majority of them since the trial after all. Bernard had flicked his head round the door, Zach had stayed for a minute, and Jazz had clearly been in his room before he had this morning, as there had been a small packet of Parma violets on his desk – her way of wishing him well. He had discovered that Parma violets did not go well with coffee.

Whilst no-one who had popped in to see Peter had mentioned the trial directly – there had been unusually warm words from Bernard, maybe he had known a child who had been through something like this – they had all enquired after Peter, checking he was ok. Not so with Emma.

"Well that summer was a complete fucking bust wasn't it?" She walked into his classroom and stood there, as if defying Peter to tell her it was actually quite good. Absent-mindedly she ran her the fingertips of her left hand along one of the chipped desks, but seemed even more annoyed that she couldn't find anything there to her displeasure.

"It was alright for me..." ventured Peter. He moved to sit at his desk, not imagining that this was going to be a short visit.

Emma looked sharply back at him as if considering a rebuttal to his last comment, but decided against it. She moved through his classroom, through the maze of desks and stood at the window looking out, observing the children that were knocking footballs around or else stood in huddles discussing their summers. Clearly none of them could be as pained as she.

"So what went wrong then, what happened kidder?" Peter enquired with a soft burr to his voice, still not sure if this summer might have involved the death of her entire family, or the stubbing of a toe. She didn't reply and Peter thought about her. She was stood in front of the window, gripping herself tightly, as if by doing that she could keep everything in, her arms a corset of emotion.

"I mean, are we talking about a coffee at break time chat, or a pint in the pub after work chat?" This offer of choice seemed to touch something inside Emma, nudging a broken record off its run.

"Pub." she said turning to look at him. "Staffroom at the end of the day?" as she said this, Peter fancied that he could see a little pleading there, thought he could tell this was something important, but as soon as he had seen it, the flash was gone.

"Ok, staffroom." Emma then stalked out of the room, leaving neither deeper explanation for her visit, nor a single enquiry after Peter.

He leaned back in his chair and stared blankly at the opposite walls. He found Emma simultaneously utterly fascinating and entirely frustrating. This last visit was a prime example. She had a great capacity for care and concern, but as soon as there was something in her life that wasn't running on its rails, she would shut down, and everything would have to be about her. It wasn't that he had needed her to ask about the trial or see how he was, it was just so expected, so much what a normal person would do. When it wasn't there, it felt odd, like missing a step when walking up stairs.

He crunched down the last lonely Parma violet, and walked across his room to straighten a few wayward chairs.

19. The return of Margaret Donne

"... but I like autumn." explained Mags to Ella as they sat on the bus that morning, trundling towards Smithfield. Ella shrugged noncommittally, but Mags ploughed on.

"It's like, you know when you see birds that are trying to put on a display for other birds, that's the only time that you see those colours? Well that's what autumn's like. There are all these colours and things hiding in the trees, and they only ever show them at this time of year. I suppose if you saw it all the time it'd get boring..." Ella found this a little bit boring already, but declined to say so. Mags watched one tree as the bus passed it. It must have been 20 feet tall, and was covered with green leaves the size of a hand, but here and there, a few leaves were beginning to turn into a pallid yellow, that made the tree look ill. Mags knew, though, that as the weeks passed, more leaves would change, they would move through orange to a deep scarlet, and there would be moments when the tree looked as if it was on fire, flames falling from its leafy crown. She would look at this tree everyday, would examine its progress, would watch its leaves fall, and she wondered how many of her schoolmates would do the same? Maybe that wasn't a bad thing, she thought, maybe that was ok. This tree had a secret double life as a crimson flame, and if nobody saw it, then it became her secret – not _that_ kind of secret she thought, as the scars on her arm itched – something so secret that it was hidden where everyone could see it. She liked that thought, she liked that there was a great world of sights and beauties and signals for everyone to see, but that there were only a few who could tune themselves in.

Mags had lapsed into a few minutes silence without realising, and Ella looked at the girl who, for the want of a better word, was her friend. Their skill at drama had pushed them together, and a chance supermarket meeting in the summer had revealed that their mothers knew each other, from some place they had both worked at a long time ago. Then the mothers had wanted to go out and catch up, and they had met up with their girls and they had sat and drunk coffee and told the girls to go and have a look round the shops whilst they talked about 'mum' stuff. Ella sensed desperation in Mags' mum, not for a man or for money or anything like that, but to be around normalcy again, to be around those constant buffers in life that keep us sane.

It wasn't that Ella _minded_ being with Mags, she was funny and cool in a weird kind of way, but sometimes, she just sort of tuned out. She would suddenly be talking about something that was either so obscure that Ella didn't care (jam jars, bed socks, sellotape and scotch tape...) or so full of hidden emotion (like the trees) that Ella was sure that she was about to break down and start crying. It wasn't that Ella was callous, or didn't want her friend to be able to cry, it was just that, well, there had been all that stuff last year hadn't there? Mags had been really, really quiet for weeks before Christmas, and then something had happened and her world seemed to have exploded, and she'd only been in school patchily for the rest of the year. Ella had only vague notions of the full truth of Mags' story – she had filed all the info she had away in a secret box in her brain of things she didn't understand – and whilst she would probably have quite liked to have known the full story, Ella knew that there was something so deep that maybe it was best left undisturbed. Not that this was how Ella White's thirteen-year-old mind reasoned this out, but there are some things that we need never be told, some cautions that run deep in the bone.

The bus pulled up sharp at a set of traffic lights and the spell that had been cast over the two girls was broken. A moment later they were talking again, talking about their summer, talking about their friends, talking about their drama, talking about what teachers they might have this year, and the casual observer that had missed the moments of awkwardness might never have noticed that there was anything wrong with either of these two little girls.

But every single day, Mags would watch the trees burn.

There was no deputy head waiting for Mags when she got off the bus this day. Everything that needed to be said had been said, all the arrangements had been made and she was simply going to try to slip into her Year Nine as smoothly as possible.

She walked with Ella through school, each of them pausing and giggling at the slightest little sights. This person's haircut here, this new teacher there, and it was only a few short moments before they were walking into Peter's room, gathering – like a few of their classmates – before the start of the first day.

Ella strode in, throwing her bag onto a chair and striking up a conversation with one of the twins. Mags didn't quite make it; she paused in the doorway, as though an invisible barrier hadn't quite let her go all the way through. Peter was otherwise engaged on the other side of the room and hadn't noticed her arrival. She looked at the doorframe, as if there would be some clue there as to why her body couldn't quite make it in. She looked at the hinges intently.

Funny things hinges, she thought to herself, they're one of those things that you never really think about. You notice the door and you notice the handle, but unless they stop working you never think about the hinges. The door was propped open with a doorstop that one of the form had 'made' in a technology class, and she touched the hinge for a moment. The metal and the screws were blackened and dirty, but you could just see a hint of brassy gold colour peeping through. She withdrew her hand and noticed an oily black streak on her fingers. Grease, she thought to herself, that was what you needed, something to make things run a little more smoothly. She moved her fingers back and forth, and as she did so, the invisible barrier melted away. She eased the oil into her fingertips and it felt good, then an impulse made her look up and she saw Peter was looking at her, and the invisible barrier slid entirely away. Yes, that was what she needed, something to make things run more smoothly.

"Right guys, that's the bell, you've got your timetables, so come on, off to your first exciting lesson." Peter gave them a full toothy grin and the majority of the form groaned. They'd spent an hour with Peter that morning, another paper storm and another set of rules, and they began to file out past Peter in a rather resigned fashion.

He stood at the doorway and let them pass through. He straightened ties and motioned for shirts to be tucked in, but mostly he just tried to say something to everyone as they passed. Mags was one of the last to leave, and as she did, he touched her lightly on the arm, more to get her attention than anything else.

"Have a good day Mags." And he smiled. Not the toothy grimace, but a wide warm smile. She smiled back at him, and looked into his eyes, and there it was! She couldn't believe she hadn't realised. Every day that she looked into her own mirror, she had the oddest sensation, it was as if her own pupils were mirrors, and she'd be able to see some different reflections if only she could get close enough. She'd looked for this in other people's eyes, her mother's, Ella's – Ella had been rather perturbed by the intense stare – but that other mirror, that window even, wasn't there. But as she looked into Peter's eyes she saw it, just a flicker, and for a moment she had a sense that she wasn't alone, that all the pain, and hurt and numb rage that she felt inside, well maybe other people had that too. With the smile lingering on her lips, she walked away to her first lesson, and looked back to see Peter still smiling.

"Yeah, we've got Everett this year haven't we? What's he like?" These were the words of some older pupils that walked past Mags and prepared for their first lesson.

Yes, of course, thought Mags as she turned a corner, that was how things worked. Peter might have had a bigger effect on her life than hardly anyone else, but she was still just his pupil, he would have done that for anyone. He would have done that for any of his pupils.

"He's supposed to be alright, bit strict though." The second older student replied and they poked their heads around Peter's door.

"Is he the one with the quiff and the glasses we saw with Griffiths that time?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Yeah, he's also the one that's stood behind you guys, so I'd make a move on and get in." Peter had stepped out of his room and across the corridor a few moments ago, and reckoned that sneaking up on these pupils who were talking about him and peering into his room was fair game.

As he ushered them in though, he wasn't prepared for the splurge of warmth that ran through his body at the mention of his being seen with Jazz. As the rest of the pupils made their way in, he contented himself at the thought of being 'seen with' Jazz, or even 'being with' her. Their relationship hadn't really moved in any direction, they had just spent a lot of time together. The warmth he felt answered a question though, did he want it to go any further? Well it would seem that he did.

"Good morning year 10, and welcome to GCSE English. We're going to start this morning with..."

Jazz was singing as she walked into the staffroom, without the slightest hint of self-consciousness. She'd had a good first day back at work, but then again, she had it easy, drama was one of those subjects that it was easy to get kids enthusiastic about. It had its boring bits, like anything else, but you could really stir the kids up. Not like Peter, she thought, his subject could be so...

There it was again, her first day had been so pleasant because she had spent it with her brain in a bubble. Every lesson had left her thinking about Peter, every child had seemed to mention him, and now her own thoughts were bending round to him.

She had enjoyed the time she had spent with him that summer, it had seemed like a perfect, entirely platonic relationship – they hadn't even held hands. They had just met up and chatted and drank and eaten. She had thought that she didn't really want to be seeing anyone at the moment, but her brain was playing at treachery, letting her real thoughts sneak up on her as she went about her day.

She busied herself at her pigeonhole, trying to convince herself that she wasn't just there waiting in the staffroom to see Peter. She could have gone to his room of course, but that was just so much more _obvious_ , and she had been in first thing to leave him those sweets he liked anyway. Would he realise they were from her? I hope so, she thought, before she could stop herself.

"... and then the little fucktard tried to pretend he had no idea what he was doing. I mean I don't _think_ you can crash fifteen computers simultaneously and not know that you've done it."

"Hello Emma." said Jazz, there was no-one who could quite swear like Emma. "How's it going? Good summer?"

"Yeah, not bad, alright I suppose. See you tomorrow Dave." This last comment directed to a tall bald science teacher who gathered his belongings and left. "How was yours?"

"Oh, not bad, not bad, saw a bit of Peter, you know." There, she had said it out loud.

"Oh right." Emma paused in the inspection of her pigeonhole. "Are you two...?" She made a side-to-side motion with her index finger, a universal indication of relationship.

"Oh, no, not, I mean... no." She had been flustered by this, even though she had brought it on herself, and felt her cheeks glow.

"Well, maybe that's for the best." Jazz nodded as Emma said this, before running it past her internal censor.

"What... what do you mean?" Jazz could only find offence in what Emma was saying, and took an aggressive stance.

"Well... he's been through so much hasn't he?" A knowing nod that spoke of a million hurts.

"Well... I mean, I knew that thing with the girl in his form hit him pretty hard, but.." Jazz was nervous now, trying to inch her way along the quicksand that she wasn't sure would ever end.

"Oh, I don't just mean that, love." The 'love' got under Jazz's skin, and grated against an exposed nerve. "All the other stuff, you know, his wife and all that, all the difficulties he's had."

Suddenly, the warm honeyed feelings that had been slipping through Jazz's body were replaced by stinging strips of barbed wire. She couldn't breathe, then she overcompensated by nearly hyperventilating.

"Sorry, love, didn't you know?" Emma's face was as unreadable as the sphinx. Jazz coughed and half expected blood to fly from her lips.

"I... I..." she stuttered, and Peter chose that exact moment to enter the staffroom. "... I've got to go." Jazz turned tail and fled out of a different door, before Peter had even seen her.

Emma watched her go, watched her red-wedged shoes clip-clop across the step and watched the pencil stuck in her bun leave through the opposite door to Peter.

"Hey, kidder, how's it going?" Peter had walked over to Emma now. "Good day, feeling any better?" He was looking around the room, and Emma seized his arm to focus his attention on her.

"Not bad really, shall we get going?"

"Yeah... err..." Peter looked around again. "Have you seen Jazz Griffiths, I've got, like, a form thing I need to tell her about." But Emma had dipped her head to straighten a shoe as he had spoken, apparently not hearing.

"Come on Peter, I need to talk." She steered him out of the door he had come in and out of the building.

Jazz, meanwhile had returned to her classroom, on the floor above the staffroom. She had entered, locked the door, and then sat in one of the chairs by the wall so that she could not be observed from the small glass panel set in the door. She put her feet up on one of the red plastic chairs, noting as she did so, a spurting graffiti cock that appeared to ejaculate right into the backside of whoever sat in the chair

The barbed wire was twisting in her throat and she replayed every minute she had ever spent in Peter's company. There was the fact that although he was interested in her, he was always so private, and now she thought about it, she'd never been inside his house, and, she realised, with a gutting twist of pain, she didn't even know exactly where he lived. He wore what looked like a wedding ring on his right hand, how could she have never have asked about it? She had always presumed it was an inherited piece of jewellery, but now it all made sense. Plus, she didn't actually have his home phone number, just a mobile, what was that about? She thought she had spent a lot of time with him; even if his marriage was on the rocks now, why hadn't he mentioned it to her?

She sat there stewing in her own anger for half an hour, getting ever more twitchy and thinking of ever more ways to torture Peter Everett. She wrenched her phone from her coat pocket and deleted his name, and after a second's thought deleted every mildly flirtatious text he had ever sent her, no longer would she sit in bed at home and flick through them to induce that warm feeling in her stomach. She stood up and moved over to the window. The September sun was still riding in the sky, casting only pure light over the landscape. Why did she feel like this? Why was she even bothered? She paused to slip a few errant strands of hair behind her ear.

It was the lying, she decided. She would feel like this if any of her friends had lied to her about something this big, it was nothing to do with the fact that she might have convinced herself that here was someone who might, at last, be different. She surprised herself greatly when a single small, thin tear, left one of her eyes and crawled down her face. She was crying for herself, and for the imagined wife of Peter Everett.

20. Breaking

"So what's all the fuss then kidder?" asked Peter as he settled into his pint in the Half Moon, unaware that parts of his life were being torn to shreds.

"Well... its Cam, he's I think he's... I mean I'm sure that he's..." She chewed her lip anxiously "Having an affair." She finished weakly.

"What makes you think so Em?" Peter wasn't sure if this was another flight of paranoia or the real deal.

"Well, I mean there's all the stuff I told you about before, you know last time I thought there was something."

"Ok..." said Peter, hoping there was going to be something more concrete coming.

"And well..."

Emma was hunched over the computer the office-cum-spare-bedroom at home. She didn't use this desktop as a rule, she never really needed to, but she had every right to, yes she certainly did.

Emma and Cam had separate users on the computer, that was only natural. She couldn't bear how cluttered and untidy he liked the computer desktop, and he couldn't bear her choice of wallpaper, and obviously when you're setting up different users, you're asked to put in a password anyway, and it had never occurred to either of them not to have one.

So this was why Emma had spent the past hour hunched over the computer, in a desperate hurry to try and work out Cam's password, so that she could log into his user and read his emails. She had tried the name of his first pet, his mother's maiden name, his own name backwards, his credit card pin, but the password seemed to remain one of the few secrets Cam Carter would be able to keep from his wife.

Until she tried her own name. It was a last resort, stupid, who would have that kind of password anyway, stab in the dark, and it had worked. How ridiculous was that, his wife's name! It was as if he wanted to get found out.

She had logged onto his user, and had clicked the button to check his email – the computer had that password stored. And she watched the emails filter through. One from his boss, one from another colleague, two from eBay, one from Amazon, and there were still ten more to download. She thumped the desk in exasperation; this was not what she needed!

Then the door behind her had creaked open and Cam was stood there. Emma tried to minimize all the programmes, but all that left was the unmistakeable sight of Yoda on Cam's desktop.

She knew she'd been found out, she knew that he would know instantly what she had been doing, but a slick mercurial part of her brain knew that Cam was guilty, knew that he had something to hide. She was just going to have to bluff it out.

"So." she said with as much invective as she could spit. "So, you use our computer, our computer, for this, you use our own desktop that we bought together, to... do all of this, to carry on like this." She stood up in a huffy whirlwind and glared at him, defying him to have an explanation.

" Emma." He was so calm, she couldn't believe it, he was so placid it was annoying. There was no doubt in Emma's mind that on that computer somewhere was proof that Cam had a string of tarts across Manchester, all waiting for the word to leap into bed with him, but he was so bloody calm.

" Emma, have you... have you been reading my emails?" She flowered instantly with hissing anger "Have you been sat there figuring out my password?" And somehow, he had the nerve to look affronted about that.

" Emma we've got a real problem here." He moved forward to touch her, but she flinched away – he stepped back.

"Oh yes, we've got a problem." She snarled viciously at him. "We've got a problem with you and that..." Suddenly, she lifted her knee sharply and hit him square in the crotch, hinging him at the waist instantly and knocking him back onto the sofa bed that was crammed into the room.

"Come on then, tell me I'm wrong, tell me we haven't got a problem!" She was defying him now, wanting him to fight against her.

"No Emma." He was doubled up in pain, unable to stand, but still he spoke with the calmness of a saint."Emma, we do have a problem, a really big problem that we have got to sort out." He winced as the words came out. "I think we need to see some kind of counsellor."

"... and after he said that, I just couldn't bear to be there any more. I took my car keys, threw some things in a bag and went to stay with a friend of mine. That was two nights ago, and I haven't been home since. I mean isn't that just the biggest piece of cast-iron proof that he's having an affair? I mean, you don't say that you need counselling if you're happy in a marriage do you?"

No you don't, thought Peter, nor did anyone he knew routinely get booted in the bollocks as part of a happy marriage either. Mind you, how _could_ you be so calm about something like that? Wouldn't you go mad about someone reading your email almost as a knee-jerk (ha!) reaction?

Peter was unsure about whether Cam was or wasn't having an affair, but as he looked at Emma – a small rubbery tear smudging her mascara – he decided that that wasn't the point. He would offer her his advice and opinion, but right now, the most important thing was that his friend Emma needed him. Even if Cam Carter turned out to be the most wronged man in history, if Peter had any loyalty, it was to Emma rather than 'the truth'.

"It does sound bad Emma, a bit fucked up." Peter always found himself swearing more in Emma's company. He turned the whole thing over in his mind, trying to look at it from every angle. "So did he actually say he was having an affair at any point?"

"No Peter," Emma shook her head condescendingly, "But he said as good as." The tear progressed slowly down her face, leaving a deep track in her foundation.

"Ok then, let's assume he is having an affair, what happens now?" Peter swirled his pint-pot round and watched an overlarge bubble nearly climb over the lip

Emma seemed to visibly sag at this point, it might have been the first time she had actually heard someone else hypothesising about this out loud, and it took something from her.

"Well then, I suppose we... I suppose..." But Emma had nothing to suppose Peter realised, and something clicked in his head. This wasn't about whether Cam was or wasn't having an affair it was about the drama. Emma had got so caught up in investigating Cam that she hadn't really stopped to think about what happened when she actually found something out, whether that confirmed or denied. She rallied quickly.

"Then I suppose he's going to have a pretty big fucking fight on his hands." said Emma as she drained the last of her drink.

Words are not fixed in their meanings. They do not rest, cast in commandment stone, representing only one idea through eternity. Words can be fluid, they can slip and they can change. Sometimes they come full circle, sometimes they branch off and sometimes they evolve, meaning different things to different people.

'Chaos' is a word that has flowed and changed through its own history. The ancient Greeks saw it as the void, the nothing, the primeval gap in reality from which their gods came to them. To a mathematician Chaos is found in the gaps between the dimensions and numbers that they care so much about. A physicist would tell you that chaos is 'sensitive dependence on initial conditions' and point you to the butterflies causing the storms, and yet more people would tell you that chaos is simply one big mess.

Chaos is all of these things, it is gods, numbers, butterflies and mess. It is the raw primal abyss and the sparkling fractal curve. It is the confusion from which all life and being must crawl and it is the shiny black infinity that brings about its own end.

Jazz Griffiths was feeling the tender fingers of Chaos caressing her life. She hadn't realised how much she had planned her immediate future, how much she had begun to look forward to a future with Peter. She had met a man who she liked and who seemed to like her, and they had begun to spend time together. The complete lack of physical interaction so far had only served to make the relationship feel more special, and she had, without realising, written the next few chapters of her life. They would start going our properly, they would move in together, and then...

Then came the slamming cell door that proclaimed his marriage, and everything felt empty, and what was worse was that it had made her examine what feelings and memories she had already begun to hold dear, and proclaimed them hollow also.

Emma had known what she was doing when she told Jazz of Peter's marriage. She wasn't trying to remove Jazz from Peter's life permanently, just for the moment. She _needed_ Peter that evening, she needed him to help her with the wiry sprawling mess that her life had become, so she had deliberately frightened Jazz off, just for the moment. She _knew_ that they would work it out, and Emma guessed that she herself would probably be able to come out of it blameless with the blessing of ignorance.

What she hadn't counted on were the different paths of life spreading out in front of Miss Jasmine Griffiths, like a marble balanced on a mountaintop. She hadn't counted on the fact that under the layers of dippy drama teacher with a penchant for second-hand clothes, was an impulsive, career minded young woman, with an itching desire to return to her native London.

A few months previously, Mandy, one of Jazz's teaching friends from London had rung her. Mandy was teaching geography in a school that had just expanded with an ambitious new building, and been given a fat chunk of money to become a champion of performing arts. They needed a new head of faculty, and Mandy had rung Jazz to suggest she apply for it. Mandy's motives were entirely selfish; she liked Jazz a lot, and simply wanted her to move south. Jazz had ignored the idea at the time, things had just begun to start with Peter after much trying on his part, and she wanted to see where that would lead before considering any move. All of that had exploded though, with Emma Carter's carefully chosen words, and it was with a stuttering heart that Jazz switched on her phone, ignored the two texts from Peter that popped up with a shrill ping, and rang Mandy.

21. Tears will flow

Peter hadn't really wanted to stay in the pub any longer, but nor did he want to abandon his friend in what seemed to be an hour of need. He had trudged back and forth from the bar a few more times, with Emma sinking ever lower into a sloppy funk. He had resigned himself to the fact that he was going to be facing the second day of the school year with a head that felt like it was stuffed with cotton wool and drawing pins. He had sent Jazz a couple of texts to see how her first day had gone, but she hadn't replied – which was odd since she seemed to not even go to the toilet without her phone in case she missed a message or call. He decided against ringing her, he didn't want to look too keen.

Emma had continued to talk and talk and talk, her conversation turning ever darker. She ambled through a potted history of her own romantic life, all episodes of which had ended in either disaster or pain, no matter what type of man she had 'tried'. There had been the young artist who had been more interested in dealing weed than 'dealing' with Emma, the rough diamond of a taxi driver who had crashed his cab into Emma's car when she tried to break up with him, and the handsome older man – her first love and her first sex – who had 'chewed her up and spat her out' when she wanted something more.

Peter had begun to wonder what he had been doing with his life, as the litany of Emma's loves continued. She had seemed determined to try out every type of man and relationship that the world could offer; always chasing a dream she could never quite wake up from.

As these poetic thoughts drifted through Peter's mind he decided that enough was enough. They had been in the pub for about five hours now and had consumed far more alcohol than was sensible for a 'school night'.

"Come on now kidder, I think that its time to go." Pulling Emma up from the table, Peter went to retrieve a taxi number from the pub phone, reckoning he could get the taxi to drop Emma off on the way back to his. With one last dejected check to see whether Jazz had replied to his texts, he called for someone to take him home.

Jazz hit the button on her phone that ended the call. She had spoken to Mandy who had informed her that despite several rounds of interviews the school had still not appointed a head of performing arts faculty. She had given Jazz the number of the senior member of staff in charge of the recruitment, and after a pre-emptive call from Mandy, Jazz had phoned. The response had been enthusiastic and only a little desperate sounding.

"Well, I think we could schedule another round of interviews within the month, how would you feel about that? A successful candidate would then be expected to start after Christmas."

"Well... that sounds really good Mr..." The sound of riffling pages on the other end of the line cut Jazz short.

"Hmm... actually, unless you'd be prepared to come down on Thursday Miss Griffiths." There was pensive, deliberating quality to the man's voice. "Mandy Jones has spoken very highly of you, and we might be able to speed things along. How do you feel about that?"

Jazz felt a hard lump form in her throat. Twenty-four hours ago, she wouldn't have believed the different direction she would be steering her life in. She thought carefully about the entire situation. She thought about everything she had imagined would happen to her in life, she thought about everything she used to feel about Peter, and everything she felt about him now. She thought about her school and her classroom and her colleagues, and she thought about the mocking laughter echoing from Peter's mouth as he was shacked up somewhere warm and cosy with his faceless wife.

Hadn't her life always been like this though? Hadn't it always turned on a sixpence? She had rolled a dice to decide which universities to apply to and had only come to work at Smithfield because the head of drama had a funny name. The shiny pupils of Jazz's eyes lost that last little piece of glass.

"Thursday? I'll be there."

As much as she had adopted a 'fuck you' attitude to Peter, Jazz was still feeling the barbs from his perceived wrongdoing. She arrived at school as late as she could get away with the following morning, spent break talking to the head about her intentions, left the site for lunch and ran from the gates whilst the bell was ringing. She needed to get through the day without seeing Peter, then she could go to her rushed interview in London the next day and be free from the pain Peter didn't even know that he had caused.

Jazz was scared about seeing Peter, scared that he would whip some story from thin air and charm her round to his way of thinking with silken words. He had appeared at her classroom door during one of his free periods that day, and she had been able to absently shoo him away, pretending her class needed all her concentration.

Peter didn't even realise that there was anything wrong; he assumed that Jazz was snowed under with start of the year work. Emma had snapped back into her normal acerbic self and didn't appear to be about to crumble under the pressure.

Peter was surprised the following day when he worked out that Jazz wasn't in school, and positively worried when she still hadn't responded to his texts and eventual calls. He had asked around, but no-one in the drama department seemed to know where Jazz was, and the Head had remained entirely tight-lipped. It had not been until Friday morning until he had seen her and found out the entirety of what had happened.

The staff of the school were required to gather together on a Friday morning for a twenty-minute briefing on the week that had just been and the week that was about to be. Peter had been lingering in the staffroom for the quarter hour previous to the briefing in an attempt to see and speak to Jazz, but she had slipped in a few minutes late. Peter thought that it had been only him that had seen her, but Ben Pearce, who had been delivering the briefing, flicked his head as she entered and smiled.

"And I think that this would be a good moment to deliver some very exciting, yet very sad for Smithfield news." Peter looked at Jazz as she flushed, and he wondered what the hell was going on.

"Yesterday, in a whirlwind of last minute interviews, Miss Jasmine Griffiths..." Ben gave her a genuine friendly smile, "... was offered and accepted a position as Head of the performing arts faculty at Allthrope Community High School in London. We will be very sad to lose her..." and here Ben displayed what appeared to be a very real sense of regret "... but we cannot deny her this excellent opportunity and very significant promotion, so let's all congratulate Jazz." He clapped his hands and the rest of the staff joined in, only stopping when Ben continued to the next item on his clipboarded list.

Peter had raised his hands to clap out of an inner reflex, but had only held them there in mid air as the rest of the staff applauded.

As the briefing ended Peter leapt out of his chair to try and talk to Jazz, but she had disappeared and he did not have the time to follow her before his full day of teaching started.

Peter's morning of teaching – year 7 poetry and year 10 Romeo and Juliet – trudged by with sickening slowness, but did allow him some time to think. Jazz had not sought him out on the first day of term, she had been uncharacteristically hard to find the following day, and the day after that, she had landed herself a brand new job in London. Plus, over all this time she had ignored every text and phone call he had put her way.

As he turned all of this over in his mind, he suddenly realised how childish it all felt. It became clear to him that she didn't want to have anything to do with him, but couldn't she just come and talk to him like an adult? And, had she really gotten herself a new job just to get away from him? That seemed absurd, but there seemed to be little other option. Maybe she had been offered the job out of the blue and had cut him off so she didn't dissuade him. He had sat tapping his teeth with the rubber end of a pencil for a full two minutes thinking about this before one of his pupils had snapped him out of it.

"But sir? Why is she asking where he is? Doesn't she know?" asked Chloe Bell, waving her text wildly in her left hand.

"What?" Peter had spoken as if waking up from a deep sleep, and it took him a moment to focus on Chloe and the rest of the class.

"She says: 'Wherefore art thou _Romeo_?' Why is she asking where he is? I don't get it?" Peter noticed with an inner grimace that even when making a statement, this girl sounded like she was asking a question.

"Well that's a really good question Chloe, thanks for asking." He moved from his desk and stood in front of the class drawing their attention to him. It astonished him how easily the language of the teacher flowed these days, it was like speaking the lines from an internal script, or saying a prayer that you have learned by rote. You would struggle if you sat down and tried to write it out verbatim, but each word that you spoke led you on to the next, and each sentence slotted together with jig-saw perfection, the right piece always in the right place.

"This is a really common misunderstanding, the word 'wherefore' means 'why' rather than 'where'." Peter flexed his fingers as a form of visual punctuation. "Juliet is asking why does this man, this boy, that she has begun to fall in love with _have_ to be Romeo, a Montague, the very opposite of what she is. In theory, the very thing she should despise."

Chloe was placated momentarily, pulling her fingers through her dirty blonde hair, and adjusting her glasses, but then her hand shot up again.

"But I don't get this bit? This next bit? 'What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot, Nor arm, nor face,'? What? Had he, like got a Montague tattoo or something on his body?"

The rest of the class shook in the grip of their giggles, and Chloe herself chuckled along.

"Yeah, sir! Like, Romeo's a gangster isn't he?" Jack Harris had spoken up from the back of the room and made a gangster style hand flick to illustrate his point.

"Yes Jack, I also believe that Romeo Montague also had entirely golden teeth and makes a guest appearance on the latest Wu-Tang album." He leaned backwards onto his desk with ease and folded his arms, a smile splitting his face. "But seriously, what she's saying there is that there is no part of Romeo that makes him a Montague, he is what he is, but there is nothing inside or outside his body that makes him this..." Peter paused for a moment to search for the right word. "... _enemy_ that Juliet is supposed to have."

Peter walked in a circle around the central core of desks in his room and continued to talk. "This whole passage is about love, and who you fall in love with. This idea that you cannot control it, there's a really common saying that Love is blind, and that partly means that we are supposed to have no control over who we fall in love with. What Billy..." Peter always referred to Shakespeare as 'Billy' to the amusement of his classes. "... is trying to do here is create some tension and difficulty in the story, by having Love breach this unimaginable gap." Chloe and her classmates seemed quite content with this explanation, and within a few minutes Peter had successfully redirected them back to their read through of the text.

But Peter was soon lost in his own private thoughts again. All of what he said was true, he felt it like he felt the ground beneath his feet or the blood run in his veins, but, he wondered, did it have to be like that? Did love _have_ to be a struggle? Did it have to have an obstacle in its way, to make the grasping of it all the sweeter? Was Jazz's relocation to London going to prove to be the difficulty that gave them both the love affair of a lifetime?

As the bell rang signalling the end of that lesson, and the start of break time, Peter looked up – thoughts of love and powerful romance still spinning round his head – into Jazz's face, as she stood in front of his classroom door.

22. Smoke and Mirrors

"I've just come from Ben's office." said Jazz. "I've signed my resignation for the chair of governors and I've sent a fax to my new school officially accepting the position. It's legally binding Peter, that's how serious I am." She paused, resting her weight on one hip, and looked Peter hard in the face, which must have been displaying his utter sense of bewilderment.

"And just so that you know," Taking his silence as evidence of guilt, "This has nothing to do with you Peter, I've done this for myself. I should have done it earlier, but I didn't because I wanted to stick around you, but now... now..." Jazz gritted her teeth and clenched her fists "... I've decided to do this entirely for myself."

Peter looked her up and down and was at an utter loss to know either what was going on or what to say next. She had such an accusatory, combative stance, that he knew that she felt wronged about something, but he couldn't, for the life of him think what it was.

"Jazz..." Peter scratched around in his brain for some words that might suit the situation, but all he could do was look over Jazz's shoulder to the people walking behind her; Emma's head flicked momentarily into view. "What the fuck is going on Jazz? I genuinely have no idea." He tried to look openly and honestly at her, but all he got back was a stare carved from frozen spite.

"I was waiting in the staffroom on Tuesday, Peter." She was spitting as she spoke "Waiting for you, and whilst I was waiting, I started to talk to your _dear_ friend Emma. And she let me in on a little secret, do you know what that secret was Peter?" Peter shook his head, but Jazz seemed to gain only strength in her anger from this. "She told me about your wife, she told me about how you are married, she told me about your dirty little secret Peter, that you have locked away from the world." She seemed unburdened now, diminished after shooting her only bolt. "I thought we were going to be together _Pete_ , I though that this," She flicked an outstretched index finger back and forth between the two of them, "was going to matter. But all the times we met up, all those long, glorious sunny afternoons that we were together, you were just plotting how to get away and what you were going to have for tea that night in your cosy marital home."

She had slammed Peter's classroom door behind her as she had begun this outburst, and now that she seemed spent, she sat awkwardly on one of the desk and glared at Peter, defying him to have a response.

Slowly, Peter sat down in his chair and eased off his shoes. He didn't know why, but as he placed his sock covered feet on the scratchy carpet, he felt a connection that gave him a spark of strength.

"What exactly did Emma tell you?" Peter gripped the edge of his desk and returned her look of hate with one of placid calm. "What _exact_ words did she use?" Peter wasn't sure what had happened yet, but he thought he could see the shape being outlined. Had Emma lied to wind up Jazz? Or had Jazz gotten the wrong end of the stick from an otherwise innocent comment?

Jazz looked bemused by this line of questioning, but determined to stick it out all the same, she wasn't going to let him hide behind words and tricks.

"She asked me if we were together, and I said that we weren't," even saying this to him still seemed to cause her some small amount of pain, "And she said that it was maybe for the best after all the difficulties you'd had, with your wife." She was becoming hysterical now, letting every bitter feeling from every broken relationship she had ever had rise to the surface and swallow her senses.

Peter took a deep breath and turned his head to look out of the window. A football flew through his field of vision and nearly knocked a passing sparrow out of the air. He didn't turn back to look at Jazz, but spoke instead to the sparrow, which had taken up residence on his outside window ledge.

"I have no difficulty with my wife Jazz." Jazz felt a nauseating blow to the head as she heard this first admittance of the existence of Mrs Everett, she watched on as, apparently subconsciously, Peter traced his finger round the dial of the watch he was wearing. "No difficulties at all." The sparrow bobbed back and forth and threw Jazz and Peter a quizzical look.

"Because 'difficulty' isn't really an appropriate word." He looked her directly in the eye, he had to be sure that she caught every single word and swallowed its meaning. "I got married, Jasmine," Peter didn't know why he had used her full name "About two and a half years ago, that much is absolutely true. But the vital piece of information that you've missed out is, the fact that she died two and a half years ago." Jazz flinched as if she had been given an electrical shock, but regained her control. "She died on our wedding day. I became a husband and a widower on the same day. So, no, _miss_ , I have no difficulties with my wife." His hand had closed around the face of his watch and he was gripping it with an intensity that whitened his fingers.

Jazz stood up from the desk and physically stuttered in the middle of the room, not knowing whether to go to him or flee. Fresh tears flooded her face now, and all she could manage was the word "Sorry" as she ran, crying tears of anguished sorrow, and looking for an available toilet to throw up in.

The next few months at Smithfield were difficult for both Peter and Jazz. In one fell swoop Emma had – albeit slightly accidentally – both made them realise how they felt about each other, and provided the means for their relationship to be rent asunder. Before she had found out the full truth, Jazz had dropped a few ill-advised comments to some of her colleagues telling them of the reality of Peter Everett as she saw it. She then had to spend several humbling hours trying to repair the damage she had done, something she had found impossible to do without relating the actual truth.

Peter wasn't ashamed or embarrassed of what had happened to him, but he liked it more when people didn't know. He liked the fact that he never felt weighed down by the baggage of his own history when within those four walls, and what he hadn't realised was, was that the school itself had become a haven for him, somewhere where he could just be Peter Everett, teacher, rather than Peter Everett, widower. This was blown apart by Jazz's indiscretions, and Peter found himself having to cope with fresh waves of pity and sympathy, when all he really wanted to do was to borrow a scheme of work for 'Of Mice and Men'.

Jazz begged Peter to let her attempt to try to repair some damage, they met up in town twice more in the middle of October, both wanting to recapture the glowing sunshine of the moments they had spent together in the summer, but these meetings were stilted, oddly formal affairs. They made polite conversation and both tried not to slouch, neither allowing themselves to become comfortable.

Jazz really had tied herself to the job in a legally binding way, but now that she had made her grand mistake she was glad of it, it would allow her to start a brand new calendar year, in a brand new place with a brand new life.

Emma had been horrified when she found out the role that her carefully chosen words had had on the lives of these two people that she knew, but Peter couldn't help but feel that she enjoyed the power, that sense of being a force of change, and he avoided discussing the matter with her. Not that that was a problem, getting Emma to talk about anything but the impending implosion of her marriage was difficult at best.

During September there had been awkward summit meetings between Emma and Cam on neutral ground that met with no resolution, meaning that at the beginning of October, Emma officially moved out for a few months where they agreed to have minimal contact "to let the dust settle."

"And of course I'm going to do no such thing." said Emma over the top of a gin and tonic as she told Peter about this in the Half-moon.

"What?" Peter had asked disinterestedly.

"I mean, I'm gonna bloody well watch him, I'm gonna keep tight fuckin' tabs on him and see what he's up to, I'm not going to be buggered about."

Peter had thought that this was a ridiculous idea and had told her so, only to be met with a sour face and another string of swear words. As October turned into November, Emma told Peter of at least six periods of intensive surveillance, where she had seen Cam do nothing more exciting than buying a pint of milk and talking to the postman.

The 'minimal contact' that they were to have took the form of fortnightly marriage counselling sessions that Emma was reluctant to talk about. "Big fat fucking waste of time" they had been proclaimed. All that Peter could find out was that they were each allowed a turn to speak and then the counsellor would speak. Emma seemed to be of the opinion that the counsellor and Cam were ganging up on her, Peter found it hard to believe that an entire army would be able to gang up Emma, but declined to mention this to her.

At that time, Peter felt like there were few things in his life, in his interactions with adults, that he could take any pleasure in. His relationship with Ed continued as ever – that was the one absolute rock in life – but between Jazz leaving, Emma disintegrating, and Bernard giving Peter an extremely wide berth because of it. Peter felt like the adults in his life had become a big pain in the backside.

So, he turned to the children in his life.
23. Circles

This is a picture of a doorway. In that doorway stands Margaret 'Mags' Donne.

To those who have followed her life closely, they should notice now that a new person stands before them. In her previous life as a subject of abuse, her whole body was turned inwards, making a smaller target for the Ryan Chancels of this world.

In this doorway is a different being entirely. At thirteen years old, she stands a rather tall five foot six, and it seems likely that she will grow a few inches more.

It is the way that she stands that is most striking. She bestrides the world. Her legs are slightly apart and one arm is held behind her, whilst the other hangs at her side, ready to grasp life. She has already seen the depths that life can drag you to, she is ready to grasp the peaks.

There is still much of the child about her, more weight on her face than there will be in adulthood. Her experimentation with make-up veers from foundation that does not cover her entire face, to mascara that looks as though her eyes would be difficult to open without mechanical help. But the same close observer will see the traces of the woman that are beginning to show along the length of her tall frame.

She is smiling, and her pale blonde hair hangs just past her chin, framing her features.

The doorway is a picture frame, and we might imagine that we can see angels and demons twined together in the paintwork.

It was now the beginning of December. Jazz had a few weeks left at school and Emma had another two months of counselling sessions before the next stage of her train-wreck relationship could begin. Peter had come into work early and had had to duck and dodge the pair of them to avoid getting drawn in to conversations that he felt that he'd had a thousand times already.

He had settled down to do some work at his desk, and a few members of 9PE had been milling about, looking for shelter from the cold. Peter had let them in, glad of some company that wasn't going to depress him, and was marking a few books, the buzz of their conversation surrounding him.

Tyler and Josh sat in one corner, talking about last nights TV and making fart noises, whilst a few of the girls – Ella, Emily Lloyd and Rachel – sat in another talking about how irritating the boys were. They were at that stage though, where the boy's and girl's groups were beginning to weave in and around each other. Peter knew that there had been the occasional 'romance' between members of his form – Paige Gordon and Danny Green had been caught snogging by Zach already – but nothing that went beyond little kids trying to act older than they really were. The boys and girls were beginning to _notice_ each other now.

Mags entered the form room. She did not cause a stir, she merely paused in the doorway as she crossed another threshold. Peter looked up from his books and liked what he saw. He liked the fact that she was smiling and he liked that she walked over to the group of girls and slid easily into their conversation. Sometimes when he watched her closely – and he did watch her closely, he had begun to feel the emotions of a big brother with regards to her – he would see that the other girls were sometimes wary of her, or that she would make a comment that was just the wrong side of the barriers of their teen-girl normality. Today though, everything was ordinary and she became one of the group with an easy gentle charm.

Peter had put the radio on as he had come in that morning, a local station that played the indie guitar bands that had been the soundtrack of Peter's youth. Ed was the big music fan in the family, but he had dragged Peter to enough gigs and made him listen to enough records, that that music and other of its time, always held a particular place in his heart; he like to think of it as 'his' music.

As one song collapsed in a cacophony of guitar strings, another one struck up, a drum beat that slid along Peter's spine and a bass line that caused his head to nod of its own accord; The Stone Roses' 'I am the Resurrection'. Peter was soon holding a pencil in each hand and tapping along with the record. The words rose unbidden from a hard-wired part of his brain, and his self-consciousness had evaporated on the breeze. He realised after a few seconds what his impromptu drumming must have looked like, and stopped abruptly, looking rather sheepishly around. To his surprise Tyler Davis was making identical movements to himself.

"Aaah, man this one's well good, me dad was playin' it to us. Stone Roses man, yeah." Tyler was enthusing to Josh. Peter almost choked on the cup of cold coffee he had taken a sip from to disguise the fact that he wasn't doing anything with his limbs anymore. This music, the music that had always felt like someone pouring warm liquid gold into his ears, was 'dad' aged. He knew full well that the Roses weren't on the hit parade anymore, but to hear them in the same sentence as the word 'Dad' was like a slap in the face from a nun, all the worse for being unexpected.

"Do you like them too then sir?" asked Mags, and she tilted her head on one side as she spoke, bringing her large saucer eyes into greater prominence.

"Ah well, you know..." Peter made a jokey jiggling shrug with his shoulders that belied the fact that he was trying to make light of the situation. Mags continued to stare at him, as if she couldn't quite work out what he was trying to say, and Peter felt words rise in his chest, needing to be spoken to fill the gap. "Yeah, I do actually, I saw them a few times." Tyler's eyebrows nearly shot off his head, "They were pretty good." Mags smiled slowly, as if she had now heard the thing that she wanted to and Tyler interrupted.

"Aah, cool sir, me dad never saw them, but he was sayin' he wished that he had. Some di..." Peter's eyebrows shot up now, pre-empting the entirely unsuitable use of the work 'dickhead', but smiling with it. "...some divvy mate of his is always sayin' about how he saw them at some well good old club in Manchester, 'the ass' or something he said." Peter nearly spat out a second mouthful of cold coffee, and laughed at Tyler who looked slightly embarrassed. "Well that's what he said." He looked at his shoes.

"Sorry Tie, I didn't mean to laugh." He smiled warmly at Tyler and saw a grin creep back to the boy's face. "I reckon he must have been talking about the Haçienda, a lot of people called it 'The Haç'. Used to be in the middle of Manchester."

Emily Lloyd piped up now, "Aaaaaaah, my mum was talking to one of her friends about that the other day, she'd come round for coffee and they started talking about when they were young and I think they were going on about there. They were going on about some band with a dead singer..." The talk continued for a few minutes in this vein, Peter telling them how he had once been to the legendary club before it had been shut down.

The conversation exhausted itself quickly, so few people having anything to contribute, but as the bell rang that indicated the start of registration proper, Peter realised that after more than two years of waiting, he had finally had his first normal conversation with his form. There would be more to come, less stilted and wider reaching, but this was the first proper one. The feeling was nice, he liked the fact that these children would soon become grownups that he could talk to, and all morning he wore a wide grin, that seemed not to have graced his face for a long time.

The last day of term before the Christmas break and Peter's anger at Jazz had mostly subsided. Now that he was seeing her leave, now that he was listening to a leaving speech about her, he felt pangs of regret. Not regret that she was leaving as such, more that this was an end to an avenue of his life that he had not been able to fully explore, the regret of missed chances.

He listened to Erica Spence, the head of drama, talk about Jazz and the contribution she had made to the school. Peter let the words wash over him. He looked around the staffroom, looked to Bernard on his left, who seemed to be about to fall asleep, looked across the room to Emma, who was perching by the door like a twitching ferret, and he looked down at his own hands.

He looked at his left hand, which was clutching a small plastic tumbler of red wine. He squeezed the plastic just to watch it bend the light, and saw the purple liquid slosh up and down. He looked at his scarred right hand, he looked at the long thin scar that ran up the back of it, which he had acquired on his first visit to Smithfield. He turned his hand over and looked at the crawling insect scar at the top of his palm that had been a remnant of his encounter with Ryan Chancel. He thought about those two events, thought about the path that they had steered his life to, one scar compounding and creating the other. He had begun to wonder what would be coming next, when he realised that it was Jazz that was now talking to the assembled staff.

"I don't want to talk for long guys, ok? I just wanted to say thanks to anyone who has ever worked with me or helped me over the past five years, and..." She paused and looked at Peter, "... well, I'd like to say sorry to those friends I'm leaving behind. It wasn't an easy decision to make, but I think it's going to be the right one. Thanks for your support everyone." She raised her own plastic tumbler and Peter felt a small warmth suffuse him.

Ten minutes later, after Jazz had extricated herself from the various well-wishers, she sat with Peter, on one of the spongy staffroom chairs.

"So what's the plan then Jazz, when do you leave Manchester?" he asked, pushing a dribble of wine round the plastic.

"Well, I'm actually moving my stuff to my parent's tomorrow, and then I'm gonna find a new place to live when I'm there. Moving back home at my age..." Her eyes widened momentarily and she smiled. Peter laughed softly, and they slipped into the easy, slow, back-and-forth conversation that had been one of the things they had each enjoyed about the other.

For the first time, Peter found himself truly sorry that Jazz was leaving. He looked at the sparkle in her eye, in the shape her lips made when she laughed, the way she was always flexing her fingers back and forth as she spoke, and he felt sadness. He rose from his chair to get them both another drink. He was looking at closely at Jazz but not paying close enough attention to the bottle of wine he was pouring from. The bottle had a thick, soft, piece of metal foil around the top. Someone had bent this back as they had opened the wine and had accidentally formed a sharp edge. As Peter put the bottle down after pouring the wine, the edge grazed the fleshy part of his right thumb. He winced slightly with the pain, and sucked his thumb as he awkwardly carried the drinks back to Jazz, who had now been cornered by one of the deputy heads.

"Ooooh, what have you done there Peter? Nothing nasty is it?" Jazz looked concerned as the deputy asked and Peter looked at the wound. A small circle of blood began to flower slowly, but it was certainly nothing nasty. It would heal quickly.

"You're not going to have a scar are you Peter, my boy?" asked the deputy.

"No, I don't think so." He turned the cut over and gave it a closer inspection. "It had potential, but no, it just didn't cut deep enough." He smiled at Jazz and the deputy and took a long, slow sip of his wine.

24. Christmas Gifts

Christmas drifted past Peter with the usual sweet flow of drinking too much, eating too much and receiving too many bad presents. He enjoyed quiet times with family and loud times with a few friends, and by the time the new school term had come around he felt quite refreshed.

On the morning of his first day back he was working in his classroom, fiddling with backing paper and lining up some books, when a voice drifted along the corridor into his ear.

"... and of course we currently have most of the departments spread throughout the school rather than clumped together. We know it's unusual but we find that it makes for a high level of staff interaction that wouldn't otherwise be facilitated. Oh hello Peter..." Peter had listened to the management-speak come towards him and smiled at how much nonsense it was. He knew for a fact that the departments were spread out because of spectacularly bad planning through the years, and that there were too many ancient members of staff who had dug themselves into their classrooms and could not be moved come hell or high water. It did work to the advantage of the staff, but it made Peter laugh to hear Jenny Devine, another deputy, try and pass this messy sprawl off as a deliberate plan rather than a simple accident. Jenny had popped her head round Peter's door and was clearly showing a new member of staff round the school.

"Peter, this is Alice Meaden, Alice this is Peter. Alice is Jazz Griffiths' replacement." Alice shook Peter's hand and thought for a second that he had caught a slight of disapproval from Jenny, as if she thought it was Peter's fault that they needed a replacement for Jazz in the first place.

"Hey." said Peter by way of greeting. Just then, the walkie talkie that all senior staff habitually wore crunched a message of summons on Jenny's belt. She exchanged a few words of enquiry – Peter adding the "breaker, breaker, ten four ten four" sounds effects in his head – and then made a worried face.

"Peter," she said turning to him "We've got a bit of a problem, It sounds like there is a seriously irate parent waiting at reception, something about a stolen mobile phone or something, and they need me down there to deal with it. I was just going to give Alice a proper tour of the school, and then take her down to drama. Could you possibly do that whilst I go off and deal with..." She made a vague hand motion that Peter supposed was meant to speak of missing mobile phones.

"That's fine Jenny." said Peter, and she bustled off with a slight waddle. "Well, I'm Peter and this is my classroom, any questions so far?" Peter smiled at Alice who looked back at him.

"Yeah, why isn't that poster straight? Is that a principle of the school that promotes interdepartmental cooperation? Advanced poster straightening?" She strode over to the offending display and lifted the top left corner by half a centimetre. Peter looked on in astonishment at what she had done. She turned and looked at him, and gave him the smile that Peter was soon going to feel was so quintessentially her. Her head tilted a few degrees, her eyes opened a little more widely and her lips were pursed in a smirk. Peter opened his mouth to protest, but thought again and then laughed long and hard at the bombastic rudeness of the woman who had just walked into, and then abused his classroom. Her tiny smile split to a wide beam and before Peter could get a word in she was talking again.

"Do you like my new suit?" she asked brandishing her arms and then legs theatrically, "I caught my reflection earlier and thought I looked a bit like a Duracell battery." She twisted her head as if she was trying to look at her own back and Peter took this opportunity to examine Alice Meaden. She was more than a head shorter than Peter, and a little bit round with it. She was wearing a very trendy looking well cut black suit, that when combined with her own tousled crown of gingery-golden curls did have the unfortunate side effect of making her look slightly like the offending copper topped energy source. She was very, very, pretty, although it would be some months before Peter would notice this, such was the effect of her ballistic personality and her tendency to pull her features into tortured gurns to relieve tension.

"No I don't think so Alice, but I do think that you have something to worry about, Mick Hucknall called and wants his hair back." It was her turn to crease with laughter now. She leant against a desk and her body shook, she clutched at her belly and her face screwed up.

"Now, that's quite a high level of wit for this early in the morning Peter, why don't you put that energy to better use and show me round this school?" She pointed him out of the door and he duly moved, laughing as he went.

He toured Alice round the school and quickly found that any time spent in her company stretched his brain to breaking point. Her skills with repartee and banter were dizzying and Peter could only just manage to keep up. She also seemed to be an incredibly perceptive person with a habit of speaking uncomfortable truths before her brain could stop her. She had already given Peter her opinion of Jenny Devine, "A twitchy old bag with a helmet hairdo", the head, "A twinkly eyed charmer", Bernard "one with an eye for the ladies" and noted that Emma was "troubled, very troubled". Peter filled Alice in on what details he knew of Emma's tangled life, and even though she had spotted it from a mile off, Alice didn't gloat in the gossip, merely noted that she would have to remember to be sympathetic.

Peter even introduced Alice to a few people just to see what her reaction was. She stated that she thought Emily Chapman was a "Air-headed flirt, clutching to the last vestiges of youth" as soon as she was out of earshot and noted that Zach Lloyd was "a handsome bastard". Not that Alice went all out for being offensive about other people, for every jibe or comic diatribe, there was a self-deprecating comment or further critical analysis of the suit she had now decided she didn't like – "I've got a white one, but I think I might look like a fat matchstick". Peter seemed to have scored some serious points with her by being able to match her wit, she mentioned the Hucknall comment several times, and he was sure he even heard her humming Simply Red.

"... and then the drama studio is just down there on the right. Hello ladies." Peter had been pointing Alice in the direction of her teaching base when Mags and Ella had suddenly appeared.

"Morning sir." they chorused in comedy sing-song voices.

"This, girls, is Miss Meaden, she's going to be taking you for drama now that Miss Griffiths has gone. Miss, I think that here, we have two of your young drama stars. Ella White, and Mags Donne." He indicated the girls in turn "Year nine, my form." he said with a smile and not a little touch of pride.

"You've got us at the end of the day miss!" The girls had instantly become giggly and overexcited at this sneak preview of the teacher for their favourite subject.

"Well I shall look forward to it girls, a bit of 'getting to know you' work today, I think." She winked and the girls collapsed in fits of giggles. Peter watched her interaction and inwardly approved. There was no awkwardness or stilted desire to impress, only simple, easy, relaxing honesty. Peter bet himself that she would have them eating out of her hand within ten minutes of the start of the lesson.

All in all Peter seemed to be having a good day, it was only when he heard the crash of breaking glass from somewhere nearby that he realised that this would not continue.

25. Break off

No-one at school ever found out if there was a specific incident that had set Emma off that morning. The only people who had been anywhere close were two boys from her form that had just walked through the doorway. They said afterwards that Emma had ignored their hellos and had turned, picked up a large chunky computer unit with her left hand and had thrown it through the window that ran the length of her classroom.

The window had shattered into a thousand tiny fragments, held together by a fine web of safety. The computer had landed ten feet past the window, indicating – according to the glazier who came to fix things later – that it had been thrown with 'superhuman' strength. Knowing Emma, Peter had been surprised it hadn't flown further.

Although the trigger that morning was never discovered, the straws that had been so carefully piled upon the camel's back were laid out for anyone who cared to see. Emma's marriage to Cam had finally exploded in a Technicolor firestorm. She had spent much of the Christmas break following him, hiding in a series of borrowed cars and bad disguises. Cam knew what she was doing, knew he was being followed and observed, and he knew that the only thing that he could do was go about his normal life.

The tragedy of Cam Carter is that he had fallen in love with someone whose grip on reality had become slippery. He loved Emma with all of his heart, he loved the way she was fiery and strong, he loved her determination and strength and he loved the passion that was woven into her soul. When all of this had been turned against him though, he had found it difficult not to crack. He had never been having an affair, why would he want to? Why would he dare? Emma was all he had ever wanted, but that was the problem.

As strong and as passionate as Emma was, at her core – or so her psychiatrist would soon say – there was a pillar of self-hatred that would not allow her to be happy. She would never have reasoned it out this way, but she had been determined to find flaws in her own life. Cam had only been able to watch as his wife spiralled into deep spitting pits of irrationality, which had been brewing for a very long time. The psychiatrist suggested that there might be a trauma hiding somewhere in her history that, if unearthed, may allow her to make some progress. He also speculated that such unearthing was unlikely since the incident or events seemed to be buried so deep.

Cam could have supposed this for himself, but he loved Emma so much that after the time he had suggested they start counselling – the best way that he could find to get her in front of a mental health professional – he couldn't get angry, he couldn't retaliate, he could only try to remain calm for the sake of his marriage. He knew that she had followed him from the first time that she had done it, but sensed that a confrontation would not end well. So he resolved to let himself be followed and hunted, making his life the very model of respectability that he hoped would calm Emma down, but every man has his limits.

Emma had taken Cam's whiter that white appearance as a personal insult. She could not believe that she might be wrong about him being unfaithful, so she resolved that he must have been being clever at what he was doing.

She took it one step further.

You see, the problem with it all was, was that I wasn't getting anywhere. I knew he had some dirty piece tucked away, that he was doing something, but I couldn't see it. He was being very clever. Christmas and New Year would be the ideal opportunity; he would have to give himself away.

The only unusual thing that I had seen was that he appeared to have bought a puppy, it must have been a present for his mistress, must have been. He had arrived with it at the house a week before Christmas and I watched him through the window, I watched him playing with it and feeding it and trying to house train it, and I wondered why he couldn't ever have given me that kind of love. Why would he buy a puppy anyway? I hate dogs, doesn't he hate dogs too? Didn't we talk about that?

I needed to work this out, I needed to get in closer and so I went into the house. I hadn't been in there for months, hadn't wanted to, hadn't needed to return to that place, but I had to see this. I got in there after he had gone to work. I still had a key, and as I turned it in the lock I found it strange that it still worked, as if it belonged to a different time and place.

When I got in, that fucking puppy was all over me, he was jumping and yapping and barking and he wouldn't leave me alone and he wanted me to pet him and he wanted me to stroke him and he wanted me to love him, and I couldn't, I wasn't Cam, he wanted Cam, but that wasn't me, but still the dog was jumping and yapping, and I looked at his face, looked at his eyes, so black and round and shiny, full of un-cried tears and still he was jumping and yapping and I still didn't know what he wanted and I still didn't know how to give it to him, and I kicked.

I couldn't stand the noise any more so I kicked the dog across the room. He hit the sharp edge of a glass cabinet and fell to the ground twitching. He hardly moved at all, just sat there whimpering and twitching, his eyes were looking at me, but still he wasn't crying. I had cried. I had cried my heart out with all the sharp broken slivers of pain that I felt every day that I thought of Cam betraying me. But still this fucking dog with the broken neck wasn't crying, just whimpering and shaking.

I walked over to the tiny chocolate brown body and I stamped down hard. I stamped and I stamped and I stamped, the heel of my stiletto puncturing those black eyes, that even at the end, even at the moment they snuffed out, still wouldn't cry.

And then I turned and Cam was standing there.

When he left for work that morning Cam had found it strange that hadn't been tracked by his usual shadow. Emma had followed him to work wherever possible, and he liked to make a point of not losing her in any traffic lights in the hope that she wouldn't find any more imaginary ammunition. When he realised she wasn't anywhere behind him, he doubled back to the house to check that nothing had happened to her, such was the strength of his love.

He saw the car that she was using this week parked across the street, but he couldn't see her. He saw the door to their house slip shut and realised she had gone inside. He paused to think about this. Was it a good sign? She had shown not the slightest interest to re-enter their marital home for a long while, and Cam reckoned that her wanting to could only be a good thing.

His heart ached every fortnight when they had their counselling sessions. Being able to see her but not be with her was terrible for him. The next session was due the next day, he hadn't even been able to tell her that he was minding a dog for his brother who had bought it for Cam's nephew as a surprise for Christmas.

So he decided to talk to her. The longing inside of him was burning so much that he had to talk to her. The last few months had been so difficult as he watched his marriage implode from a ringside seat, and he wasn't sure the counselling was helping anymore, he felt that they were on the verge of being told to divorce. Maybe if he could just talk to her on her own, he knew it was against all the advice, but hadn't he always been able to say the right thing? Hadn't his words always hit the right spot?

He slipped his key carefully and slowly into the Yale lock, listening to every clunk and click as it turned. He walked in and the door fell shut behind him, but it served only as a sound effect as Emma's heel came down and down and down upon the head of his nephew's puppy.

It was a lucid nightmare brought to life in screaming spurting 3D glory. Cam stood, key held limply in his hand and Emma looked at him, she looked down at the crushed mess of animal beneath her and she looked back at her estranged husband.

It was like putting in contact lenses and seeing the world in a series of different colours. Every fragment of passion Cam had ever experienced now felt like fiery splinters of anger, every gilt-edged memory shattered into daggers of jagged glass. The foundations that he had built his life on drifted away, inconsequential as whispers on the wind.

Emma looked hard into his eyes and she screamed. This was no horror film damsel shriek, this was a bellow of raw primal emotion. She kicked the remains of the dog guts from her shoes and lunged wildly at Cam, she overbalanced as she moved and tripped over the legs of the same cabinet that had broken the dog's neck. She caught a long vicious gash down the length of her leg and collapsed onto the floor, blood oozing from the wound. Her leg had become raised as she had fallen and the blood was falling over the dog, soaking its battered body and adding a rich dark crimson to its own spurting injuries.

She fainted at that point, the weight of her own psyche, pulling consciousness from her and woke up in a hospital some six hours later. She supposed that Cam must have made sure that she had gotten there, and even then, even lying in a casualty bed with stitches throbbing, she despised him for being so calm and collected and able to marshal his emotions.

Cameron Carter could only be driven so far. The calm and collected attitude he had displayed now became cool and clinical. He had engaged a solicitor the next day and had filed for divorce as soon as possible, reckoning that 'unreasonable behaviour' would be sufficient grounds.

Emma had received Cam's petition on the Friday before the first school day back after Christmas. She had stared at the letter, looking at the sprawling blackness crawling over the heavy yellow paper with all the seals and signs that the solicitor deemed necessary, and she felt a hollow rattling sensation shaking her body. She didn't cry, she couldn't bring herself to make a single tear, she had done all her crying in life a long time ago.

She returned to work the following Monday with everyone else, but she was still feeling the same hollow shaky mess flowing through her veins. She had seen Peter, had watched through a haze of frying cotton wool as he had introduced her to some pretty redhead in black suit, and had then sat in her classroom staring at the wall. The world had gone fuzzy, she was acutely aware of the size of her own throat, it was getting smaller, and there had been a tapping at the window, a bird pecking lightly looking for food, her fists were itching and she thought she could see something moving beneath her skin, and her throat was still getting tighter, and she scratched her fists but the itching remained, then she couldn't breathe, her throat was about to close, she needed air, she needed light, and the world became yet more hazy, and the bird kept tapping, trying to break the window, and now she couldn't breathe at all.

Then there had been a shattering crash and a sudden sensation of space and light, followed by a greater feeling of stinging blackness. Someone had thrown one of her computers through the window, she could tell because she could see it, lying on the ground a few feet away beyond all the broken glass. Then the harsh blackness tugged at her again, and her eyes rolled back into her head as her mind unhooked itself.

Peter, then Alice, had been the first adults in the room, Peter standing and staring at the mess.. Alice's teacher instincts kicked in and she shooed everyone as far away as possible, as well as sending a pupil off to find the headmaster.

Emma stood there, staring at the classroom wall, staring at the splinters of glass making pretty patterns in the morning light.

26. In the night

"So what's gonna happen to her then?" asked Alice, a week later in the staffroom. Peter had been to see Emma at home the previous day.

"Well, she's signed off work for six weeks minimum and she's got some course of medication that she needs to see how she can adapt to." He looked resigned as he spooned instant coffee into a pair of chipped mugs.

"And she told you all this?" asked Alice.

"Yeah, she's been pretty open about it all, says that she doesn't reckon she's got any other choice, reckons everyone's gonna know all the details anyway." He added water to the cups from an ancient steamy urn and passed one to Alice. "Apparently her psychiatrist or someone has said that it was 'a psychotic episode brought on by unprecedented levels of emotional stress' or something like that. She thought it was funny being described as 'psychotic'. I just told her I thought it was accurate."

"Are they going to let her return to work? Working with kids, I mean?" They moved away from the Formica nastiness of the staffroom sink and sat on the spongy threadbare chairs.

"I think they will. Emma said that she'd rung Ben to talk to him about it, and he said that if she sought appropriate help, if she got statements from doctors and whatever saying that they reckon she's fit and not a risk, then yeah, she should be able to return to work, probably phase her in over a month or something." He sipped noisily from his coffee and rested the rim thoughtfully against his bottom lip. "So, how's your first week gone then?" He felt talked out about this topic, and not a little guilty. He knew that Emma's marriage breakdown had been impending, but had had no idea the strength of the repercussions that would come after. Peter had had more than his fair share of pain in life, but his had come quick and swift. He had underestimated the explosive power of the slow burning suffering, the deathbed that is tended for months, the disease that creeps slowly through the body and the marriage that takes a lifetime to end. He would think more carefully next time he encountered such sorrow.

Peter had contacted Emma a few times over Christmas, but nothing more than an enquiring text to try to assuage his own nagging feelings of guilt. He had let his own situation with the leaving of Jazz dominate his life and hadn't thought about what might be happening in the life of his friend.

"Yeah, it was fine, nothing quite as eventful as the first day though." She tilted her head and smiled shrewdly at Peter, "I've just been getting to know the kids really." Her eyes unfocussed for a moment as she picked at a mental spot "I meant to say, those girls in your form, Mags and Ella, Peter they're really talented." Peter smiled at the compliment, "I mean we've only had three lessons, and I've only done basic stuff with them, but they're just so natural with it, they just seem to be right into it, Mags especially. She just seems to be able to lock everything else away and _become_ someone else." These words rattled around Peter's brain, like wasps in a bottle. If you had managed to endure the abuse that Mags had done, you would have to develop a way of shielding your brain from the horror of it all, or else you'd rip yourself and your life to pieces in an explosion of anger, guilt and fear. He thought of Emma and the bloody full stop she had put on her own marriage and was about to tell Alice some of the more unpleasant details of Mags' life, but he realised that that wasn't right. She had the right to secrecy if she wanted it.

"Well you know," said Peter, almost wanting to brush off the perceived extraordinary talent of the girls. "I think they just love the subject so much."

He had half expected Alice to have formed an instant set of opinions on Mags, such was her shrewd and incisive nature, expected her to have picked Mags out as a victim of abuse straight away, but she hadn't. Was Mags really that talented that she could hide all of that so well? Even from someone as perceptive as Alice? Or had Alice spotted Mags' mental scars but declined to comment?

As the break time clock clicked by, Peter found that his first week had given him a lot to think about, and nothing more so than when his phone buzzed silently in his pocket and he received a text from Ed. "ARE YOU COMING SRTAIGHT HOME TONIGHT COULD DO WITH A CHAT."

"So what's this all about then big-man?" asked Peter when Ed walked through the door. Peter threw him a Playstation controller, but Ed declined with a wave of his hand. "Wow, this must be serious..." Peter straightened himself up in his chair and realised that Ed had been stood there for almost a full minute without speaking. "Is everything alright? Are you alright?"

"Yeah, Pete, I'm fine, it's just that..." He paused for a moment, and when he spoke again, his voice came from a million miles away. "... It's just that, I'm going to move out." He looked at his brother nervously, seeking his approval.

"Oh. Oh. Wow, I mean how come?" Peter was blindsided by this and felt not a little disconcerted.

"Well, you know, I've been saving up for a while now, I've got enough for a deposit, and I'm gonna buy my own place, and I think that Polly is gonna move in with me, you know, we've been going out for about six months now and we both just thought it might be kind of cool living together." He had taken his work jacket off and without realising, was holding it defensively in front of himself.

Peter didn't know quite how to respond. If anyone had asked him he would have said that Ed was only living with him 'for the moment' and that he would probably get his own place soon, but Tomorrow had arrived at Peter's front door and was kicking the door down.

"When?" Peter managed to croak.

"Well, I didn't want us to start looking or anything before talking to you, so we're gonna take a look at some houses next week and see what we can see." He twisted the lapels of the coat round in his hand and looked fretfully towards his big brother. Peter felt slightly numb, he felt robbed, as if he had always had Ed there to rely on like a crutch and suddenly someone was taking this away, even if that someone was Ed. Peter's attention was distracted, distracted to the arcade style beat-em-up game he had been playing before Ed had come in. In the wake of Ed's appearance, he had allowed his player to become immobile. His own superhero was taking all the blows that his lizard-like opponent could throw at him, stood stock-still, not moving, not changing, soaking up the pain that was being pushed his way, but the flashing red bar at the top of the screen told Peter that he could only endure about ten seconds more. Idly, he flicked the controller and delivered a neck snapping head blow to the already depleted lizard-man. That was it, of course, you had to keep moving, things had to change, so that they could sometimes get better. As Peter's on screen counterpart bobbed up and down in a stance of readiness, Peter threw aside the controller and rose to hug his brother.

"Congratulations Ed, Congratulations." Ed, who was pleased but a little shocked by the strength of this reaction, merely patted Peter on the back and watched the lizard-man get spirited away.

Peter very quickly saw the advantages to Ed leaving and used them to pad out the sadness he felt, nagging at the edges of his thoughts.

"I'll have a bit of space at last once he moves out all his crap." Peter explained to Bernard during one of their regular Friday afternoons in the pub in February. Ed and Polly had found somewhere halfway through January, they had made an offer and the sale was being processed, the latest estimate suggested that Ed would be gone by the end of March at the latest.

"True, you can get that snooker table you've always wanted." said Bernard, pointing his pint at Peter.

"I don't want a snooker table." replied Peter, perplexed.

"Well maybe you could get one now your brother's leaving and invite me round to play on it." Bernard grinned widely and Peter laughed in response.

"Well, you know, I can have a proper sized office and a proper spare room."

"Which you can use when your own bed's become too dirty."

"Obviously."

"Exactly." Peter enjoyed spending time with Bernard, and made a concerted effort to have a session like this at least once a month. Like so many other people, Peter enjoyed having different pockets of friends. Sometimes he wanted to be with people his own age and talk about computer games or the TV shows they watched as kids, sometimes he enjoyed the more cerebral company of people who could make him think, and sometimes, just sometimes, it was nice to be around a grouchy old git who saw it as his duty to set the world to rights.

He had also been missing the regular company of Emma, who was his "makes you realise how sane and reasonable you actually are" friend. She had been signed off for the entirety of that term, with a planned phased return for the last part of the school year. He had been to see her at regular intervals, had sat and talked to her; stilted conversations flowing uneasily between them. Peter was determined to be there for her regularly, such was the sense of guilt he was feeling about not being there during the breakdown of her marriage.

According to Emma, her marriage to Cam was "all over bar the shouting". She had engaged a solicitor, and for once in her life, seemed to be prepared to sit back and accept what was going to happen to her. She told Peter that she just wanted to be rid of it all, just wanted to start again with a fresh new life. She wasn't contesting any of the 'unreasonable behaviour' and from what Peter could tell, an inner sense of justice in Cam seemed to make him want to be as fair to Emma as he possibly could. The divorce looked like it would go as swiftly and as smoothly as possible, a fifty-fifty split of everything, and a legal declaration tearing their marriage in two.

"So how's that lunatic Carter?" asked Bernard, swilling his glass round. Peter wasn't sure why, but every so often Bernard would ask after Emma. He may have just been intending to give Peter an outlet to talk about it, but Peter didn't think that that was the case. It was almost as if he got some kind of pleasure from how badly Emma's life was going. He didn't show it, but Peter thought that there was always a glint in Bernard's eye when he detailed the latest piece of news.

"She's getting better by degrees I suppose, not ready to come back into work yet, when I see her, she just seems..." Peter looked across the room at the glittering fruit machine, seemingly for inspiration "... I dunno, a little bit empty, like the fight has gone out of her." His eyes sunk to the tabletop.

"Probably a good thing really, you don't want a repeat of the great computer through window experiment." Bernard had the faintest of smiles about his face.

"No, probably not." said Peter, looking on resignedly as every cherry came up flashing.

The moving of Ed Everett and the recovery of Emma Carter – she was retaining the name – took their allotted times. April brought with it an empty house for Peter, a new life for Ed, a return to work for Emma and a third anniversary for the late Jade Everett. Peter celebrated that alone this year, he drank from a single miniature bottle of champagne and planted some sunflower seeds in his neglected garden.

"Sir! Sir! Miss Meaden said she thought we should go to drama school!" This excited pronouncement had come from Ella White as she had sped into Peter's room just after lunch one April day. Mags followed behind her, walking in a dream and Peter supposed that Mags was the other half of the 'we'.

"Right... What?" Peter was a little confused, and Ella was bobbing up and down with excitement, and even Mags had a wide beam on her face.

"Well, we had Drama just before lunch, right, and she kept us behind at the end, 'cos she wanted to talk to us, right, and she was telling us about this drama school she knows, she said it was in Liverpool or Blackpool or Hartlepool or somewhere, and she knows someone that works there, right, and she reckons that if we applied we might get in. She said we couldn't apply for ages, like until we've done GCSEs, but if we tried to get involved now and do some classes there or summer schools or workshops, we'd stand a better chance of getting in when we're old enough." Ella was a little breathless after this and had to lean on a desk to steady herself. They had taken to Alice's classes and teaching very quickly, and had found themselves falling the right side of her reputation for quick and hard punishment.

"Wow, girls, that sounds really good." Peter didn't know what he thought about it. Was Alice just trying to give the girls a pep talk, or did she have some genuine feelings about their talents? He had heard many compliments about their skills over the years, but he supposed he had never really taken them seriously, had always thought that it was just people being nice about that poor little girl who had that horrible thing happen and her tiny little friend. Weren't drama schools usually quite expensive? "What do you think Mags?" asked Peter turning to her.

"I think it sounds really good sir." That was it, that was all she had to say. She clearly wanted to be a part of it, but Peter found the difference in attitude between Mags and Ella unsettling. Ella was acting like the little girl that she was, but Mags just seemed so reserved, so quiet. Maybe she didn't want to let herself get too excited, but Peter began to worry once more about the fragile girl he saw in front of him.

Ella explained, in another breathless torrent, that Alice was to phone their mums that evening and try to arrange a trip where the girls could have a look at the Drama School, but Peter felt a nameless nagging doubt about it.

In a flash of clarity, he realised he didn't want Mags to go. His big brother attitude toward her had reached a peak. He saw this damaged, tortured girl, and he did not want to let her out into the wider world, lest any more pain find her. The second realisation that that meant that she _had_ to go came quick on the coat-tails of the first. Like Ed, he couldn't keep her to himself forever, he couldn't wrap her up in the cotton wool of the school, she had to go out and experience life, even if it was only to prove to her that there was goodness and love out there, amidst all the pain. His face expanded to accommodate a wide smile.

"Listen, girls, this sounds great. You let me know if I can help." He winked at the pair of them, and having gained the approval from him that they hadn't even realised they were seeking, they went to sit on the other side of the room and plan their glittering careers.

27. Back in the fold

Emma stands alone in her classroom.

All damage has been repaired and the walls have been repainted in her absence, although the room carries with it the supply teacher's neglect and there is much for Emma to do.

We can see her in profile; arms folded and eyes focussed on some distant sight. She has put on a little weight during her time off and does not have her usual armour of thick make-up and power dress suit. She wears a light foundation, a pale lipstick, and grey number that due to her slightly expanded frame, does not quite fit her.

She cuts a sad figure, standing alone, looking into the distance. There is no anger on her face; no warrior in her stance, there is only acceptance, acceptance of defeat.

Maybe there is a spark of fight left in her, but we cannot see it from here.

The eagle-eyed observer will notice that all the computers are now chained down to the desks.

Peter supposed that it had to be the medication that Emma was on. It wasn't that it had changed her personality, more that it seemed to have softened it. She still swore, drank and held offensive viewpoints about people, but there wasn't the sense of boiling vitriol pulsing in her eyes. It made for her being a more pleasant person to spend time with, Peter had to admit, but sometimes he missed the 'old' Emma, who might have been wild and unpredictable, but could never be accused of being boring, something that could occasionally happen in her new state.

Emma wasn't going into the staffroom much at the moment. She was on a phased return to work that meant that whilst she was required to be in the building for the usual amount of time, she had a reduced number of classes and fewer responsibilities. Peter had taken to hanging out in her classroom with her during the odd lunchtime and break time. Sometimes they would talk and sometimes Peter would just sit at one of Emma's computers and surf the Internet. Emma was marking a few tatty exercise books today, her lefthanded-ness forcing backwards ticks to litter the pages.

"See here, kidder, someone's selling 'the meaning of life' on this auction site, do you think I should bid?" asked Peter one day.

"Are you sure it's not just the Monty Python film?" replied Emma without even looking up from her own monitor, idly flicking a pen back and forth in her hand.

"Oh, yeah, I think you're right." Peter had known it anyway, but sometimes he just liked to try to find a reason to make Emma laugh. He had been quite enjoying searching through the website looking at the odd things that people were selling. He had begun to become intrigued in this whole new wave of interactive websites that had come into existence. Previously he had only seen the internet as a kind of digital library, but now, with auction sites, diary sites, and a hundred other ways in which you could communicate directly with people a thousand miles away, for Peter, the internet had begun to take on a whole new dimension.

"Hey, why don't we sign ourselves up for Internet dating?" Peter looked at Emma who, only now looked up from her computer.

"What?" she asked, raising a smile for the first time that day.

"Yeah, I'm looking at one here." He turned his screen towards Emma, "You can specify every aspect of the person that you're looking for, right down to their hobbies and inside leg measurement.

"Really?" she asked, raising a sardonic eyebrow.

"Well... no, not really, but you can put in loads of stuff. What do you reckon?" Peter was only half joking, he would probably go through with it if Emma agreed. "I'm not with anyone and you're not now."

"Divorce isn't final yet..." The pen paused momentarily in her hand.

"Yeah, but maybe it'll do you good to be out on a date with someone."

Emma looked at Peter, and it was almost as if his ridiculous suggestion goaded her into some kind of action. "I don't think so Peter." She stood up and walked over to his computer, sitting down at the adjacent one. "You see the problem is, all these things here..." she pointed at the screen and the different categories Peter was able to specify "... age, race, occupation, height, favourite flavour of jam. The thing is, I just don't know what I want. I thought I'd found it in Cam, but I just couldn't let myself be happy, I just couldn't cope with the idea that he was all that I wanted." She shivered and Peter put his hand on her shoulder kindly "I think the thing is Peter, I don't really know who I am right now, and so I don't think I can look towards getting involved with anyone until I've worked that out, even if that involvement is at the level of a date." She stood and walked back over to her teacher desk. "So maybe internet dating isn't the best thing at the moment." But at least she was smiling, Peter thought, that was a good thing. Maybe all she really needs is to be able to think of herself in terms of relating to other people in that way, even if she doesn't want to actually do it.

He flicked through a few more websites that lunch, and wondered whether he should set himself up an online profile somewhere. Maybe someone, somewhere on the other side of the world would like to talk to him.

The advancing march of 21st century coffee shops had been a bizarre phenomenon for Peter. The idea of hanging out at a place that served only coffee and nothing stronger was.an idea inexorably tied to the fifties, Mods & Rockers and Bank Holiday battles in Brighton.

Not that he didn't enjoy it, he thought it was fantastic. He could sit and people-watch for hours or else make headway through a latest book, endless Lattes foresting his table. Sometimes he would take a trip into the city centre just to watch the world go by, resting in a podgy brown leather chair in the Starbucks off Piccadilly gardens. He was doing this today, on the last Saturday before the start of the new school year, with a Venti white chocolate Mocha with extra espresso that was a meal in itself. The rest of the previous school year had passed in a blaze of pleasant tedium, no airborne computers, no more divorces, no more relationships stalled and no more mysterious secrets on the air.

"Hello Sir." Peter's head snapped up from the book he was reading and looked straight into the sun. His eyes refocused after a second and he stood up to take the light out of his eye line.

"Hello er... Mags." He felt that jolt, that clash of worlds that people who need a public face often have, but more than that there was a reason that his brain had taken a second to supply the name; this didn't look like Mags Donne. It was a different person to the one he spent a minimum of twenty minutes with every day of his working life. She was dressed differently, a pair of artfully tatty blue jeans and a yellow cookie monster t-shirt. Peter noticed that whilst he normally saw her with hair that had ironed out straightness, today it hung with the long loose curls that can only be achieved with a few hours of effort. It wasn't just her appearance, Peter realised that even though he had occasionally seen her outside of school, he had never really _looked_ at her before. She was, it was hard to deny, a very pretty young lady, she had blossomed infinitely over the past year, ever since Ryan had been out of her life, but somehow Peter had only ever seen the 11 year old Mags in front of him, but now by tricks of shining lights, he could see the older woman she would become. He couldn't believe that he hadn't noticed how pretty she had become. As she was stood in front of him holding an iced frappersomethingorother he had to justify to himself for a moment that he was _allowed_ to realise she was pretty. A man could look at his sister and realise she was pretty, say she was beautiful even, and this was surely no different.

She was giggling as she saw him, and the smile hit him like a breath of fresh air. She sat down in the chair next to his, perched on the edge, and he felt a reflex to sit up straight himself, maybe even take a register.

"So how are you then sir? Have you been buying anything today?" She took a noisy slurp from her drink, but suffered no embarrassment. She sat in front of him as one of his friends might, talking to him as they might, but she was still calling him 'sir'. Peter felt a strange sensation ripple up his spine, a compulsion to tell her to call him Peter, but he bit it back.

"No, not really Mags." He smiled as he spoke and looked back at her, she was looking straight back at him from under a curly white fringe, and again he caught the sheer unbridled joy of her smile. "Just this." he said, waving the empty coffee mug at her. "What about you?"

She sheepishly admitted that one of the things she'd bought that day had been a Stone Roses CD, not on his recommendation as such, but still because of him. She told Peter of another CD she had come out to buy, Peter had heard of the band and suddenly he found that he was sat chatting to her. He relaxed in his chair without realising it, and so did she. Then they moved on from the band they had been talking about, and were talking about a TV show that they both enjoyed. Peter felt ancient as he had to explain who Richard Nixon was so that she could understand one of the jokes. His eyes flicked to the clock, which seemed to suggest they had been talking for forty-five minutes. Mags started to relate an anecdote about something that had happened to her and Ella at one of the after-school drama classes the previous year. She was full of sly head bobs and laughing actions as she talked, and Peter was quite amused until Mags stumbled across Jazz's name. The way that his face crashed told her that she should have chosen her words more carefully.

"Look... I'm sorry sir, I'll..." She made as if to go, but Peter waved to her to sit down. She did so nervously and Peter did his best to try and smile kindly, despite the creeping sickness in his throat.

"So, were you really seeing Miss Griffiths then sir? We all heard rumours..."

"Well, sort of yeah, but kind of no," said Peter grinning at the absurdity of his own words. He felt an icy shock at the fact that talking about something like this to a student didn't feel strange.

"Have you not seen her since she went to London sir?" Mags looked so sympathetic, as if she genuinely cared about Peter's missed love.

"No, I mean, it looked like it was all going to happen, but it just fell apart around the time she got the new job." A pained sympathetic look crossed her face, but Peter waved it away, he hadn't actually lied to Mags, but he wasn't sure he wanted to talk the whole truth with her here and now. "You know, I'm not even really upset. I mean she was great, a lovely person to be around and to spend time with, _you_ know that, but I suppose I just never really cared about her like I..." He broke for a minute and pulled himself back. He had never vocalised these thoughts before, and he was shocked to find that they were true. As disappointed as he had been when Jazz had left, he realised that he also hadn't actually been that bothered. "So, she got the job in London, it became a bit make or break over whether it was all gonna start really happening, and then when nothing happened, and I didn't try to follow her or stop her," Another white lie and Peter shifted uncomfortably in his seat, "Well, she had no reason to stay." He took a swig of his coffee and looked Mags hard in the eye. Simply telling her even a little bit about all of this was more than he thought he could have managed, but he couldn't bare to tell her the full details of his life, and she didn't press him for any; now was not the time.

"So what about you? Any boyfriend on the horizon?" he asked out of a sense of natural progression to the conversation, but instantly wished he hadn't. Mags flicked some golden white curls away from her face and laughed at the thought that such a thing might apply to her, and Peter was glad – from a teacher's point of view – that she hadn't launched into a tale of her latest exploits. "And what about your mum, has she been seeing anyone?" Mags looked shocked for a second, as if she thought that Peter was covertly trying to ask her mum out. Peter read this in her face and spoke quickly, "No, I mean I just wondered, if she'd brought anyone home. Into the house I mean." Peter saw it there, saw a change in Mags that most would never have noticed, the smile was still there but it became frozen and cold, was this her prodigious skill at acting becoming evident?

"He never came back you know, Ryan I mean." Her eyes had a faraway look and Peter was surprised to hear her talk so candidly. Mags didn't realise it, but she ran her left hand up and down her right arm. "We never even saw him after he left the court. He had a few things left at our house, but he didn't even come back for them. Funny really." She took a slurp of her frozen drink, but Peter found nothing funny about it. "It was almost as if he was frightened off after the trial. Before it he was full of fire and hell and what he was going to do, made some really nasty phone calls, but afterwards he just disappeared. Mum's heard the odd thing about him, apparently he's in Scotland now, but it just seems odd. Don't you think?" Her eyes made a piercing stare from beneath her fringe and Peter couldn't bear to hold her gaze, breaking it off and subconsciously stroking the palm of his right hand and the spidery scar that rested there. Mags took his silence as a confirmation of her suspicions. He sensed something in her, sensed a decision, something that was going to be done, as if she was winding up a bucket from a well of infinite depth. When it reached the top, she looked as if she might burst with the weight of it.

"I know it's a little late, but I always meant to thank you." Peter raised his eyebrows and opened his mouth, but she carried on. There was a momentum to her speech and it seemed best to let her continue. "Thank you for getting _him_ out of our lives."

"I just did what anyone would have done Mags, anyone. I didn't do anything special." He was sat right against the arm of the chair now, looking hard into her face.

"But it was you that did it, and that is what mattered." She paused for a moment, looking at the noncommittal face he made. Over her shoulder Peter saw a group of kids – none that he knew – walking down towards Market St. They looked so carefree, so happy with life, that he could hardly consider them in the same thought as the girl that was sat in front of him.

"But there's something you don't know. Those pictures, those pictures that you saw, those pictures of me," She gulped and blushed with the shame of the recollection that Peter had that intimate knowledge of her, "I took those."

Peter's concentration was snapped away from the group, who had just paused to take pictures of each other with their phones outside Debenhams.

"I know you did Mags," he said after a slight pause, his voice quiet and timid "Why are you saying this?" Peter couldn't begin to think how raking over the past was in any way relevant or helpful.

"No, you don't get what I mean." Her voice was a knife-edge, her eyes keen like gemstones. "I took them when he wasn't there. I had been online, been in a chat room, having a laugh, pretending to be someone else, it had seemed kind of fun, I went round teasing a few porn-heads and one day I came across Marcus Hughes in a chat room. He didn't realise it was me, but I realised it was him, and it was then that I knew how I could get Ryan out of my life. Two days before I took a cigarette and burnt those marks into my arm, then I took those pictures of myself and posted them on a site, a few days after that I gave a link to Marcus that would lead to a link, that would lead to a link to those photos. I knew he would find them, and I knew he was stupid enough to get found out." Peter thought he could see physical weight drop from her shoulders, and she straightened herself up in her chair.

"And it's that that I need to thank you for sir, for being the person that got _him_ out of my life. I started it, but you made it happen. Thank you."

Without another word, she rose from her seat and left the café, the streaming sun running behind her like ribbons.

Peter thought long and hard about what Mags had told him. He tried to twist her words into a different shape, to try and make some other meaning, but she had been so plain that it just wouldn't happen. Then he tried to work out if Mags taking that set of pictures of herself was any worse than any of the alleged dozens that Ryan had taken of her, and in the end he had to admit that it wasn't.

Peter came to a conclusion. If he felt anything, he felt pride in what Mags had done. She had been tainted with something evil, but she had grasped that evil and turned it on itself. She had turned the Devil's own weapons upon Him and Peter admired her for that.

When he saw her again, a few days later at school, he reappraised her. He looked at the way she walked and the way that she spoke. The girl was assured, she had power. She was damaged, she could seem lonely in a crowded room, and had the most impenetrable daydreams of any student Peter knew, but now that he knew what she had had to do in her life, he thought that she might be the most extraordinary person he had ever met.

28. Hot Hot Wine

This could be a Christmas scene taken from a postcard from the twenties.

We are looking directly at Manchester town hall on Albert Square, but much of the picture is taken up with snow covered pitch roofs. The air between the picture and the town hall clock appears to shimmer with a field of delights. All the smells and noise have been trapped the other side of the lens, but we can see flickering fire, glittering jewels and dancing flowers.

The snow is falling softly and seems to continually fall as we twist the photograph back and forth in our hands. The snow is the great leveller and falls on the heads of everyone as they enjoy their steaming hot drinks and deliciously blackened food.

In the very forefront, two men and a woman are cavorting in hysterics, woolly hats abound and their breath is solid in the cold Mancunian air.

You can spend your life walking the streets of a city but sometimes it takes a tourist to show you the sites. Peter was walking through the gently regenerating streets of Manchester on his way to the European markets, kicking up snowflakes as he went. It had been the last day of the autumn term, and Alice had been enthusing about the Christmas markets held in Albert square every year. Peter had lived the greatest proportion of his life in and around Manchester, but had never been. Alice had been dropping heavy hints that she would like to go, but none of her friends were around. Peter had half-heartedly fended her off, but had agreed to meet her the following day for a "good old mooch round the stalls."

For once the weather conspired with the season and produced a light blanket of snow to embrace the city. It wasn't enough to hide the ugliness of some of the less salubrious areas of town, but to the carved stone majesty of Albert Square it lent a cake icing sweetness, and brought out the beauty like strawberries with champagne. Peter stood on the edge of the markets, in front of a ludicrously named bar and waited for Alice to appear.

He looked at the people walking past him, families, couples, groups of kids, all variants of the modern unit, and he felt lonely. He looked at the people holding hands, and those that needed their hands held and he realised the loneliness that had been nagging at his mood and how much he wanted to be a part of a greater group. He had his friends and his family – he had spent the previous weekend in a games tournament with Ed since Polly was visiting her parents – but _they_ all had their parts with other people. Maybe it would be nice to have someone that was only his.

He saw Alice approach from down the street; she was wearing a bright red duffel coat with matching hat and gloves and gave the impression of skipping through the snow. He looked at her critically, she hadn't changed much in the year that he had known her, and for the first time in their acquaintance, he looked at her in the context of a potential girlfriend. She was pretty and funny and more than a match for Peter, but he didn't want to set himself up for such a public relationship again, he wasn't ready for it, and a relationship with Alice would be _so_ public that she wouldn't be _his_ at all, none of it would be private. He switched his brain away from this dead feeling avenue of thought just as he realised that Alice had launched a snowball at his head. He sidestepped it smartly and looked back at her, shaking his head and grinning.

"Morning." he said, pitying her childishness.

"Morning." she said and instantly received a faceful of the snowball Peter had been cradling in his gloved hand behind his back for the last five minutes.

"You have much to learn young grasshopper." Peter did a mimic of Alice's head tilted lips pursed grin.

"Oh, don't do that! That's exactly what my two brothers used to do!" She wiped snow off her face, still laughing.

"Let's go and have a look at this market of yours then." They crossed the street, and Peter brushed a few stray specks of snow from Alice's red duffel shoulders.

The first thing that Alice did was procure the both of them a hot cherry wine with a shot of rum to "keep the cold out". They walked through the winding alleys and sensory assaults, and Peter found that the whole experience married so well with his image of how a perfect Christmas should be. They wandered from stall to stall, marvelling at the variety of gifts and merchandise on offer. At one Peter bought his mum an elegantly carved cuckoo clock and at the next Alice bought a friend of hers a tiny reindeer suit for her month old baby. More hot wine followed, and as Peter wrapped his newly bought scarf warmly round his throat and tucked into a very big sausage in a very small bun, their conversation turned more personal.

"So what about you then, what's your thing? How did you come to be at Smithfield? 'Cause you're not from Manchester are you?" Peter asked Alice as he handed her a blueberry wine.

"Not originally no, Lincoln born and bred till I was 14." she said it as if it was a curse and took a warming sip from her wine. "But no, I've got no story, nothing special." Peter raised his eyebrows as if this could hardly be the case. "No, I'm serious," She continued "I went to school, got good grades, went to Uni, did teacher training, got my first job as a maternity contract in Stockport which ended last Christmas, saw the job at Smithfield, applied for it got it." She grinned at his disbelieving eyes; "There are a few boyfriends and stuff along the way, some serious, some less so, none traumatic. Honestly that's me." She waved her hands open palmed along the length of her body to emphasise the fact.

This made her almost unique, Peter thought. Everyone he knew, everyone important in his life seemed to be constantly toiling with a past that placed difficulty upon them. Whether it was his own tragedy, Emma's self-inflicted marriage turbulence or Mags' abuse, everyone had scars that ran to the bone. He wondered what it would be like to be someone like Alice, someone who was normal, someone who could get on with life, someone who wasn't shadowed by ghosts with every footfall. It seemed like bliss, he thought, to be free and un-tethered by the moorings of your own history.

"That said, I did get bullied pretty badly that summer that my mum made me wear a pink and green Day-Glo dress the whole time." She chortled into her cup, "So what about you then Peter?"

"Well..." he said.

Peter let Alice have a potted history of his life so far. He simply gave her the fact that he had _been_ married, but nothing else in that direction, with a tone that suggested that he didn't really want to discuss it with her, not just yet anyway.

They had spent a few hours in the markets by the time Peter bad Alice goodbye, and for a few moments, he stood on the borders of one of the temporary streets, taking in the air, the sights and some last lingering smells, then toddled off to get his bus. As the multi-coloured behemoth moved away from the stop, Peter was left to muse firstly on the fact of how Alice could have had such a normal life, but the more important second issue of exactly how much wine he had drunk. The drinks had kept coming and it felt like a tonic as it poured down his grateful throat, they were doing something cultural after all weren't they? He felt as if the bus was spinning and he became acutely aware of all the bumps he went over as the bus negotiated the patchwork Manchester roads. He exited the bus a few stops early, thinking that a walk in the still drifting snow would clear his head a little. He walked down the busy piecemeal street that ran parallel to his own, he looked down at the pair of tatty trainers that were covering his feet, and found that the crisp white crystalline snow that had fallen earlier that day, was now dissolving to a messy brown mush. The low winter sun was setting and the light was bouncing lazily off the pools of snow-paste that were still waiting to be trodden underfoot.

Peter's head had cleared somewhat by the time he snik'd his key in his lock, but as he stood in his kitchen eating a hastily buttered slice of bread, he decided that another drink was probably in order. He pulled a bottle of dusty red wine from the wiry metal rack that rested on a kitchen surface and poured himself a glass. The wine tasted thin and sour compared to the sweet nectar he had been drinking that afternoon, but he still drank half a glass greedily. He stood in the hallway with the bottle in one hand and a glass in the other trying to make a decision about what he was going to spend the rest of the evening doing. The Playstation was an obvious draw, but he only really played that when Ed came round now, playing on his own felt a little boring. He decided that he would have a bit of a surf of the internet, see if he could find anything to tempt his interest and ascended the stairs to the room that was now exclusively his office.

He loaded up the computer and fired up his web browser. He looked listlessly at a few webcomic sites, but nothing caught him particularly, too many in-jokes about computer games he didn't play or Americans he didn't know. One cartoonist had placed a link to his own personal page on the onSHOW website. The logo made a distant bell ring in Peter's head. Had he cleaned onSHOW graffiti from a desk last week? Or had he simply seen a poster for it, thinking it was a band? He clicked on the button and remembered that some of his form had been talking about their 'SHOWpages', he hadn't paid much attention to it, but he could see now that a SHOWpage was someone's own personal island in the greater onSHOW sea.

Peter had asked Emma about the types of sites the other week and she had explained it like this: "The problem with the internet Pete is that it's too big to be personal. It's fine for publicising bands and TV shows and stuff like that, but crap if you only want to talk. You've got to have somewhere to congregate, even in the digital world." Peter had thought momentarily of a pixelated singles bar, where sonic the hedgehog could meet up with chuckie egg and drink virtual daiquiris as the online sun went down. "This is where things like onSHOW come in. Everyone makes their own little page of it and they can have allsorts on there, online diaries, lists of films they like, links to virtual chatrooms where they can meet up with other nerds and talk about which wizard they like best. Think of it as a great big imaginary café where you can meet anyone in the world and talk about everything." Emma flicked a piece of dust from her desk, "Cam used to be a member of one, said he went by the guise of a hobbit minstrel, I think he just used to spend his time bumming elves." She had then gone back to her work without saying anything else, but her words came back to Peter now. He was interested in the concept of why people would want to tell everybody about themselves and their family and their hobbies and their favourite kind of cheese. He spent a few minutes reading cartoonism1967's onSHOW profile. The page itself was a dizzying multicoloured noise of drawings and sketches, but as Peter scrolled down, he was fascinated by the personal details that had been put on there. After clicking through a few links, he found himself reading about cartoonism1967's rather disappointing loss of his own virginity, and then another time when he had pissed the bed green after a night drinking blue Bols.

He clicked back to the front page, amazed at how the internet, this worldwide, broadcasting, international, phenomenon, was being used as a medium to transmit the most intimate details of people's lives. It wasn't just big stuff too; there was another section where he was talking about his favourite brand of baked beans. Peter found it hard to believe that there was anyone in the world who wanted to read stuff like this, but only after reading the post himself.

He then found that cartoonism1967 had 'friends'. At first Peter had assumed that he was simply displaying pictures of his real life 3D friends, but a wayward click found that these were actually links to other people's SHOWpages. He clicked through a few linking friend from friend. His eyes were assaulted by a barrage of different styles; pink puppy dogs dancing in the snow, psychedelic swirls that made your eyes itch, and red and black circles that made him want to go and sit in the sunshine.

He found the whole thing funny as he popped from person to person, feeling like he was reading the diaries of the world. The names that people gave themselves were as much a part of the hilarity as anything, he found that he couldn't stop sniggering when 'deathlord6969' professed a deep affection for the work of Enid Blyton and had to look away from the screen when he realised that 'doghumperohyeah' had his mum as one of his friends.

But this was only so much voyeurism to Peter. It was fun reading about other people's dreams and peccadilloes, but frustrating, because you weren't using this instant interactive quality that the website had in spades. So he clicked on the button marked 'signup'.

29. Temptations

Forty-five minutes later and Peter still hadn't completed the most basic details of his profile. He didn't want to use his own name, but every time he tried a pseudonym, he found that someone else had already taken it. He was trying to think of something clever to do with Yoda, but due to the fact that the bottle of wine had now disappeared, his intended entry of **yodaismyteacher** came out instead as **yomdaisycheater**. Since this was the first screen name that he had thought of that no-one else had had, he let it ride. He found a picture online of Yoda holding a flower, and entered his age as 900 years old, and his 'appearance' as 'look as good, you will not.'

Twenty minutes later and Peter had his own clunky and rudimentary website. He had taken great pains to preserve his identity, but for anyone who cared to look, they could find out all about the marmite and Dumbledore vs. Gandalf opinions of **yomdaisycheater** , or Yom as Peter had begun to think of him. Peter found that now that he was a full member of onSHOW there were extra links available to him, one of which was a chatroom with other holders of SHOWpages. He still wasn't sure he entirely understood the concept of a chatroom, but he was enjoying his foray into the digital world, and reckoned that there was nothing he couldn't face.

He clicked the chat room icon and was taken to a page where there seemed to be a hundred different rooms themed around different topics. Had he wished, he could have spent hours talking about films of the 80s, top 5 epic bangin' house tracks, or 'beaches I have known'. He saw the search facility, and after a sausage flavoured burp, he entered ' **Christmas Markets** ', the first thing that entered his head, and clicked on the top result.

yomdaisycheater HAS ENTERED THE XMASMARKET

littleleia23: and then I was like all over the place cos he cudunt finish the joke

jimmyeatsghosts: LMAO! but wn did e tell u da joke? I toll hm da joke lst wk E thnks hes so Leet hes such a n00b!!!!!!

yomdaisycheater: hello

littleleia23: hello there yomdaisy

jimmyeatsghosts: word playa!

yomdaisycheater: indeed

littleleia23: u bn in here b4???? weeer talking bout Christmas and stuff

yomdaisycheater: no, I only set up my SHOWpage today

littleleia23: glad to hve you around M8!

yomdaisycheater: thanks, are you a star wars fan by chance?

littleleia23: Wot gave me away? :) wts ur fave star wars??

yomdaisycheater: gotta be empire every time

littleleia23: empire??!?!? Nooooooooooooo jedi all the way, ewokz rule!

yomdaisycheater: oh god! The ewoks are terrible! They look so crap.

jimmyeatsghosts: d00ds, dis is a xmas room. We tlk bout fave xmas stuff here. Yom saw ur site d00d u n33d sm mre pics

littleleia23: dnt bee a btch jimmy! Ees still newb!

jimmyeatsghosts: SOZ GY! neway, gt2go, PITR! GBCW

jimmyeatsghosts HAS LEFT THE XMASMARKET

yomdaisycheater: PITR? What?

littleleia23: parents in the room I thnk. I think jimmys only 16!!!!

yomdaisycheater: blimey. What about GBCW?

littleleia23: dno. gret big cabbage welly?

yomdaisycheater: green bananans carry wildebeest?

littleleia23: got blank curry wallet?

yomdaisycheater: go black catch winona?

littleleia23: now ur jst being st00pid!

yomdaisycheater: sorry. so, is there anyone else in here or is it just us?

littleleia23: jst u and me I thnk, dere wz a gy clld santafkker hre b4, bt he went.

yomdaisycheater: so, do you come here often?

littleleia23: I cm here a bit cn u keep a secret???!??

yomdaisycheater: yes, I think I can.

littleleia23: I make up all my xmas stories!

yomdaisycheater: WHAT? Why? What are you doing in here then?

littleleia23: I jst lyk cming in hre to tlk to people I dnt no. nun of my frenz wud do it so ill nver c thm in hre.

yomdaisycheater: ok, that's a little bit weird :) . How old are you?

littleleia23: im 23 lyk my name st00pid. id lyk to chat, bt gt2go, wy dnt y meet me in THE STARCHAMBER 2moro? same time?

yomdaisycheater: i'll see you there then. It's a date.

littleleia23: ok bbfn.

yomdaisycheater: bye.

littleleia23 HAS LEFT THE XMASMARKET

yomdaisycheater HAS LEFT THE XMASMARKET

How strange, Peter had thought. On his first serious digital venture he had met someone like him, someone who revelled in anonymity, someone who would hang out in a Christmas chat room in the hope that they wouldn't meet one of their friends.

Peter began to worry for his own state of grammar. If perfectly sensible 23 year olds were using 'lyk', 'dat' and 'wy dnt y cm hre 2moro' then would he be doing the same in a few weeks time? He had enjoyed himself though, the internet was the ultimate fake moustache, concealing his identity and letting him watch the world go by. He didn't even know whether **littleleia23** was in the same country as him or not, maybe they would be able to have a proper chat when they met up the next day.

He picked up his wine glass to drain it, but felt only the last dribble that had collected at the bottom.

littleleia23 HAS ENTERED THE STARCHAMBER

yomdaisycheater: hello leia.

littleleia23: hey yom, hw u doing???!!?

imawookiee2: so if lyk chewie and tarful wre fytin whoo wd win?

yomdaisycheater: I'm fine, what have you been up to?

Wookieewoookiee: ROFL! chewees lyk the ultimate wookiee tarful=toast

imawookiee2: no way!!@@@"£ tarfuls lyk chief wokkee sgot best bowcaster nd wookiee gun

littleleia23: nt a lot jst kind f hangin out

Wookieewoookiee: wookieewars shd b th nxt film! Wookieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

yomdaisycheater: erm.

littleleia23: yeah slittle noizee in hre

Wookieewoookiee: wooooooookieeeeeeeeeeeee!

littleleia23: Yom! chk yr onshow mail, i'll snd an url 2 a privat plce.

yomdaisycheater: I'll do that.

yomdaisycheater HAS LEFT THE STARCHAMBER

littleleia23 HAS LEFT THE STARCHAMBER

imawookiee2: wookies ruuulle!

Wookieewookiee: wooooooooookiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeee!!!!!£!!!

Peter paused for a moment, he was beginning to seriously wonder about what he was doing. Something deeply ingrained was telling him he was doing something wrong, but how _could_ he be, he was only talking. A light had started to flash on his computer screen indicating he had received a message through the onSHOW mailing system, he clicked on the symbol, found an address and password from **littleleia23** and logged into another section of the site.

yomdaisycheater HAS ENETERED LEIAS HAVEN

littleleia23: hy gy!

yomdaisycheater: hello. What's this place then?

littleleia23: smy personal chatroom I cm in here smtimes whn t othr places annoy me :(

yomdaisycheater: are you really 23?

littleleia23: of course. Y?

yomdaisycheater: because you type like a 15 yr old! all lyk and dis and dat!

littleleia23: sozsozsozsoz!! U start doin it in hre. Ill try nd do it proper. Slike being back at school!

yomdaisycheater: don't remind me.

littleleia23: where r u in th world?

yomdaisycheater: I'm in England? Wht 'bout u?

littleleia23: England 2!!!!!

yomdaisycheater: England too...

littleleia23: yeh, yeh.

yomdaisycheater: I'm in manchester

littleleia23: I'm there too!

yomdaisycheater: whereabouts r u?

littleleia23: no d00d! id dont wanna say, u dont ask! Ur nt sposed to tell people online! n case of sykos!

yomdaisycheater: Sorry, I'm new to all this. I'm not a psycho though :)

littleleia23: I bt ats what they all say. :p So y r u online yom?

yomdaisycheater: what do you mean?

littleleia23: y r u on here talking to me, whn thers all those people in Manchester to talk to.

yomdaisycheater: erm... dont know really, I was a bit pissed yesterday when we met and kind of stumbled into it. I didn't want to stand you up today!

littleleia23: my night in shining armour.

yomdaisycheater: knight.

littleleia23: whatever! :)

yomdaisycheater: why are you in here leia, when there are all those people in Manchester to talk to? :P

littleleia23: I like it cos I can ecsape. I like it in here because in hre im not me anymore I can be whoever I want 2 b.

yomdaisycheater: wow. That's a bit heavy.

littleleia23: well. U know. I still live wth my family & thy cn b a bt of a drag sometimes, thre a bt heavy.

yomdaisycheater: why?

littleleia23: nothing reelly. They'r jst protective. Im th youngest of 3 nd thy thnk im the baby.

yomdaisycheater: family can be hard.

littleleia23: certainly mine.

Peter whiled away another hour chatting to **littleleia** , he learnt 3 new pieces of internet slang (AFK, ROFL and LOL), and settled easily into this digital fairground. He found himself compiling a mental list of facts about Leia: Lives in Manchester, 3rd child, family she moans about, and was enjoying this very 21st century way of making friends. He had signed out when Leia had proclaimed that she had an important TV programme to watch, but within the minute there was a blinking light in his email box with an invitation to meet back in Leia's private chat room on Christmas eve.

yomdaisycheater HAS ENETERED LEIAS HAVEN

littleleia23: hello there guy, ur late

yomdaisycheater: sorry got held up. Can't stop for that long, i've got a family thing to go to.

littleleia23: oh no! ive been looking forward 2 r chat all week!! :-p

yomdaisycheater: we should have met up sooner

littleleia23: I wanted to test u and see if ud remember me.

Christmas came and Christmas went, Peter revelled in the usual traditions, but found himself itching to get back to his computer and his next date with Leia. It was an evolution, he thought. For once, you really could begin to like someone for their personality, rather than what they looked like. Peter felt rather self-righteous about this until he realised that a face painted by Picasso might dampen his affection slightly.

He was talking to Leia every other day now, and became pleased at her insistence of online secrecy. Peter spent New Year's eve at a party at Ed and Polly's and even though it was a good party – there was a spectacularly difficult Jenga drinking game – he found himself wanting to log on to Polly's computer to see if Leia would be waiting in her chatroom for him. He managed to stop himself, but still she rattled round his thoughts.

"Happy new year!" One of Ed's colleagues – a buxom blond wearing a low slung black dress – threw her arms around Peter and kissed him as the clock struck midnight. It had only been because Peter was the nearest unattached male, but still he felt a pressing guilt, as if he had somehow been unfaithful.

"This is ridiculous." he said to himself as the girl had backed off, and went to seek another vodka heavy black Russian.

30. The swaying in the field

Bernard sits alone in his room.

The room seems identical to the day that Peter first saw it. New posters have come and gone, but the effect is the same, that of well maintained austerity. Everything is clean, there is no graffiti, but maybe it is this that is the proprietor's only concern. There is no love hiding inbetween the textbooks.

Bernard is sat upright in a chair, but his body is slouched forward as if he is trying to see into his own belly-button. He has the air of a Buddhist monk who has let himself go.

His hands are folded in his lap and he looks as if he might be twiddling his thumbs. We cannot see his expression clearly, the folds of his face prevent it, but there is an air of extreme boredom rather than one of sadness.

The tables of the room are arranged in a rough horseshoe with Bernard at the centre, but his demeanour suggests that further attention might be the furthest thing from his mind.

With a microscope taken to the picture, we might just be able to make out the small lines of moss growing quietly in the window frames.

Every teacher must wear a mask; they must be an actor, a performer and a player on the stage. They cannot interact with their pupils as they would their colleagues, so within the classroom, they must present a public image. Sometimes that will contain large slices of their own personalities –pupils like nothing more than piecing together their teacher's lives from the slivers they let slip – and sometimes that manufactured personality will be as unlike them as possible, diverting the world from the person inside.

Bernard was one of the latter. In the staffroom he was jovial, if a little bit of an old git, but was seen to be a nice enough guy with a rough sense of humour. Inside the classroom though, he was far stricter than most, maintaining what he thought of as 'an appropriate professional distance from the pupils'. This translated into the fact that his classes were boring, but well managed, and though no-one hated him, his desk was empty of presents at the end of every year.

It hadn't always been like this, he thought to himself as he contemplated his lot and pushed a paperclip round his desk. Once upon a time, he had been one of the laughing, joking, smiling, young teachers that he saw around him every day, but then there had been the affair and his wife had gone, and the whole world had seemed to sour and harden. It just seemed better to keep that kind of distance now. The time of the departure of his wife had hurt him far more than he let on, and whilst he could just about manage to maintain normal service with the adults that he saw in his school life, he forced himself to not become embroiled in the tangled, emotive and growing lives of the children with whom he spent his days.

Peter considered Bernard as a friend, but it was not a word that Bernard would have chosen about Peter. When he thought of friends, he thought of those people he grew up with, people his own age, people who had been through what he had been through and people who had done what he had done.

"Ey up Bernard, how's going?" Peter had gone to Bernard's classroom to see how he was. Bernard had been rather glum recently and Peter wondered if he could snap him out of it.

"Not bad youngster, how goes the spelling?" The running joke of Peter's teaching being simply that of learning how to spell.

Peter issued the standard retort "Not bad. The spreadsheets ok?"

"Jus' fine." Bernard stood up, shifting his hefty frame. When he had walked in, Peter had noticed Bernard's abject demeanour, but after a few seconds he realised that yet another mask had come over his colleague; he had put on a face to present to Peter. He had a nagging feeling that the rather bored and depressed looking man he had seen as he had walked in was the truest representation he had seen for a long time. It was as if Bernard had sensed this line of thought in Peter and sought immediately to divert it.

"So I see there's gonna be a deputy head's job going then?" said Bernard, Jenny Devine had accepted a headship at a school in Rawtenstall the previous day.

"So I believe, are they going to appoint internally?" asked Peter, wandering into the room and taking up a station on one of the desks.

"Dunno, Ben's a bit of a difficult one to judge in that way, you never know what he's gonna go for." Bernard harrumphed and walked across the room to find some paper to shuffle.

"So have you filled out your application then?" Peter gave a malicious grin as he said this. Bernard didn't even really like his post as head of business studies, let alone the far greater responsibility of being a deputy head. Bernard only held the position out of sheer bloody-mindedness.

"When hell freezes over mate, they'd never let me do it." Again, thought Peter, a little crack in the mask, not that he didn't want it; it was that 'they' wouldn't let him do it. "But I'll tell you what," he continued, "I bet your friend Carter will go for it."

" Emma, really? Do you think she would? Really?" Peter was aghast, he had never really considered the possibility that Emma would apply for a promotion like this, but now that Bernard had said it, he could begin to see a grain of possibility.

"Yeah, I reckon so, ambitious isn't she? Bit devious too." Bernard seemed to shiver slightly, "Plus the kids are all scared of her aren't they? But only 'cause they've got good reason to think she'll throw a computer at 'em if they don't behave." Bernard chuckled inappropriately, and Peter watched him as his various jowls and chins jostled for position.

The school bell ended their conversation, and Peter left Bernard's classroom with a little bit more to think about. He made his way back to his own classroom, moving past his form, and noticed, after he had called the register, that Mags and Ella were looking at a prospectus for the drama School that Alice had managed to get them interested in. They were talking excitedly to each other, and seemed to be trying to repeat an exercise that they had done in one of their previous drama lessons. It seemed to involve using just hands to convey a series of different things, first they competed at different flowers, then there was a series of animals that Peter was able to recognise with ease.

"Go on then, the ultimate challenge, unicorn!" this comment hadn't come from the girls or anyone in the class, but from Alice who had just walked into the room. Ella made a passable attempt at a horse, but somehow the way that Mags was just able to crook her little finger, and gallop her other hand dreamily, seemed to cry 'unicorn'. "That's very good girls." Alice turned to Peter, who was wearing an expression of bemusement, "The idea is, is that if they can have complete control over something as complicated as their own hands, then other bits of their bodies should be easy." She tried to tuck an errant ginger lock behind an ear, but it sprang back instantly. "So they can do the right posture and stance and stuff like that." She winked at the girls who were now doing swarms of tadpoles. "You alright Mr.E?" She looked carefully at him, as if there was something she might be able to read from the pattern of his hairline.

"Yeah, I'm fine Meady." he said and scratched absently at one of his sideburns, "What are you doing up here?"

"I've got a cover first thing and thought I'd just pop in and say hi." She tilted her head and smiled. "Hey, did you watch that programme about Stevie Wonder last night? It was really good, went really into some of the cool albums, kinda glossed over some of the rubbish stuff though."

"No, I didn't see it." He replied. Alice could focus when she needed to, but Peter had found that she had a great capacity for haphazard and distracting chatter. The bell for the end of registration went, and Alice nodded at Peter, nodded at the girls, and went on her way whistling 'Sir Duke'.

"Sir, do you ever think she's a bit weird?" this was Ella asking now, an impish grin on her face with Mags looking appalled behind her.

"Sometimes, sometimes." He looked at the door through which Alice had just departed, "But I think 'interesting' might be a better way of putting it." He drummed his fingers on the desk without realising.

"Yeah, interesting," said Ella, as she drifted her hand across the front of Peter's desk, and left the classroom, the shocked face of Mags following close behind her.

littleleia23: so what kind f music dyou like

yomdaisycheater: I like allsorts, lots of sixties stuff, but I really like all the madchester music

littleleia23: yeah, that's pretty cool. I lyk soul stuff, yknow, I watched a thing on stevie wonder last night, been humming it all day, cant remember the name tho

yomdaisycheater: ok. I dont know his stuff that well, he did some great records though didn't he?

littleleia23: yeah. I really lyk, soz like how he has had such a difficult life, yet he has really managed to rise above it.

yomdaisycheater: I know what you mean

littleleia23: but no, we wer made to do a language at school

yomdaisycheater: me too. not sure I'd pick it if I had the choice again though

littleleia23: I know what you mean, i'd rather spend more time on something useful, or somtin fun like drama

yomdaisycheater: you like drama?

littleleia23: I LIVE for drama, maybe i'd make a good drama teacher!!!?!?!?!!

yomdaisycheater: maybe you would. I thought about being a teacher for a while...

littleleia23: why didn;t u?

yomdaisycheater: who says I didn't?

littleleia23 has left LEIAS HAVEN

yomdaisycheater: anyway, you left quick the other day...

littleleia23: sorry bout that, the power went on my comp.

yomdaisycheater: I thought it must have been something like that.

littleleia23: yeh, but I wasn't in mcr then.

yomdaisycheater: but didn't you grow up here.

littleleia23: no, I was born in lincun

yomdaisycheater: Lincoln? Really? What's it like there?

littleleia23: theres a nuice cathedral. dats about it.

yomdaisycheater: what part did you grow up in?

littleleia23: just lincoln generally

yomdaisycheater: i'm Manchester born and bred.

littleleia23: well aren't you're the lucky one :)

yomdaisycheater: too right.

littleleia23: sorry gotta go theres a thing I want to wacth on 4

yomdaisycheater: see you tomorrow then?

littleleia23: yeh. 2moro :) :) :)

31. Identity

"Brando did some great films, but he made a whole lot of crap as well." This was the staffroom at lunchtime now. Peter, engaged in conversation with Alice, talking through 'A Streetcar Named Desire' that they had both watched on channel 4 the previous night.

"Oh, but that performance Peter, Streetcar, is just magnificent, he's so raw, so powerful, the play's not even about his character, but he wraps that role and that film around him like a second skin." She looked wistfully to the middle distance, and sipped from her coffee.

Peter knew by now that **littleleia23** was Alice, and for him it made so much blissful sense. At first he had been unable to let himself believe that through the myriad of possibilities he had met her online, but after all, he had gone home that day and searched for 'christmas markets', who was to say she hadn't? When Peter tallied all the things that he knew about 'Leia' in his head, they equated so neatly with all the things he knew about Alice. He noticed when going over Leia's SHOWpage for the umpteenth time, that her surname was only given as a single letter, 'C', making her Leia C, which was so close to Alice, he was surprised he hadn't spotted it sooner. Peter had not the slightest intention of revealing his knowledge of who Leia really was. He wasn't sure if she knew who _he_ was, but he guessed that she might; he thought he could have given himself away with the comment about being a teacher.

There was something so deliciously pure about the relationship that they had. They would 'talk' for hours about their feelings, memories and desires. Peter had noted a few facts about Leia that seemed incongruous with Alice, but then again, he had found himself embellishing the truth. The online connection was _so_ pure that they were each creating the person that they wanted to be, and Peter found great romance and comfort in that.

He seemed to see be seeing quite a bit more of Alice in school as well, she popped up every so often, so very casually. He wondered how long they could keep this up, being so close, knowing so much about each other, but not being with each other. It felt like a desperate tangle of wire that was gripping his heart, but he could feel this sense of pure communication flow like nothing he had experienced before, and he had no desire to stop that.

January became February, and February moved so quickly into March, and Peter made some discoveries about himself. He was _established_ at the school. So often he thought of himself as only a few rungs above the school's sixth form students, still a student himself, but there had been lots of odd things that seemed to have happened. He was now in his fourth year at the school, and someone had suggested that with a little more experience, he could have applied for the deputy head's position that had eventually gone to an external candidate (Emma had not applied after all, "still on too many drugs" had been her shrugging explanation to Peter). Parents recognised him instantly at parent's evenings, because he had been there that long that he had taught little Johnny's sister, or whatshisname was in his form and really likes him.

Occasionally, and this was most bizarre, members of his department sought his opinion on professional matters. People with more than five times his teaching experience – people he had come to have great respect for – would come to him and ask him what he thought, and they would listen to him!

He broached the subject with several of his colleagues, Alice said that she wasn't surprised since he had trained a lot more recently than other staff, Bernard said it was because everyone else was lazy, and Emma said "Shut the fuck up, I'm trying to do some marking here." He decided not to bring it up with Alice in her Leia guise, that might be too much of an admission and spoil the conceit that hung so excitingly between them.

littleleia23: I dreamt about you last night.

yomdaisycheater: did you fall out of bed twice?

littleleia23: what?

yomdaisycheater: nothing. How can you dream about me, you don't know me you've never seen me.

littleleia23: I dreamt that there was someone holding me, that there was someone there for me, someone to protect me. I coudlnt' see his face but he was just there for me

yomdaisycheater: wow. [blush] I don't know what to say. Do you want to meet up? In real life.

littleleia23: no. I don't think so. Not yet anyway. I like the way that we are with each other just talking and nothgin else getting in the way.

yomdaisycheater: I like that too. you're right, lets keep it like that.

littleleia23: for now?

yomdaisycheater: for now.

"So what's with you at the moment Everett?" Peter was sat in Emma's classroom trying not to log into his onSHOW to see if Leia had left him a message. He had begun to draw great distinctions in his mind between Alice and Leia, sometimes the Alice that he saw in school – though always bright and chirpy – could be weighed down and a little crushed by the exercise of daily toil. Leia was irrepressible, no matter what time of day or night, or what type of weather, or what was happening at school, Leia was a free spinning joy.

It was April now, Peter had had a solitary celebration of Jade's anniversary, and found himself wanting to talk to her about his life at the moment, if only there was a chatroom for that. He thought she would be pleased, he couldn't imagine that she would have wanted him to be lonely for the rest of his life, and he supposed that she might even have liked Alice / Leia had they met under a different star.

He still wasn't a hundred percent sure about whether Alice knew that he was Yom Daisy though, and that fact itched at him more than anything else. If she did, then they might as well both give in and fall into each other's arms, their secrecy had run its course. If she didn't know it was him, however, then he would happily keep the game going for as long as he could, prolonging this delicious dance of fantasies.

"Hey, I've got something for you Meady." Shouted Peter as he approached Alice through the door of the school drama studio.

"What is it dude?" Sometimes, she would lapse into verbal internet slang if she wasn't concentrating, he felt he could hear her pronounce the double zero in d00d.

"Its that book you were on about." Peter had discovered whilst talking to Alice that there was a book, Dog Town, that they had both read and both enjoyed. Peter had the sequel, Cat's Cradle, and had enjoyed that too, though Alice hadn't read it. He was due to meet Leia online that night and he planned to ask her if she had read or bought any good books recently. If she said no, then that wouldn't help at all, but if she recommended Peter's own book to him, then there was no way that she could know that Peter was Yom.

"Oh cheers mate." Peter translated this to 'm8' in his head. "I read quick, I'll get it back to you soon." she said with a flick of her strawberry-blonde curls. She took the book and laid it blurb up on top of her already over stuffed handbag.

"Don't hurry." Peter made an expansive non-committal gesture. "Are you free next?" Peter had a free lesson and was looking for a reason to avoid work.

"No. Sorry Pete, I've got tens then nines." She was stacking texts of plays, and paused to offer this apology.

"No worries."

"See you later then."

"See you later." Definitely, added Peter in his own head.

"... Come on Ell I want to get down to the studio!" Mags rested her weight on one hip whilst stood in the doorway, but Ella didn't hurry.

"I'll catch you up in a minute, _Margaret_. I've got something to give to Sir." Mags smiled, shook her head, and bustled off in the direction of the drama studio. The rest of the form filed slowly out of the room, and Ella looked busy, as if she was trying to find an envelope deep in her pocket.

"Actually sir, I haven't got anything to give you, have you got a minute?." This was another bemusing signifier for Peter regarding his status in the school. Occasionally, members of his form – and once a rather distraught student from his year thirteen class – would come to him for advice. Just like being a dad, he thought grimly, and took a quick look at Ella, reading the signs of an upset that needed addressing.

"Sure, go for it, I'm free, but what lesson should you be in?" he asked kindly.

"Drama, but that's kind of the point." She sat back down rather heavily on the chair she had only recently stood up from, Peter took up one of the chairs next to her and waited for her to talk.

"We've got auditions. After school today." she said after a moment.

"Riiiiiiiiiiiiight." A few pieces of jigsaw about something Leia had said about working late slotted into place.

"Well, the thing is, there's only a few main parts, but lots of minor ones."

"How many year groups are going for it?" Peter asked, trying to assess the entire situation.

"Well, its just tens and elevens for this one, but Meaden, I mean Miss Meaden, said that none of her girl elevens are going for anything." Ella looked pensively at her hands; as if she was frightened of what she was about to say.

"So you're a shoo-in then?" Peter sensed that this would not be the case.

"Not quite." She let a sad look pull her face. "There's only one _decent_ female part. There's another 'bit' one with some really good lines apparently miss told us, but there's only one main part." She spoke the last three words as if they were as heavy as lead and Peter thought that he was beginning to see shapes in the darkness now.

"And you are worried that with only you and Mags really in the running, you're either going to get the part over her and disappoint her, or only get the minor part because she gets the main one?" Peter tried to put on his kindest voice.

"Oh god, I don't think I'll get the main over her!" she looked shocked at the idea, "She's loads better than I am, everyone says so, but I just don't want the 'bit' part!" She settled her chin glumly into her hands.

"Right then Miss White." said Peter straightening up in his chair. "I have two things to say to you." He tapped her lightly on the shoulder to gain her full attention. "One, there is more to drama than just your skills, you'd never have had Robert DeNiro..." He knew that Alice had schooled the girls in her opinion of the great modern actors "... going for the part of Harry Potter would you?" Ella shook her head in confusion "No, you wouldn't would you? Cos it'd be wrong wouldn't it? But he's a better actor than they guy they got isn't he? But he would have been wrong for the part, no matter how good he is." Ella bobbed her head from side to side in acceptance of this fact. "Sometimes, a dramatic part goes beyond who has, or thinks they have the most talent." His voice had been stern during this pronouncement.

"Secondly," Peter continued, rising from the chair and going to the cupboard where he kept the dvd's with which he fed the large TV in the corner of his room. "Remember when we watched this just before Christmas?" He was holding a copy of 'Shakespeare in Love'. "Excellent background preparation for Shakespeare coursework" had been his defence. "Excellent opportunity to skive off at Christmas you lazy bastard" had been Emma's attack.

"Yeah," said Ella her eyes unfocussing, "Yeah, you forgot to wind on Gwyneth Paltrow's boobs sir." She grinned an unabashed elfin grin.

"Don't remind me. Well, look at this." He indicated the back of the dvd case that detailed the number of Oscars that the film had won. "Gwyneth won one, and so did Judi Dench."

"Who did she play sir?" asked Ella, her brows knitting into confusion.

"She played Queen Elizabeth, Ella." said Peter as he sat down again.

"But she was..."

"Yes, she was only on screen for about ten minutes in total."

"But they still gave her a..."

"Yes, they still gave her the most prestigious acting award in the world, for those ten minutes." Peter crossed his legs and rested the case on his knee. "You see, Judi Dench is such a good actress, that she can shine with brilliance, even in a 'bit' part." He looked her dead in the eye. "Do you see what I'm saying here Ella." He watched as she looked at the dvd case on his knee, and felt that he could see realisation flow over her like a golden balm. She stood up from the chair, and even at her diminutive five foot, she seemed a little taller.

"Knock 'em dead Whitey."

"Thanks sir."

32. Deeper and deeper

As Ella entered the drama studio a few minutes later, she looked over at Mags, who was bustling by Miss Meaden's desk. Despite the fact that she was five minutes late, Mags was the only other pupil there. They were the only pupils from 10PE who had taken drama, and the other form rooms were so much further away.

"So girls, now you're both here." said Alice, coming in from the stockroom where she had been stacking more books. "Which parts are you both gunning for tonight then?"Alice was hoping that a little healthy competition would bring out the best in both of them. Mags looked nervous, but Ella strode on.

"Whichever one suits me best miss." she said confidently.

"Sounds like a pretty good plan." said Alice. The other pupils were piling in now, and Alice tucked her handbag into the stock cupboard, stroking a finger over the cover of the book that Peter had leant her.

littleleia23: but I've never done it like that.

yomdaisycheater: me neither, I always used someone elses.

littleleia23: tee hee.

yomdaisycheater: I'm reading a book at the moment. But i've nearly finished it

littleleia23: rnt u the smart one?

yomdaisycheater: Well, I try :) but I'm gonna need another one soon. Have you got any recommendations?

littleleia23: yeh I have actually, I got this one called, cats cradle today, I only read about a page, but it seems pretty good.

yomdaisycheater: isn't that a sequel to something?

littleleia23: yeh, thnk so, smarty pants.

yomdaisycheater: I might give that a try then.

Peter almost skipped across the room after reading the last line pop up on his computer screen with a shrill ping, and he confessed as much to Ed, who came round for a games and beer session the following Friday.

"You see, its like ordering a take-away Peter."

"What?" asked Peter as he hammered Ed's fighter with a flying mutant dropkick.

"Well you know when you get a takeaway, and sit with the menu, and you think what you want to have." Ed spoke as if all the truths in his words were entirely self-evident.

"And you've spent ten minutes picking which takeaway to ring in the first place?" added Peter, trying to be sarcastic.

"Exactly." said Ed, stabbing Peter's on screen counterpart through the face, in response. "And you phone your order through and you wait for it to come."

"And if it's one you've never been to before, you've got the random factor of whether it'll be any good or not." said Peter, closing his eyes, trying to focus on the metaphor. Ed took the opportunity to execute a super move that actually removed one of Peter's legs.

"Yeah, too right, or if you'll even get exactly what you ordered." He pointed an empty beer bottle at Peter and pressed a button that initiated the next bout. "And the thing is," Ed carried on, "is that that waiting, is almost as good or exciting as the take away itself." He thought for a second and Peter gave him a gut-ripping bullet wound. "Actually, sometimes its better, sometimes it isn't very good when you actually get your hands on it."

"Especially when its not what you ordered?" Peter asked dropping his controller.

"Yeah, exactly."

"So are you saying I should keep on waiting for the take away Ed?" Peter gave a long stretch after the hour's solid game play he had just been involved in.

"Not at all Pete, not at all." said Ed, raising himself from the sofa to get more beers. "Because even though sometimes, that take away turns out to be rat bhuna and a dog turd bhaji, sometimes Peter, that take-away is the greatest meal of your life." He left the room, and left Peter wondering if Confucius himself had ever put an argument quite so eloquently.

littleleia23: Tell me a secret Yom

yomdaisycheater: What? What kind of a secret? What do you want to know?

littleleia23: Well, I just wnt 2 know something about you. I talk to you more than anyone else I no, I tell u more about myself thn I tell anyone else in the world, tell me a secret about Yom.

yomdaisycheater: ok then, there's something I've been wanting to tell you for a while, but it's a bit of a bummer, are you sure you want to hear it?

littleleia23: yes please, I think about you all the time, I want to no more about u.

yomdaisycheater: I was married.

littleleia23: what? When? Why didn u tell me b4?

yomdaisycheater: well, the thing is, she died.

littleleia23: oh yom.

yomdaisycheater: yeah, she died on our wedding day, four years ago.

littleleia23: I'm sending u a hug down the line.

yomdaisycheater: thanks. I loved her so much. It doesn't mean I can't love anyone else ever, she wouldn't want me to be lonely, but she'll always be a part of my life.

littleleia23: one day, in the future, you and I will meet, and when we do, I will hold u forever. I wnt 2 be with you yom.

yomdaisycheater: but not yet?

littleleia23: not quite yt no.

The fine details of his own personal history had been proving a mental burden for Peter. The cloak of the internet that he had wrapped around his identity was beginning to pull at his throat. It was one thing talking about a place that you had never been to, or pretending that you were really an astronaut or a supermodel, but something like this went to the bone. It was a truth about which he could not lie, it was a truth that sat in his throat and choked him. He had wanted to tell Alice and Leia about this for such a long time, and had been looking for an opportunity to present itself. Leia's bald asking for a secret was too direct to resist, and he felt a flood of adrenaline as he had typed the words.

He felt so unburdened by telling her this, and it made him want more than ever to meet her. She had said that they would meet, and Peter felt the sickness of anticipation with every moment that ticked until then.
33. Penultimia

Peter hadn't wanted a cat, but still he had been forced to have one, Ed had wanted one, or someone had wanted one and Peter had been forced to look after it.

The cat had orangey-yellow fur and seemed to be trying to escape, the only way Peter could keep it still was by stroking it constantly and keeping talking to it. The cat was weighing heavy on his lap, but still he had to keep stroking and talking.

A dog walked in and suddenly Peter realised he was back in Durham, the sky was just that shade of blue and the ground added just that spring below him. The dog was a longhaired Afghan hound, its white hair falling in dead straight locks. It barked once and Peter thought it was going to attack the cat, but the cat just smiled a wide grinning smile, and then dissolved into nothingness, leaving only its smile behind.

Gently, the dog put a sunflower in Peter's lap.

Peter thought about Jade every day. He might see her in a reflection or smell her perfume on the wind, but she was always in his thoughts. During the day he had this well controlled, he had to or else he would have collapsed under the weight of grief every day for the past four years, but in his dreams his thoughts ran free. Weird tendrils of meaning and supposition would run ribbons through his brain and in the immediate wake of her death most nights would hold some epistle of imagery in his sleep for him to chew over the next day. These days though, he only found himself having roughly one dream a month, but these twisted imaginings and replicas of life could still leave him panting in a cold sweat when his slumber was wrenched forcefully from him.

He blinked his eyes widely several times in the complete darkness that now enveloped the room. A screensaver was blinking at him, a single symbol rotating rapidly around the screen, a reminder of Leia's favourite punctuation " **:)** ". He had fallen asleep in the comfy recliner that was in his office, waiting for an email response from Leia. As he flicked at the computer her found that none had come and switched the unit off. He made his way to his bedroom, scratching and stretching as he went. He clambered into bed and fell quickly asleep, dreaming only of smiles and a distant twittering bird.

Peter hadn't told anyone apart from Ed about his burgeoning internet relationship, he didn't think he could have coped with the ridicule that would inevitably have been heaped upon him from all directions. He was wary of checking his onSHOW at work as well; he had visions of a white-coated IT technician tracking his every move and snatching his blanket of security from beneath him. He didn't even have a computer in his classroom and he couldn't use any in Emma's because he suspected that she watched his every move out of nosiness. The most he had attempted was a few quick checks of his onSHOW mail in Bernard's room, one day when the doors had been left unlocked, scratching an itch that went below the skin.

There was one more week of the current school year left, and Monday found Peter once again hanging around in Emma's IT room, loafing idly through the delights of the internet.

"What do you think of meeting people online Emma?" asked Peter as he knocked his mouse back and forth.

"Not this again Peter," She was wearing a stern, bored expression, "I'm not joining an internet dating site, if you want to do it fine, but I am not interested."

"No..." Peter laughed, "Not that. Someone I know, well a friend of mine actually, has been hanging out in chatrooms with some woman for ages. It's a bit mad to be honest, I think he wants to meet her." It was such a thinly veiled lie, but Peter thought he could count on Emma's lack of concentration to not spot it.

"That's a bit dodgy Pete. I mean at least with a dating site, there must be some kind of vetting process, you don't hear of people meeting nutters through them." She was looking worriedly at him, but she didn't seem to have rumbled his lie, maybe she didn't want to.

"That's exactly what I said," Peter was grateful for the lifeline, "I think he's too cheap to pay the registration." He invented wildly. Something seemed to slot in place in Emma's head, but she didn't say anything, it was as if the piece of jigsaw sky she had been turning this way and that had revealed itself as a river.

"So, anyway he's a bit lonely to be honest, and I think he's sort of falling in love with her, getting really into her anyway." Peter did his best to put a quizzical, bemused, 'what are you gonna do?' expression on his face.

"Lonely." Emma repeated and tapped a red pen against her lips, "So what does this girl say about herself? Are you sure it's a girl?" The idea that it wasn't a girl had never occurred to Peter, so sure was he of Alice's identity, but he _had_ met Leia online, and there were still things he needed to think about, still things he wanted to talk to someone objective like Emma about.

"I think she's about twenty-three or something, lives in the same city as him." He scrabbled around for some throwaway information. What he really wanted Emma's opinion on was whether he should blow the whole cover that existed between Alice and himself, or whether he should continue in their current digital daydream. "Oh yeah, I think he said she was into star wars or something." Peter laughed as if this was a mere comedy detail, rather than one that had provided a name he had begun to dream about.

"Twenty-three. Hmm. Starwars. Hmm." She pressed the pen to her mouth once more, leaving a small red mark in the centre of her bottom lip.

"He was asking me the other night whether he should meet up with her." Peter moved to the edge of his seat without realising it. He had asked the question he wanted to.

"No. I would say. No." She spoke so definitely, so firmly, that Peter was taken back by the force of it.

"That's what I said." He lied "But why? I couldn't come up with a good reason."

"Because if he does love her, if he has fallen in love with some virtual babe, some online romancer, then there is no way that someone like that will ever be what he thinks she is. She will be a lie Peter, she must be. No-one that good, spends their life in internet chatrooms talking to people they don't know on the other side of the world." She ticked something on her desk viciously, as if underlining her last comment.

"Hmm... That's what I should have said." replied Peter as he sank sadly back into his chair.

littleleia23: I <3 the summer dont you?

yomdaisycheater: what's <3?

littleleia23: it's a hart st00pid, turn your head to the right!!!?!

yomdaisycheater: right. Now I see. Yeah, I <3 the summer too. :)

littleleia23: I like the laziness and t daydreemz and ice cream and when people mow grass.

yomdaisycheater: we live in Manchester, you haven't mentioned the rain.

littleleia23: I lik those summer showers that seem to clean you rather than get u wet.

yomdaisycheater: I like the serenity. I like the feeling of being removed from the day to day and just existing in a bubble.

littleleia23: I know what you mean.

yomdaisycheater: sometimes though, I feel lonely, I live on my own, and sometimes I wish there were other people here.

littleleia23: don't feel lonely. You've got me. You'll alwys have me.

yomdaisycheater: I hope so Leia.

littleleia23: me 2 xxx

littleleia23: Lets go away, lets go on holiday.

yomdaisycheater: where do you want to go?

littleleia23: I want to go somewhere romantice, sumwhere we can sit with each other andwatch the world drift by.

yomdaisycheater: have you been to Paris.

littleleia23: no. never.

yomdaisycheater: i'm there already.

littleleia23: what are we doing.

yomdaisycheater: we're sat in a cafe by the seine, we're eating bread and good French cheese. We're sat at a tiny little iron table, and a man has just gone by on a bike.

littleleia23: what was he wearing?

yomdaisycheater: he had a wide stripy shirt and a beret.

littleleia23: did he have a string of onions round his neck?

yomdaisycheater: you betcha.

littleleia23: what are we wearing?

yomdaisycheater: you're wearing a red dress with big white spots on it.

littleleia23: have I got a bit of the material tied round my waist as a belt?

yomdaisycheater: if you want.

littleleia23: cool. And ur wearing a plain white shirt, and a pair of white jeasn, and sum shiny black shoes.

yomdaisycheater: what are we drinking?

littleleia23: white wine. You wanted red, but I persuaded you to get white.

yomdaisycheater: I see.

littleleia23: the tower is in the background and everyone is going up and down it.

yomdaisycheater: shall we?

littleleia23: not yet lets finish the wine.

yomdaisycheater: good plan.

Peter might have professed to like the summer, but he saw so little of it during that August. He spent a minimum of an hour a day online with Leia and sometimes as much as three. He could talk to her like he could talk to no-one else. He could say the things that he held so close to his heart to this girl that he had begun to so dearly love.

She had taken the news of Jade's existence with remarkable aplomb. Leia would ask him about her, and want him to talk about her and he found that he didn't mind; he could love both of them. Jade might be in the past, but that didn't mean he didn't still love her, especially when it looked like Alice and Leia were going to be his future. Leia made more veiled references to them meeting up, but not yet, she seemed to be waiting for something, but Peter couldn't work out what it was.

As September rolled around, Peter found himself begrudging the time he would have to spend away from a computer, it felt like a waste. He had to content himself with the suggestion that he was going to meet Alice and Leia for real, soon.

34. Sixpence

The first day back was a Wednesday that year. All Members of staff had to sign up to do a lunchtime patrol duty, and Peter was glad to see that the rota detailed that Bernard had one on the very first day. He slipped into Bernard's classroom ten minutes into lunch, shutting the door behind him and not switching the lights on. He had sent Leia a message early that morning, a slightly suggestive gold bikini picture he had found of Carrie Fisher, and wanted to check if she had sent a reply. As he entered his onSHOW logon, he looked down to see that **littleleia23** , the only 'friend' he had listed, had a flashing stick figure icon next to her name, meaning that she was online. He buzzed her and suggested meeting up in her chat room.

littleleia23 has entered LEIAS HAVEN

yomdaisycheater has entered LEIAS HAVEN

littleleia23: Hey, what are you doing around? I thought you were at work.

Peter twitched with the uncomfortable truth.

yomdaisycheater: erm. I am, I'm risking it, I'll probably get in trouble, but I just wanted to speak to you before tonight.

littleleia23: y what's up?

yomdaisycheater: nothing. I just wanted to ...

Peter paused, he wanted to say: "hear your voice", but knew the choice language was preposterous.

yomdaisycheater: Say hi is all. [blush]. What are you doing online?

littleleia23: Just messing about, having a look around, tidying up my SHOWpage a bit.

yomdaisycheater: cool

Peter didn't hear Bernard's door opened, didn't hear the soft footfalls as someone walked in, he was too engrossed, he was _in_ the digital world.

littleleia23: I liked the pic u sent.

"Peter." said a voice, audible to most, but to Peter, it was the voice of a child the other side of a wall.

yomdaisycheater: I saw it and thought of you.

The feet walked across the room and there was a scratch as the speaker moved a chair.

yomdaisycheater: I thought you could use it as your SHOWpic

"Peter" the voice said again.

littleleia23: good plan. I'm gonna look for one for you.

"Peter." The voice was closer now and a hand had rested on his shoulder. Still he typed, as if only a fly had entered his consciousness

yomdaisycheater: thank you.

"Peter. What kind of daydream are you having in here? Are you in a chatroom? Oh dear, they're a bit sad aren't they Pete?" and with those few words, he looked up in to the face of Alice Meaden and his world split apart.

"Alice, what the hell are you doing here, why aren't you... you should be... but you're..." He tried to encompass the magnitude of what he was coming to realise, but his brain wouldn't allow it.

"Peter, I've got year ten after lunch and I want to start by showing them the Luhrmann Romeo and Juliet, have you got a copy?" Peter could not work out what any of the words she was saying meant, they made no sense to his spinning brain.

"I looked for you in Emma's but you weren't there."

"Emma." Peter repeated the word slowly and rose to his feet. "I've got to go." he said, and pushed his way past Alice, running down the corridor, running to Emma, she would know what to do, he would have to talk to her. He burst through her door and noticed that beside from Emma, there were a smattering of pupils. He recognised three of Emma's form in one corner, one of his year 12 students, and Mags and Ella sat at computers that were back to back so the girls could lean round and talk face to face. It wasn't the girls he was looking at though, it was Mags' computer screen; the screen that currently showed a picture of Carrie Fisher, in the top left hand corner of a SHOWpage.

Peter stood stock still, staring at Mags' screen. The girls hadn't seen him, but Emma had. She saw that he was shocked, saw that he had a great upset, and called out to him.

"Sir, are you ok?" He looked wild-eyed at her, further cracks appearing in his universe.

"Sorry, mistake, gotta go." And he darted back out of the classroom. As he spoke, Mags realised he was in the room, she took one look at his retreating back and a reflex action made her flick the power switch of her monitor. She found herself gripped in her seat with a heartbeat thumping so loud she thought the world might hear.

Mags had known who she had been talking to online since just before the end of the previous school year. Peter might never have told his form directly about Jade, but some of them had pieced it together from a thousand fragments of conversation, and the tale of Yom's widow had given Peter away.

If Mags had known, that first day when she had logged into **THE XMASMARKET** who she had been talking to, she would logged out straight away, she wasn't looking to become embroiled in a relationship, and certainly not one as complicated as this. She didn't know who it was though, and she had enjoyed talking to someone who wouldn't judge her for her murky past, and then they had become _involved_ , they had talked everyday, they had become part of each other's lives, and whoever he was he wasn't going to want to go out with a stupid schoolkid. She had to wait to meet him until she had left school or was at least sixteen, but then Mags had fallen in love, and she couldn't bear to be without Yom Daisy, and she listened to his words, and she held them close to her, sleeping with his writing in her heart.

Then she had realised who she was talking to. She didn't experience the great worldcrack that Peter had, for her it made sense. Peter was her protector, her defender, her strength and her friend. He had changed her life and had been the one man in the world who had been able to rid her of that snap-happy scumbag.

Years later, when the dust had settled and all skeletons had been laid to rest, someone asked Mags a question. "But didn't he think he was talking to someone else all those months?"

"Yes. He thought he was talking to one of the other teachers at the school." Mags would reply.

"How did that happen?"

"Well..."

It wasn't that I had a crush on Meaden or anything, but she was just so cool. She was a really good teacher, and she did so much for me. She got me thinking about drama school, and changed my life like no one else. All right, almost no one else ever had.

And I looked at myself and I just felt so wrong and awkward and full of sharp lines and angles, and she came along, all circles and curves. She burst into school life and she was just so ace. I suppose I never had a woman to look up to before that. I love my mum, but she had fucked up big style by bringing Him into our house, and when Meaden arrived, I just wanted to be like her I suppose. I even curled my hair to make it look like hers at one point, I stopped short of dying it red though.

Then I remember, one day she was going on about these markets in Manchester, and she just said how magical and great they were, and then I was online looking for somewhere to chat and I searched for what she had been talking about, and I'd been there about an hour when he came along. Well, thinking like Meaden had gotten me so far, I just carried on doing it. I pretended to be her. She talked about her family and life and stuff loads, and so I just said I was her. I didn't think it'd matter, never thought I'd keep chatting to the person I met, never thought I'd know them.

Every time she dropped a fact, every time she gave us anything about herself I used it. If she recommended something on TV I watched it, if she had a book I bought it, I made myself into her and yes, that was how he fell in love with me. With Leia.

What Mags didn't realise then, what she hadn't known as Peter dashed out of the room, was that now he knew who Leia was.

Peter ran back to his classroom, wrenched open the door and sat with his head on his desk. His heart was beating a stuttering tattoo but his head was running at triple speed. He began to realise that so far, he had done nothing wrong. Yes, he had entered into an inappropriate relationship, but he had been lied to, he had been told that the person he was talking to was older. At least, he told himself as his heart slowed to normal, at least Mags hadn't worked out she was talking to him.

He would take advice. He would get Emma in the pub that evening, and he would talk it through with her, she was bound to know what to do. He knew above all though, that he had to terminate this relationship. He had to end it.

He wasn't sure he could.
35. Guilt

"Emma." said Peter as he returned to her classroom five minutes before the end of lunch. "Emma. Can you come to the pub with me after work? Please?" He looked so plaintive, so distraught that, Emma didn't even think to say no, she had a lot to be thankful to him after all. He might have felt guilt over not being there for her as her marriage had broken up, but she held an eternal gratitude for him. He had been the only person that had believed her and had been on her side when she thought Cam was having an affair, even though she later found out he wasn't. He had been the only person from work to visit her when she had been convalescing at home – as if mental problems were infectious on the air. In short, he had demonstrated that he was her best friend in the world, and she held a deep abiding love for him for that. She might never express it to him properly, but it was there, soft and unspoken. Never romantic love, but the pure, driving love of family, of friendship.

"Ok, I'll be there." she replied

"So what's up then Pete?" She had gotten the drinks in, such was the state of Peter's distraction. She look at him closely and he appeared to have calmed down since lunchtime, now only looking as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders, rather than the knowledge that it would soon come crashing down around his ears.

"Do you remember when I told you I had a friend who had met someone online?" Emma twitched, but then nodded. She had believed Peter's lie and had no reason to start doubting him now. "Well, you know how you said this girl must be a lie?" another twitch, another nod. "Yeah, well she is, I just found out totally by accident." Peter had a plan, but needed the credibility of some facts to wrap around his stick thin lie "Turns out, she's actually a kid from our school."

Emma sat back heavily in her chair, her eyes misting over. "Do you know the kid?" she asked.

"No. I'm not totally sure who it is, or what year, but he doesn't know yet about the girl. Should I tell him, or should I let him carry on? I don't know what to do Em." The lies fell so easily from his mouth that it worried him.

Emma now closed her eyes and put her arms in front of her on the scratched pub table. She balled her hands into fists, and her entire body seemed to convulse. Peter thought he saw a slight flicker of pleasure flick across her face, but it must have been the light from the broken jukebox.

"You tell him Peter, you tell him now who she is and tell him this. He must cut it off instantly. He must leave it now. No good can ever come of carrying it on for even a single second."

"But shouldn't he say goodbye to her or something?" Peter waved his hands as of trying to cut through mists of emotion.

"No." One of her fists had come undone and she slapped a flattened hand on the table, rousing the barman from a peanut daydream. "No." she repeated more quietly "It must just end now, before any more damage is done."

"But I think this girl is in love with him too, won't she be distraught? Won't it wreck her?" He was gripping his pint glass so hard that he thought it might break.

"Better that she thinks she's been dumped by a bastard, than that she thinks she's in love with some dirty old letch." These words stung Peter more than he would have admitted, but he conceded the point. He must end it, Yom Daisy must cease to exist and it must be now, from this moment onwards.

yomdaisy has just entered LEIAS HAVEN

littleleia23: Yom, wher have u been? U didn't cum last night nd i've been here for ages

yomdaisy: sorry. i've been having stuff 2 do. I been really busy.

littleleia23: i'm glad ur here now ive missed u.

yomdaisy: ive missed u 2. I've been thinking about a lot of stuff littleleia

littleleia23: like what?

yomdaisy: like u and me. Are we doing the right thing?

littleleia23: what do you mean?

yomdaisy: all this, all this talking but never meeting, is it ok? What if someone gets hurt?

littleleia23: how could ne1 ever get hurt? We're only talking.

yomdaisy: i just don't want 2 hurt u.

littleleia23: but i thought u told me u'd been there before u got married

yomdaisy: sorry, yeah i forgot. Sometimes remembering about my wife makes things hard. Sometimes i hate her for leaving me.

littleleia23: u shouldn't be like that yom, you can't blame her for that.

yomdaisy: sometimes i feel like i can.

littleleia23: i want 2 skip thru the rain, i want to grab the clouds and pull them down.

yomdaisy: you'll never do that, you'll never be able 2 fly high enough, but come down here on the earth, and we can wrap ourselves together and be like one.

littleleia23: i like the sound of that.

yomdaisy: me 2.

Peter felt like he was cracking up, he couldn't handle having Mags in front on him as well as the beating desire lurking in his heart. He was rude to her in class, he would ignore her and try to avoid looking at her, and every single night when he got home, he made another vow never to talk to Leia again. He hated that whilst his very soul was in torment after the revelation, she appeared not to be affected at all. He repaired his friendship with Alice easily, he had run down to her with the dvd that same lunchtime, and apologised without filling in the gaps of the unasked questions. Soon he found that even talking to her was difficult, because he had begun to pin so much of his future on her; it was as if she had betrayed him too.

Emma never asked after Peter's 'friend' again, she didn't mention it, merely trusted that the deed had been done. Peter thought that she could probably have tracked down any wrongdoers using the school network for onSHOW chat, but she seemed not to have done, and Peter was thankful for that. Maybe she hadn't believed about the friend after all.

Peter had to talk to Ed about it, but couldn't bring himself to tell him the whole truth. He told him that he'd found out that Leia was married and had had to cut off his relationship with her. Ed had merely nodded, said that he was probably doing the right thing and pistol-whipped him to the ground.

Peter hadn't been prepared for lying to Ed, and as soon as the words had left his lips he felt his mind warp a little bit more. It was one thing lying to anyone else in the world, but lying to Ed just seemed so wrong that as he did so, the universe rejected the way Peter was trying to be.

"Tell me some good news Em, tell me something good." said Peter, slumped in a chair and staring into his pint. Emma ran a well-painted nail over an elegantly shaped eyebrow. Peter had had thoughts before that Emma fed exclusively on the drama of the world, and that since her break-up with Cam, she had been going hungry. The tiny morsel of the gossip of the 'accidental paedophile' (as _she_ thought of the situation in her head) seemed to have been enough food to get her hungry again. She certainly felt like the Emma he'd met all those years ago now, all fire, passion and spite.

"What do you want to hear Peter?" It was the beginning of December, two months since Peter had made his first resolution to cut off all contact with Leia. He had become distracted and panicky at work, as if behind every door was stood someone listening in to his deepest thoughts.

"Just something good, something happy, something nice." A small drop of beer slid sown the outside of his glass and he tried to wipe it away with his thumb, but no matter what he did, there was still a trace of it, he couldn't get rid of it completely.

"I heard that Cam broke his leg." Emma had an indecent smile on her face. Peter laughed despite himself.

"I meant actually good, Em not just 'Emma's sadistic warped sense of humour' good."

"Sorry Pete, can't help you there." She flipped a mirror from her handbag and examined her immaculate make-up. Finding nothing to correct, she turned instead to the incredibly sharp suit she was wearing. She flicked some imaginary fluff from one sleeve and turned her right arm this way and that trying to check for creases.

"Sorry, am I keeping you from a hot date or something?" Peter was grinning, but he did feel a sense of annoyance with Emma's complete lack of attention to him.

"No, not at all, I just bought this suit last weekend, what do you think?" She looked at him now, for virtually the first time that afternoon and he managed only a weak mumble of appreciation. He stared at his pint again as a small bubble navigated its way past the bulge near the top, trying to join its fellows an inch below. He felt as if the revelation of Leia's identity was making his world fall apart. Up until then he thought he was at the centre of a twenty-first century romance that would swallow him whole and deliver him to happiness. Now, he felt like he was at the centre of a sucking whirlpool, where splinters of ice and pieces of rock were hurtling past him and tearing at his skin and crushing everything he held dear. It became clear to him, as Emma brought forth a tiny make-up pencil from her purse and touched up her eye-liner, that he was not going to be rescued by words from Emma.

littleleia23: but then, he didn't have any more, so we couldn't carry on!!!?!?!

yomdaisy: heh. Cool.

littleleia23: i can't believe how much we've been talking this week! We've been in here loads, its like u cant keep away!

yomdaisy: I dont think i can littleleia. I thnk... i think i love you.

littleleia23: wow :0 i think i love u 2 yom

yomdaisy: i'm glad to hear that.

36. Treachery

Now Peter was at school, there was a school trip and he was going on it. His pockets jingled softly with pocket money as he walked and he could feel his schoolbag, knew that there was a round of cheese and pickle sandwiches in there.

Suddenly, he was talking to Georgia Evans, which was strange, because she had been at school with him, he had known her when he was a child, he hadn't seen her since then. She was talking to him and trying to get him to go out with her friend, he realised now what had happened, he was a child again, he must have been fifteen, was all that teacher stuff a dream? Must have been.

But Georgia was still talking about her friend, who had just turned up, she had long shining blonde hair and Peter recognised that it was Mags, what was she doing here? She was only a dream...

He had obviously been dreaming about someone he knew in real life, that was it. He looked at Mags and realised she was truly beautiful, sad, but beautiful. Her eyes were hidden behind a heavy fringe, but he could see them shining beneath.

He took her hand and led her back to the school, led her through the huge double front doors, with their chipped paint and rusted handles. The doors led straight into Peter's bedroom, which seemed so natural, why wouldn't he live at the school? It was the bedroom he had had as a child, correction it was his bedroom, since he was a child, there was a Doctor Who poster featuring Sylvester McCoy posing with Oasis.

He pulled her softly onto the enormous double bed that was there, that he could not remember ever seeing before, but once they were on it, it filled the world, stretched to the horizons, Liam and the Doctor fading away.

He held Mags in his arms and kissed her, kissed her with the fierce ineptitude of the teenager, kissed her over and over again, the simple pleasure of holding her making his body want to explode with pleasure. They rolled over and over on the bed, tumbling, twisting, falling, always kissing.

She stopped rolling whilst he was underneath her and propped herself, she drew a finger across his face and he could feel her fingertip across his full grown stubble, she then took off his glasses, the glasses he had only started wearing in his twenties. He looked down at himself, saw himself in his favourite shiny black suit, saw the wedding ring still resolutely on his right hand, felt himself locked in Mags' embrace.

He had to stop looking at her, had to tear his eyes away, then he could make it stop. He was looking at the wallpaper and the posters, the edges were all curling, the wallpaper was peeling from the walls in long thing strips, there was water, so much water running down the walls of Peter's childhood bedroom, and the water was stripping everything away.

He heard a knock on the heavy wooden window frame, and could see a single giant sunflower there, bashing its head again and again against the glass, its petals bent and broken in the storming rain.

And it just kept knocking.

littleleia23: I'm so happy i could sing! I am singin!

yomdaisy: Y what's happened?!?!

littleleia23: Soemthing so exciting, i can't tell you yet, but I've got some amazing news for you!

yomdaisy: i'll look forward to it.

littleleia23: xxx <3 xxx

January now, a new month, a new year and Peter was trying hard to put his twisting past behind him. He had endured three months of being burdened with the secret of his own perceived perversion and he was not coping. It would have been better if there had been someone who could suffer with him, but he was so isolated in the tower of lies that he had constructed, that there was no-one else who was feeling what he was.

"Sir, Sir, we got in, we got in!" Ella and Mags ran into 11PE's form room, each holding a piece of paper that they kept folding and unfolding, as if to check that the words would remain there. Bernard was in there with Peter that morning. He had just bobbed his head in, and had barely said a word before Ella had exploded.

"What?" asked Peter irritatedly, he looked up at the pair of them, but his eyes flicked away, magnet style, from Mags.

Mags looked back at him. He had been in such a terrible mood for such a long time. She was pretty sure that he knew she was Leia, he had seemed so different these last few months, he had seemed harder and darker. She just had to wait until she had left the school to break their imagined secrecy, and that moment would come all the sooner now that she had this letter in her hand.

"We're in at that drama school!" said Mags, beating Ella to the chase by half a second.

"What?!" Peter shot out of his chair, stood upright, and completely dwarfed Ella. Mags was only four inches shorter than him, and though his height could be intimidating, she didn't flinch.

"I'll leave you lot to your news." said Bernard, uncomfortable at the display of emotion, and made his way out of the room

"What? How can you go, I don't get it?" Peter was addressing Mags directly now, Ella seemed like only so much smoke to the pair of them.

"I thought you'd be happy, _sir_ , I thought that this might be what you would want. For us." The last two words seemed to be added almost as an afterthought, Ella said something but neither of them caught it.

Peter's brain was simmering, but there was a part of him that was still operating on an even keel. He felt a sense of numbness creep over him, he felt a rush of emotions grip the base of his throat, and he felt a godly hand press him down into his seat and make him shuffle some papers.

"Sorry, girls, I was confused for a second then, I was thinking of something else. Well done. You must be very happy." Mags stood there looking offended, but Ella's mouth kicked in.

"Yes, sir, its in Liverpool, its right in the centre and they're accepting us on a scholarship to do sixth form stuff like A levels and then if we're good enough we'll stay on for uni stuff but only the best people get to do that and they only accept about a hundred people a year onto the sixth form stuff and we've done really well and we..." Ella ran out of steam in her excitement.

"So when would you start?" he asked her.

"In September, sir and..." but she was cut off by the sudden appearance of Emma in Peter's room.

"Hello, sir, have you got a minute?" she asked, walking in. She looked sideways at the two girls as if wishing away their existence.

"Yes, I have miss, the girls here are very excited as they've just been accepted for drama school in Liverpool, they'll be going away in September." He was trying his best to look happy, to give the normal reaction for them but it wouldn't come.

"Come on Ell, lets go and tell Miss Meaden." The girls buzzed off and Peter was struck by Mags' words, they had come to tell him before going to Alice, their drama teacher. He was struck for a moment by how much that meant that they must think of him, but no sooner had that feeling begun to sparkle with warmth than it twisted with the hot knives of guilt into his stomach.

"You all right Peter? Bernard's not about is he?" Emma's head flicked this way and that in the class, as if Bernard might be hiding behind a cupboard or under a desk. Even in his current state of misery Peter still felt a pang of curiosity about the animosity between Bernard and Emma.

"No, he's not Em," Peter rubbed his eyes, which felt like nothing more like two black holes in his skull. "What do you want?" he said this more abruptly than he meant to, but she didn't seem to notice.

" Peter, are you ok? You've seemed really off for a while now, and I've got to say I'm worried about you." Peter looked up at her and thought he saw a flash of his own reflection in her eyes. Having Emma come to him saying she was worried was a worrying event in itself. Was she recognising signs? Did she think he was heading for a computer throwing style breakdown? She was stood there now, wanting to talk to him, handing him a golden opportunity to confess to everything, to unburden himself, but still he could not bear the sandpaper grating over his nerves that that would bring him.

"Em, I'm fine. I think I've got a bit of a bug or something, I've just been a bit off colour, no worries, honest." He held up his hands, palms facing Emma, as if this could help his case. She didn't look convinced, but didn't force the issue.

"Do you want to go to the pub after work?" she asked, a sideways tactic to try to get him to talk.

"No, I just want to go straight home tonight, I've got stuff to do."

littleleia23 has entered LEIAS HAVEN

yomdaisy: hi. I've been waiting for you.

littleleia23: hi. How are you?

yomdaisy: not great to be honest. So you're going away then.

Mags gasped as she read this on the screen. Even though she saw Peter every day, and talked to Yom every night, there was a part of her brain that kept the two separate. This was the first time that Yom had directly referred to something that she had only told to Peter. She felt rather unsettled, she had decided to tell the news to Peter, because it was so momentous that over the computer seemed to be wrong, so impersonal. She felt now though that telling Yom, rather than Peter first might have been a better idea.

littleleia23: yeah. I am. R u ok with that?

yomdaisy: i thought we were going to be together, i thought that once stuff had changed then it wud be u and me.

littleleia23: it can be, it will be, it shud be, but i cant miss out on this!! I thought u wud be happy for me?

yomdaisy: i am, i just wasn't expecting it.

littleleia23: sorry for the shock, y don't we talk face to face.

yomdaisy: NO!!!!!!! we can't do that, we've got to keep normal whilst you're still around, we've got to keep here and there separate, we HaVE to, if someone ever found out...

littleleia23: ok. I understand.

yomdaisy: we can NEVER talk to each other like this anywhere but here.

littleleia23: ok.

37. Playing for the endgame

A cathedral full of flowers, a cathedral made of flowers, but there was no-one else there as Peter waited, stood on the high altar. An eagle made of gold was nestling by his feet, and a sword was resting in the aisle.

Jade and Mags walked in, hand-in-hand. They were laughing, playing, running, skipping. Jade handed Mags a sunflower, and Mags gave Jade a tiny unicorn that ran up Jade's arm and hid in her hair.

Peter leapt from the altar and ran to them both, but the more that he ran, the further away they were from him, and by the time he had reached them they had merged into a single person. This vision was an angel, shining bright skin and luminous white hair. The unicorn cantered playfully about her shoulders, and she smiled a smile of a thousand stars.

She slipped the simple white shift that she was now wearing from her shoulders, and it fell with a curling thump to the bed of sunflowers that Peter noticed only now were caressing his bare ankles. Her body shone brightly, but he couldn't make out any details. He pulled her to himself, and kissed her passionately. They sank onto the carpet of flowers and rolled through the hours. She lowered herself onto him and they made love, but with every shake and moan she became less Jade and more Mags, and soon, all that Peter could see was the thirteen year old face from the photos that haunted him, stretching her scarred arm out to him, as he twisted in his agony and ecstasy.

Peter couldn't bear to face a single second of Jade's anniversary that year. It fell on a Saturday and from the moment he arrived home on the Friday till a bleary 3 am on the very early Sunday morning, he drank. He drank beer, and wine, and spirits, and anything else he could lay his hands on. He couldn't bear the thought of it being this day, this special day, and being in any state like his right mind was wrong.

The months had begun to melt into one since Mags had been accepted into drama school. Peter had had more occasional days off from work since then, than he had had in his entire previous time at Smithfield, and questions were being raised, high above his head. Mags barely talked to him in school anymore and that was the way that he liked it. It felt like a planet of electricity was unfurling in his stomach every time she walked into the room, but it would have been worse had he actually had anything to do with her. He had loved Leia so very much, he had his future planned out, but then had come the revelation and everything had changed.

He had begun to do strange things at work. One day, he forgot to turn up to take a class, sitting in his car listening to the radio instead, and another he simply walked out of a staff meeting halfway through, for no reason he could remember. He was drinking more too, the binge that steamrollered Jade's anniversary became a regular event. He hadn't crossed the boundary of drinking in school, but some of his classes whispered about his breath and appearance behind his back. His self-hatred was reaching a peak and he thought that soon it might explode and take the world with it.

He had a goal in sight though, the month of May. On Thursday the first of May, the year eleven, Mags' year, would leave the school. He might not be able to stop himself seeing her face every time he closed his eyes, but he could stop himself having to see her every morning once she had left the school.

littleleia23: Yom, i need to talk to you.

yomdaisy: ok. Talk.

littleleia23: no i mean talk face to face.

yomdaisy: i thought we wrent' going to do that

littleleia23: i think its time. We need to be together, we need to talk before i leave.

yomdaisy: i thought that what we had was special, i thought you didn't want it 2 change.

littleleia23: it has 2 change to grow, we need to grow. We need to talk, somewhere that isnt' school, can we do that.

yomdaisy: ok. When. Where?

littleleia23: how about tomorrow night, Modnay?

yomdaisy: but where.

littleleia23: can i come to yours? Ive bn thinking and i cant think of anywhere els whwere we might be spotted, we need to meet.

yomdaisy: if you want to, thn we can. Ill mail you th address.

littleleia23: thnk u.

yomdaisy: i <3 u Leia.

littleleia23: <3 u 2.

Yom's address pinged into Mags' inbox 5 minutes later. She had a pad of paper by the computer and wrote the address out, her hand making heavy and desperate shapes on the pad. She tore the written piece off and held it to her beating heart. Tomorrow, they would meet, tomorrow she would become a woman, tomorrow would be her future, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.

38. Days.

Monday 28th April 2008.

Only two more full days, and then Peter's life would find a welcome change. He wouldn't have to endure this grinding, painful torture of seeing the person he felt that he loved most in the world, but the one person that he told himself, night after night, that he could never be with. The knock came at his door all the same, two days to go or not.

"I need to talk." said Mags, entering the room, sliding round the door and pushing it closed with her weight. "I need to talk to _you_ , before..." She stumbled as suitable words failed her. "... before everything changes."

"Mags I don't think you should be..." Words failed Peter too, and he was looking wildly out of the window, lest someone should see him alone in his room with a student. The five O'Clock school was deserted though, Peter had been trying unsuccessfully for an hour to mark something or do something useful, but his addled brain wouldn't let him. He felt like he was two disparate people, the virtuous good and the indulgent bad.

"It doesn't matter anymore, none of this matters, I want to tell _you_ something."

"What Mags? What is it? We shouldn't be here like this." He sprinted across the room and flicked all the blinds closed. He moved wildly, as if the pieces of his brain that controlled his body no longer spoke to each other.

"I'm not going to drama school." The words gained form as she said them, and filled the room with their smoky belligerence.

"WHY?" Peter shouted from the other side of the room. He was fiddling with the blinds, and tore one in his terror. "It's what you want more than anything in the world!" What was she saying? Why was she saying it? Now, after all this time!

"But it's not what _you_ want!" Her hands were clenched fists by her side and she stamped her foot in anger.

"I never said that!" Peter shouted from the window.

"Yes you did! With every word you've ever spoken, with every look you've ever given, you don't want me to go!"

" Mags, Mags, Mags." Peter was crying now, fat fulsome tears running down his face, his months of mental trauma spilling in a torrent of quivering emotion. He moved halfway across the room, "You can't stay here, you have to go."

"No." she said, quiet but defiant, and walked her half of the distance across the room, weaving her hips through the desks "No." She laid her palms on the front of his shirt and he didn't resist. He put his hands on her shoulders, not so far below his, and she didn't move away. "No." she said once more and turned her lips to his. She could feel his tears coursing down his face, she could feel the smoke of his pent up passions smouldering beneath his skin. He could feel her supple youth below his hands and her breasts pressing against his chest, he noticed with a distant pang of querulous emotion that a piece of paper torn from a spiral bound pad was nestling there, right next to her heart.

They kissed and the stars span around them. A single moment of beauty and union in an empty classroom, in a deserted school.

She pulled rested her forehead on the front of his shirt, she pulled away, not looking at him, and flew from the room. It took Peter a few seconds to work out what had happened, and as he heard her footsteps tapping on the shiny corridor floor, he ran after her, but an unseen chair blocked his path, and he fell heavily, his hand catching a sharp point of the door lock, cutting a deep and heavy horizontal gash across his right palm. His head hit the corner of a desk and knocked him out instantly, breaking his tenuous link to reality.

Two hours later, Mags stood outside an address, the taxi that she had taken had bought her this far, she would have to walk the rest herself.

39. Kidnap

Tuesday 29th April 2008. 7:45 am.

Ben Pearce's secretary walked into his office with a drawn ashen look on her face. Ben hadn't become headmaster, no, to be correct, he hadn't _remained_ headmaster without being able to read situations accurately in an instant.

"Ben, we have a problem." She spoke with a pad in front of her pale blue blouse, reading the details from its spiral bound pages, not wanting to get anything wrong.

"Go on then." He readied his own pad to take notes.

"Margaret Donne from form," she consulted her notes "11PE has gone missing. Her mum has just rung the school. She didn't come home last night, she's called Margaret's mobile but there's been no response."

"Has she called the police?" Ben scribbled a few notes with a small pencil.

"Not yet. She wanted to see if she was going to turn up at school." A scribble was made. "I said that you would ring her straight back, here's the number." She handed him a readied slip of paper and he began to dial.

Mags woke up, but didn't lift her head immediately. There was a dull but insistent throb in her left temple and as she moved her jaw – with some difficulty – she could feel tiny patches of scratchy pressure on her skin that indicated something had congealed and then dried there.

As she lifted her head slowly, she took in her surroundings. The walls were painted with a white paint that had become dirty and cracked and showed a treacle-thick blackness beneath. From where she was sat she could also see a mess of paint tins and pieces of half-used wood.

Her other senses crept back to her and lined up to give their opinions on proceedings. She could smell mustiness that she had once heard someone call "damp". She could taste nothing but the dark rag that had been forced into her mouth and was pinning her jaw open. Her whole body spoke of how it had been touched so forcefully – she'd been beaten, yes, had there been anything else? She didn't know, she couldn't tell. As she tried to twist her hands away from each other, she realised they were tied together with what felt like some kind of plastic rope.

Something clicked into place as different pieces of information floated through her foggy mind. She was tied to a chair. She could feel each ankle lashed to a front leg, and her arms had been forced through part of the back of the frame and then tied together. Her groggy thoughts were still wallowing muddily, and she couldn't quite recall how or why she was here.

Then her fifth sense kicked in. She couldn't _hear_ anything apart from her own breathing. There were no traffic sounds, no movement above, no sounds of wind or rushing air, nothing. She sat breathing for a moment and tried to marshal her senses to all work at once. She looked again. There was a very dim light, faintly reflected by the cracked white paint from around a corner.

She was in a cellar, definitely. She turned her head to try and increase her view and it seemed that objects had been shuffled hurriedly out of the way to make space for her. Most of the cellar was neat and ordered – she could make out a label on a draw to her left that said 'Small Screws' – but just around her, typical cellar junk had been scattered out of the way so that her chair could be forced up against a wall. A large paintbrush and a long thin stick of wood had fallen against each other so that they made an inverted cross.

The ordinariness of the cellar pounded in her thoughts with the same insistence as the wound at her temple. This cellar wasn't used to having kidnapped 15 year-old girls placed within it. Was that a good thing? Is it better to have a professional kidnapper or an amateur one? Maybe a professional would only be after money and would leave her alone without hurting her any more? Maybe an amateur would lose heart and give up? Maybe an amateur would make some kind of fatal mistake... But fatal for whom?

7:59 am.

"Ok Jane," said Ben as he put he the phone down on Mags' mum. He stretched the fingers of his phone hand cautiously as if testing them for a break after the emotion of the phone call he had just made. "I've told Mrs. Donne that I will ring her as soon as Mags appears, or at nine o'clock if she hasn't." He ruffled his hand though his peppery hair and scratched his beard. "Will you go down and speak to Peter Everett please Jane, keep it quiet." Ben consulted a rota looking for the member of senior staff who would be on bus duty that morning. "I'll call Dave and ask him to look Mags, although," he said as he dialled a three-digit code, "If she's run away from home a few days before finishing school, I can hardly imagine she'll turn in today. Hello Dave, I wonder if you could..."

Why had she kissed him? Why? She knew it had been wrong – illegal even – but she couldn't help herself, they had become so close and she loved him. Was that what this was about? Why would that kiss get her kidnapped?

She tried to twist her limbs again, but nothing moved. She listened carefully and a dull plod began to sound. It changed in tone as the plodder drew closer to her. She heard a door creak open and a little more light drifted into the cellar.

The dull plods she had heard, now made only the softest sounds as a pair of feet descended steps leading to her, and a figure rounded the corner.

"I see you're awake now, Margaret." Bitterness was spat into Mags' name as the figure flicked a switch that brought fluorescent light and momentary blindness. Her head twitched involuntarily to one side and her eyes screwed together. She opened them carefully and they adjusted to the harsh and unwelcome light.

She turned her head to look at her captor and something rose from the base of her stomach, through her chest, her neck, her mouth and finished in her eyes, which opened wider, with what was now a true sense of black, screaming terror.

8:20 a.m.

Ben Pearce sat drumming the fingers on the polished cedar table that sat in the centre of his office. He heard footsteps rush towards his door and Jane rounded the corner.

"Sir, I've been down to Peter Everett's room, he's not there and his car's not in the car park." she spoke breathlessly

"Has he rung in sick?" His eyes were dagger sharp, to cut to the heart and he had no time for pleasantries.

"No he hasn't." Ben's mind was spooling through a thousand possibilities, faster than oil on the water.

"Right, go and tell Beryl to come down here physically, no phone call, the minute he comes in or rings in or anything, we need him here now." He thought for a second, and then spun his chair round to consult a computer database. "I'll call him at home."

"I suppose you want to know why I've brought you here." A thousand Bond villains were on the captor's shoulder, spitting at each other as the black rag was ripped from Mags' mouth. She spat thread across the room.

"I know why you've brought me here, God! I know why I'm here." It was Mags' turn for some viciousness now. Bitter anger was rising in her throat.

This was clearly not an expected answer. There was a pause, a shift in stance and a shrug that indicated the supreme irrelevance of what Mags thought.

"Well, maybe you've worked it out, but no-one else will..." Another shrug.

"Worked it out? Worked what out? What the FUCK are you talking about? Why would I have to work anything out?"

A deep, dark smile came before the reply.

"Language, Margaret, or I shall have to give you a detention." A pause, and then a brutal slap rang across Mags' face. "Ha! What _am_ I talking about, you're already detained."

The slap had thrown Mags' head down onto her left shoulder. She raised her head carefully and stared blankly.

"You obviously think you know something. What is it? What do you _think_ you know?"

"What? WHAT?" The insanity of what Mags was hearing was palpable. "I know because, because... because I've wanted it for so long and its finally happened, but you can't cope with it can you? Its freaked you out hasn't it? Well there's nothing wrong with what we did and I'll tell anyone that. No-one needs to protect anyone. It. Was. Only. A kiss." She dissolved into the grating sobs that wracked her body.

The kiss had only been a matter of hours previously, but she hadn't dared speak the words aloud, now she had it felt so much more real. So much less like a fairy tale, but she was in no place to assess the impact of what she was admitting to herself.

"Only a kiss? Only a kiss? Is that all you would call it?" For the first time now, she sensed some unbalance in her captor. "You've done a lot more than that you little bitch." The last word was punctuated with a heavy punch to her unwounded temple. Mags' brain span inside her head for a moment and then, with unstoppable momentum, her head fell forward and she was unconscious again.

8:50 a.m.

Emma's car screeched to its usual last minute halt in the car park and to her surprise Jane the head's secretary was there waiting for her.

"Whassup Janey?" asked Emma as she climbed gracefully out of the car. She was wearing an expensive, overlarge pair of sunglasses and looked as if she might have stepped straight from Hollywood. She threw an immaculate bag over her shoulder and paused to admire her pristine reflection in someone else's car window.

"Emma, we've got a problem, we're looking for Peter, but no-one can find him. One of the girls from his form has gone missing, Mags Donne, but we can't get hold of Peter." Jane was hopping from foot to foot and Emma paused in the straightening of a lapel.

"Peter? What? Is Bernard in?" She seemed to have tripped over her own tongue as she spoke. "Only, I mean, he might know where Peter is."

"No, I mean, I don't know, I haven't seen him...." Jane paused in her speech, thinking fast as lightning, "Emma, Peter's room is locked. You're on the same corridor, does your key open his room?"

"Yes Jane" she replied, looking unsure of herself. "I believe it does."

8:55 a.m.

Jane ran into Ben's office, weak at the knees with a burning word.

"I... there's..." She was speaking tremulously, but Ben cut her off.

"Has Peter turned up? No-one's answering at Peter's house, has anyone seen him? Emma? Bernard? They're friendly with him aren't they?"

"Yes, but Emma Carter hasn't seen him, she's only just got in, and Bernard Quick hasn't turned up yet either, either, but sir..."

"What, Jane?" he spoke with only the slightest irritation, his fingers steepled below his chin.

"Emma opened Peter's room for me. There's blood all over the floor."

9:03 a.m.

"... and should we hear anything Mrs. Donne, we'll call you at home straight away." Ben placed the receiver back on the cradle and looked straight at the wall. He hated few things more than being ill-informed and all he could feel now, was a pit of sucking emptiness where a series of facts should be. He had left Mags' mum fretting over her daughter and had nothing meaningful that he could tell her. He had omitted the tale that there had obviously been some kind of struggle in Peter's room, no sense in telling her that until they had something concrete to go on. He was about to organise a temporary form room for 11PE when he noticed Jane hovering at his door.

"I just wanted to keep you posted." she said, trying to excuse her presence.

"Go on." he said massaging his temples.

"Bernard Quick rang in, he said that something really weird has happened, he said all his car's tyres have been slashed, there's superglue in all the locks and it looks like the petrol cap has been forced open."

"What?" The tale was getting stranger by the minute and Ben didn't know how to take a word of it.

"He said, and I quote 'I reckon some fuckin scally's put sugar in there.'" Jane looked nervous at having used Bernard's exact words, but Ben didn't even flinch.

"But why didn't he ring earlier? Ben looked confused, but seemed to expect that there was an answer coming.

"He said that the electricity has been cut to his house and his alarm didn't go off. He said that he thinks the phone has been cut off too. He's called the police and won't be in today, they are considering it," She consulted her pad, "'A suspicious and serious incident.'"

"Right," said Ben decisively, even though no decision had been made. "Right, any word on Peter?"

"None as yet."

"Right." Ben repeated. He tapped his tiny pencil on his lips. "Right, I'm going round to Peter's house personally, see if I can see anything." He rose from his desk, grabbing his coat. "Tell Beryl to organise cover for Peter and Bernard's classes, who's the second in Business?" He shouldered his coat and Jane consulted a document pinned to the wall.

"John Staps." She replied.

"Of course. Tell John to set work for Bernard's classes and Cindy can sort out Peter's." He looked at the print out he had of Peter's address. "I'll be back in an hour."

10:07 a.m.

Ben pulled back into the Smithfield car park with a heavy heart. He ran his fingers once round his leather steering wheel and thoughtfully pulled the handbrake fully back. He had seen nothing at Peter's, he had walked round the outside of the house, peered through windows and shouted through the letterbox, but had not found out anything. He had spoken to the neighbours either side, neither of whom had heard any noise at all from Peter's the previous night. One of them pointed out to Ben that Peter's car wasn't even on the street and Ben thanked her for her time. Peter's street seemed quiet, so it was likely that he would have been heard had he been at home the previous night.

Ben climbed out of his low-slung car and walked back into school. Over the past two hours, he had had a frantic, but dying hope that this situation was going to resolve itself quickly and painlessly. He couldn't see a possible link between Mags' disappearance, Peter's absence and the vandalism visited upon Bernard, but every teacher is part detective and Ben thought he could feel the silver threads below the facts tying them together.

As he walked back into his office, he was about to take the inevitable step of calling the police, when Jane, having heard him return, knocked on his door. He looked up quizzically.

"We've found Peter. He's in Hospital."

"What?" he asked, putting down the phone.

"He just rang. He said he was working late last night, tripped and fell in his classroom gouging a hole in his hand. He then drove to the hospital..."

"What?" asked Ben rather more loudly than he had intended.

"He drove to the hospital, he said so himself, he wrapped his hand in several paper towels and was able to do it." She flicked back several pages in her notebook and confirmed every detail.

"But that's insane. He shouldn't have driven like that!" Ben took his coat off and sat down, looking as if the world was coming down around his ears.

"He said he just wanted to get there. The cut was so bad that they admitted him overnight, they had to put him out under general and he said he's only just come round and is only just making sense."

"Sense? SENSE!" Ben was spilling with anger now at the irrationality that the world was spitting at him this day. "Right, ok." he said, calming down, taking deep breaths and bringing back some restraint to the situation. "Any word on Margaret Donne?"

"No." Jane replied, wishing she had more to give him. "She wasn't in registration, and she wasn't in her first lesson."

"Ok then," said Ben picking up the phone. "Now we call the police."

4:06 p.m.

Ben saw the two police officers to the front doors of the school. He had been in teaching long enough to have seen more than his fair share of runaways, but it was never an experience he had never gotten used to. He knew that at this stage there was very little that the police could do. He knew that most runaways turned up within 48 hours, he knew that as harrowing as all of this might be, the situations usually resolved themselves. This felt different though. Mags' troubled past was one factor, but the non-appearance of Bernard _and_ Peter felt downright bizarre. Peter had become rather erratic recently it was true, but to Ben's knowledge, Bernard had never had a day off in his whole time at Smithfield, and he had certainly never had any vandalism that Ben knew of.

Ben had spoken of these strange details to the police, out of a need to give them the full picture more than anything else. The senior officer took Ben at his word. He rang the hospital that Peter had been in, but they would only confirm that he had received treatment from them. They refused the details, at this stage, of when Peter had been admitted, and when he had been discharged. The police managed to confirm Bernard's story too. Some colleagues had been called to his house to investigate what seemed like more that random acts of vandalism against Mr. Quick. The only comment that the police officer in front of Ben had been able to make, was that it seemed likely that the vandalism itself had taken place in the very small hours of the morning.

Ben walked back to his office, sat down heavily in his chair and stared at the opposite wall. There was nothing he could think of to do.

The next time she woke up, there was a bright light being shone in Mags' face. She could see a dim shadowy outline behind the light. The outline seemed to move, was that a glass or a cup being raised? The light was too bright to tell, but on seeing Mags wake up, the shadow resumed its former position.

"You see, the things is, Margaret," as if this were a pleasant chat over afternoon tea, "Is that I'm not really doing anything wrong. In fact I've never done anything wrong, all the wrong things have happened to me. And I have suffered." The words dripped, honey like, from her captor's mouth.

"But the thing about you is Margaret." A sneer crept into the voice that seemed to be coming from everywhere at once. "The thing about you is, is that you've done enough suffering already, you have already reached your, ahem, quota."

"You see. I know Margaret. I know what you've been through, I know the abuse that has been visited on you, and whilst I am so very, ahem, sympathetic, I am very aware of what that makes you." The voice could have been discussing the day's news or celebrity gossip for all the emotion that it contained.

Mags shifted uncomfortably again. To be made to think of the events of all those years ago was painful even now. She could barely get through a day without being reminded of some aspect of it, and inside, deep inside, she bore the scars.

"It makes you damaged goods." The voice delivered this like a whipcrack and Mags felt it as such. "You're so fucked up that anything that I do with you." A pause, a breath "Anything that I do _to_ you, doesn't really count. I'm not harming anything that isn't harmed already. I'm not making anything worse." Another pause and a deeper, slower breath.

"You see little miss, I like the dark tastes." A sinister relish saturating the voice. "I like the blackest coffees, and the reddest wines. I like the bleakest secrets and the saddest songs. Sometimes I take a razor blade and let it run a thin line down the inside of my thigh. I like to feel the pain you see, I like to remember it." Mania was all that Mags could hear. The dirty rag had not been replaced, but Mags couldn't speak, couldn't open her mouth to make a single sound.

"And having you here, having you like this, well that's the darkest taste of all?"

The figure advanced. Mags still couldn't see the expressions, couldn't see anything but the shape. The figure bent over her and ran a finger lightly up her right arm, dancing over each pitted scar that it found. It reached the short sleeve of her school shirt and carried on tracing its gentle line up to and then across her neck. It paused in the middle and drew an invisible line down the centre of her chest. The finger popped the straining buttons that it met and exposed the soft white flesh beneath. The pale skin seemed to blend so well with the pale pink underwear that Mags was wearing. The finger continued its tracing and paused for a second on another ancient scar above Mags' left breast, just peeping up over the pale pink material bisecting it. It was less than half the size of a penny, and not that deep. Mags knew it was there, knew the locations of the others that matched it. As the finger pressed gently upon it, Mags felt something inside her begin to burn, begin to spark. She tried to lash out, she tried to move, but the knots on the rope were too tight and she succeeded only in cutting marks into her wrists a little deeper.

"Yes, I think that I could never make you any worse."

40. Circles that spin

Everyone had been so kind now that the baby was coming, there had been gifts and cards and all manner of things. Jade was getting slowly bigger, and Peter had so much DIY to do, all the rooms needed to be repainted different colours several times, and that took up all of his energy.

He had to go to buy some more paint, and he was in the shop and Mags was there, of course, Mags was pregnant too, and it was his as well. He tried to cast his mind back to when the conception had actually been. Had he been unfaithful to Jade? He didn't think so. Did Jade know about Mags' baby? He wasn't sure. The details were swimming in his consciousness and were refusing to surface.

He talked to Mags pleasantly, and she said that everything was fine, but she really wasn't looking forward to next week. Peter asked Mags what next week was, but she didn't hear him. She walked off round the shop, and Peter chased after her, asking her about next week, and she ran and ran, and finally he caught up with her.

"What's next week?" he asked, rubbing her stomach, feeling for the baby's kick.

"When we go back to school." she replied.

Wednesday 30th April 2008. 1:26 p.m.

Peter and Bernard both returned to school the following day. Peter had found that even though the fingers of his right hand were quite immobile, he was actually able to jam a board pen in-between two fingers and a thumb and make a creditable impression at writing. Ben briefed him when he came in about the Mags situation, and asked him several times if he was sure he was all right to work. Peter assured Ben that he was, knowing in his soul that he would rather be anywhere else than at home at the moments, shut up with his secrets.

A message was sent round the staff before registration about Mags' disappearance. It said only that she had disappeared and that in the event of her turning up, she should be taken straight to Ben. There was no point in denying to 11PE that she had gone missing, and Peter found that he could talk to them about it freely. They all thought they knew more about it than he did, they certainly wasted no time impressing their opinions of events on him.

Peter was a distracted mess. His mind was split into more pieces than ever, and he was having a hard job keeping control of his temper. He was beside himself with anger and fear at the current state of Mags, but his very blood was boiling about the kiss. How could he have let it happen? His emotions had been slowly twisting through a knifepoint since Monday evening, at all the things he had done and all the things that he had felt that he had had to do.

The Police were coming back into school later that day, and the thought was filling him with dread. What might he do? What might he say? Would he be able to cope with the close interrogation? He thought he might not.

"But she's had some internet boyfriend on the go for ages, maybe she went to meet him?" These words floated into Peter's consciousness and he flailed wildly to grab them.

"What? What did you just say?" If Peter had been any closer to Ella, he would have picked her up and shaken her. She had been speaking quietly to a few of her friends, but Peter's voice had leapt like a tannoy roar across the room.

"What?" she asked, flustered and unaware that Peter had heard.

"Ella, what did you just say? Do you know something about Mags?"

"Well, sir I mean..." The school bell cut her off and she looked relieved, as if this would be her saviour.

"Wait behind." said Peter harshly. The rest of the class left the room slowly, reluctant to miss out on the gossip and drama. A few remained to bob around the door, but Peter shooed them quickly and shut the door.

"What did you say Ella? What do you know?" Peter was leaning against the door now and he felt a twitch flick his head back and forth, his injured hand pulsed horribly and he took a step towards Ella.

"Nothing, sir, I mean, I..." She was scared now, scared of the knowledge she was holding inside.

"Ella this is important, you need to tell me." He was stood directly in front of her now, his height and her lack thereof making him feel cold and threatening.

"Its just that, there's this website, right, called onSHOW, and she's sort of met some bloke on there." She quivered in Peter's gaze, as if she was being held in a vice. His eyes were boring into her, compelling her to continue. "And they've been talking for ages, and getting to know each other, and..." but Peter cut her short.

"Did she tell you who it was?" Even in her terror Ella noticed that the question wasn't 'Did she know who it was?'.

"Well, no..." she said, and thought that Peter seemed to sag, was that from frustration or relief? "I mean, she doesn't really talk about it," she continued, watching Peter avidly, "She just sort of lets the odd thing slip, or I'll go round to her house and she'll be in the chatroom and she'll take a minute to log off." Peter seemed fired up by a new energy.

"Did you ever see the screen, did you ever see his SHOWname?" There was a small dribble of saliva at the edge of Peter's mouth, and Ella could feel tiny flecks of it hit her face.

"No, sir, no!" She backed away now, and Peter didn't follow. "She was always pretty secretive about that, she said that she liked her secret and she wanted to keep it." She had backed round behind a desk, putting objects in the way of Peter. "I mean, I was there last week when she was on and..."

"Last week?" The words had ripped through Peter's heart like a bullet

"Yes, sir, why..." but she never finished the question, because at that point a small group of adults had appeared at Peter's door. Ben Pearce walked into the room and took an instant memory photograph of the situation he was looking at. There was some tension in the air, but nothing he could deal with now, he filed the memory for future perusal.

"Peter, there's been a development." he said quietly.

2:02 p.m.

Half an hour later, Peter was sat on one of the hard wooden chairs in Ben's office. He had chosen the chair himself over one of the comfy leather ones, it seemed more appropriate. Ben had refused to give him any more details when he appeared in his room, but had a look of grim satisfaction when he found that Ella was there. He had directed Ella to go with the two people behind him, one of the male deputy heads, and a uniformed female police officer. Two other police officers were milling about in the corridor and Peter noticed with confusion that one of them took Emma away when she had been fetched from her classroom and replaced with a temporary substitute, and another did the same for Bernard.

"Come with me Peter." Ben had said, and Peter realised that he alone did not have a police escort, was that a good thing?

As Peter sat on his hard wooden chair, Ben had explained what was currently happening.

"Emma Carter came to me this morning Peter, with something significant involving Margaret." He had his palms laid flat on the table between them, but now he picked up his pad, to consult for details. "She said that she has a considerable amount of data that suggests that Bernard has been having an online relationship with Margaret."

"What?" Peter's fractured mind couldn't cope with something that felt this far out of the reality he was wrapped in. Ben took Peter's incredulity at face value.

"Yes..."

Emma had burst into Ben's office that morning, full of fire and wrath and not a little dark pleasure.

"I think I know what's happened to Margaret Donne!" she exclaimed, not pausing to check who was even in the room. Ben had been in there alone and noticed how dramatic she made every movement. She was carrying a large sheaf of papers, and waving them at Ben, as if he was supposed to know what they meant.

"Sit down Emma." said Ben calmly. He was displaying his famed attitude for calm in a crisis, but was not a little wary of Emma, given her own personal troubled history. She took a seat, looking deprived of the opportunity to strut about Ben's office.

"I think that Bernard Quick has kidnapped her, and if he hasn't I'm sure he knows where she is!" She spoke with such fire, such drama, that Ben felt he was watching a performance. He readied a pencil to take notes with and bad her continue.

"Are you aware of the onSHOW website, Ben?"

"I've got two teenage sons, I'm well aware of it." Emma looked slightly deflated, deprived again of something else she had prepared.

"Well, its banned in school – too easy for kids to waste time in lessons – the server blocks it, but it seems that some pupils, rather some people, have been getting onto it using a proxy." Ben neither knew nor cared what a proxy was, but simply wrote down the word and circled it, he could gather that fact later.

"Well, it appears that Mags has been talking to an internet contact through this website for a long time. She accessed the site through school and because of that, the system caught her password. I only realised this morning, and I went into her account, thinking there might be information in there, and I got this." She fanned the printouts out on the desk, "You see, part of the website keeps a log of what goes on in all of the chatrooms, and Mags has been talking to one user almost exclusively since Christmas before last." Ben scribbled a few more notes and glanced an eye over the papers. He had no schooling in what they might mean, but if Emma was convinced, then there was a very great likelihood that they meant what she said they did.

"So where does Bernard come into this?" Ben asked, not looking up, dreading the answer.

"Its Bernard that she's been talking to and I think that Bernard has been grooming her for a very long time now." She spoke the last few words breathlessly, and with not a little personal hurt. Then Ben did something he didn't often do, he looked up and stared for a full minute into Emma's eyes. He was an excellent judge of character, and had only survived in his job by being able to make accurate snap decisions, but here he wasn't sure. Sometimes, out on the crescent edge of plausibility he had to take a little extra time, but as his eyes locked with Emma's, there was no doubt in his mind, that she believed every single word that she was speaking. She was confessing a truth, and that hit Ben with a force like nothing else.

"Ok, Emma, I believe you. I'm going to call the police."

As Ben finished his explanation, Peter couldn't believe it. How could Emma be so convinced? Why was she saying this? And how had she managed to convince Ben of the fact? She must believe it, Peter thought. She must believe every single word with all of her soul.

Then Peter's stomach turned. He had been the one that had told Emma of a 'friend' who was having an online relationship, he had been the one that had then told her that the girl involved was school aged. He felt as if his lies were snarling up around him, circling, ready to swoop.

"So, what have I got to do with this?" Peter asked, testing the water, testing the extent of Ben's knowledge.

"I consider it to be of great importance, that you are kept informed of all information as we have it." He looked hard at Peter as he said this, as if he was searching for a reaction."Bernard and Emma are being interviewed separately as we speak, as is Ella White. If the police deem it appropriate, they may arrest Bernard." Ben looked back down at his pad as if there was some detail that was nagging at him, desperately jumping for attention."Peter, is there anything else that you can tell us, is there anything else that you know about Mags and her life?"

Peter thought about all the tendrils of lies and fractured truths that were whipping about his body, he thought about all the things that he had done and his unknown central part in this story. He thought about the lives that were being squeezed in the vice of scrutiny, and he thought about the man in front of him who had once trusted him implicitly.

"No Ben, there isn't."

2:03 p.m.

"...so what do you know about Margaret Donne, Mr Quick?" asked the officer conducting Bernard's informal interview.

"Nothing. Why?" Bernard asked, confusion paramount, his gruff exterior a hardy shield.

"Do you know the child at all?"

"I mean, I know who she is, everyone knows who she is, she's had a pretty hard life." He shifted awkwardly in his seat.

"So you are aware of the abuse that was alleged by Miss Donne?" A slow eyebrow was raised and Bernard's expression scrutinised.

"Alleged my foot! That poor little girl was abused, no matter what the judge said." He spoke quite loudly but didn't shift the muscles of his body at all.

"You seem very certain of that Mr. Quick."

"I just know what Peter told me."

"That would be Peter Everett."

"Yes."

"What do you know about the onSHOW website?"

"What?"

"onSHOW, it's a virtual meeting place."

"Virtual? Like, in the sense that it isn't?" Bernard's apparent confusion was increasing.

"No, virtual in the sense that it is on the internet."

"Bloody internet! I haven't got any bloody truck with any of that! I haven't even got a computer at home, when I need one, I use one at school." The officer looked at Bernard. If Bernard was involved in this, then what he said was such a pointless lie and would be tripped out quickly, but if he wasn't involved, then he may just have begun to convince the officer of that fact. There was only one-way to be sure though.

"Mr Quick, we'd like to have your permission to search your house. If you choose not to give us permission, I will have to arrest you and get a search warrant. Which would you prefer?" Bernard's head fell onto his chest, but then snapped up again quickly.

"You can search my house, here are the keys." He gave up any fight he may have considered instantly; some things were not worth fighting.

2:30 p.m.

Bernard was politely requested to join the policeman at the station, all the time the underlying threat sitting on his words like icing on a file cake. Ben made a policy decision to send anyone who had been involved to any degree in the current situation home. A parent fetched Ella after she told all that she knew, and Peter and Emma met briefly in the car park as they each moved to their cars. Peter couldn't help but notice that Emma seemed vaguely upset at being removed from the drama.

"I see that the police have taken Bernard, that's interesting isn't it? There's no smoke without fire isn't there, they must have something on him." Peter looked closely at her and realised that he could just make out faint tracks of tears that had been hastily submerged under a drift of foundation.

Peter knew that they had taken Bernard away at what amounted to the suggestion of Emma, but didn't say so. His twisted pinprick thoughts were hoping that there might be a way out of all of this that would leave himself exonerated.

"I'm going home." Peter said, tiredness etched into his voice. "I shouldn't be here, and I could do with a drink." And he climbed into his car without another word, and sped out of the car park.

6:05 p.m.

The two policemen were talking in hushed tones in the corridor outside the room in which Bernard was sat, drinking a chipped mug of sweet tea.

"So, what they found nothing?" asked policeman number one.

"Not a dickie bird." said the second, "They said they got there and it was about as normal as you might imagine. Plates in the sink, beer cans in the bin, scotch in the sideboard and a dirty carpet on the floor."

"Nothing suspicious at all?"

"He wasn't joking about not having a computer. The most technological thing in that house was a control for the TV, after that it was a cordless kettle."

"So are we gonna have to let him go now?" The policeman was fighting against the single greatest urge for any lawman, that of letting a suspect go.

"We're gonna have to. Its either that or arrest him formally and we haven't got nearly enough to go on." He shrugged his shoulders despondently. "I have to say that I don't think that this bloke has got the slightest thing to do with the disappearance of this girl."

"But what about all that IT stuff that that bint at the school was on about?"

"Sarge says it's all circumstantial. She's had someone look over it, she says that although it does suggest what that woman was saying, there's a dozen ways it could be a trick, a fake or both." With no more words, the policemen re-entered the room that Bernard was being held in, to tell him someone would be along soon to let him go.

A bottle was upended above Mags' mouth and water allowed to flow freely. It flowed too fast and she was only able to catch a small amount in her mouth, but she drank it down desperately as her captor held the bottle. Mags felt the drips roll down her body, soak through her clothes and kiss her skin. She hung her head as her body absorbed what it could from her drink and then she looked back up at the terrible figure standing over her. The weaker Mags felt, the stronger her captor seemed to be. Mags felt like a sleep walking wreck as she sat in the dark must of the cellar, but her captor looked like a vision of perfection and health.

"I never thought that you would be one of them." Mags said, the rationality of her brain a distant memory on the tainted air. No reply came and she carried on. "I've watched you as long as I've known you, and you know what? I admired you. I always thought you were so strong, so dominant." She paused and took a deep breath, but her waning body felt giddy with the sudden rush of oxygen. "But that's not right is it? A strong person doesn't need to tie someone up do they? A powerful person doesn't need rope and chains to use that power do they?" She gave a violent lurch in the chair she was tied to, emphasising her constraints. "You are weak and you are scum if you can do this to another person." Four heavy knuckles to the face were Mags' reply for this tirade.

"You've got nothing that you can say to me you fucking bitch." And suddenly Mags' received a heavy punch to the stomach winding her, she breathed the heavy slow painful breaths of her injury, the walls of the cellar spinning before her in their white cracked glory. Mags head railed forwards, but suddenly there was a face at her level. "You want to talk about power? You want to talk about strength? Well listen up kidder, 'cos I've seen it all, but then again..." Mags got the sense through her woozy brain that, for a moment, she was being considered on her merits "Hmm... you know Mags, now that I see you like this," Mags' torn open blouse was indicated "You are just like me, I see that you bear scars just like I do, you know I think we've even been through the same pain in life, but the thing is, Margaret, I've watched you even more closely than you think you've watched me, and I know one thing that you've done that I haven't." Some shuffling, some movement, a soft velvet whisper. "You have been a tease, you have tried to court the world and extract therefore its love, you have whored yourself over the internet and to be honest, I think you've brought this on yourself." Another pause, a movement, a rustle. "And that's why I think..." The dizziness in Mags' head evaporated instantly as a cool cold kitchen knife was placed sideways to her throat so that she could feel the full width of the blade. "That we should make a sacrifice of you, so that no-one else is ever tempted again." Tears ran down Mags' face, the tears of frustration and horror, the tears that you cry when you face Death, and can do nothing but howl in His face. "But not just yet." The knife was jabbed, quickly, viciously accurately at Mags shoulder leaving a half inch deep cut on her left shoulder. "Goodnight Mags." And before Mags could assemble her thoughts into a chain greater than one, a bottle was uncorked, liquid went to a rag, and the soft pillow of unconsciousness was pressed lovingly over her face.

41. The ties that bind

Thursday 1st May 2008. 8:06 a.m.

Peter had to drink himself to sleep that night. His recent elevated alcohol consumption meant there was nothing left in the house apart from an ancient, sticky and partially crystallised bottle of Midori. He drank it straight and woke up with a crusty sweetness gluing his lips together. His brain and his hand were pulsing with each other, slightly out of phase. He drank from a tepid glass of water that he had put next to the sofa he had fallen asleep on and picked up the phone to announce his absence that day from Smithfield. He knew he was letting people down, he knew he was letting his form down on their final day ever at school, but he couldn't handle being in there amongst the happiness and frivolity, not when there was a Mags shaped void, blinding his head.

He sank back into a headache filled sleep dreaming of cages and tigers.

11:15 a.m.

"Hi, My name's Ed Everett, I'm Peter Everett's brother?" Though not technically a question, Ed phrased it so out of a deep inner impulse. The secretary on the front desk looked at him quizzically and he continued. "I understand its nearly the break time, and I was passing and I was wondering if I could possibly see Peter?" Again a false question.

"Your brother isn't in school today, could I possibly help?" These words didn't come from the secretary in front of Ed and he had to turn to address the short powerful looking man behind him.

"Hi." he said, extending a hand "My name is Ben Pearce and I'm the Head of Smithfield."

"Hi." Ed replied, "I'm Ed Everett, I..." and he waved his hand vaguely behind him.

"Yes, I heard." Ben rocked back and forth on his heels and made a sweeping motion with his hand, "Would you please come this way Ed?" Ed looked confused, but followed Ben the short distance down to his office. They sat in a twin pair of comfy chairs and Ben poured Ed a cup of coffee from a tatty percolator.

"What's this about? Why do you want to talk to me?" Ed looked nervous and didn't touch his coffee.

"Have you spoken to your brother in the last few days Ed?" Ben was trying to keep the tone in his voice light.

"No, not for a little while actually, about a fortnight." He pensively took a sip from the pristine china cup "I've been a bit worried about him to be honest, he's been being a little bit weird, rather depressed." He set the cup down more noisily than he meant to.

"Ok," said Ben settling his own cup down, "I need to fill you in on some facts."

11:37 a.m.

Ben had talked solidly and Ed had listened. Ben had talked about the disappearance of Mags, the mystery injury Peter had sustained to his hand, the odd vandalism visited upon Bernard, Bernard's own accusation at Emma's insistence and subsequent exoneration at the hands of the police. Ben felt like he was prospecting for gold; if only he would swirl the facts and pieces of fact around enough, a glimmer might form and catch his eye. Ed let Ben talk himself out before asking anything.

"But why did Emma suggest Bernard had anything to do with it? I mean I've met the pair of them a couple of times, Bernard's a dirty old git but I can't imagine he'd ever do something like this..." He looked so incredulous and swirled a little spilt coffee round in his saucer.

"Sadly, I'm afraid in my position, I long ago had to abandon the notion that there are a type of people who just wouldn't ever do 'something like that', I've been wrong too many times." Ben stirred a small silver spoon pointlessly round his unsweetened black coffee.

"Yeah, but why did Emma accuse him? She's a barm pot that one, why did anyone ever believe her?"

"I took the accusation from her directly, and I believe her, I have good reason to do so." He settled the spoon down, the clink closing off that avenue of conversation. "Anyway, she had some internet stuff that suggested that Bernard has been in contact with Margaret over the internet via a website since last Christmas." Ed spat coffee down the front of his own shirt. Ben snapped to attention instantly "What? What is it?"

"Its Peter," Ed's eyes were now looking far into the distance "I think he's kidnapped this girl."

11:52 a.m.

Ben and Ed in Ed's car, speeding along dirty Mancunian roads, pulling quickly towards Peter's house. Ed had persuaded Ben to let the pair of them go straight round to Peter's rather than calling the police. Ed thought that if Peter had kidnapped Mags, then he stood a far better chance of bringing him to some kind of sense rather than a blundering police officer who didn't know the first thing about what made Peter tick.

During the short journey Ed explained everything that he knew; explained that Peter had talked about some woman he'd met on the internet, but that Peter had been sure it was a woman, he had thought it was a colleague.

"But this is ages ago," Ed turned an unnecessarily hard left that made Ben grip the seat, "He hasn't mentioned it for a long time, I just presumed it had fizzled out. I... I..." Ed bit his lip ashamedly, "I never asked."

They pulled up outside Peter's house and Ed left the car sprawled wildly like a splash of colour across the pavement. The moved to the door, and despite the fact that Ed still had a key, he felt the compulsion to knock. Peter appeared at the door a few seconds later and looked at Ben and Ed from the feet up. Peter's eyes took a few seconds to focus his brain had to swim a thousand muddy leagues to process seeing these two men together on his doorstep. Ben was standing in the light spring air looking like a funeral director and Ed was wearing a work suit that was far too cool for the office he worked in. Peter stared at the two of them and his brain could produce only one reaction. He tried to run for it, he turned tail and ran, Ben didn't know what to do, but Ed had been half expecting it, and whilst Peter might have spent several months drinking himself into a shadow of his former self, Ed was as fit and healthy as ever. Peter tried desperately to sprint through to the back door, but Ed was upon him quickly, leaping the settee and catching him in a heavy rugby tackle, bringing him to the ground. Ed picked himself up and grabbed the collar of the rough woollen jumper that Peter was wearing, hoisting him to his feet, Ben appearing at Ed's heels, unsure of where to place himself.

Ed slammed Peter into the wall; A picture fell from the wall to Peter's left and a light shade wobbled, casting an indefinite pallor over the scene.

"WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DONE?" Ed screamed as he slammed Peter again, Peter's mangled right hand waving backwards and forward wildly "WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DONE?" Ed could see only fear in his brother's eyes, and slammed him once more into the wall. Still holding onto his jumper, he span Peter's body round and threw him to the sofa. He wasn't shouting anymore, but every word he spoke brought a blow to Peter's head, "Look at this, Look at this!" Ed had snatched a framed photo of Peter and Jade's wedding day from the mantelpiece, and brought it to Peter's nose. "You're not fit to have even known this woman Peter, you're not fit to have even met her." Ed ceased the physical abuse, and could only sit there as his brother cried and cried and cried.

Through the tears and the blood now covering his face, Peter looked up at Ed, looked over to Ben and said "I know, I know." He drew a dirty sleeve across his face. "But it's not what you think." A small dribble of blood trickled down from his nose. "I haven't kidnapped her, I promise I haven't, I don't know where she is, you must let me explain."

42. In Sight

Ben was standing sentinel in the doorway and Ed was crouched in front of Peter's shrunken form.

"I met someone on the internet that I fell in love with." Peter sniffed heavily, but Ed's gaze was pinning him down, preventing him from moving; Peter just squirmed. "I just enjoyed talking to her so much, it was unlike anything I've known since... since..." He looked at the picture that Ed had hastily put back on the mantelpiece, and a tear fell from his eye and mingled with the blood on his face "...and I just couldn't get over this fantastic person that I thought that I'd met, and then I convinced myself that I knew her, I convinced myself that I was talking to a woman that I knew, not for a second did I think that I was talking to...." He shivered with self loathing and revulsion "... a child, but I found out that I was, but you must listen to this..." as he spoke, Ben moved round to face him, sensing that there was no further risk of Peter's flight. "As soon as I found out, as soon as I knew that I was talking to a kid, that I was talking to _that_ kid..." He motioned with his head, as if to speak of the hurts already cast against Mags. "... as soon as I knew that, I cut it off there, I never spoke to her on the internet again, I cancelled my account that day and I cut it off there and then, I hadn't done anything wrong, you must believe me!" Here he spoke directly to Ben, who saw the honesty gleaming hard through Peter's eyes, but Ed had other questions on his mind.

"So why did you try and run when we came to the door Pete? Why?" A slap to the head accompanied the last word and another slap followed and a trickle flowed to a flood, and suddenly Ben was prising Ed away from Peter.

"That's not helping." Ben shouted. Ed glared at his brother, at the thing his brother had become. Peter's head was twitching back and forth, but an inner force made him carry on talking.

"But you don't understand how difficult that was, I cut her off the day I found out, but that didn't stop me thinking about her, I was in _love_ with her!" He yelled this last pronouncement, tears still streaming down his face, "and she was in love with me, and I have to see her every single day, and I knew that we both loved each other more than anything in the world, but we couldn't be together, and it. Was. Tearing. Me. Apart." Each word came with a thumping beat on Peter's own ribs, his voice a primal howl. He took a full minute of deep breaths before he could continue. "And then Monday she came to me and I was on the lowest rung, like I was about to fall off the edge of the world, I didn't know left from right or up from down. I was cracking up, and she was there, this presence in my life that I had denied myself, and she held me and the world melted away." He shifted in his seat "The world melted away, and she kissed me, she kissed me for a second, and it felt so right, and then she was gone, and that was the last I saw her, you must believe that." There was such pleading in his eyes, such desperation that Ed had to look away. He knew what had to happen now, but that didn't make doing it any easier.

"Peter you know what we've got to do, don't you?" Ed spoke so softly but his wounds pressed like lemons to virgin cuts. "Peter, we've got to go to the police, we've got to tell them this, they must know." He spoke so imploringly that Peter could do nothing but nod. "Come on Pete, come on." He felt the need for some tenderness, some way to show that somehow things were going to work out ok. "We'll take you, we'll come with you, won't we Ben?" Ed didn't look round, but Ben nodded. Ed held his brother for a moment and then lifted him up from the settee. "You go upstairs, wash your face, sort yourself out Pete, and then we have to go." Ed's voice was shaking with the effort of controlling the rage that still simmered his blood. Peter nodded feebly, grateful now that his lies had been split open, grateful now that there was only truth left, grateful that someone was taking charge of the mess that was his life. He walked past Ben, who looked as if he was chewing over a difficult steak, and did as he was told. Ben and Ed stood there in silence, neither could think of anything to say to the other. Peter came back down, looking unburdened and refreshed, and the two brothers made to leave the house.

"What's up?" said Ed, addressing the stationary Ben. Ben hadn't moved but had closed his eyes. He had nearly all the pieces now, he just had to spin them a little more.

"Something's wrong, something's missing." He spoke so quietly, but for those listening, he might have been speaking the first words in the world. "You cut this girl off a while ago right? When?" He turned now to Peter and addressed him harshly.

"Erm... September." The question was an anchor being pulled up from the deep, it stirred the murk below.

"But something's wrong." Ben paused and opened his eyes wide, but still didn't look at either brother. "Mags has been talking to someone recently, that was one of the few things the police were sure about. They said it couldn't be pinned down to Bernard, but it was very clear that she had been talking to someone."

"What?" said Peter, genuinely surprised. "But that's not right, I cut her off in September, as soon as I knew, you believe me, don't you? Don't you?" He was pleading now, but Ben had already seen the honesty in Peter's eyes.

"I do believe you, so..." He paused for a moment, but Peter continued Ben's sentence.

"So, she's been talking to someone else!" The realisation of it made Peter smack his head. "She's been talking to someone else!" He was delighted for a second but then his spirit dive-bombed. "But who?"

"I don't know." said Ben chewing on a thumbnail. "Peter, you were probably the last person to see Mags before she went missing, can you remember, anything, anything that was different or unusual, anything?" He looked so searchingly at Peter, as if he could find the answers written on the back of his eyeballs.

"No, nothing, nothing, she was just usual, like school." He cast his mind desperately back, images that might otherwise have been cherished scenes of love, left lasting stings on his mind's eyeball. "only..." He closed his eyes and pushed his memory hard. "Only... she had a piece of paper tucked into her bra." He gulped at the explicit nature of the memory. "And I noticed it, because it was weird, and it was al perforated along the top as if hit had been torn from a spiral bound note pad." His mind drifted back to the piece of paper, drifted in and out of the battlement like shapes made at the top of the paper. He had felt it as she had pressed against him, and had seen it when he had cast his eyes downwards.

"Right." said Ben, suddenly business like. "Ed, you're going to drive, we _will_ go to the police station, but not yet." He pulled out a mobile phone from his jacket and started to dial. "We're going to Mags' house first." The two brothers left the house in the wake of their commander and the door slammed shut with the finality of a guillotine.

43. Lion's Den.

"Mrs. Donne, its Mr Pearce from Smithfield, can we need come in? It's important."

Mags' mum sprinted to the door and opened it wildly, expecting to see her daughter waiting there amongst the crashing knocks. Her face fell when she realised, but Ben ploughed on. "Please, can we come in? Its urgent." She looked confused, but let them past. Ben offered no explanation for the presence of Ed, or the shabbiness of Peter. "Have the police searched Mags' room?"

"Yes, but they didn't find anything." She was wearing a loose fitting tracksuit, and was the only person there who looked more distraught than Peter. "They took the computer entirely away, that was all they did really."

"Was the computer in her room?" Ben asked, looking hard at her.

"No it wasn't it was just through here." She motioned through to the dining room behind the lounge and the three men walked through. The Donnes could have been robbed for the severity of the removal. All the various wires and periphery were still in place, as if the computer had merely disappeared.

As Peter craned his head round, he could just make out a small spiral note pad resting on the table. He moved without thinking and picked it up, held it up to the light and looked hard. Written there, in indentation only, was an address. It was an address he recognised.

"This is Emma's address." he said, unsure of whether his words would split the world in two or not. "This is the place she got after she split from Cam." He couldn't seem to fit this piece into the jigsaw. Ben was a step ahead, he didn't try to fit the piece to the jigsaw, he merely found a different jigsaw that the piece was part of.

"There's something I've not told you, I told the police, but I didn't think you need to know."

"What?" asked three people at once.

"I believed Emma Carter's accusation, not just because of the evidence she had, but also because of the story she told me, the story of her and Bernard."

44. Emma and Bernard

Wednesday 30th April 2008. 10:00 a.m

"Ok, Emma, I believe you. I'm going to call the police."

"No, there's more." Ben had thought that he could see Emma's heart beating in her chest. "There's more." She had closed her eyes and spoke as though every word was coming up from a bottomless pit of history.

"Bernard Quick taught me when I was at school. We had an affair, we were lovers."

Ben sat forward on the edge of his chair, turned over a new page in his notebook and said, "Ok, Emma, let's start from the beginning."

Fourteen years, old and Emma was already a beauty. Her body had developed faster than most and she already possessed a sexy hourglass figure that she had begun to use to its best effect.

The school had only just begun to offer Economics GCSE that year, and brought in a new teacher to take charge of the subject. Emma had felt herself flush and gasp as Mr. Quick had walked in. He was tall and muscular, not yet attaining the heavy frame that would soften his good looks in years to come. He had slightly wavy light brown hair and was probably in his early thirties, if not late twenties. In a certain light, he was reminiscent of Harrison Ford just before he was frozen in carbonite.

The class was small, only 14 pupils, and would yet become smaller, prompting some of the 'private' tuition that Bernard would later exercise.

"Good morning 4th year, welcome to GCSE economics. Let's make a start." And he smiled at the class and opened his eyes wide. That was where his charm was, the eyes themselves were a pale slaty grey, but they twinkled with a sparkling magnetism that pulled at Emma's heart and rumbled unheard of feelings below her stomach. From here, Emma's world tumbled into reeling, sprawling images that tugged at the corners of her brain, and spread her psyche wide for all to see.

Six months later, she was staying late to work on coursework, and Bernard's hand lingered a moment to long on her shoulder. A month after that and he accidentally touched her knee, and sent a quiver through her body as his fingers had momentarily brushed the inside of her leg at the lowest part of her thigh. Another day, she was leaning on a desk in front of him, leaning low to display her carefully pushed up breasts through her artfully gaping shirt. Then she was at his house, that was fine, you could do that back then, working on a late assignment that he was gratefully helping her with. Then he was giving her personal tuition, her parents even paying him for the privilege. Tuesday nights becoming a subject of fantasy, every 'inadvertent' body contact a subject of daydream, every kind word making her feel so very special.

Then she had turned sixteen and that had been a green light for both of them, and the touches were heavier and lower, and their desires darker and more sultry. Then one day she had stood and turned to him and his arm was on her shoulder and his hand was at her shirt and her hand was on his chest and a hand undid her blouse and a hand was at his crotch and they were no longer two people they were a single seething sweating groaning mass, Emma's virginity lying in tatters next to her pencil case.

The Tuesday night tuition had continued, Bernard still taking the money, because what else could he do? She loved the secrecy and the sound of shattering taboos, he loved the feeling of tense young flesh beneath his, the plaything that would do his bidding.

Then one day Bernard's wife, the ingredient that provided that extra spice in both pairs of eyes, came home rather too quickly and rather too quietly and had stood for a full minute in the spare bedroom doorway, a silent cry gripping her mouth, and she had watched as her husband was pumping away intensely at the little girl he was tutoring, and her scream only found voice when Emma had looked up at her over Bernard's scratched shoulder and smiled.

45. The Chase.

Emma paced around the low ceilinged cellar, looking at her captive from this way and that. She examined Mags' semi-semi-nakedness from every angle and stopped to make occasional adjustments; a bra strap moved here, a shirt twitched there. She too had called in sick that day, how could she possibly work when she had such a delightful toy tied up at home?

She had permitted Mags another drink of water, but the girl was definitely looking woozy and rather the worse for wear, Emma had toyed with the idea of upending a bottle of vodka over her face as her only sustenance, but she had decided to simply swig from the bottle herself. She took another belt and returned to her pacing.

Mags swung her head giddily from side to side. She had been tied to the chair for so long now that she was having difficulty remembering anything other than the interior of the dank cellar. Her elastic mind had certainly started to find desperate normalities in her current situation. She noticed that Emma was looking harsher now, as though powering herself up to a decision.

"But I don't get why you've done this, why me?" Mags looked up to Emma, who spat a mouthful of vodka at her as a response.

"Why you? Why you?" she was screaming now, the bottle of vodka held in one hand, a kitchen knife in the other. "Haven't you worked it out?" The momentary hysteria had passed and she was talking quietly again.

"No." said Mags, both sides of her head hurt and she felt in desperate need of food.

"Because, when I was your age, you little tart, he did exactly to me what he's done to you now." Mags' head continued to loll about, but thoughts were knocking together and coalescing into sentences.

"What?" she asked muzzily. "That doesn't make any sense, you didn't have computers and the internet and stuff then." Mags felt the bottom of the bottle smack her forehead and the tip of the knife prick her knee.

"Of course we didn't have the fucking internet, have you learnt nothing at school?" She took to pacing back and forth. "We didn't need it. I thought that we had fallen in love, I thought that he wanted me and only me, but he just wanted someone to fuck." A grim leer passed over her face, made yet grimmer by the half-light of the cellar. "I thought he was preparing to run away with me, but as soon as his wife found us and kicked him out, he kicked me out too, he didn't want anything to do with me. He spent a month on his knees begging that old bag of his, but she never took him back. Ha!" The last word accompanied by a shaking twist of the bottle and another swig. "I thought, what a couple we'd make, the fresh young teen, and the thirty year old experienced man."

Mags was trying hard to work out what Emma was talking about, none of it fitted; how could she be talking about Peter? "But, Miss" Somehow the honorific still sprang to Mags' lips. "He's not even thirty yet? How could you have been a teenager? And he wasn't even married for a full month?"

"That's what you think is it? Been telling you some lies has he? Not yet thirty? You fucking kids'll believe anything an adult tells you won't you? No... he dropped me as soon as he could, all those words he ever spoke, all those promises he made, shattered with my soul as he dropped me hard and fast. Well, ever since I found out about you two, I've been planning this. Everett gave me the clues and I made my own plan of how to get hold of you." Mags heard a distant muffled thump, "Soon little lady, soon..." Emma shivered despite herself and bound her nerves together with strips of false confidence, "Soon, your pretty little throat will be cut, you body will find its way into his possession, and the world will see him for the murderer that he is." She spat into Mags' face and took another swig from her vodka. "He certainly killed a part of me, he's the reason I've never been happy, he's the reason I forced my husband away." Mags was surprised to see a sob grip Emma's body and a tear flee eye – but Stockholm syndrome was too many miles away. "Even if I go down for this, I've be taking that fucking paedophile with me, his story will come out, his lies will be heard." She tipped the bottle back at her mouth and drank a quarter of it in one go. She laughed maniacally as the hot sword of vodka made fire in her belly.

"Everett, what? How?" Mags felt the back end of the bottle smack her jaw again, and in a second, Emma was in front of her, the width of the knife blade pressed against her throat, the smell of her boozed up breath making fumes in Mags' eyes, but once again, she heard a muffled, but now more insistent thump.

"He worked it out! He knew fucking Quick had some teenage tart tucked away, he didn't know it was you though." She slid the knife backwards and forwards, Mags could feel the cold slither of the metal and a tiny itch as the blade cut her neck. "Well, I've suffered, you've suffered, and now that bastard Bernard Quick will suffer." The dull thump rose to an instantaneous crescendo, and Mags could hear the front door of Emma's house being kicked in. The sound pushed the final fact into place in her brain. She let out a long throaty laugh, and Emma released the knife in bewilderment.

"You've got it wrong, you've got it _so_ wrong." She heard footsteps on the floorboards above, "You've made all these plans and laid all these schemes and you've still got nothing right." She laughed again, and the sound seemed to stir the feet above. "Mr. Quick never had anything to do with me." She was talking almost condescendingly now, as if explaining bad weather to an emotional toddler, "I doubt he even knows my name. He may have touched you up all those years ago, you may have liked it and wanted it, but I'll tell you this for nothing, no-one ever touched me, never." She raised her head and puffed her chest out with a sliver streak of pride. A door just above the cellar was being rattled viciously "He... Peter" She spoke the name tremulously "Only ever touched me in _here_ ," She flicked her head poignantly to the left side of her chest where her heart lay beating. "And I gave it to him willingly. It's not that fat bastard of a business teacher who I fell in love with, it's your friend _Everett_. My hero, my saviour, my protector and my love." And as the door was ripped open and feet, Peter's feet, sprinted down the steps, Mags bowed her head; waiting for death or benediction. Emma raised her arm and lunged, bringing it round in a wide sweeping arc.

"Nooooo!" Peter tore round the corner and threw himself bodily into Emma. She fell painfully backwards, smacking her head against a pile of wood and her back against some rusty paint cans. Peter had grabbed both her arms as he had dived, and the vodka bottle had smashed on the ground behind him.

Ed and Ben were still struggling to enter the crowded cellar, crawling round some knocked over garden furniture, but Peter had a grip on Emma's knife hand that was making her skin go white, she was trying to twist the knife round to slash Peter, his arms were so strong, but still she managed it. Somehow she took the knife and drove it to the hilt through Peter's hand and all he could do was fall back with the kitchen knife still wedged in his palm between the bones for his index and middle finger. Peter screamed with the pain, but the noise only made Emma laugh. A loud cackle rose from her lips and continued, continued as Ed and Ben made it over to her, continued as the two of them pinned her down, kneeling on arms and legs, continued as Peter pulled the knife painfully from his hand and continued as Peter used the knife to cut his love free.

Epilogue

It was a few days before Peter had a chance to be alone with Mags. He had visited her in hospital of course, he had been admitted into the hospital at the same time, but had realised that now was not their time. The hospital was distressing anyway, he could see the thick dark weals that the rope had cut into her wrists, could see wounds about her face and head, now was not the time.

She stood in the doorway to his classroom for a few minutes before he noticed her, she enjoyed just watching him, a luxury she had been so rich in for many years, but now would only be found with the rarity of time. She ran her fingers along the doorframe, touched the door, felt the lock, ran her fingertips across the screws and the metal.

"Hi." She spoke so quietly, but the effect on Peter was electric, he leapt up instantly at the sound of her voice, but something slowed him, something weighed heavy like an anchor around him, but he fought against it and made his way to her, wrapped one arm around her in a fearsome hug, and then pulled away, knowing that this wasn't the place. His other arm ended in a heavy bandage, wrapped so many times about his mutilated hand.

"You're out then?" he spoke with such tenderness as he looked at her. He leant back and rested against one of the tired and pitted desks that filled his room.

"Yeah, they just let me out an hour ago, I came here, I thought we needed to talk."

"I think you're right." He smiled back at her, he had seen her go through so much, that to put her through anything else, to cause her more pain was just too much for him.

"What's happening with Mrs. Carter?" The reminder of Emma and what she had done was a rusted hammer blow to the sweetness of the moment.

"Well, they're obviously charging her with kidnapping and some bodily harm charges, but as for the other stuff, I don't know. They're still trying to work out what was a crime and what wasn't, turns out she'd stopped taking her happy pill medication without anyone realising. She wasn't in her right mind." These last few words came with a soft resigned sigh.

"And Mr Quick?" Peter looked so surprised that she knew, that she knew how this had all been visited on her "Mrs. Carter told me, whilst she... you know."

"Well, it was all so long ago, it's going to be up to Emma, Mrs Carter, I mean, what happens next, whether she wants to press charges or not. I don't know if crimes expire over time, I'm not sure."

"And you?" Her soft eyes were full and round now and she tried to look him in the face, but couldn't hold his gaze.

"Me? Well, I might have committed a crime, technically, but so few people know about it, and such horrible other things have happened, that I don't think it's going to be made a fuss of, I think the people that know are going to let it slide." He looked as if he felt faintly guilty about this, but rallied himself.

"Good." It was a defiant statement, "I don't think something like that should be a crime, not..." she stammered weakly, "Not when it's like us."

Peter's eyebrows crept slightly up his forehead and he bobbed his head once from side to side.

"Sir, Mr... Peter." She found his first name difficult to say, but knew that nothing else was right. "I think... I mean I... I think I love you."

He looked back at her with his warm brown eyes, looked at her standing there, her whole being pleading with him.

"I love you too Mags, I really do." It was the first time he had said it, the first time he had admitted it to anyone. She sagged so visibly, he knew she had expected to be brushed off like the silly little child she had convinced herself she was.

"So, we can, I mean, we can be together, I've left school now, I'm not a pupil anymore."

"You've got your exams still." She took this like a body blow, like he was putting obstacles in their way.

"Yeah, but after that, after, it'll be ok won't it, I'm sixteen before the end of my exams, it's all ok, it'll be fine once I've left the school. We can, I mean I can... I won't be going to drama school, so I can stay here and ... I dunno, do something. I owe my life to you, I owe you everything." She seemed so desperate, her world was slipping away through her hands like fine dry sand.

The world was spinning in Peter's head, turning with slow gradual weight. A thousand strands of desire and need were tying themselves around him. He could see his life mapping itself out.

He pressed his fingers to his lips, deep in thought.

"Your drama school." She twitched physically as he said the words, "You're there for five years aren't you?"

She nodded her head slowly, not knowing what he was about to say. He wasn't sure what he was about to say, he was thinking, thinking about drinking wine on the river, about sunflowers and lilacs.

"I can't be with you whilst you're a girl, but I will wait until you're a woman." A small tear escaped from each of his eyes, but his face grew to a smile. "You owe your life to me?" He cocked his head with the question, but no response came. "Give me that time. Let me tell you what to do with it," She was crying silently now too "Go to drama school, go away to another town, become a new person, give me those five years." He was crying fully now, the tears rolling down his battered face.

"And when you've done, come back to me. I'll still be here, waiting for you. If you still want to be with me, then I will wait for you, but you must do this." Every word felt like a sharp hook tearing into his skin.

She seemed to have become so much smaller as he talked, but as he looked at her now, he could see his words flowing through her, could see she knew he wasn't rejecting her, he was giving her freedom, like no-one else in her life had ever done. She was becoming stronger, right in front of him, she knew he was right, knew it was the only way they could both be happy, she knew it was the only way _they_ could work.

"Yes." she said, "Yes." Her eyes were big and wet now, but she didn't speak again. She moved over to him, tentatively put her hand in his, his hands were some great source of power and love. She raised her other hand to him and stroked the side of his face. She pulled his face towards hers and kissed his lips, kissed them so softly but with so much meaning, that Peter thought he could see his future flash before him.

She released him and had to steady herself momentarily on a desk. She let her hand slip slowly down his face, let it trip across his tie and the top of his shirt. He motioned to wipe away his tears, but she grasped his hand and shook her head, he would need those tears, she knew it, she would certainly need hers.

Putting his hand back by his side, she took two steps back and looked at him, fixing every moment in her mind, storing up memories that she was going to need for the hard five years ahead.

She smiled at him, smiled through her tears, and now Peter knew she was truly beautiful. She turned and walked away, the soft shoes that she was wearing making a soft flopping sound on the harsh flooring of the corridor.

Peter moved out into the corridor, watching her go. Just as she reached the end, the large set of double doors that led out of the building, she paused. Peter could see her rest the palms of her hands against the metal push plate.

She turned to look at him, and he looked back at her. She waved a slow sad wave, and pushed the door with her other hand, still looking at her.

Peter knew she was beautiful, and he knew, as he could see deep into her eyes, even at this distance, he knew that he could see the future, that he could see _their_ future. He waved back, waved back with his horrifically mangled, but miraculously still working hand. He had taken the bandages off for the first time last night and had abstractly admired the seriousness of the wound, a millimetre in any direction and he would have lost the use of his entire hand. He had looked closely at the stigmata that he had suffered for so much, and knew that that would be the deepest scar of all.

As Mags left the building and Peter returned to his classroom, his heart began to beat once again. Five years was only a billion heartbeats away, it would soon pass.

