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My new book about FOUR events that happened to me in 1977!
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Chapter One
Teacher’s
Pet
It was a typical
Sunday morning as I sat on the leather three-seater sofa which was pressed
against the main wall in the living room. I casually thumbed my way through the
pages of a tabloid newspaper, The News of the World to be precise, the
occasional article catching my eye; ‘Suicide bomber kills twelve in Iraq’, ‘Superwoman
Nicola Horlick splits from husband’, ‘Goldman secretary gets seven years in
jail.’ In a world such as it was in 2004, there was nothing hugely out of the
ordinary, not until I turned page five and in one heart-stopping moment, came
face to face with something that brought my whole world to a complete
standstill, rendering me completely motionless.
The
faint whistle of a kettle coming to the boil in the adjacent kitchen was the
only sound penetrating the otherwise silent room, but the Sunday morning
tranquillity had already been shattered by the thundering in my head as I
stared in disbelief at the page in front of me, while the pages of my past were
torn apart by the revelations it contained.
It was the main
headline on page seven, normally a lucky number for me.
Not just the
headline though, it was the accompanying image, of a man with guilt engraved on
his face, that lured me in. The face of a man who had lured in many,
apparently. A face that was instantly recognisable to me. A face from my past.
A face I thought I’d forgotten.
“Fuck.” I whispered
to myself, as my body sank deep into the worn leather. I tried to swallow the
silence, as the words I’d just read took a moment to sink in.
An array of
multiple four-letter expletives exploded from inside me, as the story in front of
me catapulted me back to 1977 and brought blurred fragments of my past into
sharp focus.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”
I repeated out loud, thumping my bare right foot against the wooden floorboards
in unison with my curses.
“Baby, what is it?”
An anxious voice came from the narrow modern fitted kitchen where Kate, my
girlfriend of six months, had been preparing coffee and buttering croissants
for a very late breakfast. As she stepped out into the equally narrow hallway and
walked towards me, I noticed out of the corner of my eye, her shoulder length
blonde hair flicking from one side to the other across her makeup- less face.
She wore a pink track suit, but my eyes were transfixed by what I was reading
in black and white in front of me. I was vaguely aware of the aroma of the
freshly painted magnolia walls which seemed, at that moment, to be closing in
on me. I suddenly felt as though I was suffocating as I continued to stare in
disbelief at the letters, words, sentences and paragraphs before me.
“Baby, what is it,
what’s happened?” Her troubled voice spread through me like a knife slicing
butter, but so disturbed was I by what I was reading, I didn’t answer, I
couldn’t reply.
No words would
come, I was still trying to absorb what I’d just read.
“Baby, what’s
wrong?” Kate’s concern escalated to another level as she tried to grab my
attention, sitting next to me on the sofa and taking my right hand in both of
hers. But again, nothing from me in return.
I released my hand
from hers, spitting the word “Shit!” into my palms, as I covered my eyes with
both hands and pulled them back hard over my shaved head.
“Baby. Baby,” she
repeated. “Answer me, please. Please answer me, what is it?”
I said nothing. I
didn’t answer. I couldn’t, even though my mouth was ajar, nothing escaped,
apart from the words ‘fuck’ and ‘shit.’
“Please what is it?” She tried again to prise a response from me. But I couldn’t reply. It wasn’t that I was being rude or that I didn’t want to respond, I was quite simply struck dumb with the shock of what I’d read. Face down. Hands on my head. Elbows on my knees. I couldn’t move. Staring at what was before me. It felt like I was paralysed from the neck up, with ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’ being the only four-letter words that intermittently spewed from my mouth.
“Please what is it?” She tried again to prise a response from me. But I couldn’t reply. It wasn’t that I was being rude or that I didn’t want to respond, I was quite simply struck dumb with the shock of what I’d read. Face down. Hands on my head. Elbows on my knees. I couldn’t move. Staring at what was before me. It felt like I was paralysed from the neck up, with ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’ being the only four-letter words that intermittently spewed from my mouth.
“Baby, are you
okay, please answer me, please.” Kate’s tone became sterner, but with more
concern in her voice than anger.
Terror spread
through me as the words I’d read sank in and brought back memories which had
been lost to me, events which I’d forgotten, or had tried to forget. A period
of my life, twenty-seven years earlier, flashed in front of me, replayed in a
new and extremely disturbing light, and it was terrifying.
At that moment I
was completely overwhelmed by fear. Fear of what had been and in light of what
I’d just read, terror at what could have been.
Kate, ten years
younger than me, and a lookalike for actress Alicia Silverston, friends and
strangers alike were constantly telling her so, was startled by the sound of
skin to leather as I punched the sofa’s green fabric several times with my
right fist, leaving an indentation in the cushion and a red smear across my
knuckles. It was the beginning of summer. June 5th.
The sun beamed its
way across the slightly overgrown garden and through the open patio doors. The
temperature was now a notch or two higher inside the two-bedroom, mid-terrace
property I’d been renting for the past month in Exeter, Devon. The quaint
little house situated in a cul-de-sac, was among several similar properties on
a new development, established approximately fifteen months before.
It was the second
house I’d rented since I’d moved out, thirteen months before, from the family
home in a small village, three miles away. Divorce had been on the cards for
several years. I’d stayed because of the children, my three beautiful children,
but the relationship with my wife had been at boiling point and I didn’t want
the frosty atmosphere to spill over to the children. I’d stayed in the area, so
I could still see the kids, my business was there too and that’s how I’d met
Kate. She lived on the road in which my office was situated, close to a large
park, on the corner of a residential tree-lined road, but adjacent to a busy
roundabout called the Clock Tower.
I’d moved there
three months previously, from a smaller office that was within a period
building, on an attractive cobbled alleyway, a little further up in the centre
of Exeter. Kate had to walk past my new spacious, double-aspect windowed
premises every day, as she went to work in the city at the Royal Clarence Hotel,
overlooking the cathedral and the green. So, every morning at around nine
fifteen and each evening at around five forty-five, like clockwork, I would relocate
from my own office at the back, into the front area, to sit at one of the
window desks. I would act like I was busy, you know, trying not to be too
desperate, and we would glance at each other, have a little more eye contact, together
with a little more of a smile, a little conversation outside and then inside
the office, and so began a little friendship, which soon blossomed in to a
relationship.
“Sorry baby. I'm so
sorry, it’s just, just that I'm reading something, and I can’t believe what I’m
reading,” I replied to her eventually, still in shock. She was happy for that,
and I continued, shaking my head with disbelief. “And I c-can’t, can’t believe
it and c-can’t believe that its him, or c-can I? I don’t know.” I continued
with a slight stutter. A stutter that I’d grown up with after hitting my
teenage years. A speech impediment I thought I’d left behind decades ago, but
at that very moment it was another thing that came back to haunt me.
“Reading what and
who, what do you mean, him? Who are you talking about baby, what are you
talking about?” Kate quizzed, waiting for an answer from me, but carrying on
before I could reply. “Look at you, you’ve gone as white as a sheet, like
you’ve seen a ghost or something.”
I took a deep
breath and blew out my cheeks, exasperated.
“It definitely
feels like my past has come back to haunt me.” I murmured as I turned to look
into her crystal blue eyes.
Since we’d been
together most of our Sunday mornings had followed the ritual of waking up later
than usual, especially after a night out, which to be honest happened most
Saturday nights, grab a few kisses and cuddles, and eventually stumble out of
bed at around eleven.
Once up, we would
usually spend an hour or two reading the papers, purchased from the local
newsagent a stroll away on the corner of the road. We’d have breakfast and then
wander alongside the canal, pop into one of the many inviting pubs for a drink
and maybe for a spot of lunch and sit outside if the weather was kind. The
weather was kind today, but this particular Sunday turned out to be anything
but kind, or usual.
“What do you mean,
your past? What about your past? Please tell me baby.” She insisted with a
puzzled expression on her face.
“My past from when
I was at school.” I answered, clenching my fists, with the right fist still displaying
a red glow across the knuckles.
“Reading what, tell
me, tell me, what. What is it?” Her voice now also contained some anger, but I
couldn’t really blame her, all she wanted was an explanation.
“Hold on. Hold on.
I’ve just got to read it again.”
As I read the
article for the second or third time, shaking as I did, still not believing
what I was reading, small droplets of sweat trickled from my brow and
splattered onto the paper that was spread out on the carved oak coffee table.
Kate went back into the kitchen and returned with two mugs of coffee and a
plate of croissants that we’d bought earlier, along with the Sunday newspapers.
Totally oblivious
to what was hiding inside them.
By now I had completely
lost my appetite.
Taking a sip of
much needed coffee, Kate tenderly massaged the top of my hand and then
interlocked her left hand within my right, holding it tightly.
“Is this what
you’re reading baby, this?” She said looking at the police mugshot of a man in
his late sixties.
“Yes. Yes, I am.” I
replied with an additional nod of the head, still trembling all over.
She noticed.
“God, you’re
shaking all over baby.” She turned to look at me.
“Do you know him?”
I took a deep
breath,
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
There was a pause
for a moment or two as Kate read the story in silence, in the biggest selling
Sunday newspaper in the UK. As she read, her facial expressions registered and
reflected every word, every sentence and every paragraph.
“Fuck! Baby!” was
her first reaction.
“I know. Fuck
indeed.”
“How do you know
this bastard?”
“Well.” I swallowed
and paused again for a second, “He was my music teacher.”
“What!” She
squealed as she let go of my hand and turned to look at me again.
“Like I said, he
was my music teacher. At school. From the age of around eleven till I left at
sixteen, well fifteen and a half actually, where I grew up, in Edgware.”
“Your music
teacher?”
“Yes baby, my music
teacher.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
She clasped her
hand back into mine.
“Shit. And he did
this?”
“Well, I guess so,
it’s there in black and white, his name, the name of the school and everything.”
I replied, nodding towards the paper. His pasty, wide-eyed face stared back at me
with a look that made my skin crawl.
"But it says
that he was popular, well respected and everyone liked him, did you?"
"I liked him
as my teacher. I respected him for his music. I mean, he was on tour with an
opera company. He was highly thought of in his field, and he did take me under
his wing, so to speak."
"What do you
mean?"
"Well, he
always wanted me to sit next to him at his desk in the class during the
lessons, or by his side when he was playing the piano in the music room."
"What, like a
teacher’s pet?"
"I guess
so."
Removing my hand
from hers, I smothered my face with both of mine, at the same time closing my
eyes, to try and erase this moment, pressing into the sockets with the tips of
my fingers, not quite believing what I’d just read. I pressed harder, clenching
my eyes tighter, pushing them deeper within my skull, until darkness took over,
and a second or two later, a black and white light show dazzled me. I became
dizzy and unaware of my surroundings, but then I felt Kate's manicured hand
comforting my naked thigh. Her touch made me tingle. I needed her comfort at
that precise moment. She huddled closer to me on the sofa. I sensed her morning
breath, with a hint of coffee seducing the side of my face, and as she turned
to me, she whispered.
“Baby are you okay?”
Removing my hands
away from my face, my eyes still closed, mesmerised by the diminishing light
show before me, I nodded.
But I was far from
okay.
“Did anything, you
know, did anything happen to you. Did he touch you or something?” Kate questioned.
Taking another deep
breath and releasing my eyes, with the remains of the light show fading before
me, I tried to focus through blurred vision on the photo of this pathetic, but
once extremely well-respected teacher and pianist. His wide, shallow, glazed eyes,
hollow and riddled with guilt, no longer hiding his secret. Looking deep into
his pupils as they gaped at me in return, I reflected on my time at school, in
his office, in his lessons and most of all, the school trip to Switzerland.
“Baby talk to me,
please. I'm here for you, you know that, don’t you?”
Of course, I knew
she was, she had been for the past few months, but it was impossible to know
how to respond to her in this situation and I didn’t answer, I couldn’t. She
didn’t know what had happened. I hadn’t told her.
In fact, I hadn’t
told anyone.
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