‘Which are?’
‘Growth. Roots. Transformation.’ He said the words without pretension, like a shopping list. ‘The usual bollocks, except I mean it.’
Neil's mouth twitched. He caught it and disguised it with a sip of terrible coffee from the mug he was still holding.
‘Big themes for Year 7s.’
‘Big themes for anyone. That's the point.’ Rory shifted his weight, leaning one hip against the chair in front. The posture was open, relaxed. He took up space because he didn't know hownot to. ‘I'd rather aim high and get messy than play it safe and get something nobody gives a toss about. Wouldn't you?’
‘I'll send you an email about scope and timelines,’ Neil said. I'll send an email. A fire door slamming shut.
‘Grand.’ Rory pushed off the chair. ‘See you round, Mr Ashworth.’
He left. Neil stared at the space where he'd been. Turpentine hung in the air.
On the landing, he heard it before he got to the stair. Behind Rory's closed door: the sharp clean sound of a glass put down on a counter harder than a glass should be put down on a counter. Set down. Too firmly. A sound a hand made when it had decided not to throw something and was compensating. Neil stood with a hand on the banister and did not go back.
Sue materialised at his elbow. ‘He seems nice.’
‘Does he.’
‘Very… creative energy.’
‘He's the art teacher, Sue. One would hope.’
She gave him a look he didn't want to interpret and wandered off with a hobnob. Neil rinsed his mug, dried it, and walked to his classroom. Shut the door.
The classroom was as he'd left it. Desks in rows, whiteboard clean, pens sharpened and colour-sorted. The Lord of the Flies display on the back wall, laminated on a Saturday afternoon, holding up.
He sat down. Pressed both palms flat against the surface and breathed. The desk was cool. Solid. The one consistent surface in his life besides the kitchen counter. He'd sat here through four years of terms, marking thousands of essays, and the wood had absorbed all of it without complaint. The desk didn't judge. The desk didn't register when someone walked past your chair.
He'd been here before. The PE teacher in the sports hall. The father at the school gates. You noticed, you filed, you movedon. One more entry in a list that had never led anywhere that mattered.
He opened his markbook. Year 7 class lists. Twenty-eight names. He read each one, committed the syllables, assigned tentative seating plans. Adams, B. Front, needs glasses per the SENCO. Carol, J. Near the window but not next to Campbell, R. The familiar work of structuring, preparing. By the time he'd finished the second list, his pulse had returned to normal and his hands had stopped making fists.
Laptop next. Timetable. Schemes of work. All in place.
Except, flagged in yellow at the edge of the timetable: Courtyard mural project, cross-curricular involvement, English dept to liaise with Art dept for pupil writing component. Lead: R. Cavanaugh.
He closed the laptop harder than necessary.
Three-thirty. Year 1 parents at the gate. Phones out. Conversations mid-flow. The universal posture of adults who'd had six hours of freedom and weren't sure they were ready to give it back.
Neil stood apart, hands in trouser pockets. He'd spent the afternoon teaching Year 7 the difference between similes and metaphors, which had gone well until Jake Hargreaves asked if my brother is an absolute weapon counted as a metaphor and Neil had to concede that technically, yes, it did.
‘Is my nan a national treasure a metaphor too?’
‘That depends on whether your nan is literally stored in a museum.’
‘She's stored in Croydon.’
‘Then yes. Metaphor.’
The first children emerged in a stream of noise and rucksacks and artwork clutched in sticky fingers. He spotted Freddie mid-pack. Jumper tied around his waist despite the September chill, a sheet of paper held aloft like a battle standard, face flushed from a good first day.
Behind him, from the art annexe doorway, Rory Cavanaugh. Mid-sentence, one hand gesturing, talking to a cluster of small children who looked up at him the way they looked at Father Christmas and CBeebies presenters.
‘…and then you take the orange and the red and they make this mad colour called burnt sienna, which sounds like a pirate but it's actually a place in Italy…’
