‘I’m sure you’ll help me toughen up.’ I replied, I hoped my tiny act of defiance wouldn’t be reported to James. I would have to be extra careful in class. I didn’t want a repeat of what had just happened.
Every morning as I left my house for work, Irina would be doing the same, waving and wishing me good morning. Every evening I would come home, eat dinner and then try to visit Frank. Every day I had been turned away. If felt a bit like I was stuck in a time loop. It was time to break out and do something different. It seemed that if I really wanted to see him, I would need to be more than just persistent. So on Saturday I set my alarm for 5am and walked over to the medical centre. I took my torch and my multi-tool and walked round the whole building, peering in through windows and trying all the doors. They were all locked.
I waited in the dark, invisible in my navy waterproofs, hoping that someone would take a smoking break or something, like they do in films, so I could slip in behind them, but nothing so dramatic happened. I just got steadily colder and colder until the sky lightened and the morning dawned. I tried again at the front desk, kicking up a bit of a fuss, and asking to see a manager but got nowhere. In the end, I stopped, as the receptionist was starting to look a bit scared and I felt bad.
Instead, I went home, had some breakfast, changed into non-threatening jeans and a baggy jumper, and went back to the Parish office. David was still there but this time he frowned when he saw me. ‘You’ve been disturbing the staff at the medical centre I hear,’ he said, ‘what’s the problem?’
I was surprised he knew so much, but shouldn’t have been, I had seen how organised they were when I arrived.
‘I would like to see Frank, we’ve been here over a week and nobody will let me see him,’ I said.
‘Ok, let me check it out for you,’ he picked up the phone and speed-dialled. ‘I have a query about a Frank Tipson, came in last week Tuesday…’ he listened intently and then looked up at me inscrutably. ‘ok… uh huh… well that wasn’t handled very well,’ he said. He listened further then said, ‘I’ll take care of it, but next time you need to inform everyone on the council, not just Doctor Peterson.’ He rang off and looked at me again.
‘Why don’t you sit down,’ he said, indicating the chairs lining the wall as he moved round the counter towards me. He looked at me as we sat, ‘I’m very sorry Zoe, but Frank didn’t make it through that first night, he had another heart attack and passed away in the early hours of the morning.’
I stared stunned, I had been going there every day and all the time he had already been dead? ‘But why didn’t they tell me?’ I asked, ‘I was there, every day, they said he was resting…’
David shook his head in sympathy, ‘Well, we have a counsellor who informs the patient’s family, and Frank had listed his nephew as his next of kin. He was informed Wednesday morning and the cremation was last Friday.’
I still didn’t understand ‘but why didn’t they tell me?’ I asked again, ‘the receptionist saw me every day and said nothing.’
‘The receptionist isn’t allowed to pass on information like that, as I said, it is the counsellors job to do so.’ David looked slightly annoyed for a second ‘I will definitely bring this up at the next parish meeting, it shouldn’t have happened and I’m very sorry.’
I didn’t know what to say so in the end I said nothing. I stood up, ‘Thanks for your help, David,’ I said, as I left. I went home. I climbed the stairs and sat in the smallest bedroom, which I had turned into an office. I stared out over the garden to the fields beyond. Frank was dead, the whole journey had been for nothing; he hadn’t even met his family before he died. Tears prickled at my eyes and I sat there a long time as they rolled down onto my cheeks. Ever so often I lifted an arm and scrubbed them away with my sleeve, but they kept falling. He couldn’t be gone.
Sunday I woke up and cried. I ate breakfast and cried, and then I went for a walk. I avoided crying on the walk but as I passed the health centre, I started to feel a new emotion; anger. Frank had been fine when we arrived, he’d had a heart attack on the way, yes, but with the right medical attention he should have been ok. What was going on in that place? Why had they let me think my friend was alive for a full eleven days after his death? What sort of place was so strictly controlled that they couldn’t tell people someone had died?
I recalled my encounters with the staff, they had been efficiently polite, I had thought, but looking back, their silence had been odd, especially that last morning. Why had she looked scared? I wasn’t that intimidating. My feet halted as I decided to go in.
‘Good morning,’ I said to the receptionist, who was the same one who had been on duty the day before. ‘I’m very sorry about yesterday.’
‘That’s ok,’ she responded, the apprehensive look on her face switching to relief. ‘I fully understand.’
I looked around the reception area, ‘Is there any way I could see the doctor who was treating Frank?’ her smile faded ‘or perhaps the nurse who spoke to him last?’ I put on my most pleading smile.
‘No, sorry’ she said, ‘look you can’t, you need to go, you’re going to get me in trouble again.’
‘What?’ I said, I looked at her in puzzlement; she had that scared look again. ‘Who can I ask then?’
Her response wasn’t what I was expecting. She looked around, but the room was empty, even so, she leaned forward across the counter and whispered ‘You’re a teacher, ask the kids at the school, they know.’
I stared for a second, then turned and walked out. Why would the kids know? And how did she know I was a teacher? Was there no privacy around here? I walked slowly home, something was going on, I could feel it, and I had no backup plan, no secret way out, nothing to keep me safe.
Chapter 14: Help
I settled into my teaching timetable, working hard to curb some of my natural enthusiasm and make my lessons calmer and more orderly. To be honest I thought they were boring, but James came in to observe and said I was improving nicely.
After the receptionist’s cryptic statement, I thought carefully about which student to ask. I spent a week looking around during lessons, trying to suss out what the kids were like. I needed someone who had their eyes open. I debated asking Freya; she had helped me in my first lesson with the class, but during break times I had often seen her talking with Alex or the other kids. I needed someone who I thought would keep my questions to themselves.
The year 11 class were learning about ionic bonding; I had set them the task of drawing the electronic structure of the first twenty elements, boring and repetitive, but required. I circled the room and when I reached the quietest and most inscrutable of the refugee kids, I crouched down to look at her work. ‘Ruth, I need help’ I said quietly.
I continued to look at her work as she turned her head to look directly at me. Everything this kid did was purposeful and thought out. She was small with light brown hair drawn back in a ponytail, her skin was pale from winter, but she had freckles across her nose. She wore the school uniform, grey trousers, white shirt, and burgundy blazer. She looked unremarkable but in lessons, I had glimpsed a quick intelligence and her occasional comments conveyed a great deal of worldly experience. I looked back at her, but she made no response. I looked down at her work, put a couple of ticks, and moved on. I hadn’t really expected a response, not with the enforcer, Jonathan, in the room, watching everything and making notes.
After school, on my evening walk, at the northernmost end of the route up by the grid of residential streets, I found myself walking behind two youths. I almost didn’t recognise them in normal clothes, but it was Ruth and Mark. They looked older out of uniform and were walking slowly; deliberately slow in fact. I wasn’t speeding along, but even so, I was drawing closer. They timed it so I caught up just as we reached the small footpath that cut between two roads. They paused on the footpath, half-turning.