The Sister(126)

‘Almost every day,’ he said lacing his fingers together, looking down at them. ‘It’s not so bad at night now. I used to wake up in the early hours with it playing through my head, not always the actual incident, but some spin off related to it. It would always end the same though, with me drowning. That’s when I'd wake up.’

‘Even now?’

‘Yes, even now.’

‘Do you have a wife and family, John?’

‘No, my career came first. I look around at the people I knew, nearly all of them married and then divorced. They have their kids, though, I suppose, but marriage? No, it wasn’t for me. I'd have liked to have had a kid, though. I regret that I didn’t. What about you?’

‘I never married either. I had a girl once, early on.’ He chewed on his lower lip. ‘But I lost her.’

‘Lost her?’

‘She was on a ferry; she fell overboard. They never found her.’

‘Jesus, Miller, how old we’re you then?’

‘Nineteen, maybe twenty.’

‘Didn’t meet anyone else?’

‘You know something, after my friends died and I eventually met her; I thought my life was turning round, going to be really good. Then, when that happened to her – the pain of that was a different pain, but I made my mind up. I wasn’t going to go through it ever again. So these days, friends, relationships – they don’t get so close.’ Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone, only darkness every day. Their favourite song crept into the back of his mind. It always did when he felt wistful and was thinking about her. ‘What about you, have you got anyone special?’

‘Well, I had someone.’ He looked around the hall, pausing at the honours board, the crest with the school motto emblazoned beneath in Latin, Strength through Courage.

One by one, the tables were denuded of their red cloths. Stripped bare like that they made him think of life and what’s left when you lose everything that matters – something once so full, suddenly bare and empty.

He brightened suddenly. ‘Do you ever see any of the others?’

‘You missed three of them by minutes.’

‘Real shame, I’m glad I bumped into you, though.’

As reticent as ever, Miller just said, ‘Yeah.’

They continued to reminisce about old friends, teachers they'd both had. They moved onto their respective careers, realising how similar their chosen professions were. A short period of silence hung between them.

‘Oh God, I’ve just remembered something else!’ Kennedy suddenly exclaimed.

Miller’s eyes lit up with expectancy.

‘That day down in the basement beyond the changing rooms, there was that little office—’

‘Are you talking about Kirk and that French mistress?’

‘Well, yes, but do you remember that out of the four little unused offices, only the farthest away had a well-polished handle? It didn’t make sense; you'd have thought the nearest office would have been the busier, more used. Anyway, we soon found out why. Getting a drink of water from the taps down there, always tasted so much better, like so many other things that are forbidden.’

‘We both froze at the first cry we heard. She’d tried to stifle it; you could tell, but it came right out like she was in pain.’

‘We looked at each other, scared stiff someone was murdering a woman down there and, after that, it was a soft moaning and we still didn’t know, did we?’ Both grinned widely as they recalled how they'd sneaked along the corridor close to the wall.

The metal studs on Miller’s leather-soled shoes had clicked against the tile floor, so he’d slipped them off. The polished brass knob of the door had been difficult to grip with sweaty hands and operate quietly, but somehow they had managed to get the door open. And there they were, one head above the other, crouched holding the handle, not quite believing what they saw. Kirk had the French mistress on the edge of the desk. Her legs clamped around his back and her ankles crossed above his bare white arse. He was thrusting furiously, and she turned her head from side to side, moaning. Something made her eyelids flutter open. She’d stared straight at them, invitation in her eyes and a knowing smile on her lips. Sensing Kirk might see her staring and turn around; they'd both beaten a hasty retreat.

‘After she caught me – us, looking…you know every time I saw her after that, I got a hard on, and you know something – she knew it!’

‘Now you’re stretching things, John.’

‘I’m telling you it’s true. She asked me if my mother ever told me about never putting your handkerchief in your trouser pocket, then she poked it with her finger and said, ‘It is your handkerchief, non?’ The look in her eyes, Miller, she knew. It was the first time a woman ever touched me there and to this day I’ve never forgotten it.’

‘I don’t remember hearing about that before.’

‘Well, you lot were that bit older than me. I don’t think I could have put up with the ribbing, so of course I never told you. Oh, what I'd give to be a kid again, eh?’ Kennedy seemed troubled. Miller assumed the drink had caught him up in melancholia.

Miller pushed his chair back and stood. ‘You coming?’ he said. Kennedy lingered.

‘No, I think I’ll just sit and savour the atmosphere a bit; I haven’t been here for so long, it’s like going back to church.’