Chapter 18

ROWAN

I barely see Liam for his first few days on site. I don't stop thinking about him for a single minute.

Maisie tells me what's keeping him so busy while making a shaker with me, a project inspired by a camper-van conversation with the man I keep looking out for. To be honest, I'm not the most focussed helper—every time I hear workmen pass by, I lurch up on my knees, which is dangerous. If sex always leaves this kind of lingering reminder, I'd forgotten. Today's ache is only a faint echo, no reason for me to spill dried peas while in the process of sitting again.

Maisie's little tongue poking out in concentration suggests she has fun sweeping them into a dustpan for me. She also shares a secret. "Daddy didn't have breakfast with me this morning."

"No?" I'm more intent on holding a Pringles tube steady for her next attempt at making a shaker than on what she shares until she adds more detail.

"He had his breakfast with his new friend. On the beach. His friend's camper van has a big white wave on the side."

So does Liam's.

"They went for a surf. Daddy sent a picture."

That accounts for a similar photo I woke up to, one of dawn breaking between twin boulders with a pretty beach beyond it. I'm still disappointed not to see Liam the next time work boots clump past. I lurch up, spilling more peas which Maisie consoles me over.

"Don't worry. I spilled my Coco Pops at breakfast." She also tells me how her daddy would have let her suck them up with Henry the Hoover, only she's staying with her mummy this week. "Because Daddy's so busy." She's matter-of-fact, a real builder's daughter. "Someone's got to fill in all the holes."

"In what?"

"A wobbly wall." She shows me a wobbly tooth next, speaking around the finger in her mouth. This is garbled, but I think she says, "Then when it's strong enough to hold up the ceiling, his friend can do his job." She's matter-of-fact about this too. "Daddy said he won't get to surf with him after that."

Because Liam will be gone.

Maisie gets back to her original challenge, spooning up more peas, but I can't help wishing I recorded all of those his friend comments. I'd play them back to Liam when I do get more than a few moments with him.

I know he's got friends already. Ones that haven't only left a hole in his own wall. He's cratered without them. That's what I keep coming back to after a shared garden picnic where he kept lapsing into silence and after a walk across moorland where mentioning his old team led to another pool of quiet deep enough to fill that quarry.

He misses them.

And I almost miss that Maisie is done. She rattles her shaker, one that I'll add to a box of resources these children are helping me to fill. It still isn't anywhere as full as Mum's was, but if any of the children are in the mood to make some noise once my time here is over, they'll have more tools to do it.

But what if I did what it took to stay here?

I've leafed through that trauma workbook Luke left with me. Read and re-read the pages I tore from a notepad detailing my life path. It's on my bedside table, still folded and unfinished.

I'd just need to fill that gap.

Charles keeps me too busy to fret about it.

"I'm dying to know the plan for all the jam jars, washing-up bowls, and buckets." He eyes the stack I've scavenged.

"Drumming." I peer around. "Or they could be if we had more drumsticks." I glance up at other classroom windows. "I know I've been making a real racket. I'll stop if you think I'm being too noisy with the children."

"No such thing. We'll just pick our moment." He points to the tree line. "Or change our location. Luke's interviewing someone to manage the woodland. Maybe we'll go along to bang and crash under the trees to show him what he's in for."

For now, Charles improvises, gathering muddy spoons he rinses under an outside tap. "Here you go. Pop these in your box of tricks, Mr. Worried. Although there's no need to be. Worried, I mean. Not about making noise or making suggestions. I'm loving it. So are the children, so let's have even more volume and creativity out here after lunch, only with less frowning."

"I'm not frowning."

Charles has wet hands. They're cool on my forehead where he sketches wiggles. Frown lines. I rub that dampness away and glance up where clouds have slowly and steadily gathered. "What if it rains?"

"Worry, worry, worry," he mutters before adding, "Then we'll pop our coats on." He glances up too. "A bit of rain would actually be fabulous. Especially for Maisie and Asa."

"Because?"

"Because water transforms outdoor learning. Soaks children with extra options." He crouches by the sandpit. "Look. Tell me, what do you see right here?" He points down to where he's used the end of a spoon to do some sketching.

"In the sand?" Dry grains have flooded in to fill his furrows. Whatever he drew is as much a mystery as Liam's doodles on my stomach. "Uh…"

"Don't worry about being wrong," he urges, echoing what I tell Teo whenever we only have just a drum kit, guitar, or keyboard between us. Today, there are only inches between me and Charles, no way to miss how much he means this. "Here's the magic of adding a little water. It means getting a do-over. A second chance to be successful."

He uses a watering can to dampen the sand until it darkens. The next time he draws, the sand holds, and I see that he's outlined a love heart. Charles writes a C inside it along with a plus symbol. The H he draws next for his husband is no surprise, nor are the lightning bolts he zigzags into the sand in a reminder—not of the ones he added to Hadi's stormy purple chalk line, but of our very first lightning could strike twice here conversation.

He draws a second heart, this time writing an M inside it, murmuring something more unexpected. "Maisie needs plenty of those chances. She's starting to read, but when it comes to writing…" He shakes his head. "And she's starting to notice that all the others can shape their letters quite neatly, that their grip is increasingly secure while hers isn't. It would be easy for her to compare herself to their progress in…" He scans the outdoor classroom, his gaze landing on Hadi. "In the same way he might feel sad at seeing everyone else crossing all of our bridges with no problem." The sun returns and Charles is brighter. "But we have plenty of tools to help both of them."

"Like?" I don't know what I'm expecting. It isn't for Charles to waggle that watering can at me.

"Give Maisie water, sand, and a stick, and she gets to make the same shapes as everyone else with no worrying about keeping between the lines on paper. She still gets to feel successful." He adds the letter T to the heart he's drawn for her. "And that's what Teo spends a lot of time doing with her out here when he visits, giving her chances to feel good about herself over and over, while she returns the favour for him. And as for Hadi…"

He finds a second plank that I help him lift over the sandpit to make his narrow bridge much wider. "We'll give him chances to practise making crossings with more chances of success and less fear, like this." He kneels on those planks over the sand and draws a third love heart. This time, he sketches an R.

For Rowan, I guess, when he glances at me with his eyebrows raised in question.

His hand hovers, ready to add another damp-sand initial, or one of those lightning bolts he's so fond of.

I can't make myself nod even though shaking my head would feel like lying. And it really would after turning around at the base of Whisper Tor to see Liam looking at me like more than lightning had struck him. And after he got on his knees to find my glasses for me? We'd just had sex, but it's the care he took to rub clean my lenses that has stayed with me.

It was such a small gesture. Tiny but oh so thoughtful. He made sure I could see and I'm still as wobbly as Maisie's tooth about it. So wobbly, I daren't score his initial into this wet sand. My hand would shake too much to carve an L there as deeply as I'd want to.

Charles reclaims my attention by speaking softly. To Asa, this time, who has joined us. "Everyone deserves to feel cared for, don't they, Mr. Wriggles?" He draws some worms in the sand that Asa copies with a finger. "Everyone deserves to feel that they're a superstar for someone, not an all-around failure."

I visualise Liam again then, not only thunderstruck, but clapping like I'd filled the Royal Albert Hall with my voice, not croaked out lyrics I wrote for a contest finale but didn't even get to sing once.

Charles uses the sandy end of his spoon to gently prod my biceps while Asa is busy adding to a worm-count tally. "So here's something to think about next, Rowan. How can your music incorporate chances for Hadi and Maisie to feel just that—as cared for and successful as Asa does right now? You've made such a fabulous start by showing them all how to make their own instruments. Now, for bonus points, add more movement. Like this, maybe?"

He demonstrates for Asa to copy, his next sandy wiggles so big his whole arm gets in on the action. "Let's see lots of chances for really big physical movements for both of them."

"Because?"

His gaze flicks to Hadi before he sketches more letters into the sand. This time Charles writes PTSD. He adds a letter C before it, and he speaks quietly. "This C stands for complex. Because one traumatic life event is bad enough. Have several happen one after another?" He shakes his head. "That can do a real number on your synapses. Set up thought patterns that are difficult to rewire, like self-blame and guilt. But here's what I think that C could stand for." He scratches the word caring into the sand. "You care about music, and it's so incredibly healing, but you know that, don't you?"

I have to nod. I mean, I'm not saying that singing to one soldier has fixed me, but I do feel better.

Charles nods too. "Add in chances for some vigorous physical movement, and all of a sudden, new brain patterns start forming. But I do understand why you might hesitate about getting rowdy. We went to similar schools, didn't we?"

"Me? Only for a few years." The worst ones. Although in hindsight, spending all my time in a practice room doesn't sound anywhere near as harmful as what Charles murmurs.

"I was a full-time boarding student when I was no older than these little lovelies. Imagine if I'd ever had the chance to feel good at something at their age? If I hadn't been constantly shamed for being an undiagnosed dyslexic?" He aims for joking, I think. "I spent an awful lot of time outside my headmaster's study, dreading getting called in."

"Oh, me too." No one likes facing disappointment.

Charles tilts his head towards Hadi. "He's already been braver than I've ever needed to be in my whole lifetime. Let him keep struggling with that?" Charles shakes his head, and I mirror that firm action, meaning it with every bone in my body, and with every bit of wiring that sometimes makes me doubt my own judgement.

I don't doubt what he says next.

"Not with us on his side. On all of their sides. So go ahead and plan lots of chances for noise and movement for all of the children. Have some more of this." He scratches a three-letter word into the sand next to a half-empty heart where my initial still has no partner. "Fun, because I can't help thinking that might just be your superpower."

"Mine?"

"Yours." He nods firmly again. "Because I got you wrong, didn't I? By calling you Mr. Worried." He pokes me with the spoon one last time before standing, his arms outstretched as if he might fall from this plank. Each of his wobbles is an exaggerated lesson in perseverance that Hadi watches from a distance. But that sums up everything I've witnessed here—Charles role-plays mistakes and how to recover from them. Now he describes another misstep, only this one belongs to me.

"Because I watched that contest livestream from day one, remember? I saw a contestant who had a lot of fun at the start when you were a solo singer. That fun person can't be hidden too far below this serious face or behind those sexy Clark Kent glasses, and that's what will help children like ours the most."

"My sexy glasses?" I touch their frames, fingertip catching on the scuff there.

Charles laughs. "See? You are fun!" He sobers just as quickly. "But, no. What I really mean is that I know you're holding back." He taps his lips, thinking. "Maybe because you're worried about doing something wrong while I'm watching?" He's sympathetic about that while also cutting to the heart of my real issue. "If you've brought any old performance issues to this classroom, you needn't." He also has a solution. "Because it isn't only the children who get to experiment here. You get to as well. Here, not only in the practice rooms every evening."

"I—"

"Didn't think everyone's noticed the difference in Teo's playing. He's been listening to your advice?"

This time I can nod right away. Teo might still grunt questions at me, but he's started to take off his headphones the moment I enter his practice room each evening. "To be honest, I'm out of practice. He's made as many suggestions as I've offered to him."

"You've practised drumming in front of him? You didn't hold back? Made mistakes where he could hear them?" Charles beams. "Excellent. Now bring that to the classroom, Rowan. Bring all of you, including the part that makes mistakes and fixes them in public. Let the children see you trying, even if it feels like failing." He touches the plank across the sandpit. "Or like falling. I saw you make a start this morning with Maisie when you spilled your peas. It would have been so much quicker to sweep them up yourself, right?"

I nod.

"You let her solve that problem for you. Let her help you. What a boost for someone who has to be helped so often." He almost sighs this. "Such good instincts." He's firmer next. "I will always step in if I need to, but you've got this."

All those moments of judgement in front of TV cameras? Every assessed teacher-training lesson that chipped away at my soul? They might as well have never happened.

This comes out thickly. "Thought you were worried about being a mentor?"

Charles beams just as someone else calls out my name.

Liam.

He's on the other side of the new worksite barrier, and he isn't empty-handed. "Got something for you." He holds out a new and shiny hard hat. "You know, just in case you get the urge to get yourself in trouble."

I'm still on the far side of the sandpit, still with an audience of Charles and all the children. I can't help powering straight across it, only I use the plank bridge to avoid trampling Asa's hard work and what Charles sketched as being half empty.

Empty?

I'm full to the brim with praise and with something else that tingles once I reach the fence and stretch but can't quite reach what Liam offers. I laugh and go up on tiptoes, leaning out even further, still not quite able to reach or to name what bubbles over when he vaults that extra barrier between us.

Liam stops me from overbalancing with one hand while crowning me with his other, and sure, he does that with a hard hat, not with something gold or sparkly, but it settles on my head to a chorus of admiring ohs and ahs, which is just as well. The children's cooing masks his quiet, "Stop trying to break your bloody neck, will you?"

He hasn't let go of my shoulder. Isn't done adjusting the hard hat. Won't quit smiling with only his eyes, and I didn't know that was possible until he showed me so often. It's like I walked around with my eyes closed until I met him. "You'll need this." He taps my new hat. "If you want to see what I just dug up." His gaze shifts over my shoulder. "I know you're busy, but I found something pretty special. Made me think of you right away. Come and find me after school finishes if you aren't on duty?"

He backs away as the bell rings for lunchtime, and the rest of Dominic Dymond's crew pass by with their lunch boxes. Liam doesn't join them at the picnic benches where they gather. He heads away in the other direction.

To be on his own.

I don't need to turn back to Charles to check if this is the right decision. He's already told me I've got good instincts.

Wait until school is over?

I go to find Liam much sooner.