Jenn Ashworth - Cold Light

When Shanks came in to read the register he clapped his hands loudly. It made a good sound, a loud, hollow sound. Yesterday, the first day back, we’d had morning assembly so this was the first proper registration of the year and I’d not seen him in ages. He carried on clapping as he walked between the tables and to the front of the classroom, and by the time he was standing in front of his desk, leaning back on it and crossing his legs in front of him, everyone in the class was shuffling quietly to their seats and shoving their bags under the tables.

He was all right, like that, Mr Shanks. If we’d known his first name we could probably have called him by it when none of the other teachers were around, and he wouldn’t have minded, but wouldn’t have made a big deal out of it either, like he was trying to be our ‘mate’. He was just natural. And also, he always made jokes, but the sort of jokes that it didn’t really matter if you laughed or not. You could just smile at those jokes, or nod a bit, and that was enough, it wasn’t awkward.

‘I suppose I can assume from the noise that you’ve all had quiet, God-fearing, homework-filled Christmas holidays and come in fresh as daisies, free from hangovers, and anxious to start work,’ he started.

A few people who sat on the table along the back of the room groaned and said, ‘Whatever, sir,’ but he only smiled and clicked his fingers at them, making his hands into two little guns at the end of the click which he pointed at the back row, shot, and then blew the imaginary smoke away.

‘Chaps and Chapesses, let’s get coats in bags and the registration done before I let you loose on my unfortunate colleagues,’ he said, and reached for his book. There were more groans and shuffling as people reached for their coats, and then hush as he read out the names.

The school had a ridiculous rule. No one was allowed to carry their coat around with them. There weren’t any cloakrooms so you had to get a locker which cost money for the year, or put it in your bag. And there weren’t enough lockers. My coat was damp because it had snowed that morning: needles of frost flying about in the thickened air and collecting where they fell on my face and my hands and all over the new coat. So the wet coat was going to smudge the writing in the books in my bag and that would be one thing. It was also going to smell like old curtains by the time I got home, and Barbara would be checking it because it was new, and she would notice, and that would be another thing.

I struggled furiously with the coat and thought about Chloe being off school with a baby and her parents probably knowing everything by now and probably ringing up Barbara and Donald in the middle of the day – or even coming round to see them. They’d have long conversations about bad influences and Debenhams and things getting out of hand, and tell them that Chloe would be moving school again and it was probably best not to keep in touch.

Barbara would nod and look sympathetic and thank them for taking the trouble, then she would go up the stairs and take all the magazines and posters and hairspray out of my bedroom. I could see it. At the very least I was going to be on my own at school all day , and then back home to get a bollocking about the coat and the books and Chloe. Fucking Emma. I sighed and turned the coat inside out so the wet bit wouldn’t touch my books, then rolled it up as tightly as I could. When I looked up, registration was over, everyone had gone, and Shanks was staring at me.

‘You’re working that coat into shreds,’ he observed. ‘Leave it in my office, if you’re so determined to follow the letter of the law.’

‘Thanks, sir.’

We went to his office.

‘You’ve heard about Chloe, have you?’ Shanks said, and shook his head.

I nodded. ‘Emma was—’

‘Emma’s her best friend, yes?’

I didn’t dignify that with a response. ‘She’s gone to the hospital,’ Shanks said. ‘Not to worry though. It isn’t serious. I expect she’ll be back at school within the week.’

‘Sir, it’s nothing to do with a baby, is it?’ I asked, and bit my lip as soon as I’d spoken, hoping that he hadn’t heard me.

Shanks didn’t say anything. He sat down, leaned back on the stool and busied himself rearranging the things on his desk. There were mugs and mugs of pens and pencils and paintbrushes, an ashtray, empty bottles of water and jointed wooden models for drawing and half-eaten apples and jars of elastic bands and all sorts. He pulled them backwards and forwards and didn’t look at me. Shanks was the only grown man I’d met since the attacks started who showed no fear at being alone with one of us girls. I remembered the security guard taking his hand off my shoulder like I was a bomb about to explode. Maybe that means Shanks is the pest. The thought of it sent a stream of bubbles rolling down my spine.

‘That’s a question, isn’t it?’ he said, and then stopped. I cringed, bit the inside of my cheeks, and waited.

‘No,’ he said finally, ‘it isn’t anything to do with a baby. Not hers or anyone else’s. No babies involved. Which, from the look of you, I can see is something of a relief.’

‘Yes,’ I said, and looked at his hands, not moving the things about in his office anymore, but resting on his knees. There was paint right under his nails, and he hadn’t even started the lessons for the day yet. That must mean he never used a nailbrush, or he painted at home, even before breakfast.

I imagined him dipping a paintbrush into the soft yolk of an egg and painting something on a slice of toast. I wondered if he had a wife, or a woman who he lived with. Even the friendly teachers were still a bit mysterious. They ended up knowing loads more about us then we did about them, which wasn’t really fair.

‘Perhaps, when you do go and see our Chloe,’ Shanks said carefully, ‘you could let her know, in your own inimitable way, with all the compassion and subtlety of your sex –’

I blushed. I could not believe he had taken me into his back room and just said ‘sex’ to me like that. Chloe was going to have an absolute fit when I told her.

‘– that she can pop her head around the door when she comes back if she fancies a chat, about anything. Or perhaps one of the female teachers, if she’d prefer.’

‘Can I go?’ I stuttered, not waiting for him to nod before I left the room and hurried, still clutching the damp coat, with my open bag shedding paper and books onto the corridor, to my first class.

There was supposed to be a bus after school at twenty past three which everyone crammed onto. For three years I had been walking slowly and catching the bus at three forty because it wasn’t as busy. The day Chloe collapsed outside the school gates and was taken away to hospital the first bus must have been delayed or cancelled because even at a quarter to four, the queue meandered out of the shelter and along the pavement. They were other people from school mainly, not friends, but familiar faces – elbowing each other into the path of oncoming traffic or kicking at crisp packets and dented pop cans.

I’d noticed before that all the same kind of people caught the later bus. It probably wouldn’t be obvious to anyone else, but to us, it was clear what that meant. People who don’t want to be around other people, either waiting for the bus, or actually in the bus. Because we were together but we didn’t want to be together we respected each other’s silence and personal space and that was good. There was no pushing and cramming and spitting on other people’s coats. No girls with pelmet skirts, thigh-high socks, personal stereos and cigarette-smelling hair, crispy with hairspray. The later bus had a different atmosphere. Once everyone was on we sat quietly and had our seats all to ourselves. No one actually read but there was the feeling that we could if we wanted to.