"Did you manage to find some?" Bettina called. She didn't look backwards upon hearing the door close. She was busy pouring hot water from the kettle into the teapot.
"A baker's dozen of them. They're still warm."
Giggling, she turned then, and watched as Mr. Stephens undid the string bow on the bakery box.
"I love hot cross buns."
He looked up at her. A hank of dark hair flopped messily over his forehead and his grey eyes sparkled behind the heavy tortoiseshell frames of his glasses. He was gaunt and rather tortured looking, but when he grinned, his face lit up. "So do I."
It wasn't his looks; it was the voice that made her quiver inside, that made her cheeks go red and her legs ache. It was the seriousness of it, the determination, as if the sheer strength of it could sweep everything away.
They took the tea things into the den. The small coal-fire in the grate had warmed up the room, even though outside, the sleety drizzle turned the April sky to grey.
Mr. Stephens sat in his armchair and sipped his tea in silence. Bettina sat on the rug at his feet and rested her head on his knee. No one knew where she was. Not her parents, not the school, no one. The train ticket to London was a day old, and still in the pocket of her school blazer. She had gotten as far as the station at Brighton, still undecided as to what she would do.
Now her small suitcase was on the floor beside the front door, still unopened. He had let her in without saying a word, as if he'd been expecting her. That's when time stopped and the world changed. It felt like being lost and found all at the same time. Easter in limbo.
He spoke to her of strange things: big bangs, and optics and lasers and something about a cat in a box. Not being very good at science, she didn't really listen. She just liked the sound of his voice and the even caresses of his hand as he stroked her hair.
"Can I have a fag?" she asked, idly.
"Only if you'll pay for it."
She lit the cigarette and smoked, gazing hypnotized at the small blue flames that licked the outlines of the pieces of coal. In the centre of the hearth, pieces crumbled and glowed white in the pressure and the heat.
When she'd finished the cigarette, she tossed the end into the grate and got to her feet.
"Here?"
"Yes, here will do."
She pulled her grey school jumper over her head and let it drop to the floor. Then reaching beneath her flannel skirt, pulled her knickers down her thighs, and draped her upper body over his knees.
* * *
The girls of lower sixth descended on him like lamiae as he came into the classroom for morning mail call.
"Oooh! Nice jacket, Mr. Stephens. Very sharp." Nadia slipped sinuously off her perch on the desk and walked towards him.
"Wearing it for someone special?" teased Camille. "Who's the new girlfriend, then?"
"Right! Enough of that, girls, if you please. We have a lot of mail here." Mr. Stephens pushed a recalcitrant flop of hair off his forehead and looked annoyed. He sorted through the letters, shuffling them like cards. "Miss Andrews, two for you. And, three – no, four – for you Miss Cardon-Scott."
He called out the names, passing the letters out without looking at the recipients. When he came to Bettina, she walked to the front of the class. Before taking the letter he held out to her, she trailed a fingertip down his wrist and over his hand. It made him look up angrily. She giggled.
