The Hiding Place(3)

Next door, the Wandering Dragon fish-and-chips is similarly untouched by progress, fresh paint or—I’m willing to bet—a new menu. One glitch in my total recall: the small corner shop where we used to buy bags of penny candy and Wham bars has gone. A Sainsbury’s Local stands in its place. I suppose not even Arnhill is completely immune to the march of progress.

Except for that, my worst fears are confirmed. Nothing has changed. The place is, unfortunately, exactly as I remember it.

I drive further along the high street, past the run-down children’s play area and small village green. A statue of a miner stands in the center. A memorial to the pit workers killed in the Arnhill Colliery Disaster of 1949.

Past the village’s highlights, up a small hill, I see the gates to the school. Arnhill Academy, as it is called now. The buildings have been given fresh cladding, the aging English block, where a kid once fell from the very top, has been pulled down and a new seating area put in its place. You can roll a turd in glitter, but it’s still a turd. I should know.

I pull into the staff parking lot around the rear of the building and climb out of my worn-0ut old Golf. There are two other cars in parking spaces—a red Mini and an old Saab. Schools are rarely empty during the summer holidays. Teachers have lesson plans to write up, classroom displays to organize, interventions to supervise. And sometimes, interviews to attend.

I lock my car and walk around to the front reception, trying not to limp. My leg is hurting today. Partly the driving, partly the stress of being here. Some people get migraines; I get the equivalent in my bad leg. I should use my cane, really. But I hate it. It makes me feel like an invalid. People look at me with pity. I hate being pitied. Pity should be saved for those who deserve it.

Wincing slightly, I walk up the steps to the main doors. A shiny plaque above them reads: “Good, better, best. Never let it rest. Till your good is better and your better is best.”

Inspiring stuff. But I can’t help thinking of the Homer Simpson alternative: “Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try.”

I press the intercom beside the door. It crackles and I lean forward to speak into it.

“I’m here to see Mr. Price?”

Another crackle, a piercing whine of interference, and then the door buzzes. Rubbing at my ear, I push it open and walk inside.

The first thing that hits me is the smell. Every school has its own individual one. In the modern academies it’s disinfectant and screen cleaner. In the fee-paying schools it’s chalk, wooden floors and money. Arnhill Academy smells of stale burgers, toilet blocks and hormones.

“Hello?”

An austere-looking woman with cropped gray hair and spectacles glances up from behind the glass-fronted reception area.

Miss Grayson? Surely not. Surely she’d be retired by now? Then I spot it. The protruding brown mole on her chin, still sprouting the same stiff black hair. Christ. It really is her. That must mean, all those years ago, when I thought she was as ancient as the frigging dinosaurs, she was only—what?—forty? The same age I am now.

“I’m here to see Mr. Price,” I repeat. “It’s Joe…Mr. Thorne.”

I wait for a glimmer of recognition. Nothing. But then it was a long time ago and she’s seen a lot of students pass through these doors. I’m not the same skinny little kid in an oversized uniform who would scurry through reception, desperate not to hear her bark their name and rebuke them for an untucked shirt or non-school-regulation trainers.

Miss Grayson wasn’t all bad. I would often see some of the weaker, shy kids in her little office. She would apply bandages to scraped knees if the school nurse wasn’t in, let them sit and drink juice while they waited to see a teacher, or help with filing, anything to provide a little relief from the torments of the playground. A small place of sanctuary.

She still scared the crap out of me.

Still does, I realize. She sighs—in a way that manages to convey I am wasting her time, my time and the school’s time—and reaches for the phone. I wonder why she’s here today. She isn’t teaching staff. Although, somehow, I’m not surprised. As a child, I could never picture Miss Grayson outside of the school. She was part of the structure. Omnipresent.

“Mr. Price?” she barks. “I have a Mr. Thorne here to see you. Okay. Right. Fine.” She replaces the receiver. “He’s just coming.”

“Great. Thanks.”

She turns back to her computer, dismissing me. No offer of coffee or tea. And right now my every neuron is crying out for a caffeine fix. I perch on a plastic chair, trying not to look like an errant student waiting to see the headmaster. My knee throbs. I clasp my hands together on top of it, surreptitiously massaging the joint with my fingers.

Through the window, I can see a few kids, out of uniform, messing around by the school gates. They’re swigging Red Bull and laughing at something on their smartphones. Déjà vu swamps me. I’m fifteen years old again, hanging around the same gates, swigging a bottle of Coke and…what did we hunch over and giggle about before smartphones? Copies of Rolling Stone and stolen porn mags, I guess.

I turn away and stare down at my boots. The leather is a little scuffed. I should have polished them. I really need coffee. I almost give in and ask for a damn drink when I hear the squeak of shoes on polished linoleum and the double doors to the main corridor swing open.