Miss Chance by Simon Barnes

Author:Simon Barnes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2016-10-04T00:00:00+00:00

29

‘Toilets!’ Mark sang out the word, anagrammatising brilliantly. ‘Thomas Toilets, Thomas Toilets, Thomas Toilets!’ It was his pupils’ nickname for one of the great writers they were studying.

He picked up the sixteen copies of Selected Poems of, and put them down again. He wrote in the Resources Book that he had taken sixteen copies, and the date and the class and his name. Then he picked them up again, a small weight.

‘So many!’ he sang.

‘So many!

I had not thought death had undone

So many!’

He took the top copy from his pile and sent it spinning skyward with a flick of the wrist. He caught it with a pleasing snap. ‘You, Stetson!’ he sang. ‘You who were with me at the – hot gates!’

He was not alone. As he came from the storeroom to the small common room, he again found his disturbingly silent-footed deputy, Annette. Mark blushed foolishly.

‘So she’s come back to you?’

‘Oh, hello, Annette, sorry about that. Feeling a trifle silly this morning.’

‘I’m right, aren’t I?’

‘Oh, well – no, actually.’

‘Then who have you found to comfort you?’ Level brown eyes upon him, well aware that kindness makes you vulnerable.

‘Er – no one, actually.’

‘Sorry, Mark, didn’t mean to intrude, you don’t have to tell me. I enquire from the friendly interest and concern of a colleague.’

‘No, Annette, me that’s sorry, don’t mean to be rude. I mean, thank you for your concern. But the situation is just as it was.’

‘Then why the merry song?’

‘Well – it’s hard to explain, really. It’s just that, well, my horse is going really well and I’m frightfully bucked about it.’

‘Your horse?’ That silly girl and that fucking horse.

‘Yes, I have a horse and I ride it –’ saying it instead of her felt like a betrayal but how else to explain? ‘– and things have taken a turn for the better. And so I’m leaping about and singing foolish songs and so forth.’

She looked at him, head slightly on one side, and pushed a soft handful of her shortish brown hair back over her ear. A smile, almost an affectionate smile. ‘Mark, has it occurred to you that you are blinding yourself to the central emotional truths of your life?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘That’s all right then.’

Mark almost invited her for a drink after work. But he had to get to Radlett. Get some trotting poles down. Do some serious work. And Jan had promised to bring him a schedule of the local shows. Competition.

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