Chapter Forty
The staff meeting was dragging this evening, and Sylvie was feeling a little odd.
She wasn’t sure what was wrong, there was no identifiable symptom as such, but there was definitely something that wasn’t right somewhere, like that feeling her mother used to describe as someone walking over your grave.
A shiver for no reason. A frisson of unexplained anxiety.
All she knew for sure was that she was desperate to get to Alex’s, grab Sam and head home.
She had never felt this way before about the school, but this evening she really didn’t want to be here.
It didn’t help that the school phone had been ringing off the hook in the office but with Sheila gone home there was no one to transfer the calls through. Whatever was making Sylvie antsy this afternoon, the constant shrill bring-bring of the telephone wasn’t helping.
‘Right, I think that’s us all done, and I’m sorry it’s dragged this evening.
But you know what this term is like with the run-up to December, there are a hundred and one things to organize, which is why I appreciate all the teaching assistants joining us this evening, thank you.
But I reckon we’ve done enough for now, so let’s get home.
’ Rosy smiled around the table at her staff, shuffled her papers back into a tidy pile and Sylvie felt a breath of relief whoosh out of her mouth.
‘Oh, apart from Sylvie. Sylvie, do you mind if we have a quick word before you go?’
‘Of course, no problem.’ Sylvie smiled, using up every last professional bit of her.
Suddenly they heard a door bang and the huffing of someone running along the corridor, the staff’s low-level mumbles paused as they heard the thud-thud-thud pound urgently along the corridor.
The door swung open and there was Marion Marksharp, slightly dishevelled, panting heavily and looking as if she’d been crying.
‘I’m so… so…’ She seemed unable to formulate words into a coherent sentence. ‘I’ve been… been…’
‘Marion, for goodness’ sake, sit down, breathe. Now what on earth has happened?’ Rosy took immediate control of the situation but Sylvie felt an awful sense of foreboding creeping up her neck, crawling into her head and making her brain fuzzy.
‘Marion, what is it? Just tell us what on earth has happened,’ she barked sharply, the words staccato, and the head of every member of staff turned around in response to the unflappable Sylvie being so curt. ‘Marion? I’m serious.’
‘Sylvie, I’m sorry, all my fault…’
Marion’s boys burst into the staffroom.
‘Don’t be cross with her. It wasn’t Mum’s fault, honest, it wasn’t. It was just an accident.’
‘Rafe, what has happened?’
‘It’s Sam, Miss Winter. I’m sorry, Miss Williams, it was an accident, Mum’s been trying to get hold of you for ages. But your mobile kept going to voicemail and no one was answering the school phone.’
Sylvie gulped, trying to get some air into her lungs as the room began to spin.
An accident, Sam? Breathe in and out. Calm, she tried to tell herself, calm, you need to get to Sam, you need to be calm and get to Sam.
She felt her legs wobble and the next thing she knew she was grabbing the side of the table.
Grasping so hard that the wood almost felt soft in her hand.
‘What hospital, Marion?’
‘Roscarrock, minor injuries. We called the ambulance but by the time…’
Sylvie didn’t hear the rest of what was being said as she grabbed her bag and raced out of the school. Her car was at home. OK, someone would have a car. Who would have a car?
‘Sylvie, Sylvie.’ Rosy came running down the granite steps in front of the school. ‘Wait, let me drive you, it’s not sensible for you to drive.’
‘OK, where…’
‘It’s just here, come on, we’ll be there in a flash.’ The two women zoomed away from Penmenna School watched by the staff, each and every one of them praying that everything would be all right.