Did he have to ask you first? Did you always have to be lying down? Where did the rest of your body go when you were joined down there? That was the sort of thing you talked about with friends, but since I’d started the lessons after school, I didn’t have that many friends left. They would all go home together, and do stuff on the way back and then talk about it the next day in break and in lunch and, because I wasn’t there in the evenings, I had no idea what they were talking about half the time. Elouise sometimes called me, but I wasn’t allowed to speak on the phone until my homework was done and after dinner, and by that point it was her dinner and both our parents said it was too late for phone calls. So I’d slowly sort of lost my friends. I still sat with them in the canteen and in break, but I wasn’t really a part of it any more. Certainly not enough to ask about that!
‘Remember, this is our little secret,’ Sir said as he dropped me at the end of my road. ‘I’ll stay here to make sure you get in OK, but don’t tell anyone that you were alone in my car with me.’
‘OK, Sir,’ I said.
He reached out, stroked the side of my face. ‘You’re a good girl,’ he said. ‘You’re a very good girl.’
All through dinner I kept reaching up to touch my face, remembering the lightness of his touch, the way his eyes had stayed on my lip-glossed mouth as he spoke, the way his eyes seemed to sparkle as he looked at me. I was only fifteen, but I knew, without a doubt, this was love.
March, 1986
Sir sat with his feet up on his desk, staring out of the classroom window. He looked worried and concerned and my stomach dipped – had we been found out? Had someone seen me in his car and now we were in trouble?
‘Hello, Serena,’ he said quietly when he heard me pull out a chair.
‘Hello, Sir,’ I replied. I didn’t want to hear that we’d have to stop our lessons, or that he was going to have to leave school because we’d been caught.
‘Sorry,’ he said, as he took his long legs off the desk and slowly stood up. ‘Not feeling that great today. I had some bad news.’
He looked so hurt that I ached for him, I hurt because he hurt.
‘My ex-wife, Marlene, was meant to let my son come and visit this weekend. She moved him to the Midlands so that I couldn’t see him regularly. She lied and lied in court, said some awful things about me and the court believed her so I can only see him when she decides. This weekend he was meant to be coming to stay for the whole weekend – but she called the school earlier and said she’d changed her mind. I had all these things planned and she’s—’ He physically sagged where he stood. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to burden you with all these things. Can we skip today’s session? Is that OK?’
I nodded. His ex-wife sounded awful. Really awful. How could she do this to him? He didn’t deserve it. He was always talking about his son, about how he did this and did that, how he missed him. I didn’t realise that his ex-wife was making him suffer so much.
‘Come on, grab your books, I’ll still drop you off at home.’
In the car park, he didn’t start the car straight away, instead he said quietly after a while, ‘I don’t want to be alone right now. After I drop you off I’ll be on my own until Monday.’
Monday. That was two whole days away. More if you counted this afternoon. And he didn’t want to be alone. And I didn’t want to be without him for all those hours – they’d feel like weeks.
‘I can come to your house, if you like, Sir. We could study there, if you want? Then you won’t be alone.’
He shook his head, sadly. ‘I couldn’t ask you to do that, Serena. Your parents wouldn’t be too happy if they found out. And the school could sack me.’
‘We won’t tell them,’ I said. ‘I won’t tell anyone. Not even my sister, Medina. And I tell her everything. But I won’t tell her this.’ I was talking quickly, trying to make him understand that I knew what was at risk. ‘I haven’t told her about you giving me lifts home every day, I haven’t told anyone. And I won’t tell anyone about this.’
He thought about it, stared out of the front windscreen, frowning with his mouth set in a heavy, straight line. ‘Only if you’re sure, Serena. Only if you’re absolutely sure. And you’re certain you can keep it a secret.’
‘Yes, I can, I promise I can.’
‘OK, it’d be great if you come over. Keep me company for a while. We’ll work on your History, of course, but it’d be great having you there.’
He reached out and stroked my face. A string of tingles thrilled up my spine. I hope he strokes my face again, I thought as he started the car. I hope he strokes my face again and again and again.
March, 1986
On the Wednesday, he kissed me.
He leant sideways towards me, where I was seated on the right of his kitchen table, and he gently pressed his lips against mine. It was to say well done for managing to understand and explain a complicated History theory. It was a brief little kiss, but I could not breathe afterwards. I thought about it the whole time we continued to work, even though he was acting as if he’d done nothing out of the ordinary. I thought about it as he drove me home, I thought about it in bed that night, I thought about it on the way to school.
On the following Tuesday, he kissed me the longest he had ever done. Each little ‘well done’ kiss every day had been getting longer, and he still acted as if nothing was different, but on the Tuesday, as soon as we entered his house, he shut the door behind us and took my school bag from me and dropped it on the floor. Then his arms were around me and he stared into my eyes for a few seconds before he dipped his head and kissed me. His tongue moved slowly into my mouth and I wasn’t expecting that, so I tensed up. He broke away. ‘Relax, OK?’ he said. ‘I’m not going to hurt you. Just relax, I’ll show you what to do.’ The second time he pushed his tongue into my mouth, it was all right, actually.
On the following Friday, he led me upstairs after kissing me at the front door, and I found out the answer to all those questions I had about ‘everything’. Afterwards, he dropped a light kiss on my mouth and told me how much he had longed for this to happen. ‘You’re special to me, I hope you realise that. This was very special to me.’
He fell asleep and I lay very still in his bed with him beside me. Is this what being a woman feels like? I wondered. I hadn’t felt it when I grew breasts and my periods started, I just felt different, achier. This felt a little bit the same: I ached in the same sorts of places and I felt different again. Maybe different is what being a woman is. I couldn’t tell anyone though, so I couldn’t ask anyone if this was it. Was I now a woman because I’d done it? Because I’d touched a man’s thing? Or was it completely separate? It must be, because even though I’d done it, if I had to live my mum’s life, the life of a woman, I wouldn’t know what to do.
I continued to lay very still, trying not to disturb him. I wasn’t sure I’d liked it. I wasn’t sure I wanted to do it ever again.
He opened his eyes, looked at the clock and groaned. ‘It’s six,’ he said. ‘We’d better get you home before your parents start to worry.’
Putting on my green school uniform skirt, yellow shirt, green jumper, yellow-and-green tie, and green blazer was odd and made me uneasy. I’d just done something with a man I was in love with, something that women did with the men they were in love with. But I didn’t feel like a woman. Women didn’t wear school uniforms, or know that they had their Maths and RE homework in their bags. They didn’t wear brown leather shoes that their parents bought half-price in the Clarks sale. They didn’t have their name in their underwear, underwear their mothers bought them. They didn’t wear green bobbles in their hair.
I loved him, but doing that hadn’t made me feel more like a woman, more worthy of being with him. It just made me—
My thought was interrupted by Sir pulling up at the top of my road. He turned to me, then looked around briefly before he leant over and kissed me on the mouth. The first time he’d ever done that outside of his house. ‘I’ll see
you Monday, OK?’
‘OK,’ I replied.
‘I had a great time.’
‘Me too.’
‘Good.’
I got out of the car and was about to walk away when he waved me back towards him. I leant in the car window that he had wound down. He was going to tell me he loved me. And then I’d know I was definitely a woman because girls didn’t have men saying they loved them. I knew he felt it – he would not have done that with me otherwise – and he was finally going to say it. ‘Don’t forget to get yourself down to the doctors as soon as possible and get yourself on the Pill. We don’t want you getting knocked up, do we?’ he said. ‘See you Monday.’
And with that, he wound up the window and then drove away.
I didn’t mind. Not really. I knew deep down that he loved me. And I loved him. That was all that mattered. We loved each other.
April, 1986
‘It’s me,’ the woman’s voice said on the square black answer-phone thing next to his phone. The phone had started to ring while he was in the bathroom and I had sat patiently on the sofa waiting for it to pick up the call. She sounded like a grown-up and was slightly cross. ‘I’m just ringing to say can you please hurry up and find yourself another naïve fifteen-year-old virgin so that you can go back to leaving Jack and me alone? I’m sick of you being interested and interfering in our lives when it’s convenient for you, and ignoring us when you’ve found yourself another pupil to relieve of her virginity. Don’t make me come down there to say it to your face again, OK? Just get lost. LEAVE ME ALONE ONCE AND FOR ALL! Oh, and just in case you haven’t found yourself someone new, it’s your son’s birthday on Saturday. A card would be nice. But I’ll buy one and a present from you, as usual, just so your son doesn’t think you’re a complete scumbag who only keeps in touch to make my life a living hell. And, by the way—’
He came running back into the room, snatched up the phone and put it to his ear. I decided to leave the living room, to go and wait in the corridor until he had finished talking to her. His ex-wife.
I had a tingly feeling all over my body. Why did she say those things? Were they true? Had he been out with other pupils? I stood very still as the tingling got worse. It couldn’t be true. Could it? It just didn’t seem like the sort of thing he would do. But the veins of anger threaded through her voice sounded so solid, certain, sure. Very few people would sound so concrete if they were lying.
‘I’m sorry you had to hear that,’ he said when he reappeared. ‘You see now what I have to put up with? She’s a complete nightmare. You’d think having sole custody of our son would be enough for her, wouldn’t you? But no, she has to torture and abuse me as well.’
I nodded. He was right, of course, she was a nightmare. Ever since I’d known him he’d been grieving over the loss of contact with his son, how she used their boy to get at him. You couldn’t make up those emotions.
‘Oh, babe,’ he said, and took me in his arms. As usual, the world’s worries started to melt away as he held me. ‘I can imagine what you’re thinking. I’d be thinking it too if I was you.’ He held me at arm’s length so he could look into my eyes. ‘It’s not true, none of it. She only said those things because, as a male teacher, I’ve had my fair share of girls having teenage crushes on me. I would never act on them. Never. This, what we’ve got, is special. The first. The only.’
I nodded.
‘She . . . I think she was having an affair. I can’t prove it, of course, but I think she was cheating on me and to make herself feel better she tried to make out that I was doing it, too. Please believe me. I don’t know what I’d do if you didn’t. We’re risking everything to be together, I don’t want you to have any doubts. If you have any doubts about this, then we can end this right now.’
No! I couldn’t let that happen. It’d been six weeks since we’d first done it and I couldn’t end it with him. He was like the air around me: without him, I’d suffocate. I’d go back to being the boring little girl who preferred books and revising to going out to the park or watching grown-up foreign movies. I wouldn’t know who I was without him; I wouldn’t survive.
‘You do believe me, don’t you?’ he asked.
I nodded. Of course I believed him. Between the man I loved and his jealous, cheating ex-wife who else could I believe?
‘Good girl,’ he said, pulling me into his arms, snuggling me up tight, making me his all over again. I always felt safe and loved when he held me. I always felt that no one and nothing could hurt me. ‘Good, good girl.’
I hugged him back knowing that soon, very soon, I’d feel like a woman and not just a schoolgirl playing at being a grown-up.
poppy
It’s probably one of the most beautiful things that I have ever seen. And it’s mine.
I haven’t had much that is mine in my life. Up until you leave home, I reckon most kids don’t really have much that isn’t connected to their parents. Since I left home to go to be taken care of by Her Maj and her prison service, my opportunities to acquire things – status-defining possessions – were pretty much zero. I have not had much I could call my own.
Except, as of this moment, I have a beach hut. I have a green and red wooden shed with burnt orange doors that sits on the tarmac on the promenade on Hove Seafront. I am the owner of property. Thanks to Granny Morag.
Granny Morag was the only one who cared enough to send me the things I needed inside: a battery-operated radio, a Walkman, tapes, stamps and writing paper. She also sent me clothes and shoes on a regular basis, up to the limit that was set by the prison, and money for phonecards and anything else I might need. There was nothing I wanted for when Granny Morag was alive except for visits, which she found hard to arrange transport-wise by herself. One time, when I was sent to Cheshire for what turned out to be only a year, she came all the way in a taxi, bringing boxes of homemade biscuits with her, and a coffee and walnut cake. That was the time before everyone and everything were viewed as potential drugs mules and anything that wasn’t hermetically sealed and then opened and gone through with a fine-tooth comb was not allowed.
We spent the hour talking and talking like we were in her living room in Brighton, eating cake and drinking tea. It was only as she was leaving that she said, ‘I’ll get you out of here, Poppy lass. I won’t rest until I do. I know you would never kill someone and I’m going to make sure the world knows it too.’ That was the last time I saw her – she died three years later of a massive stroke.
She wasn’t like my gran at times, she was more a friend than anything. She used to come up from Brighton to London to help Dad look after me when I was little, and sometimes I would stay with her in her house for the weekend. I regret not telling her about Marcus. About what he was really like and what was really going on in my life. She knew I had a boyfriend, and she knew I wasn’t always happy, but she didn’t know the ins and outs, the depths my ‘relationship’ with him plummeted to. She didn’t know about Serena. Maybe if she had she would have convinced me to leave, to let Serena have him and to walk away. Run away, knowing how forthright and outright blunt Granny Morag could be. Maybe she would have been the voice of reason in the madness that surrounded Marcus. Or maybe I wouldn’t have listened. Because that’s why you don’t tell those close to you things, isn’t it? You don’t want them to do what good friends and loved ones are meant to do – tell you the truths you don’t want to hear, the truths that would dismantle all your reasons for doing crazy things.
My hands are shaking as I try to push my key into the first circular lock on the beach hut. It’s rusty. I’m not sure the last time Dad came down here, but it’s rusty and I have to use the tip of my key to scrape away the disintegrated pieces of lock until I can see silver metal. Then I try again. The key finds its way through the rust and other blockages and comes to a rest in its natural home. I jiggle it a little, and then turn. It’s creaky as it moves, but it rotates and the latch it was holding in place slides back. I watch it intently, immersing mys
elf in the experience of freeing a latch, breaking its solid link. Undoing each latch is a sweet experience, something to savour, something to remember. I am making something free, opening it up to the world.
If only the judge who sent me down me could see me now.
‘Never have I seen such a blatant disregard for human life. To torture and then to violently butcher a man of impeccable reputation, who was devoted to his young son and dedicated to teaching is reprehensible. Your attempts to paint your victim as some kind of monster – although ultimately unsuccessful – have not gone unnoticed by the Court and it will be taken into account when it comes to sentencing,’ he boomed at me across the court. The haze of shock at the verdict, at Dad’s departure, at even being there had not cleared so I could only vaguely process what he was saying. ‘In sentencing you, I deem it necessary for you to have the time to understand the gravity of your crime. I hereby sentence you to life imprisonment with a minimum term of twenty-five years. If I were able to disallow early release for good behaviour, I would. You have robbed the world of a talented, gentle, kind man, in return you are to repay society with your life.’
Days, or maybe it was even weeks, later when what he said had sunk in, when the smell and sounds of prison were so overwhelming and I realised that I would be surrounded by this for ever, his words came back to me. Stored up as they had been in my brain until I could understand them. He had not only been carrying out his job, he was actually judging me. He thought he had seen the truth despite everything that had been presented to him in court, he thought he knew ‘my type’ and was making sure he sent a message to all other teenagers out there who thought it a good idea to seduce and murder older men. He thought he knew best and so wasn’t judging the crime, but me. It must have stuck in his craw that Serena got away with it. That there was nothing he could do to throw her away with the rest of society’s trash, too. I bet he had a nice little speech all polished up to deliver and damn her as well.