Chapter 37
Emma
At the airport, I did run into Henry, straight into his arms, where he held me for a moment so that he could explain that he was still seriously angry about my idiotic actions, and then kiss me.
I could feel his lips on mine for the whole flight, and although I was in Frankfurt, my thoughts were constantly with him. We Skyped every day.
I briefly considered messaging Isi and seeing if she wanted to meet up, but then I decided I’d be better off investing my time in the schoolwork I was missing.
By the time I fly back to Edinburgh on Sunday evening, I feel like I’ve been away for a month. Henry meets me at the airport, because he’s crazy. After wing time, he creeps into my room. It’s traditional.
“And he seriously never apologized to him?” he asks again as I tell him the story of Mr. Ward and my dad once more, but face-to-face this time.
I shake my head. “That’s wild.” He absentmindedly doodles a little pattern on my arm with his index finger.
I lift my head a little way off his chest so that I can look at him.
“But it explains why Mr. Ward was so weird to you,” he says.
“It really does,” I say. “Has he said anything about it all?”
“Not to me, but he’s more unbearable than ever.
Apparently, he has to answer to the school authorities, but even Sinclair hasn’t been able to get anything else out of his mum.
By the way, the others are super-pissed-off that we all have to do the maths exam again.
Don’t take any notice if there are snarky comments tomorrow. ”
Really, I could hardly care less. I totally get it—I wouldn’t be thrilled myself—but at the moment, all that matters is that Henry and I are both still at this school. And that he seems kind of more together since his time with his brother.
“How was it at Theo’s?” I ask.
“Fine,” Henry says. “No, really. We talked about Maeve. Not much, but by our standards it was quite a lot. And he’s been in touch since I’ve been back here.”
I wrap an arm around him. “I’m glad, Henry.”
“Me too.” He puts a hand on the back of my neck. “What about your chat with your dad? How did it go this time?”
I think about my answer before I speak. “Different, not so bad. I think he is actually sorry for what he did. Not just to Mr. Ward. But to Mum too. And me. It doesn’t change what happened, but it felt a bit like closure when we were in that café.”
“That’s good, Em. You don’t need him.”
“True, I only need you,” I whisper into Henry’s jumper.
“That’s not true,” he says. I lift my head in surprise. “You only need yourself. Nobody else. But I’m a nice bonus.”
“Very nice,” I mumble. “Will you go to the New Year Ball with me, then?” I ask. “Tori told me about it,” I add when Henry looks at me in surprise.
“Of course we’re going to the ball together.” He says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, and I love everything about that.
“Good. ’Cause Tori wants us to go dress shopping in Edinburgh before the Christmas holidays. And you and Sinclair have to come too.”
“So she’s going to the ball with him after all?”
“No, but she still wants him to be there.”
“Valentine won’t like that,” Henry remarks. “But he hates us now anyway because we got his uncle into trouble.”
“I really don’t know what Tori sees in him.”
“I don’t think she knows herself sometimes. But until Sinclair has the guts to ask her out, they’ll never get it together.”
“We could help,” I suggest.
“I think that’s something the two of them have to figure out for themselves.”
I groan. “Why do you always have to be so sensible?”
“You mean, not looking at exam papers and nearly getting myself expelled?”
“Let’s not talk about that,” I say hastily, even though we’re clearly going to talk about this a lot.
Henry looks at me a moment. “You’d do it again, wouldn’t you?” he asks.
“I’d do anything to help you. But not like that. I’d go to Mrs. Sinclair or Ms. Vail and tell them I was worried about you.”
“I had a chat with her on Friday,” Henry says, out of the blue.
“Ms. Vail?”
He nods. “I kind of needed to talk and you weren’t here.”
“And how was it?”
“Good, I think.”
“You could go to see her again. Even now that I’m back,” I suggest.
“I’ve been thinking about it.”
For the first time in weeks, I can feel Henry’s confidence returning. They’re baby steps, but we’ll take them together—in the right direction.
Henry
Like every year, the run-up to the Christmas holidays seems to fly by.
The days are stressful, but it’s all right.
We retake the maths exam, and for the first time in ages, I feel like my mind can focus on something other than pain.
My end-of-term report is better than I’d been expecting.
Most teachers seem to have turned a blind eye to my catastrophic results in the weeks after Maeve’s death; it’s the only explanation, and it makes me feel like I still have a realistic chance of getting into St. Andrews, which is a relief.
All the same, I’m dreading my session with Mr. Ward. From the fourth form on, we have these guidance chats with our form tutors twice a year.
“Still keen on teaching, Mr. Bennington?” Mr. Ward asks once I’m sitting opposite him.
I nod in silence.
“And still St. Andrews?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very good.” He leans back in his chair. “Well, I think you’ll make an outstanding teacher.”
I can see that he knows very well I was expecting almost anything from him but that. Last time we had this chat, he mainly concentrated on listing every possible downside of the profession and explaining all the reasons I’d be better off studying somewhere else.
“Have you started writing your personal statement?” asks Mr. Ward.
“I haven’t had time yet, but I will soon.”
He takes a piece of paper from a folder. “Well, perhaps this will help you a little.”
I frown as he pushes it across the tabletop toward me. Personal Statement, I read. Maeve Louise Bennington.
My heart is pounding. “Is this . . . ?”
“I shouldn’t really show you another pupil’s personal statement, but I think that in this instance it will be all right.
After all, from what you tell me, you’re not intending to apply for medicine.
” His voice is as chilly as ever, but for the first time, I can see something like sympathy on his face.
“And I think you should have the opportunity to read it.”
I grip the paper with both hands, almost as though he might snatch it back. But Mr. Ward just folds his hands and rests them on the desk.
“I’ll be leaving the school at the end of this term,” he says, “which means we won’t be colleagues here. All the better for you, I suppose, as you won’t have to suffer me as a student teacher as well.”
I don’t know what to say. “Sorry to hear that” would be a lie. So I quip, “Being your pupil was punishment enough.”
Mr. Ward glares witheringly at me. “From now on, Mr. Ringling will be your form tutor. I’m sure he’ll be delighted to write a reference for his star pupil.”
I smile innocently. “That’s nice to hear.”
“I thought as much.”
This is a game—he hates me, I hate him back. It has to be this way. He’s leaving the school, maybe going to rehab, maybe not; it’s none of my business. But it looks as though we’ll still be lumbered with his charming nephew.
“So . . . anything else I can help you with?” Mr. Ward is sounding snappy again, which is kind of a relief.
“No.” I stand up and put Maeve’s personal statement into my pocket. “Thank you.”
“Off you go then, Bennington.”
“Yes, sir.”
I’m grinning as I leave the room. It’s only once I’m outside, walking down the corridors, that I’m gripped by the oppressive awareness of what I’ve got.
Something of Maeve’s. Words she wrote. It was years ago now, but I can still remember her spending weeks on this statement. Nobody was allowed to read it.
Maybe someday, Henny, she always said. When I’ve stopped being embarrassed by it.
Back then, I didn’t understand what could be embarrassing for her. I guess I’m about to find out.
I check the clock and see that I’ve got half an hour before my next lesson. Is it wise to read this right now? Who knows? It will probably make me cry. If it does, it does.
I hear voices on the stairs up to our wing. I could go to my room and read it in peace. I stop, level with the door to the tower. Or I could . . .
I glance around, then press the latch and climb the narrow spiral staircase.
It’s chilly up on the roof, but bearable with the last rays of the setting sun.
I sit beneath the low parapet, which shields me from the wind.
The view from up here is my favorite, but—more importantly—I only know this place because Maeve showed me.
I remember sitting up here beside her when I was in the first form and homesick every night.
Do you know why you can’t see all the way to Mum and Dad from up here?
Maeve had asked, staring hard into the distance.
It was a clear day and you could see across the rooftops of Ebrington to the sea.
Because the Earth is curved. But maybe, right now, we’re standing in the exact same place as them, except that they’re on the other side of the world.
Back then, I didn’t see any reason to doubt her words, so I believed them.
I still believe it in some way, even though I know perfectly well that her geography was way out.
Surely it’s New Zealand on the other side of the world, not Africa.
You’re such a spoilsport, Henny, Maeve said when I told her that, a few years later.
But she’d been smiling, so I smile too. I think about Mum and Dad, working a hemisphere away to save lives.
I think about Maeve, who’d done the same.
I think that although it’s still not fair, at least she died while living her dream.
She did the thing she’d been working toward all those years.
It wasn’t for nothing. Nothing was ever for nothing.
I lean my head against the wall and study the rooftops and turrets of the school, behind which the sun has set. It’s only then that I look down at the paper.
I like to imagine myself as a bridge. I have always found it easy to be a go-between, a link.
That is probably because I have two brothers, one younger and one older.
Oh, the neglected middle child, you’re probably thinking, but the fact is I have never felt neglected.
On the contrary. Because I am always in the middle of the sandwich, I have someone to learn from and someone to pass things on to.
This is exactly why I want to be a doctor.
I would like to be a bridge to get medicine to the people who need it.
I would like to learn to help others. At this point, I could write about how fascinated I am by the human body and the miraculous way the heart beats and the mind thinks.
That would all be true, but I think it is the most basic prerequisite for wanting to do this job.
And I am aware that there are very many young people who want that.
But those are not the only reasons why I am a good candidate.
My reasons are the people I was lucky enough to meet as a child.
Thanks to my parents, I grew up in eight different countries.
I therefore speak six languages, three of them fluently.
They also acted as bridges between me and my surroundings.
They enabled me to satisfy my curiosity and expand my knowledge.
Going to a boarding school has taught me to be independent, to take responsibility for myself and my brothers, and also for my fellow pupils through my work in the sick bay and on the peer mediation team.
I keep reading Maeve’s words about her A levels and the volunteering she did during the holidays. It feels like a part of her that I can hold on to.
I like to imagine myself as a bridge.
That really was Maeve. A bridge-builder, a mediator, the person I always wanted to tell everything to. And she always will be.
I lower the paper and look up into the sunset-painted sky.
Maeve never saw me play in my first rugby match; she won’t be there for my prom or able to show me around St. Andrews in my first year.
And that hurts, but this pain has belonged to me for a while now, just as Maeve always will.
I will no longer fight it. I will live with it.
Today’s a day when I’m confident that I can do this.