Chapter 10 #2
She takes her glasses off her face, like she wants Seb to see her eyes, to better see the faith she has in him pouring out of her.
She sometimes reminds him of Eva and at the thought of his mum, how she’ll be waking this morning, trying to digest everything he told her last night, Seb thinks his knees are about to give way.
He holds on to the reception counter and hears himself croak, ‘Morning, Mrs Greene. How are you?’
Mrs Greene waves his question away as the school phone starts ringing; she doesn’t have long. None of them do first thing in the morning. ‘I just wanted to remind you to mention the work starting on the sports pavilion.’
Blankness again, and Mrs Greene’s smile widens because she knows how busy he is– it’s only natural he’ll forget the odd thing occasionally.
‘In assembly?’ she offers and Seb’s organs drop.
It was his own stupid initiative. Once a month the whole school congregates in the hall.
First a different year group performs something– music, maybe a poem– and then the kids can ask Seb questions about the school or raise any concerns they might have.
It’s part of his plan to make sure the kids feel ownership over the school, like they have some agency in how it is run.
‘Just be ready for some questions about the sports pavilion from the students, mostly around what’s going to be in the vending machines.’ Mrs Greene wrinkles her nose and puts her hand on the still-ringing phone.
‘Thanks for the heads-up, Mrs Greene.’
She glows a little brighter at him before putting her glasses back on and answering the phone. ‘Waverly Community Secondary, good morning.’
Usually, he goes to the staff room first, makes tea for anyone who wants one and chats to his colleagues, but this morning he goes straight to his office. As he fumbles with his keys, he feels the air shift as someone stands right behind him.
He turns, and staring at him with a look of pure revulsion is Anna.
‘We need to talk,’ she says, keeping her arms folded.
He nods, turns back to the lock and says, ‘OK. Come back at lunch…’
‘No, now.’
‘Anna, it’s assembly in ten minutes…’
He pushes his office door open, and Anna ignores him, follows him straight into the stuffy, boxy room.
She turns towards him, proud and livid, a righteous representative for every woman who has ever been hurt by a man.
He closes the door slowly before coming to sit on the edge of his desk, keeping his eyes low as he says, ‘I can see you’re upset, Anna. ’
Anna laughs joylessly.
‘You should know that I’m doing everything I can to make things right.’
Which must be the wrong thing to say because Anna’s shaking her head. ‘Not even you can make this right, Seb.’ Her voice is practised, calm, but she’s still shaking her head at him. ‘What you’ve done is unforgivable.’
‘I’m sorry you feel that way, Anna.’
‘No, no, Seb. It’s not that I feel that way, it’s the truth.
’ She’s actually shaking now, vibrating with indignation, with rage.
‘You think there’s any way we can be friends again when you pretend to be this holier-than-thou person, but all along you treat women like things that can be bought and sold– just things to fulfil your pathetic needs? ’
‘Anna, that’s not fair, you know I don’t…’
‘No, Seb. The person I thought I knew could never, ever demean women like that. But you did. You made an appointment to abuse a woman– not once, but twice. Honestly, it sickens me. You– the real you– sicken me.’
That isn’t him. Seb is slowly finding out that he is many inglorious, ugly things, but Anna is wrong. He isn’t an abuser. But Anna’s got too much to say; there’s no room for Seb to defend himself.
‘You know I grew up watching women sell themselves at the end of our road? I’d be drawing my bedroom curtains and see them get into strangers’ cars.
They were all addicts, Seb, all of them painful to look at, and I’d hate those men then just as much as I hate them now, because even back then I couldn’t understand how they could ignore the sadness in those girls’ eyes, ignore the fact they were hurting them even more than the needles they stuck into their arms… ’
‘Look, Anna. I know you’re angry, I know you’re hurt, and perhaps you have a right to be, but it wasn’t like that. I didn’t abuse anyone. She was doing that work legally and of her own volition…’
‘That’s what you have to tell yourself, isn’t it?
That she actually enjoyed it? That she chose to have dick after disgusting dick inside her?
’ Anna moves closer to Seb. ‘I don’t think you’re that stupid or that naive.
I think you know she hated every second of it, that she was doing it for drugs or because she was abused as a child, probably both.
But still you went along with it, you still paid her so you could rape her, and that makes you a monster. ’
Seb’s never heard his darkest fears spoken out loud before, even by himself, let alone someone else.
These screaming accusations should turn him to ash, but they don’t because Seb is certain that the person Anna’s describing is not him.
What she’s describing is not what happened in that tiny, soulless W1 studio.
He knows it, and he also knows that there’s no way he can prove it.
Instead, he does the only thing he can.
‘That’s enough.’ He moves to open the door for her to leave, but she grabs him by the arm, her sharp nails digging painfully into his skin.
‘No, you fucking don’t. I’m not finished yet.’
Seb pulls his arm away from her. ‘Anna. Stop. I know you’re upset, but that’s enough.
I have done something wrong, you’re right.
I betrayed my wife, broke promises we made to each other– I get that.
I regret it bitterly but I’m not going to stand here and let you call me a monster.
What happened was legal and it was between two consenting adults.
’ He pauses for a bit, thinks, Fuck it , before adding, ‘In a way, there’s no difference between what Eddy did in Singapore and what I did. ’
Anna’s face turns a strange puce colour; she looks like she’s about to vomit. ‘Eddy didn’t pay, he didn’t abuse anyone.’
‘No, he didn’t pay, but he did flirt, laugh and, let’s be honest, he definitely didn’t mention your name.’
A sob rises in Anna’s throat then, winding her and making her fall forward. She shakes her head at him, like she can shake his words out of her ears. ‘Eddy’s different now.’
‘OK, Anna.’
She starts crying– big, angry, rasping sobs– but Seb holds himself steady, stops himself from comforting her.
She holds up her hand, making a small space between her thumb and forefinger. ‘I’m that close, I swear to God, I’m that close to telling everyone what a shit you really are.’
Seb stares at her and tries to feel if this threat is genuine or not. He forces calm into his voice and says, ‘I have a right to a private life, Anna.’
‘And I have a right to ensure my kids are guided by someone who isn’t a liar and who doesn’t abuse women. And now, knowing what I know about you, I have a duty to all the other parents who have a right to know who you really are, the real man making huge decisions about their kids’ futures.’
‘Anna …’
‘The only reason I haven’t so far is because of Rosie and the kids, of course.’
Seb’s heart sinks. His poor children.
‘I think you know, deep down, that you’re not fit to lead this school, Seb.’
‘Anna, what I did has no bearing at all on my position here. That hasn’t changed. I’m still just as capable, I’m still the same person…’
‘Not to me you’re not. And if you stay in your position, you’ll leave me with no choice.’
‘You’re threatening me?’
‘If that’s what you call it. I don’t care. I’m just looking out for the children. All our children.’
‘What do you want, then, Anna? Seriously, what do you want from me?’
She doesn’t pause; it’s like the words are right there, waiting for her.
‘I want you to know that we’ve had enough.
Men like you pretending you’re safe, feigning friendship, when you’re the worst abusers of all.
Men like you– entitled, educated, privileged men– can’t keep treating women like we’re dolls to be played with when you feel like it.
I want you to feel what it’s like to be publicly shamed and then I want you to disappear. ’
The bell rings for the school to gather for assembly but Anna doesn’t take her eyes off Seb. ‘You should come clean, Seb. Tell the whole school that you can’t continue as head teacher. It’s your one chance to do something that is truly right, and if you don’t, then I will.’
She turns and, with one last disgusted glance at him, opens the door and walks away.
Seb stays perched on his desk, holding his head in his hands, adrenaline flooding his body, his thoughts like fire ants. Anna hadn’t shut the door behind her and suddenly Mr Clegg, the geography teacher and deputy head, pokes his bald head into Seb’s office and asks, ‘You all right?’
Seb looks up at him and, standing, says, ‘Yeah, just a bit of a headache, that’s all. I’ll take some paracetamol.’
Mr Clegg nods, backing out into the hall.
Seb nudges his office door shut. He is right, isn’t he?
Everyone’s entitled to a private life. Even teachers, even head teachers.
What if Mr Clegg secretly loves dressing up in leather and being spanked with a paddle?
That’s none of anyone else’s business. Would that make him unsafe to do his job?
No, no, of course it wouldn’t. Anna is wrong.
He can be both: a reliable professional and a fallible man who messed up big-time.
Anna is always so ready to explode, so full of rage.
Eddy will help calm her down, just like Seb calmed her down when she found out about Eddy’s affair.
All Seb has to do is call Eddy and ask. He just needs to get through the next few days.
Just needs to help Rosie understand that he did what he did because he felt so stuck, so scared, so lonely.
If he can find the softness in himself to share all that with her then maybe, just maybe, they can heal together.
He picks up his notepad and a pen, and takes a sip of water from the glass that has sat stale on his desk all weekend.
When he enters the hall, he feels every one of the six hundred pairs of eyes on him.
He lets his gaze blur as he turns towards them. Just get through this.
‘Morning, everyone,’ Seb says, his mouth twitching. ‘I hope you all had a good weekend…’
He swallows, the saliva bitter in his throat.
‘We’re starting today with an assembly from the Year Nines with a “celebration of autumn”, which sounds wonderful. So, over to you, Year Nine.’
Before he leaves the stage, he looks up briefly at the blur of young people in front of him, and one face lifts into focus.
Lily. She’s sitting next to Blake, at the back, looking at him like everyone else, but she’s serene, composed, smiling faintly, and Seb knows he not only holds his own fragile family’s future in his shaking hands, but also that of this talented young woman.
His body fills like a sack of wet cement; he can’t sit where he’s supposed to but rushes out of the side door, the sniggers and whispers from the students like falling arrows at his back.