Three Hours(4)

Jamie Alton was here earlier this morning but left at 8.15 to get the witches’ cauldron from the CDT room in New School, which means he’s safe, surely it does, because New School is right next to the road, easy as pie to evacuate everyone in New School, so no need to panic about Jamie.

Rafi Bukhari didn’t turn up at all this morning and he hasn’t texted. She has a huge soft spot for Rafi, nearly all of them do; everything he’s been through, and that smile and quick intelligence. Those liquid dark eyes, like a gazelle. Extraordinary, kind, beautiful boy. But he’s survived a boat in a storm and people smugglers; he has survived Assad and Daesh and Russian bombers, for heaven’s sakes; of all these children, the adults too, he knows how to look after himself.

But Tobias Fern. Anxiety for Tobias feels heavy and unwieldy, like a squirming toddler refusing to be put down, a feeling that is the opposite of Tobias himself: tall and slim, self-contained and private, a boy who only just tolerates being touched. Tobias sometimes loses track of where he’s meant to be and has been found wandering around the school campus with his noise-cancelling headphones. But he was looking pale yesterday, she commented on it to him, urging him to get a good night’s sleep, so she can allow herself to hope that his mother’s kept him home today and in all the chaos her message hasn’t got through.

No WhatsApp message from Sally-Anne in the foyer.

She goes backstage to check on the kids hiding behind her forest. Some are covered by evergreen spruces and are surprisingly well camouflaged, but others are sheltering behind deciduous leafless trees and their clothes and pale faces shine through.

‘Birnam Wood! You need to have make-up. Dirty faces, please.’

The woodland parts. Saplings are laid on the floor.

She hands out make-up cases. ‘Make each other’s faces grubby; browns and greens.’

They hurriedly put make-up on each other’s faces, fingers clumsy. Joanna starts on her friend Caitlin, neatly using a brush. Daphne thinks about telling Joanna just to slap it on, this is not the Make-up Design module of a GCSE drama exam, but suspects this is how Joanna is coping so will leave her be.

‘You’re in a safe place here,’ she says to them all. ‘There’s no windows and the doors are extra strong. There’s no way they will get to us.’

‘But you haven’t locked the doors to the corridor, have you?’ Luisa asks. Her twin brother, Frank, is in the library in Old School.

‘No,’ Daphne says. ‘I haven’t locked them. Right, once your make-up’s done, put on your costumes.’

Their costumes for Macbeth are brown hessian tunics, which are used pretty much for every production in some form or another. For Macbeth, they’re tied with rope round the waist as tunics. They’ll blend better behind the trees than colourful hoodies and T-shirts.

‘Are we going to rehearse?’ Joanna asks.

Mother of Mary, is Joanna even on this planet?

‘Maybe later,’ she says to Joanna.

‘Are Anna and Young Fry safe?’ Josh asks. ‘Have you heard?’

Seven-year-olds Anna and Davy, nicknamed Young Fry, are playing the Macduff children but weren’t due to be here till before their cue, in over an hour’s time.

‘They were doing art in New School this morning,’ she says. ‘So they’ll have been evacuated.’

‘You’re sure, Daphne?’ Josh asks her.

‘Yes, easy to evacuate New School.’

They all call her Daphne, which started when they were much younger because her surname is long and complicated, so they called her ‘Miss Daphne’, and then as they got older they dropped the ‘Miss’, and for heaven’s sakes, what does it matter what they call her? But it does. It’s like they trust her not to be separate from them, to level with them.

‘What about everyone else in Junior School?’ Antonella asks.

‘There will be a contingency plan,’ Daphne says, making it up as she goes along, not levelling with them, because what possible contingency plan can there be for everyone in Junior School, a remote building at the end of the drive, a mile from the road and help? She’s tried ringing colleagues in Junior School but nobody has answered. Focus on these children right now, because they’re the only ones you can help.

Boys and girls are changing in the same room, which wouldn’t normally happen. A few are clearly embarrassed and she’s heartened because they can’t be that afraid if they’re able to be self-conscious; though teenagers can probably be self-conscious in any situation.

‘Once you’re changed I want you behind the trees again. Become Birnam Wood! Method act a woodland!’

A few smiles. Brave kids.

She helps the last few camouflage their faces, the ones whose partner’s hands were shaking too much to do it.

‘Won’t be long now till the police are here,’ she says, because surely the police will help them soon. ‘This is just me being ultra-cautious; my OCD kicking in.’

She hides them behind the rows of saplings, then goes to the props rooms. The first one is locked and Jamie Alton has the key but the second larger one is unlocked and filled with more saplings. She drags them backstage. The bark splinters into her hands and they’re heavy. Last year, when their house was flooded out, Philip had called her a trooper and now she’s acting out that part because she doesn’t know what other part she can play that will be of any use to the children.