Charles by Con Riley
2
After arriving for his interview, Charles was left cooling his heels for ages, as if he’d missed his timeslot.
That sparked a minor panic—it wouldn’t have been the first time he’d messed up an appointment by transposing numbers. Had he read the time wrong? Should he have come at one o’clock instead of three?
He checked the email invitation on his phone. No, it definitely said 15:00 not 13:00. He was on time, thank God.
The interviews must have been overrunning. But that didn’t explain why candidates who had arrived after him had been called in before him. He couldn’t think of an answer to explain that, so he shot a text to Keir to keep busy, letting autocorrect fix his errors.
Charles: At a job interview. Cross everything for me!
Then he silenced his phone, and waited some more until nerves made sitting impossible. He paced the corridor, but then came to a halt, one ear cocked towards the sound of talking. Charles drifted to a doorway, the nameplate familiar from long waits outside his prep-school headmaster’s study.
Knock and wait.
Dread curled around his ankles, like it used to.
Maybe you should have tried harder with your schoolwork, he heard in George’s voice.
No, Charles thought in return, his jaw squaring like his brother’s. They were the ones who should have tried harder. I needed support, not detention. He lifted his hand to knock just as he heard the voice inside say, “Goodbye, Miss Godalming.”
Why was the headmaster here talking to her when Charles had left her name off his CV?
Surprised, he knocked on the door much louder than he’d intended.
“Enter.”
Charles did, shaken, but trying not to show it. “Charles Heppel.” He extended his hand, willing it to stay steady. This headmaster was younger than the one who used to give him the jitters, but he’d mastered looking as icy.
“Luke Lawson.” He gestured to a seat across from his desk. “I was about to call you in, Mr Heppel.” His cool tone gave nothing away until he added, “I hadn’t intended to keep you waiting for quite so long.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Charles said, even though the delay had tied him in knots. Hadn’t he just had a time-related panic as well? Sympathy made that easier to admit to. “I thought I’d missed the interview completely. Wouldn’t be the first time the twenty-four hour clock’s given me trouble.”
“Trouble?”
“Yes. When I’ve muddled the numbers?” Charles saw the headmaster’s eyes narrow, realised he’d admitted a shortcoming, so hurried to move on. “Thank you for the opportunity to interview here at—”
His mind went blank.
Think, he told himself, stamping on another old, familiar panic.
How could he forget the name of a school whose website he’d scrolled through for weeks, increasingly certain it was the right place for him?
Or, don’t think, he ordered himself next. Remember the website photos instead.
He racked his brain, recalling an aerial image of this granite building and the wooded valley that ran between it and Keir’s new base at a care home called the—
“Haven,” he blurted. His brain grabbed that word and ran with it. “The school’s name means haven, only in Cornish.” He squinted, straining, finally stuttering, “H-Harber…?”
“That’s half of it,” the headmaster said, studying Charles in a way that brought back so many other times he’d squirmed in front of teachers. Instead of meeting this one’s eye, Charles stared out of the window, embarrassed by his struggle. Outside, the woods stood, thick and verdant. Woods that the website had also translated.
“Glynn!” Charles almost shouted, relief coursing through him. “Glynn means deep woods in Cornish. Harber means haven. This is Glynn Harber.” A haven in the woods, the website had promised; a very special private school where child’s play was celebrated.
The headmaster blinked, an eyebrow arching, an unwelcome reminder of his brother.
“Yes,” Charles said, as if answering a question. “I’m very pleased to be here at Glynn Harber,” he finished, exhausted before the interview had even started. He glanced back at the door. “I did worry that you might have forgotten me.”
“That’s interesting, Mr Heppel, because it seems that you’re a hard man to forget.”
Charles smiled, having heard the same from hook-ups angling for a second date. That smile soon faded because the headmaster had a different interpretation. He turned his laptop towards Charles, his CV on its screen, and then steepled his fingers. “And that’s why I’m not certain you’d be a good fit here.”
Disappointment shouldn’t have been so crushing. Not after so much practice at crashing and burning during interviews for permanent positions, temp jobs all he was ever offered, trials that never extended.
Charles drew on reserves close to depletion. “May I at least meet the children? If you saw me working—”
“Not possible, I’m afraid.” The headmaster inclined his head to the window, offering an angled profile that Charles might have found sexy if the circumstances had been different. “You’ve just missed them. They’re off for a Forest School session.”
“Oh.” Charles spied a line of little children following their teacher, who waddled, looking heavily pregnant. “Forest School is my favourite.”
The headmaster consulted his laptop again. “Along with music, art, and drama? Your CV suggests those are your strong points.”
“Yes!” Charles nodded, enthusiasm lifting his hopes even though the outlook seemed dire. “Yes, to all of that. Getting messy and making noise is so important for—”
“What’s important is that the children here are nurtured by professionals,” the headmaster insisted. “Reliable ones. Your CV also suggests an extraordinarily high number of past jobs.” He made Charles trying and failing to find his best fit sound problematic. “That’s what made me think twice, and then I looked you up on LinkedIn. Strange how your CV didn’t mention the last school you left, so I called them. Miss Godalming had a lot to tell me.”
Shit.
Charles could only imagine the reference she’d given. “I am a professional. One whose focus is play,” he insisted. “That’s why I know the children at my last school needed to learn through their senses. Through making noise and getting messy. They didn’t get to do that. They were barely five-years old—” He managed to stop before tagging on a heartfelt for fuck sake. “Some were only four, but she insisted they learn in silence.”
The headmaster said nothing in the face of his outburst, inscrutable.
Charles wrestled with a sudden flare of irritation. “That’s why I applied here. It seemed like you get it. Understand that the best early learning comes through play, I mean, instead of seeing children as fodder for a sausage factory like Miss Godawful—”
The headmaster’s eyebrow arched even higher.
Shit and fuck and bollocks. Shut up, will you, Heppel?
He ignored his own order, because why not, when he’d already blown it.
“Listen, I went to one of the very best prep schools in the country. All I learned there was that having the word honourable in front of my name was my only value. But being the son of an earl couldn’t help me pass a single exam, and let me tell you, as an undiagnosed dyslexic that was crushing.”
Heat flashed to his cheeks, all those awful moments of being called on in class and failing, flaring. “On paper, it was one of the best schools in the country, but I felt stupid almost every day there, and that’s shameful.”
The headmaster leaned forwards as if to speak, which spurred Charles to finish.
“It didn’t have to be that way,” he said, his voice bleak. “Making sure it isn’t for other children is worth standing up for.”
His last hopes sank as the headmaster looked at his watch and stood just like Charles did before one-night-stands got a chance to get too comfy.
“Listen,” Charles made a last-ditch effort. He pointed at the window. “If the job was to help the teacher who I just saw go into the woods, it looks like she could do with a hand sooner rather than later. I mean, is she able to manage all of them on her own, out of the classroom?” He’d needed eyes in the back of his head to watch half that number.
“Ruth isn’t on her own. She has a gap-year student to help her.”
That wasn’t what Charles had witnessed, but arguing seemed pointless. He made an offer instead. “I’m staying nearby”—or he would be the moment Keir knew he was here—“so I’ve got the time to help out. Even if it’s just for a day, why don’t you see me in action before you make your final decision?”
The headmaster faltered, glancing back at the CV on his laptop before he straightened, stern again, his decision made, Charles was almost certain.
Dammit, dammit, dammit.
More disappointment washed in, only deeper, much deeper, this time, but a Heppel streak of pure grit wouldn’t let it drown him.
“Okay. You’ve made up your mind. I can see that.” Charles walked to the door, but he delivered a slice of the truth as he saw it before leaving, way past worrying about burning any last bridges. He could almost hear his best friend telling him to breathe rather than blow up, but Charles was done, so done, with feeling worthless. “I only hope that if any of the children here struggle like I did, that you’d want better for them.”
The headmaster held the door open. “Listen,” he said, still stern but not quite as forbidding. “I have to protect the children. Follow up on references. You understand that, don’t you? You don’t even have a formal teaching qualification.”
“No, I don’t. Undiagnosed dyslexia, remember? Maybe things would have been different if….”
There was no point in looking backwards.
“But I didn’t let that stop me following my passion. I took a different approach, finding volunteer spots in places that worked with children, instead of against them.” He met the headmaster’s gaze and held it. “I took inner-city temp jobs that no-one else wanted, and I learned by watching brilliant teachers, right up until I took my last position.” At least those memories meant he could leave now with a bright smile, even if it felt brittle. “Check my other references, if you want to hear about what they thought of me.”
His smile stayed in place on his way out through oak-panelled hallways, reflected by the glass of trophy cases, lasting until he made it out of the building’s front door and onto its driveway.
Charles glanced back, taking a last look at Glynn Harber.
The granite building was uncompromising, but somewhere inside, a choir practiced, little voices fluting, off-key but lovely. The sound of ‘This little light of mine’ followed Charles as he walked away, passing an outdoor classroom, more evidence that children got to learn here through all of their senses.
He would have loved to work somewhere like this.
Loved to.
Charles trudged away, knowing it would take more than wild horses to make that happen.
Get to work at Glynn Harber?
He’d need divine intervention.
* * *
Charles thought twice about drivingto Keir’s place right away, but didn’t dare risk it while adrenaline still made his hands shake. He left the Defender in the car park and followed signs to a woodland footpath instead, hoping a walk might clear his head, but as if summoned by his bleak mood, a rain shower started. Charles sheltered under a tree and pulled out his phone, only to see that Keir had replied to his last message while his phone had been silenced.
Keir: An interview? Where?
Charles leant against the tree trunk and answered.
Charles: Glynn Harber.
Keir: Really? That’s only two minutes away! Be brilliant to have you so close.
He couldn’t make himself tell Keir how badly the interview had gone. Instead, he did the British thing and focussed on the weather.
Charles: Be even more brilliant if it hadn’t started to piss down the minute I decided to take a walk in the woods.
Keir: The woods between the school and the Haven? Go shelter in the chapel. His Holy Hotness won’t mind if you wait out the rain there.
His Holy Hotness?
Charles pictured their old school chaplain, who could have given a raisin a run for its wrinkled money. Another message from Keir appeared just as Charles spied the chapel he’d mentioned.
Keir: It’s going to be so good to have you next door.
Keir: Don’t let it go to your head, but I’ve even missed you slutting it up in my spare bedroom.
Slutting it up couldn’t have been further from his agenda, right now. Not while Charles still dripped with disappointment. Water also dripped from the tree he stood under. Another message arrived just as the rain started to pelt down.
Keir: Charles… It did go well, didn’t it?
He couldn’t make himself answer. He sent a last message, and then jogged to the chapel.
Charles: Tell you when I see you. Don’t come out in the rain to meet me. I’ll drive over to you as soon as it stops.
He slipped his phone away, and tried the chapel door, pulling it closed behind him. This was a simpler building than at his own school. Less ornate, but that simplicity soothed him. So did seeing a familiar curtained arrangement dividing two seats.
His school padre used to listen to all of his childhood sins and secrets behind a similar piece of fabric. Charles took the farthest seat and fingered the curtain before pulling it around him. At least if Keir ignored his don’t come instruction, as he more than half expected, he’d have a few private seconds to pull himself together.
Alone with his thoughts, Charles sat with his disappointment.
He’d rally, in a minute.
Pull himself back together.
But for now. Here. He let himself be honest.
I wanted this job so much.
The click of the door a few minutes later didn’t surprise him. Nor did the sound of footsteps approaching. A wave of fondness swept through him as he listened to Keir walk much more slowly than usual, as though he’d guessed Charles needed a moment. By the time Keir took the seat on the far side of the curtain, Charles found the strength to joke with him, like usual.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” he said in a stage whisper. “It’s been…” He paused as though thinking. “Hang on. I’m going to need to take my shoes and socks off.” He muttered, counting, “Nineteen, twenty, yes, it’s been twenty years since my last confession.”
He heard Keir draw in a quick breath, but Charles continued, determined to distract him from asking about an interview that had gone so badly.
“Father, first I need to confess about all of the sex I’ve had before marriage.”
That indrawn breath turned into a gasp.
Making Keir laugh always made him feel so much better. “I know,” Charles said. “It’s a lot, and we probably don’t have time for a complete run-through, but would you pass on my thanks for making me both gay and a magnet to men? Especially to the ones I like best—allergic to commitment, like me? It’s made being a man-whore so much easier.”
Did Keir just stifle a laugh? Charles worked harder to make sure, revisiting thoughts he’d had while on his knees that morning.
“Oh, and Father? Could you extend my thanks for my prostate too? Should have mentioned that first. God truly is good. Apart from when he graced me with all those crabs in Ibiza. Could have done without that gift, to be honest.”
“Now, wait,” Keir said from the far side of the curtain, his voice strangled.
“Hush,” Charles said, his spirits rising now he’d made Keir choke with laughter. “I’m not finished confessing.” He pictured a face he knew as well as his own, and kept going. “Don’t stop me now. I’ve barely got started. There’s still a lot to get through. Okay, sex before marriage was first on my naughty list. Second, I’m deeply sorry that George’s adviser is going to discover all of those old wank mags we found in the attics. Who knew there was so much pubic hair in the 80s?”
This time, Keir didn’t just choke. He tried to pull back the curtain.
Charles grabbed his side of the fabric and held tight, laughter finally bubbling, and didn’t that feel better?
“Wait, Keir,” he ordered while laughing. “That poor man will have to wonder forever about the pages you tore out. The ones you hid under your mattress when we shared a bedroom on the nursery floor, remember?” He lowered his voice, “I’m the only one who knows that your thing for big men with huge choppers started way before you met the lumberjack you’re shacked up with.”
Keir being happy lately flooded Charles with so much joy he had to make a real confession.
“Truthfully, I do need to confess something important. Please let me just say it.”
The grip on the far side of the curtain released. Now all Charles heard was Keir’s steady breathing.
“We both know the Heppel family motto,” Charles said. “Lord knows I’m as loyal as a Labrador to you, but I think I’m done with persevering. And no one wants my service. I fucked up the interview by leaving my last job off my CV. George is right. I do need to give up on working in schools.” The curtain must’ve been dusty because Charles sniffed and blinked a few times. “I really wanted the job here. But part of me knows it wouldn’t last, and that another short-term job would only hurt too much, like last time. ”
Keir let him speak, Charles grateful as ever for his friend who never pushed for details. It made giving them up so much easier.
“You’re being a very good listener,” Charles told him, his voice shaky. “Keep it up so I can finish, okay?” He took a deep breath, annoyed with himself that his confession came out sounding ragged. “You see, it keeps getting harder to do this. Keir. I get to know the children, and learn all their maggoty ways. Then I have to leave them. I never, ever get to see any of them flourish. Grow their little wings and take off.” He blinked some more, his heart heavy. “But no one will take a chance on a dyslexic like me, long-term, will they?”
It wasn’t Keir’s voice that answered.
“I’m sure that’s not true.”
The man who pulled the curtain partway back didn’t look like Keir either.
His dark hair was the only similarity, his face much more austere, but arresting. Stern, while most of it was in shadow.
Charles replayed his confession in horror.
“You’re not….”
“Whoever you thought I was? No. No, I’m not.”
“Oh, God.”
“Not him either. Sorry.”
“I thought you were—” Words deserted Charles like they had in the headmaster’s office.
“Who else were you expecting to find in a chapel?” The man beside him rummaged in his jacket pocket, pulling out a pocket bible.
“Shit,” Charles said faintly. “You’re his Holy Hotness.”
“Well, I’m more used to being called padre by the children.”
He pulled the curtain back farther, more light showing eyes that shone with compassion. It also spot-lit a scar. One that sliced from his eye to the corner of his mouth.
“But no matter who you thought I was,” the padre offered, “if it helps, you could finish your confession?”