Charles by Con Riley

11

As the first two weeks in his new job passed, Charles wasn’t sure he’d ever settled in faster.

Where he’d half expected to feel out of place for a while, he fit into Ruth’s classroom routine with no trouble, both of them on the same child-led wavelength. Both of them also keeping a close eye on Tor, who was quieter than most of his peers for longer than Charles liked—more withdrawn, Ruth confessed to him, than after his father had first gone missing.

Charles watched Tor, finding ways with Ruth to involve him and keep him busy.

“Seems like the least we can do until….” Ruth said on the Friday afternoon of a second week that had flown by. She rubbed her belly, hands covering it as if that could shield her own child from the worries Tor had dealt with. “You’re very good with him.”

“Me?” Charles stopped cutting out the image of a bicycle he’d just printed.

“Yes.” Ruth pointed at his printout, the table between them littered with more bicycles Charles had cut out. “I heard what you asked him earlier. About what he liked doing best with his dad. Plenty of people would avoid the subject.”

“He needs to know he can talk about him. He said his dad was teaching him to ride before he was deployed.” Charles nudged his stack of pictures. “At least colouring in these gives him an excuse to talk about it. To remember what it felt like. You know? The wind in his face? The bike wobbling, and his dad right there with him? To look forwards to feeling all of that again soon, maybe?” Even remembering that conversation made his heart twinge, Tor seeming relieved to let out what he’d kept bottled. “He looked brighter after telling me all about it.”

“I noticed someone else has been looking brighter lately.”

“Who?” He scanned the classroom, a hive buzzing with the happy hum he’d heard on his first visit to Glynn Harber. “Maisie?” he asked quietly.

“No,” Ruth admitted. “The nanny who drops her off and collects her is cagey, so I’ve emailed her parents. Hopefully they’ll get back to me about whatever’s upset her.” She glanced to the doorway. “Watch.”

Charles did, and only a few moments later, saw Hugo walk past, his gait still slow, but so much better after a couple of weeks of taking it easy.

Ruth pressed her lips together before blurting, “That’s the third time he’s walked past this morning.”

“Is it?” Charles didn’t look away from the door; didn’t want Ruth to notice that a feeling he’d stoppered—or tried to, at least—still fizzed, conscious that what had provoked it had been a one-off.

“Yes.” Ruth picked up a black crayon and drew two stick figures on a scrap of paper. “And I noticed that he’s been coming with you to breakfast in the dining hall every morning, and then again for supper.”

“Why wouldn’t he? Have you seen the kitchen at the stables? It’s a glorified cupboard with a kettle.” He rubbed his stomach. “If I’ve got to keep up with these maggots all day, I need a full English inside me, and spotted dick for pudding.” He watched her draw a yellow circle above one of her stick figures. “What’s with the halo?”

“Oh, nothing important.” She gave him a sly look. “Only some people around here think it’s a bit of a miracle that you got him out of the stables.”

“He didn’t eat with everyone else before I got here?” That didn’t sit right with Charles. “Really?”

“Not until this week. I think there’s a book open on when you’ll get him to eat lunch with us as well.”

Charles opened his mouth, but didn’t answer, eyes drawn to the door, Hugo choosing that moment to walk past again. This time, he saw Charles, not quick enough to mask what looked like surprise at his wave, and perhaps pleasure. He gave an abrupt nod in return before Charles could decide, and strode off.

“I give him one more drive-by before he’s brave enough to come in to see you,” Ruth said.

“To see the children, you mean.” That would be good.

“Sure,” Ruth said, picking up a red crayon and drawing a love heart over the head of the taller stick figure. “‘To see the children’.”

Charles couldn’t help snorting. “I hardly think anything like that’s likely between us. Besides, aren’t”—he floundered for the right word—“relationships between staff frowned on?”

Ruth rubbed her belly. “Bit late if they are. Married to the sports master, remember? All this close proximity? It’s an aphrodisiac. Want my advice?”

Charles nodded.

“Always knock before going into any of the supply cupboards.” She winked. “It’s a wonder there’s anyone single left here. So, what do you think? Do you like him?” Her eyes twinkled, but Charles noticed that her hand hadn’t left her stomach.

“No comment.” That seemed the safest answer. He pushed his bicycle printouts towards her. “How about you finish cutting these out while I encourage everyone outside and keep them busy?” he offered. “If you sit here, you can see if they gang up on me.”

Her huff of relief was enough answer. Charles went outside, the children following, and as Ruth predicted, that was where Hugo found him a short while later, kneeling in the sandpit.

“Knock, knock,” he said by the gate. “What are you doing with that… is it guttering?”

“It is.” Charles stood, shaking sand from his trousers and crossed to unlatch the gate for him. “And we’re figuring out how to…. No, instead of me telling you, how about the children show you?” He knelt again in the sandpit with the group he’d played with, who all watched in silence, wary, apart from Tor who zoomed up to Hugo.

“Come and see our track, padre.” He tugged Hugo across to join them. “See, when Charles Heppel leans the track on his shoulder, the cars go farther. I wish I had more cars,” he said wistfully.

“Hang on.” Hugo dug into his jacket pocket, pulling out a handkerchief and a screwdriver before presenting a toy car to Tor. “Look, I found one on my walk this morning.”

Tor dropped the toy car into the elevated end of the guttering. It rattled its way down to the sand where it sped along before slowing. “See?”

“That did go far,” Hugo agreed.

Tor looked up to him, then looked back to the gutter, his face so expressive his thoughts were almost transparent. “I need something from inside,” he said, darting away again like a minnow, his friends shoaling behind him.

Charles stood again. “Could you see him thinking, just then? Makes getting sand in all of your crevices worth it.”

“What do you think he’s gone inside for?”

“That’s the brilliant part. I don’t know exactly, but I’ve got a pretty good idea because I’ve scaffolded him with it all week.”

“Scaffolded?” Hugo asked, squinting. “That’s….”

Charles named a play theorist he could pronounce, but couldn’t hope to spell in a month of Sundays. “Vygotsky.”

“Bless you.”

“Very funny.” But even that weak joke felt like winning to Charles. “I think he’s figuring out how to make his car go even faster and farther.”

A scraping sound came from the open classroom doorway, Tor pushing one of the few adult-size classroom chairs outside. Ruth and the rest of his gang followed. She said, “That chair’s making an awful scraping noise, Tor. Can you lift it instead of pushing?”

“Yes.” He tried, his little face straining. “But I can’t see where I’m going.”

Charles said, “I wonder if your friends could help you?”

What followed made Hugo’s whole smile appear in a slow spread that Charles found hard to look away from. “It’s like watching the Chuckle Brothers in action. ‘To me’,” Hugo quoted.

“‘To you’,” Charles answered, laughing, aware that Ruth grinned too in the periphery of his vision. “Pretty much sums up every day here. Non-stop comedy. I love it. Have loved every single minute.” He saw Ruth’s slight nod before she went back inside and left them to it.

“I didn’t realise they were so good at cooperating.” Hugo shifted, leaning on his stick, Charles noticed.

“Like I said, they can’t stay maggots forever.”

“They metamorphose,” Hugo remembered. “Where are they going with the chair though? Oh,” he said, surprised as it was brought over to him. “Is that for me?”

“If you sit, you can rest your poorly leg,” Tor said. Once Hugo sat, Tor reached up like he had in the woods, patting the scarred side of Hugo’s face. “Then it will get better, like your poorly face.”

That caught the rest of the children’s attention. One by one, they came to do some patting of their own, each one relating their own bumps and bruises to him.

Charles busied himself, but pride flared at seeing them include Hugo instead of shying away from him.

Tor finally lifted the length of guttering. “Can you hold this higher than Charles Heppel did? If you do, your car might win.” He scurried off for something else inside, his gang following.

“Cooperating, commiserating, negotiating,” Hugo said as he sat down and propped the guttering on his shoulder. “It’s not all glue and glitter, is it?”

“It really isn’t.” He beamed until he noticed Hugo staring. “What is it?” Charles brushed at his face, wondering if damp sand had dried there.

Hugo seemed to shake himself. “It’s nothing.” He moved, about to get up.

Charles reached out, his hand landing on Hugo’s uninjured knee. “Why not stay?”

“You want me to?”

Charles did.

He told himself it was because seeing the children warm up to Hugo worked on two levels—it was good practice for them to ask questions and then listen, Hugo a great role model, never hurrying their rambling stories. And it also met Luke’s make him happy agenda.

But the real truth was much simpler.

He liked seeing Hugo smile the way he did now, easy, as though his knee had finally stopped hurting. He watched that ease reach eyes that were clear today instead of pain-hazed; saw them focus only on him, concentrating, as if what Charles said was complex instead of simple.

Maybe that shouldn’t have mattered. Needn’t have sent a shiver through him. After all, catching men’s eyes hadn’t ever been a challenge.

But I didn’t care what they thought about me.

Charles ducked his head, patting the sand flat with the back of a spade rather than dig around that thought any deeper. He settled on saying, “Stay. I think Tor has big plans for you.”

“How is he?” Hugo asked.

Charles glanced back at the doorway. “He’s chattier today.” He shuffled closer and knelt at Hugo’s feet. “Do you know if something has happened? With his father, I mean? Have the family had some good news?”

Hugo shook his head as some of the children re-emerged from the classroom. “I’ll ask Luke, but I’m sure he would have told us if there was an update. We’d only hear if Tor’s father being retrieved was a certainty, not speculation.”

Retrievedsounded more complicated than found, the word Hugo had chosen on that first day in the woods to describe Tor, making Charles think it might take more than a shepherd with a crook to bring Tor’s father safely home to his fold.

This time, his shiver came with a flock of goosebumps, which Hugo noticed.

“They won’t stop looking for him.”

That made it easier for Charles to admit his worries. “But, what if….”

“If isn’t in our hands,” Hugo said simply. “You can let that go, Charles.” He waited until Charles nodded. “But, if we need to, then we’ll support Tor together. All of us will in his school family. He won’t be alone with it, not while we’re all with him.” He said that with so much calm assurance that Charles caught himself almost asking why Hugo thought he didn’t have a place here.

Why did he seem so sure he had nothing to offer at Glynn Harber?

Charles wondered that as Tor came back wearing one of the grown-up jackets from the dressing up corner, its pockets bulging. He’d also found a stick to lean on, mirroring Hugo’s limp.

Charles had to press his lips together to keep from laughing. “I think you’ve got a new fan.”

Hugo watched Tor hobble between his friends, dispensing gifts from his pockets—a counting bear, a crayon, a piece of cake from the toy kitchen. “The word new suggests I had a fan already.” He looked back, perhaps realising Charles counted himself in that number. “Oh—”

Tor interrupted a moment that Charles wasn’t sure he knew how to label. “I’m a padre,” Tor said, growling in an approximation of Hugo’s low-pitched rumble. “Guess what’s in my pocket,” he demanded, patting where it bulged like Hugo’s.

Hugo went first. “Is it a tube of Pringles? My friend Justin usually brings me some. Did you hear my tummy rumbling?”

“No,” Tor growled, but he had to cover his mouth with his hand to keep a smile from showing.

Charles saw an opening and grabbed it. “You should come and sit with us next week at lunchtime. The cooks always give us seconds.”

Hugo didn’t get to answer. One of Tor’s friends interrupted. “Is it a compass in your pocket, Tor?”

Charles explained. “We learned about the other tors this morning. The ones up on the moors. Some of the sixth-form students came in to show us the maps they’ll use on their High Tor challenge, didn’t they?”

Tor nodded, then shook his head. “They did, but it’s not a compass in my pocket.” He covered his mouth again, but this time it was to mask a whisper to Hugo that Charles had no trouble overhearing. “Charles Heppel couldn’t make his compass work. Or fold the map back up. He got cross and had to go and sit in the thinking corner.”

“Oh dear,” Hugo said, stifling a smile. “Not the thinking corner!”

“I sat with him,” Tor hurried to add. “He wasn’t lonely.”

“That was kind of you.”

“Now hurry before my mummy comes to get me.” Tor reverted to his grown-up growl. “Guess what’s in my pocket!”

Hugo closed his eyes, seeming to think hard, making that constipated face again until Tor giggled. “Is it… a lamb?” Hugo asked only for Tor’s eyes to widen and his voice to revert to normal, if a touch higher pitched than usual.

“How did you know?” Somehow, his eyes widened even farther. “Did God tell you?” Before Hugo could answer, Tor said, “I talk to him with Mummy every bedtime, but he doesn’t listen.” Resignation bowed his small shoulders. “He can’t, or I’d have my daddy.”

Charles inhaled, about to steer a conversation away from a question that none of them could answer, but Hugo got there before he could.

“I’m listening, Tor. Charles Heppel is too.” There was no reason why Hugo using his full name like Tor always did should mean a lot, but it did, again showing how closely he listened. Hugo continued by scooping up a handful of sand. “God must have a lot of voices to hear.” He held out his full palm, poking through the sand. “More voices than all of the grains of sand in my hand. Can you count them?”

Tor poked too, holding up a finger to count each grain stuck to it, shaking his head once he got to twenty. “It’s too many.” He frowned. “How can he hear all those voices?”

“I think he does the same as you, Tor. Didn’t you just give everyone here something from your pocket?”

“Sharing,” Tor said, nodding.

“Sharing,” Hugo agreed. “I think that’s why God made teachers and padres. That way there are more ears to listen. I have faith that he hears you, Tor, but I also believe that he wants us to listen to you as well.” He studied Tor’s face, his own creased with care. “Maybe the thinking corner would be a good place, if you want to share with me now before it’s home time?”

Charles sat in the sand pit, watching Hugo being led away by Tor, and wondered again how the hell Hugo could think he wasn’t cut out for this.

That feeling lasted after Hugo returned, the school bell ringing for home time, the children collected by their parents and carers. Tor waved before leaving, looking brighter—lighter—skipping ahead of his mother.

“I thought you said you weren’t any good with younger children?”

Hugo blinked across the sandpit at him. “Maybe I was just out of practice.” His gaze settled on Tor heading for the car park, his corn-silk hair catching the sun, a beacon against the deep green of the woods. “He’s quite a leader with his friends, isn’t he? They flock to him.”

They’d flock to Hugo too, Charles thought, if he came back more often. “Come and do this again next week.”

“This?” Hugo held up one of a lapful of toy cars and farm animals he’d accumulated, and for one heart-sinking moment, Charles expected him to liken what he’d witnessed here as child’s play—as nothing important—but Hugo said, “Seeing them in action…. I thought it was all….”

“Glue and glitter?”

“No,” Hugo said. “It’s actually science and mathematics. Teamwork and creativity. They’re all problem-solving. Every single minute.”

It didn’t matter that Charles had grown up with money. Hearing what he loved being valued meant he felt wealthy for the first time.

It was a first that he almost wanted to dig a hole in the sand to bury, hiding Hugo’s words like they were treasure—hoard them to unearth when his time here was all over.

He didn’t want to think about that yet.

He focussed on Hugo, who sat with his back to the sun, auburn at the tips of his dark hair like licks of flame he hadn’t noticed before this moment, and a corresponding flicker of sparks filled his stomach. “Hey,” Charles blurted. “Do you want to go out with me?”

“Me?”

Hugo looking over his shoulder would’ve been comical if Charles didn’t feel as though a crevasse had opened, his toes so close to its edge that falling felt certain.

Inevitable.

His heart skipped beats until Hugo said, “I’d love to. Where?”

“The pub? The one that Luke mentioned when he caught us—”

“Netflix and chilling?” Amusement curved half of Hugo’s mouth. “One of the sixth-form students told me what it meant after I told his whole class it was what we’d been up to every evening since you got here.” He did check over his shoulder then, the outdoor classroom empty. “You could have told me it meant having sex.” The rest of his face caught up, his smile small but complete. “So… when do you want to do it?”

“When do I want to have sex with you?” Charles asked faintly.

Maybe prayers did get answered, because going for this long between a first kiss and fucking was miraculous by his standards—a whole fourteen days longer than usual. And he had been thinking of it that way, he realised. Had wished their goodbye kiss had been a first one instead of a last. Had done so from that moment when their mouths had met, lighting a fire that still smouldered.

Hugo’s small smile widened. “Well I had meant, when do you want to go to the pub?”

“Oh.” Charles took a subconscious step back from an edge he could have oh so easily toppled over. “Sorry. Tonight? We could go early, so you’re home in time for your painkillers.”

“I don’t need them. Not now. And don’t be sorry.”

Hugo got up from his chair, and Charles rose too, offering an arm that Hugo took, even though he had a stick to lean on.

“I’m already looking forward to it,” he said, leaving Charles none the wiser about what exactly.