Charles by Con Riley

5

Amuch shorter and more direct walk later, Hugo used his stick for a last time to lift some brambles out of their way.

Ahead, the chapel sat in its glade, people milling outside it, none of them noticing their arrival. Hugo paused, speaking quietly. “You weren’t to know, Charles.”

Charles nodded, but that didn’t make him feel any better, just like Tor’s arms around his neck didn’t convince him that he’d been at all helpful. He rubbed Tor’s back, hoping that he hadn’t made a bad day worse with his you’ll see your daddy soon promise, but the dampness of the face pressed against his neck made him strongly doubt that.

He studied the ground rather than meet Hugo’s eye.

Hugo noticed. He touched a finger to the underside of his chin, and tilted it up. “You found him, Charles, and from what I heard, you were exactly the right person to do that. The way you coaxed him out was perfect.”

“You heard that?”

Hugo nodded, that uneven smile of his spreading. “Heard you sing too. Hey, do you ever watch that True Brit singing contest on the TV?”

“Yes,” Charles said, cagey. Not sure where this was going.

“Me too,” Tor said, wiping his eyes. “I watch it with my mummy.”

“Well, I don’t think Charles Heppel should enter it, do you? His singing was awful.”

Tor giggled, and Hugo joined in, his laugh a rich surprise that drew attention.

“Tor?” a woman’s voice called, and the same pregnant teacher Charles had seen earlier peeled away from the group at the chapel doorway. “Tor!” she shouted, more in relief than anything else, Charles guessed, but he felt Tor quiver in response, and clutch him.

He shouldn’t want to hold onto me, Charles thought, still berating himself for lifting Tor’s hopes.

He should hold onto Hugo—someone whose likening Tor to a lost lamb had been exactly the right message at the right time. Or he should want to go with his teacher. Someone who wouldn’t make promises about his father that she couldn’t keep.

Tor must have thought otherwise.

“Tor,” his teacher said, reaching for him. “Are you okay?”

The moment her hands grasped him, Tor did a good impression of a spider monkey, clinging onto Charles with his legs too.

Hugo intervened. “He’s fine, Ruth, just shaken.” Then he spoke quietly to Tor. “Will you come to me, Tor?”

Tor shook his head, a muffled, “I want Charles Heppel,” emerging.

“I can carry him back,” Charles said, realising that the headmaster was part of the group around them. Charles addressed Tor’s teacher. “I interviewed here earlier, so I know where I’m going. I could carry him as far as the school grounds? He might feel a bit more secure when he’s somewhere familiar.”

“Yes. Yes, that’s a good idea.” She rubbed her swollen belly as though it ached. “Not sure I could manage to carry him, to be honest.” She stroked Tor’s back. “I’m so sorry I lost you.”

Tor peeled his face from Charles. “You didn’t lose me, Miss Ruth. I lost me.” He reached out and patted her face like he had Hugo’s. “But now I’m found,” he said, very solemn. “Like a lamb.”

Charles tried to lighten the moment. He leaned close to Tor’s ear, and bleated. Tor giggled again, joining in, making sheep sounds of his own.

“Thank you,” the teacher said to Charles. Her eyes were red-rimmed, he noticed, a wave of empathy almost making him pat her face too.

“Losing one child is nothing,” he told her, consoling, he hoped. “I almost lost a whole class once. Took them on the DLR to look at some graffiti. That’s a train in London,” he told Tor, who was wide-eyed. Charles saw the gap year student Finn, watching, so he spoke up, thinking he might need to hear this as well. “I counted them onto the train, but the doors shut before I could get on, and whoosh, they were gone.”

Finn’s eyes widened as well. “Did you find them?”

“Yes. Someone made the train stop and I got into the last carriage. They were all in the first one. Longest few seconds of my life.” He met Finn’s gaze. “I considered emigrating rather than telling my headmaster what had happened.” He noticed the headmaster listening too, his eyebrow arched like earlier as Charles only reinforced what Miss Godawful must have already told him.

But, what did it even matter what the headmaster thought of him now? Charles had already lost his chance to impress him.

Tor felt increasingly heavy in his arms, as weighty as his spirits.

“Your mummy’s on the way, Tor,” his teacher said. “It’s time to go back to the classroom.”

“With Charles Heppel?”

“I can do that. I mean, if it’s okay with you for me to carry him back to his classroom, Headmaster?” Charles asked.

“Of course. And thank you,” he said, sounding awkward. “Really. Thank you so much.” He took a turn to rub Tor’s back, worry right there on the surface of a face Charles had previously labelled as dour. “We’ll all walk back together.”

Charles felt someone behind him then, and a hand clasped his shoulder—Hugo. His arm came around Charles and stayed there as he spoke to Tor.

“Come on, Tor,” Hugo said. “Let’s get you back and then we’ll have to find Mr Heppel a cup of tea for his trouble.”

“And a biscuit? From Miss Ruth’s secret tin?” Tor lifted his head again. Although still wan, he licked his lips, sounding very grown-up. “My daddy says tea’s too wet without a biscuit.”

“It is,” Hugo agreed. “Far too wet. I need at least four.” His hand on Charles squeezed as if in a prelude to sliding away.

Why that made Charles blurt a question to stop Hugo from moving away, he couldn’t have said, but with the headmaster walking to his left, there seemed safety in numbers; in keeping Hugo close beside him. “What’s your favourite biscuit, padre?” He shifted Tor from his right hip to his left, adding to his barrier, and asking, “And what’s yours, Tor?”

“Chocolate,” they said in unison, and Hugo laughed, another rich chime that rang out, so much better than the strained conversation with the head, or Tor’s previous upset.

“I expect we can find some for you,” the headmaster offered. “You’ve been a very brave boy.”

Tor rallied at the prospect, but he shared praise rather than hoarded it. “Charles Heppel is the bravest,” he said before laying his head against Charles shoulder, worn out.

“Oh?” the headmaster asked. He looked over Tor’s bowed head.

“Yes,” Tor said, rubbing the silky material of the tie Charles had knotted that morning while nervous but hopeful. “He got hurt.”

“I noticed,” the headmaster said, subdued.

“It’s nothing,” Charles said.

“It’s not nothing.” Tor lifted his head. “There’s blood,” he said. Tor turned awkwardly in his arms, speaking to the headmaster. “I touched the padre’s scar!” Then he whispered, “He’s got a name. It’s Hugo,” as though it was a secret.

“His scar is called Hugo?” the headmaster asked, teasing, and didn’t that make another difference to how Charles had perceived him?

Tor laughed as the woods thinned around them and Glynn Harber rose ahead, quartz seams in its stark granite sparkling in the sunshine. The sound of singing was disconcerting, as if no time had passed between Charles leaving his interview and now. It reprised his disappointment. Now, walking back with one of the children he’d hoped to nurture only rubbed in that he wouldn’t get to.

Dammit, I really would have loved to.

I’m going to have to go home instead.

Maybe Hugo felt him sag at that acceptance. Charles felt his hold on his shoulder flex before letting go, Hugo sliding his hand away slowly as the headmaster led the way inside to Tor’s classroom.

The room Charles carried Tor into didn’t make him feel much better. It was an extension of the outdoors, each corner filled with nature, exactly the way he would have planned it.

It’s for the best,he told himself as he passed Tor over to his teacher.

Maybe this place only looks good on the surface.

Hadn’t that been true of his last gig?

Maybe the team are terrible to work with.

But as he watched the headmaster kneel next to Tor and his teacher, all Charles saw was caring.

He stood back, then took another few steps to the door, which Hugo noticed. He joined him. “Tea?”

“I should get back.”

“Charles Heppel, don’t go.” Tor called, sliding off his teacher’s lap and running to stop him, his one Wellington boot clomping. “There are chocolate biscuits! We all get to have some!”

“As soon as I get you clean and changed into dry clothes,” his teacher said, coming up to Charles and holding onto Tor as though worried he might slip out of her sight again. “Thank you,” she said simply. “Really. I truly can’t thank you enough. I thought Finn was behind me, but I should have checked…” She held out her hand, which Charles went to shake, only stopping when he saw just how muddy his was.

“Come and get washed up in my rooms before tea,” Hugo said, reaching for the door handle. The order in his tone should’ve been annoying. Lord knew when George spoke to him that way, it was maddening, but following Hugo’s directive was somehow easier.

That’s because he listened to me earlier.

No, it’s because you like the way he looks at you.

Hadn’t he done that with Charles several times already? Studied him both in the chapel and the woods as if there was something below his surface that caught his attention. Something worth delving even deeper for?

Deeper?The little voice inside him snorted. He’s in for a surprise then. Like walking downstairs in the dark, expecting one more step only to find you’re already at the bottom.

“Shut up,” Charles muttered.

Hugo turned back as though he’d heard, but he didn’t comment. Instead, he held the door open and said, “Come to my rooms.”

And like a lamb, Charles followed.