Birdkill (8 page)

‘No, no, this is totally what the doctor ordered.’

He poured her coffee, then his. He raised his cup in a toast. ‘To new beginnings, then, Robyn.’

‘New beginnings,’ she smiled.

‘We’ll save the real toasts for tomorrow night. Heather told you about staff drinks?’

‘Yes, sounds great. I met David Thorpe briefly yesterday, but other than him and Heather, I don’t know anyone else.’

‘Well, there’s only really Emily Gray and the music teacher, Lorraine, you haven’t met.’

She tried her luck at testing Hamilton’s assertion there was absolutely no fraternisation between the research and teaching staffs. ‘Oh. Do the research staff not join us?’

Archer looked as if she had just enquired after the health of a dead relative. ‘We don’t really, well, talk to each other. It’s not encouraged, you see. They do their jobs, we do ours and the general consensus is we’re both better off not influencing the other.’

‘I see.’ Robyn made sure it was clear she didn’t. ‘It seems odd to meet for drinks on a Thursday. Most schools I’ve been to; they wait until the end of the week.’

‘Oh. Right. I would have thought Lawrence would have explained that to you as well. We have a four-day week here. You get to spend Friday planning your lessons. We often have an informal staff meeting in the afternoon to share any issues or ensure we’re co-ordinating properly. That’s on top of the Monday co-ordination meeting, of course.’

‘Of course.’

He glanced up at her to see if she was laughing at him and smiled thinly. ‘It works well; you’re not going to be teaching a primary or even secondary curriculum. Most of the kids are at university level, some are capable of taking a decent Master’s. But their emotional development is very mixed indeed. You’ll be dealing with kids who have an adult’s learning with a child’s experience. Believe me, you’ll need the planning time.’

She took that in. It seemed pretty incredible, given some of the kids she’d seen were no older than six or eight. She didn’t want to press the point and seem as if she were questioning his professionalism at this early stage. Robyn was settling nicely and this wasn’t a time to go upsetting apple carts. ‘So what do the kids do on Friday?’

‘Lawrence and the research team spend the evening with them Thursday. They often work on Friday, too, depending on the programme element they’re focusing on.’

‘And what programme elements are they focusing on?’

‘I think Lawrence explained that, didn’t he?’

‘Well, he explained he was working on a programme that aimed to unearth the potential of intellectually gifted kids.’

‘Intellectually gifted doesn’t do them justice. Most of them are true savants and none of them is an idiot. Lawrence is attempting to understand that potential properly, to try and augment it, harness it. He’s making extraordinary progress, too.’

‘In what way?’

‘Ah, that you’ll have to ask him. Now, shall we take a look at your planning goals?’

‘Sure. I’ve had a quick think about how to approach this.’

Archer sat back, his boyish features open and engaged. ‘Super. Let’s hear it.’

They sat for three hours and four сafetières of coffee, talking over her English lessons. Her head was buzzing as much with caffeine as the result of their discussion. A highly informal approach, very interactive. Start with assessments, look at some appropriate texts and introduce critical analysis and perhaps form some views of narrative and dialectic. Week two, they could start to build on that.

She liked Archer, but found him evasive every time they started to steer towards the Institute’s research work or the kids’ relationships with the research staff. It reminded her of the strangers’ warren in
Watership Down
. Don’t talk about the snares, you sleek rabbits.

Finally, they both sat back, snapping shut notebook lids. ‘Done. You can work on the granularity of it all tomorrow so you’re well prepared for Monday. I think you’re going to have a blast.’

‘It’s a little daunting. And they’re clearly going to start by making points and trying to trip me up.’

‘And you’re not going to get drawn into that. You’ll be fine. If you have any questions, just call me. Heather should have given you an extension list, if not ask her when you go down through reception. In the meantime, I look forward to having a drink tomorrow night.’

Later, back in her apartment, she sipped the last of her merlot and resolved to go into town and stock up on supplies Friday. She replayed her memories of Simon Archer and was a little perplexed to realise he’d managed to get under her skin. Damn that boyish charm and that little streak of raffishness in him.

Lawrence Hamilton hated the trips to London, his usual room at the Berkeley and his club notwithstanding. The train always lulled him and put him into a sitting sleep from which he would invariably wake in an uncomfortable position with his muscles moaning. This time he’d drooled onto his lapel and woken to find the woman sitting opposite smiling at him pityingly with what she clearly thought was kindness and looked more like dyspepsia. He thought better of wishing her to go to hell just in time to stop himself vocalising the sentiment, but his face had clearly betrayed him and she glanced away to study the countryside. Rather pointedly, if anything.

The taxi from the station to the Institute was cold, the cabbie indifferent.

Simon Archer was standing in reception talking to Heather when Hamilton came in out of the darkness and drizzle. ‘What are you two jabbering about? No work to do?’

Archer turned at the sound of his voice. ‘I see you had a pleasant stay in London, Lawrence.’

‘I did not.’

Archer followed Hamilton into his study, closing the door behind him. Hamilton hurled his beige Crombie at the armchair and dropped his attaché case. ‘Sherry?’

‘Thanks.’

Hamilton poured pale sherry into the small glasses, handing one to Archer, who didn’t much care for sherry but was too polite to say so. ‘So how did it go? With Raynesford?’

‘A rubber stamp. The man is simply gross. We’re going to get our funding, but the Shaw girl is a huge problem to them.’

‘Why? She’s fine, settling in nicely. She’ll be a good teacher.’

‘If she remembers…’

‘She doesn’t. She’s starting afresh and we’re going to help and support her.’

Hamilton raised his sherry glass, index finger accusing. ‘Keep your eye on her. The slightest sign she’s experiencing any awakening, any return to her trauma, you let me know.’

‘Fine.’ Archer drained his drink and wiggled the glass at Hamilton. ‘Thanks. I’ll be getting off.’

Archer heaved at the door. He turned. Hamilton was peering into his empty glass, his shoulders slumped. The whisper sounded like ‘Murderous bastards’ but Archer didn’t quite catch it.

Archer propped himself against the doorframe. ‘I’m sorry?’

Hamilton looked lost for a second. He snapped a tight smile. ‘Nothing. Nothing.’

Robyn slept like an angel, waking with a smile to the wash of sunlight escaping around the edges of the heavy curtains. Her pillow clutched to her cheek smelled of her, of sleep and linen. She stretched luxuriantly, revelling in a clean morning and a day to herself, to organise her work and ensure everything was in line for Sunday.

She lay looking at the ceiling, wondered if she might perhaps go up to London. Would Mariam be free for dinner, maybe? She felt free and giddily optimistic. There was no vestige of dread in her mind, no dream memory eluding her.

A shower. Coffee. The world was her oyster.

Lawrence Hamilton took his coffee black and with brown sugar. It was his habit to drink it from a Swedish rustic patterned cup his wife had gifted him during their last Baltic cruise. He had lit the fire in his study which Mrs Moyes the housekeeper kindly had made for him and now it burned merrily. He paused in his note-taking, pen to lip, listening to the fire’s crackle and the rich assonance of time passing from the carriage clock. The day was clear, a cobalt sky above the trees, white rime on branches.

The phone’s high pitched chirping made him jump. He would dearly have liked phones still to ring rather than sound like tiny cars skidding. He lifted the handset as if it were something distasteful.

‘Larry. It’s Bill.’

‘Good morning.’

‘We have a problem. It seems as if Parker’s people have a whistleblower. They’re dealing with it, but we should batten down the hatches and be on our guard. It would be best if someone filtered any calls and you’ll need to tighten security.’

‘I don’t quite understand, Bill. On our guard against what, precisely?’

‘Journalists, snoopers. Anybody nosing around.’

‘What does this whistleblower have that we should be so concerned about?’

‘We don’t know. But it’s as well to be cautious. We don’t want anything to derail the select committee next week. How’s the Shaw girl?’

‘She’s settling in nicely; her amnesia persists yet otherwise she should rehabilitate perfectly well.’

‘You’ll need to keep an eye on her. Keep her close. This may just blow over, but we can’t be too careful.’

‘When do you expect you might get more detail from Parker?’

‘That’s just it. It wasn’t Parker told me. It was Raynesford. Parker’s not taking calls.’

‘Oh. I see. Right. Well, I’ll splice the mainbrace or whatever it is.’

‘I’ll call you if I hear more.’

‘Thanks Bill. Good chap.’

Hamilton replaced the handset, his brow furrowed. He tapped his pen on his notepad and sighed. He rolled it between his palms contemplatively. He let it fall to the desktop, irritated at the threat to his routines and plans. Trust Parker to go to ground.

He reached for the handset again and thumbed a rubber keypad made for smaller, more agile hands than his. ‘Heather? Could you ask Simon to join me when he has a minute?’

Archer was a good fellow. He would sort things out.

Robyn backed into the lounge bar of the Sloop Inn, shaking her umbrella. The warm, beery fug greeted her, outbreaks of laughter rolling across the busy room. She snapped the umbrella shut and slid it into the elephant’s foot holder, arrested for a second by the grotesque object before seeing it as a thing of pottery, not dried flesh.

The group was sitting on the back wall of the lounge. Robyn recognised them all apart from a larger lady and a slim brown-eyed blonde. She struggled to remember the names as she wove between the tables towards them, shrugging off her coat. Someone Gray beginning with an ‘m’. And a music teacher. Simon Archer turned and rose to greet her.

‘Here we are! Welcome, welcome. What can I get you?’ He moved the coat folded on the seat to his right.

‘A G&T please, Simon.’

‘Coming right up. Anyone else?’

A chorus of ‘no’s and the Gray woman’s ‘Yes please, Simon. Same again.’

Robyn leaned across the table to shake her hand. ‘Hi, we haven’t met. Robyn Shaw.’

‘Emily Gray. With an ay. As in squirrel, I’m an American import. The name, not me. I grew up in Chichester, actually.’

The hand in hers was warm, larger and jangled with rings and bracelets. ‘I’m just Shaw as in George Bernard, but there the resemblance ends.’

‘Shame,’ David Thorpe called over. ‘You’d look lovely with a nice white beard.’

Robyn laughed dutifully, aware this might turn out to be one of those nights that left you with a pain in your cheeks.

‘I’m Lorraine,’ said the blonde. A Northern Irish accent. ‘I teach music at the Institute.’

‘Welcome to the end of the week,’ Thorpe beamed. ‘As you saw from my class the other day, they can be a handful. Friday can never come soon enough as far as I’m concerned.’

Robyn slid her coat over the back of her chair and sat down. She smiled across at Heather, who was drinking a pint of something brown. Old Frog’s Nipple or something like that. Archer returned from the bar with the drinks. He slid Emily Gray’s red wine across the table to her and handed Robyn her G&T.

‘Cheers.’ Robyn toasted the assembled company, who dutifully raised their classes to clink together.

‘To our new member of staff!’ Archer cried out.

Robyn could feel her cheeks ache already.

They ate well. Robyn took the roast of the day, beef and all the trimmings, and it was a delight. Archer and Heather joined her. The others had fish and chips. ‘Best in the South of England, I swear,’ Thorpe enthused, urging his choice on the others like an evangelist as they ordered. Now, the meal finished, he pushed his plate away and sat back to wipe his lips and crumple the serviette onto the plate. ‘It’s one thing I could never get the French to understand, fish and chips.’

‘The French?’ Robyn sensed a fellow expatriate.

‘I was based in France for five years, place called Larroque. Came back last year. Was pretty worried about the move, tell the truth. We were based in the Tarn Valley. Sun, enough wine to swim in, gorgeous food. I put on three stone.’

‘Why come back, then?’

Thorpe clearly hadn’t anticipated such a direct question and Robyn noticed from Heather’s wince the others knew something she didn’t. He grimaced, glanced down at his drink and looked her in the eye. ‘My wife and I split up. She ran off with another man.’

He finished his drink in a long draught. Robyn didn’t know whether to kick herself or throw her arms around him. ‘I’m so sorry. I had no idea.’

‘It’s okay. There are worse ways to lose a wife.’

Robyn pulled a face. ‘Like what?’

‘Like she dies slowly in your arms. That’s what happened to Sue, Hamilton’s wife. She died last year.’

Crestfallen, Robyn imagined the grief hidden behind Hamilton’s crusty formality. ‘I didn’t know. That’s terrible.’

‘Come on, enough about the bloody past.’ Simon Archer was on his feet, his hand on Robyn’s shoulders. ‘My shout. David, another one of those?’ Thorpe nodded, handed his glass over. ‘G&T Robyn?’

‘Please.’ She lifted the tonic can on the table. ‘Just a G and ice, I’ve got enough T.’

Emily Gray leaned forwards, her top parting to reveal heavy, pale breasts. ‘Talking about the past is discouraged at the Hamilton Institute,’ she confided, tapping her finger against her nose. ‘We’re about the future, apparently. Keep your past to yourself. Nobody knows what’s locked away there, that way. Especially the kids. They don’t have pasts, so you’re as well not to ask.’