Three Hours(5)

They are well hidden behind the trees, surprisingly so. There’s a good chance that if her plan goes wrong and the gunmen come in and just have a quick look, they won’t be seen. A really good chance.

She goes from the auditorium to the foyer. This evening, two students were meant to stand by the auditorium doors, handing out Macbeth programmes to parents and staff.

There’s a bar area in the foyer and security doors to the glass corridor that links to Old School. A hundred feet long, the corridor goes through the woods and was designed so that people could come and go from the theatre to Old School without getting wet, and she’d been snarky about it – has no one ever heard of an umbrella? – but now it means escape and safety.

She’d hoped to see children and teachers running along the glass corridor through the woods to the sanctuary of the theatre. But the corridor is deserted, snow falling all around it. There are no lights shining at the other end from Old School; the door shut and the school in darkness.

There’s just Sally-Anne standing watch at their open doors holding a nail gun. She doubts a gunman will allow Sally-Anne near enough for her to fire nails at him but admires her pluck. Good grief, she’s using her grandmother’s war words; there’s a whole vocabulary to go with this new character she’s playing, although she’s starting to feel that this is her most real self; that how she has been to this point was a just a read-through for who she is now.

‘Anything?’ she asks Sally-Anne.

‘No. How are our kids doing?’

Daphne wonders if she imagined the stress Sally-Anne put on ‘our’, signalling where Daphne’s responsibilities should be; pointing out that the safest thing for their kids would be to lock the doors of the corridor their end and block off the means of escape for everyone in Old School. Sally-Anne could be holding the nail gun not because she’s plucky but because she’s protecting herself with the only available weapon. She’s worked with Sally-Anne for nearly four years, but you don’t know a person, she realizes, including yourself, not until the everyday is stripped away. Sweet young Sally-Anne could be anyone at all; colleagues who’ve worked together for years, friends, can be turned into strangers with one another.

‘Do you think the theatre is really that safe?’ Sally-Anne asks.

Because if the theatre isn’t ‘really that safe’, then they cannot offer a haven to the other teachers and students and so can lock their doors without any guilt.

‘Yes I do,’ she replies.

‘Good,’ Sally-Anne says. ‘We’ll wait then, as long as we have to.’

‘Birnam Wood have make-up on,’ Daphne says. ‘I wanted them to splodge on some camouflage but Joanna made up Caitlin like a wood nymph.’

Sally-Anne half laughs.

‘You think a nail gun will do any good?’ Daphne asks.

‘We can always hope. Might slow them down. I thought we should rig up the brightest lights and if we see the gunmen shine the lights in their eyes. It’ll blind them for a bit; buy us a few more minutes.’

Daphne likes the symbolism of blinding with light and feels ugly for doubting her.





2.


9.20 a.m.


Beth Alton is driving her Prius like a bat out of hell, Mum, down the country road, skidding on ice, righting the car and foot flat down again. School in lockdown. Told by a PTA group text, not Jamie. Hasn’t heard anything from Jamie. One hand holds her mobile to her ear, other on the steering wheel. Jamie still not answering; pick up, pick up, pick up.

You don’t let me drive like this, Mum, even on a farm track.

You’re a learner.

Dad’s going to be seriously unimpressed if you dent it.

I know.

Pretend it was someone in Waitrose’s car park again.

It was.

Jamie’s laughter.

All in her head.

His number goes through to message again: ‘Hey, it’s Jamie, leave me a message.’

‘Jamie, sweetheart, it’s Mum again. Are you okay? Please ring me.’

Why isn’t he answering?

Her mobile rings, a jolt of hope, but it’s her husband, Mike, that’s displayed.

‘Anything?’ Mike asks.

‘No.’

‘You know what he’s like with his mobile,’ Mike says.

‘But he’d phone, with this happening he’d phone us.’

‘I meant he forgets to charge it,’ Mike says. ‘Or leaves it somewhere. He was doing the dress rehearsal this morning, wasn’t he?’

Why does that matter?

‘He’ll be in the theatre,’ Mike says. ‘Safest place in the school. No windows. Like a bunker.’

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Yes, that’s where he’ll be.’

Thank God for Zac and even Victor, who she loathes but now forgives, because Victor and Zac are the reason that Jamie’s in the theatre, they’re the friends who persuaded him to join in the production of Macbeth, otherwise – she doesn’t want to think about otherwise. Safest place in the school.

‘I’m getting the train, should be at the station in an hour, but the snow’s making things slow.’

He’s in Bath, meant to be at a conference.

‘Okay.’

She ends the call. No missed call or message from Jamie. But he’s in the theatre, safe, Zac there too; all of them together.