Married Ones

Chapter 1: Beth “That clock, Mr Matthews, says three twenty-nine,” Mike snapped, “so don’t even think about it.” Yes, Mike was one of those teachers. And the baleful stare of thirty fifteen-year-olds told him perfectly clearly what they thought of his attitude. Still, if he didn’t get to leave until after the bell, why should this herd of wildebeest masquerading as human beings? Henry Matthews—nicknamed, shockingly, Hooray by his classmates—fidgeted in his seat. “But Sir—” “Don’t fidget, boy,” Mike drawled. “You look like you have piles.” The class sniggered in a great wave. Mike kept a straight face. He liked this group—hell, he liked this school—but his power as a teacher was in coming off as a right miserable git. They all thought he was from the Dark Ages, and kept real skeletons in his specimen cupboard. Alright, so he did. But not human ones. “If I see one more book going into a bag,” Mike warned, “then you’ll all be here for another hour, going over a new dissection lesson.” Half the class—predominantly the girls, with the exception of Carly Hennessey, who was going to make either an excellent surgeon or an excellent serial killer one day—blanched. Mike liked to dissect eyes. Pigs’ eyes. Mostly because it disgusted them the most. His record was three faints and one vomiting in the same class. He’d even beaten Amy Burke and her ‘chemical properties of a body dissolving in acid’ class this year. “With,” Mike added, just to rub salt in the collective wound, “a pop quiz.” They groaned as one. Someone said, “You wouldn’t.” “I would, Miss James.” What did he care? This summer wasn’t going to be the usual blissful break. Mike would honestly rather stay here. The clock hands inched round. Sixty individual eyeballs, human ones, were trained on the progress. And then— “Yes!” The bell screeched. The chairs screeched louder. Feet stampeded for the door, and his tiny orderly universe was destroyed in one fell swoop by a terrible plague of teenagers. “Quietly!” Mike bellowed after them, merely because it was expected of him, and then he heaved himself off his lab stool and began to gather his things. Mike liked this school. It was just an academy on the north side of Sheffield, filled to the brim with kids who would end up in shops and driving white vans, but they were a nice enough bunch. They liked him. They thought he was funny and old-fashioned, just this fat, fusty biology teacher with the stereotypical tweed jacket and elbow patches. And it helped, teenagers being rather disgusting creatures, that Mike had a good line in dissection lessons. They liked chopping up lungs and livers, the spotty little psychopaths, even if they did draw the line at eyes. A cough caught his ear, and Mike glanced up. “Forgotten something, Emma?” Emma Mayhew, one of the few in that particular herd with a decent personality between her ears, smiled shyly, and stuck out a hand. An envelope. Mike took it, raising an eyebrow questioningly. “It’s—thanks,” she said, and tucked a thick chunk of hair behind her ear. It was growing out. “For…everything you did, this year.” Mike softened. All right, so he wasn’t that much of a miserable git. “Any time,” he said, and tucked the envelope into his briefcase. “I mean it, though. Summer’s started. Get out of my lab.” The smile widened into a grin. “Yes, sir.” She disappeared out of the door, and Mike hefted the case off the table. His phone beeped in his pocket, just once, and he knew it was time to get going. It was a baking hot summer. The moment he pushed through the double doors to the science block his jacket started sticking to him. The sky was a tropical blue, entirely unnatural in this part of the world, in Mike’s eyes, and the sun blazed high above the glass and concrete in which Mike spent every term. Not even three thirty-five, and the grounds were devoid of underage life. He lifted a sweaty paw to wave to Hannah Campbell as he staggered out of the courtyard and into the teachers’ car park. There was no hanging about on the final day. The usual seat of last-minute gossip and invites for pints was being abandoned as hastily as the rest of the school. Someone bellowed, “Have a good summer!” and Mike waved without even pausing. He had managed to score the shady spot that morning, and so his car—a Volkswagen Passat in silver that had a hundred and ten thousand miles on the clock, and a single door all in yellow from the day Mike’s mam had opened it and a passing taxi had promptly removed it from her grasp—was blessedly cool. Mike sat in the driver’s seat, gasping like a landed fish, for a good minute before he could bring himself to start the engine. Naturally, the air conditioning was on the blink again, so he cranked down the window, peeled out of the shady spot, and set off into the sun. Mike was born and bred in Sheffield. He’d grown up in the shadows of the old factories, and listening to his granddad refusing to drink Thatcher’s anymore because of the Prime Minister by the same name. He’d beaten his accent into shape when he went to Edinburgh to study, only to get it back the minute he’d walked in through the doors at his first teaching placement back in his home city. And he could barely pay attention as he swung his boat of a car through the winding, hilly roads and nonsensical junctions, past the sea of folks who couldn’t operate an indicator if their lives depended on it, and out the other side into the coolness of trees, the shade of narrow streets, and sounds of birds and bees beginning to cry above the city sounds. There, nestled the house. It was just a little house. A tiny kitchen. A hall not four feet across. The front door could hit the bottom of the stairs if it was opened too quickly. Mike had to perform on average—he’d counted—thirteen micro-manoeuvres to park the car outside. All the windows needed replacing, and there was an owl that lived in next door’s tree that liked to crap on his bonnet every night. It was constantly too cold, and it was only a two-bedroomed house by virtue of the attic room. To say it had a back garden was being exceptionally generous to the three paving slabs behind their kitchen window. But it was their kitchen window. The moment he shuffled his bulk into the coolness of home, Mike could see a pair of running shorts draped over a radiator. There was a cactus in a pink pot on the living room windowsill that gave a whole new meaning to the word ugly. Molly, their fat old tortoiseshell inherited from next door, was sunbathing on the kitchen tiles. A brightly patterned quilt was living on the back of the sofa, and a pair of trainers about five sizes too small for Mike had been abandoned, one on the doormat and one halfway up the stairs. Home. Their home. They’d only bought it last year. It was their first house. They’d been saving for seven years, and now they finally had it. Theirs. It was only the first step on the housing ladder—Mike certainly wasn’t putting up with that damned bathroom for the rest of his days—but the shine of the first home hadn’t worn off yet. Nobody was in, despite the shoes. Mike puttered about amiably. He showered, changed into some long shorts and a T-shirt, and rustled up his favourite pair of offensively bright trainers, mostly because it would earn him a good groan in the pub later. He sorted through the post—bills, bills, a lost postcard from Fuerteventura for someone called Jade, more bills—and then settled down on the sofa to sort through his briefcase. Emma’s envelope was still sitting on top, and Mike hesitated. He wasn’t a romantic. He’d gone into teaching because it was steady work, and a steady wage. A good wage, too, given Mike’s mam was a dinner lady, his dad had driven lorries, and his stepdad was a binman. A teacher’s five-figure salary was like riches in Mike’s world. It hadn’t been about educating young minds, or investing in the future, or any of that. It had been about his biology degrees and the government offering a load of tax-free cash for him to do a teacher training course. But Mike couldn’t lie. Kids like Emma made it different. He opened the envelope. It was just a card. A glittery pink card, with a thank you written in party balloons across the front. And inside, a simple message. Nothing fancy. Just a few words…and yet they brought a lump to Mike’s throat anyway. Dr Parry. Thanks for everything. You made me brave enough to be me. Love Emma. Mike swallowed thickly, and put the card up on the window next to the ugly cactus. Emma wasn’t a bright girl. She wasn’t interested in science, and it showed in her work. She’d always just been one of the quiet ones at the back of the class—no hassle, no trouble, but no real promise either. Then Mike had given them a lesson featuring clownfish, who changed s*x depending on their environment, and Emma had come to him afterwards and asked if people could change s*x. When Mike had said that s*x wasn’t as easy as two Xs made a girl and an X and a Y made a boy, Emma had burst into tears and told him she was scared there was something wrong with her. Of course Emma had been Ryan Mayhew back then. Christ, maybe Emma was the kid his mentor had been talking about when Mike had started training. “There’ll be kids you remember in forty years when you’re done,” she’d said. “Some kids will be s**t kids who end up in the papers and prison. Others will be the kids who went off and played for England or whatever. But you won’t remember those kids. You’ll remember the kids nobody else will have ever heard of.” Maybe he’d remember Emma. Keys rattled. The front door popped open. Mike hastily tore his gaze away from the card and pulled his most aloof, disinterested, Alan-Rickman-worthy expression into place, just as a head poked around the living room door. “And where,” he asked severely, “have you been?” Stephen grinned. That in itself was enough to melt Mike’s resistance. Stephen wasn’t much of a smiler—never had been, never would be—and it was a beautiful smile already without its rarity adding to its allure. But added to the ruffled dark hair, the shades propped on his head, the five o’clock shadow around his jaw, and the white-tank-top-and-black-jeans look he’d decided to go for, the smile became deadly. Then Stephen sealed the deal by saying, “Shop!” and holding up a plastic bag, clinking promisingly. “Forgiven,” Mike said instantly. “Thought so.” The front door was left open. They exchanged a kiss at the kitchen counter. Mike smacked that delicious backside in its unfairly tight jeans before retreating to the doorstep. Stephen yowled like an affronted cat, called him a fat git, then joined him, handing over a cool bottle of craft ale and raising his own for the customary clanks and cheers. “Good day?” Mike asked. “Yeah. Gave them a film to watch for the final period and had them shouting out all the inaccuracies.” Stephen taught history. Most of Mike’s marriage was based on ribbing Stephen on history being a useless subject, and being ribbed in return about getting a doctorate only to wind up telling fourteen-year-old boys not to giggle during s*x education lessons. But it was too hot for ribbing, or s*x, so Mike simply nodded. “Which film?” “Master and Commander.” “No cheers, love, bit much in this weather.” “Tit. The film. Based on the very not kinky books.” “Don’t remember it.” “Paul Bettany being sexy as hell.” “Paul Bettany is never sexy, as hell or otherwise,” Mike said loftily. “Russell Crowe on a boat.” “What, that Biblical one?” “Russell Crowe in a big hat on a boat.” “Oh, that one.” Stephen rolled his eyes. “What do you say,” Mike suggested, “to drinking these as we walk over to The Hammer and Pincers, getting in a pub dinner and doing the quiz with the other recently-released souls, then staggering back once it’s dark and cooled down a bit, and having some crap s*x on the stairs?” Stephen hummed, and tipped up his bottle. His throat worked. Mike watched peaceably. “Or some decent s*x in bed?” Stephen smirked and nodded. “Deal.” Mike slapped Stephen’s knee, then hauled himself to his feet. “Come on then. Not going to be making fast progress in this weather.” That was really how their relationship had rolled out for the last nine years. Mike ambling along at whatever pace suited him, and Stephen wandering about and occasionally loping back into line. Stephen was athletic, and not the type of athletic people put on dating profiles when they were hoping for a bit of extra attention. He was seriously athletic. He ran marathons. For fun. Mike got exhausted just watching Stephen some days. And so it was that they made their way to the Hammer and Pincers, with Mike plodding and Stephen wandering along beside, behind, ahead, even walking backwards for nearly a mile as they debated the fine art of pretending to care about uniform regulations. “I don’t care how much it makes the head like you,” Stephen said as they pushed through the pub door. “I am not wearing a tweed jacket.” “Try not wearing anything in your eyebrow piercing for a change.” “You can swivel on that,” Stephen said dryly, dropping to sit at their usual table. “Steak and kidney?” “I’m going to push the boat out and try their full English pie.” “That’s revolting,” Mike said seriously, but went to the bar anyway. The pub did a mean line of pies, including a monstrosity with sausage, beans, and egg inside, but Mike was a pie purist. Steak and kidney was acceptable. Chicken and mushroom was inferior, but admissible. Beef and ale was fine. Anything else? Witchcraft. Talk stayed on work. They ribbed each other’s subjects—history had no practical application, biology was glorified s*x education—and debated how they were supposed to get all their marking and lesson planning done with six weddings to attend. Briefly they strayed off-topic, Mike hoping to get out of going to see Stephen’s family, but then were jerked back onto the rails when the first of the pub quiz team showed up, Jo announcing herself by shamelessly stealing a forkful of Stephen’s pie and sliding into the seat next to him. “Happy summer!” Stephen could have levelled a small country with the glare he gave her, but Jo—a maths teacher—was perfectly immune to such things. She simply beamed, asked after their days, and got a round in. “Forgiven,” Mike said when her fiancée, Jez, returned with the aforementioned round. “Maybe,” Stephen warned. “I’ll get you an extra half of cider later, sweetheart.” Stephen grumbled, but was suitably pacified. He and Jez talked fell running, while Mike and Jo exchanged last-lesson horror stories, and then the others turned up. The Teachers’ Union, as was their team name, sucked at pub quizzes. Their respective sections were fine—even if Mike maintained that anything to do with NASA was trivia, not science—but there were no teachers of pop music or entertainment, even in the current farce of an education system. Stephen was reasonable at TV after his spell stuck in front of it after his broken leg last year, but nobody knew the first thing about showbiz, they didn’t have a geography teacher on the team, and they were all hopeless at the picture round. But that wasn’t exactly the point. The point, to Mike, was the camaraderie. They were teachers, and bound by their shared simultaneous hatred and love of the job, their loyalties and frustrations with the Department of Education, and their ambitious and ridiculous plans to get out—everything from winning the lottery to kidnapping a minor royal and getting a ransom—but here, they were also just people. They didn’t have to mind their language in corridors. They didn’t have to worry if they were putting bad ideas in precious little minds. They didn’t even have to pretend to care about the precious little minds. They could draw knobs on other teams’ answer sheets, admit no bugger cared when Isaac Newton died, and cheer louder than any football hooligans when they came third and won the equivalent of about seventy pence each. And afterwards, at ten past eleven and three sheets to the wind, Mike could put his hand in the back pocket of Stephen’s jeans, and use his own bulk to steer the drunken lush home. “Oh, I see,” Stephen said when Mike squeezed one pert arse-cheek. “Still after your stair s*x are you?” “‘Course,” Mike said breezily. “Only sort of bloody s*x I ever get these days.” “You sodding liar!” Mike laughed, and caught the clumsy kiss that came his way. It tasted of cider and pork scratchings. “Sod it,” said Stephen. “Let’s stop at the chippie.” This was what life was all about.