‘This book is boring.’ She throws it on the floor as she starts to shuffle off the bed. ‘Can we play witches’ school instead?’
‘We can play whatever you want.’
While Greer is cutting out a green frog for her cauldron and Heath is flicking through a magazine at the table, Rosie comes into the kitchen. She’s showered, perfumed, dressed for work and is moving quickly. The Monday morning panic snapping at her heels, she’s already fighting the brand-new week.
‘Where’s Sylv?’ she asks Seb, her voice crackling with tension.
‘She’s not down yet.’
Rosie tuts and turns to the bottom of the stairs. ‘Sylv, you up?’
Sylvie shouts something indecipherable back, which makes Rosie tut again. Seb moves to the kitchen door. He asks quietly, ‘I thought maybe we could not go to work today?’
She looks at him, but he can tell she can’t see him; she’s blind with anger. ‘Why?’
‘I was thinking we could talk …’
She looks like she wants to spit in his face. ‘I don’t want to talk.’ She pushes past him, reminding Heath, ‘Sweetheart, it’s Monday, you’re supposed to be in your football kit, remember?’
Sylvie finishes her geography homework at the kitchen table while Seb changes into work trousers and a shirt. The thought of staying here, his betrayal everywhere, fills him with more dread than going out into the world. He’ll go to work. He loads the dishwasher while Sylvie looks up facts about volcanoes on his phone. ‘Oh, you got a new message, Dad. Auntie Anna says, “Seb, we need to talk …”’ she reads before he clumsily snatches the phone, knocking her hand too hard.
‘Ow, Daddy!’ She flinches dramatically, rubbing her arm, his phone clattering to the tiled floor. He picks it up but doesn’t read the message from Anna, lets it rest on top of the other unread messages and calls from Eddy.
‘Sorry, Sylv.’ His hand is shaking as he comes towards her, reaching to touch her, but she pushes him away before leaving to walk to school.
When Seb opens the front door, their neighbour Martin is shepherding his daughters along the bumpy pavement on their pink bikes.
‘Morning, Seb!’ Martin says, smiling from his crouched position next to his youngest, who is balanced on stabilizers at a precarious angle. ‘Good weekend?’
Seb manages to nod and say, ‘Fine, thanks, Martin. You?’
Martin grimaces and says something about his in-laws before he stands up straight and shouts at his elder daughter, ‘Jessie, I asked you to wait!’
Seb gratefully turns left, away from Martin, taking the longer route to school.
He isn’t walking alone for long before Vita calls his name. ‘Sebbo!’ She crosses the road towards him, her son, Luca, silently following.
Seb looks at the squirming kid first. ‘Morning, Luca,’ he says while Vita arranges herself on Seb’s arm.
‘So, how was it?’
Seb, blank, replies, ‘How was what?’
‘PLATE!’ Vita squeals while simultaneously rolling her eyes. ‘I’m so jealous you got that reservation, but Anna’s always so on it, isn’t she …’ And while Vita witters away, they greet other parents. Seb scans their faces, and he is relieved to notice that nothing’s changed. Some, like Vita, perform friendship; others are slightly formal. The world is turning, just as it should, but no one else apart from Seb seems to notice the strange new tilt.
Mrs Greene is already at her desk and, like every morning, she stands to slide open her little glass doors fully as soon as she sees Seb. ‘Morning, Mr Kent,’ she says, smiling. She’s not once called him Seb.
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 …’