Sean Happens 13

Miss Dill went to run the bath. She sat smoking on the on edge of the tub, dipping her fingers in to the water to test the temperature. Mr Martin ushered Sean upstairs and stood as his back as he undressed and got into the tub.

‘How’s she taking it?’ Miss Dill asked. Talking over Sean’s head.

‘Much as expected,’ replied Mr Martin.

Sean didn’t know how he should feel. He’d cried, of course, but that was more in sympathy with his mum. Part of him felt relieved.

‘Remember when we were that age?’ said Miss Dill, smiling down at the pink glow in Sean’s face. ‘On holiday as Castle Morach.’

‘Rain,’ replied, Mr Martin.

Miss Dill laughed.  ‘Yes, but remember the bikes?’

‘Neither of us wanted to be the first to dismount on the hill.’

‘No, but we swapped,’ he reminded her. ‘I’d given you the three-speed.’ He squinted into himself. ‘There was a loch and a hotel there. Or was that the castle? They wouldn’t let you in unless you were somebody.’

‘But we were nobody,’ she said. ‘The grounds were overgrown with brambles and the blinds pulled down.’

‘There was a local boy hiding in the shrubbery.’ Mr Martin plucked him out of the ether. A lovely see-sawing accent. About thirteen, snub nosed with crooked teeth. I don’t think he knew what to make of you, but he was in love with you, as most boys of that age were.

‘I think his name was Jerry,’ Miss Dill said. ‘He was just about to slope off when we got there. Somebody was hammering at something behind the walls of the castle. He pulled us into the bushes beside him until we disappeared. Hid our bikes among crushed vegetation and buzzing flies rising from the carcase of a ginger tabby.

‘We followed behind him. The makeshift path went downhill along the rocky shore. Raggedy trees clung to the edges. Our destination was a wooden jetty. Planks were missing. The prow of a rowboat banged against the joists.

‘Jerry knocked the oars against the hillocks. Impatient to get away. He didn’t like our knock-kneed foreignness that almost knocked us into the icy water.    

A splash in the water, a fish jumping, as he rowed put him at his ease. ‘Are yeh gonnae dae it?’ he asked.

Mr Martin cut in as if he was still in the boat. ‘I will if you will.’

‘Gerry’s face flushed,’ said Miss Dill, ‘like a size-4 mitre. He couldn’t look at us and rowed all the harder.

‘He hauled the boat ashore on the pebbly beach.

‘We worked our way up through a thicket of rhododendrons. Midges nipping at our eyes in the cool shade. It didn’t seem to bother Gerry. A rutted path and stone steps slippery with moss. And at the top stood a rusted gate slanted in sunlight.

‘When we looked back, we couldn’t see the boat or the shore,’ said Mr Dill as Sean splashed in the warm bathwater.

Miss Dill mimicked an accent. ‘Yeh can go back if yer shitting yersel,’ Gerry had said.’

‘But I think he was as scared as us,’ Mr Martin added. ‘Maybe, you said. And asked if there was anybody up there?’

‘If I remember rightly, ‘Naebody, said Gerry.’ But when he shook the padlock, his face changed. ‘It’s locked!’

‘Isn’t it always locked?’

‘Ne’er, unless they’re no expecting yeh. But they always know yer comin.’

‘What did we do again?’ Mr Martin asked? ‘Climb the fence?’

‘Don’t you remember?’ Miss Dill said. ‘When I tried the lock, it broke open.

‘Oh, that’s right,’ said Mr Martin. ‘And Gerry wanted to scarper.’

‘He did.’ Miss Dill smiled enigmatically

‘You kissed him, didn’t you?’ Mr Martin’s eyes brightened.

‘Em,’ said Miss Dill biting on her top lips. ‘The water will be getting cold.’ She splashed Sean’s back with warm water. ‘You alright?’ she asked him.

‘Fine,’ Sean rubbed his hand at the back of his neck where she’d touched him.

‘Maybe it was a sign,’ said Mr Martin.

‘Maybe it was,’ she said. ‘He certainly seemed to think so. We stumbled after him into the ruins.

‘That’s it there,’ said Gerry. They’d bent themselves into a hunched position in the confined space of the cellar. But there were enough holes in the joists for light to filter down.

Mr Martin and Miss Dill had glanced at each other and started laughing. ‘After you,’ said Mr Martin.

‘No after you,’ Miss Dill replied. She slapped Gerry’s shoulder. ‘You go first.’

‘Nah,’ he cackled. ‘I’ve already done it. Hunners of times.’

‘But you told me it was so great, you couldn’t wait to do it again,’ said Miss Dill. ‘You said all the boys had done it and they thought it was great too.’

‘No aw of them,’ said Gerry. ‘Cause somebody said something happened.’

‘What?’ asked Mr Martin.

‘Yeh don’t want to know.’

‘I do or I wouldn’t have asked.’

‘Yer just scared,’ said Gerry, clenching his fists.’

‘Oh, for God sake,’ I’ll go first,’ said Miss Dill. ‘What do you do, again?’

Gerry nodded towards a circle in the stone with a greenish bloom. ‘Yeh stick yer cock through.’

‘Here?’ Miss Dill brushed her fingers along the dusty and dilapidated brickwork.

Gerry hauled her by the hair backwards. Both of them stumbling and falling into each other.

‘For God sake, why did you do that?’ asked Miss Dill.

‘Don’t put yer fingers through. Yeh could lose them. Yeh might no come back if yeh dae that.’

‘That’s just stupid,’ said Mr Dill.

‘Stupid or no, it’s disrespectful. They could be listening.’

‘Whatever floats your boat!’ Miss Dill crawled across the rubble and tried peering through the hole, but it was too dark. ‘Here goes nothing.’ She pulled up her t-shirt and unbuttoned her denims, pulling down her zip.  ‘You put your cock through here?’

‘No! cried Gerry. ‘We cannae be here. We’ve got tae show some respect. We need to go back down to the gate and wait until we here yer cry. Yeh’ll love it.’

Miss Dill pulled the plug in the bath and got a thick towel. She stood waiting to wrap Sean in its warmth.

‘Did you love it?’ Mr Martin asked.

‘Emm,’ she said. ‘I always do.’