| Playground
Duty
by Alyson Hilbourne
An invisible umbilical cord is keeping them together.
The shared past binds them.
She wants to leave. She has wanted to go for a long time, since
before that day. Now every playground duty is a nightmare, and today
it is made worse by a thin January drizzle. Even so, the idea of
breaking free is daunting.
What will the press say if they find she is leaving? After so much
coverage someone will let slip that she has handed in her notice.
This is a worry to her. She doesn’t want it to appear everything
is too much for her. It would annoy her if people said the pressure
was too much. Maybe she can take sick leave? The problem is she
exudes good health. It was one of the things the photographers had
loved about her.
But they don’t know about the nights, when she wakes up sweating,
her heart racing, her muscles tense ready to flee. His face taunts
her even during sleep. She feels his hot meaty breath on her neck,
and the scalding of the knife as it is pressed against her throat.
She hears the bronchial whistle as he breaths and the rasp of his
voice so close to her ear she feels the words. She has to turn on
the light to check no one is there, and crawl shaking out of bed
and downstairs where, if she is lucky, she can doze on the sofa
until morning.
Her photo appeared on the front page of every newspaper in the country,
and the television stations rushed to film her after it happened.
She became the country’s darling but it didn’t protect
her from the nightmares.
At school the memories are vivid too. She is suspicious of everybody
who approaches. It would be unreasonable to stop people walking
across the playground to the front door. Parents did it every morning
and every afternoon but each visitor sends her heart racing and
sets her brain questioning.
No one had noticed anything unusual last term when the man had crossed
the playground, twisting between the jump ropes and games of soccer,
and approached the door. He could have been anyone’s parent.
The jacket, jeans, cap and stubble didn’t mark him out as
a problem, and he wouldn’t have been the first estranged father
that had come storming into the school demanding access to his children.
But this man had no connection with the school. He was apparently
unhappy because he couldn’t get a job, and he blamed it on
his poor education. But as the papers pointed out, people don’t
go into Tesco brandishing a knife if they get a bad yogurt. Why
did this man take his grievances out on the nearest educational
establishment?
She had been on playground duty, just like today. She saw him as
he strode across the tarmac and rang the doorbell, but she’d
thought nothing of it. People were always coming and going. Some
of the children had been playing on the steps near him. When he
got no answer, he grabbed young Caitlin.
She was surprised.
Shocked.
Horrified.
Each emotion rose up in her like a wave flooding the last. It had
taken a few moments for her to realise what was happening. That
sort of thing happened in movies, not in a school playground.
There was a scream, and she saw a glint of metal under Caitlin’s
chin.
Two girls came rushing away from the steps but Susie stood there,
frozen, her eyes wide with fear. The girls grabbed her skirt, preventing
her from moving. She patted their backs to reassure them but kept
her eyes fixed on the steps.
‘Go round to the back of the school,’ she had whispered,
firmly. ‘Tell Ms Kemp there is someone out here with a knife.’
She gently removed the small fingers from her jacket and pushed
the girls in the right direction.
She took a deep breath. Instinct told her to blow the whistle and
herd all the children round the back, but her eyes stayed on Caitlin
who was whimpering miserably, her thin white legs swinging loosely
in the air like cooked spaghetti, as the man held her up.
She worried that someone inside might open the door and scare him.
She wanted to call Susie away but didn’t want to provoke him.
Gradually the rest of the children, like a ripple spreading out
across water, noticed that something was happening. They stopped
playing and drew closer as if pulled by some gravitational force.
Quietly but urgently, she urged them to go to the back of the school.
‘Go to Mr Mason’s class,’ she whispered, but they
seemed reluctant to move, hypnotised to the action. She didn’t
want to make a fuss and attract attention. She tried to beckon Susie
away, but the child remained on the steps, not realising the danger,
watching her friend. Caitlin was tearful.
She tried to calm her own fear. Her heart was thumping and her mouth
tasted sour. She could see the knife, the point resting just above
Caitlin’s fluorescent pink scarf.
‘Let her go!’ she called. Her throat was dry and her
voice squeaked.
‘Let her go. She’s only five years old,’ She tried
again.
The man didn’t seem to hear.
‘What do you want? Who are you looking for?’
‘Let me in,’ he answered.
‘I can’t. The door is on a security lock. Someone has
to release it from inside.’
‘Tell them then. Come here and tell them to let me in!’
He was breathing fast and gabbling. Whatever he wanted she had the
feeling it wasn’t supposed to take place here on the school
steps. He was nervous.
‘OK, OK,’ she made a calming motion with her hands.
‘If I come will you let the child go?’
He shrugged but didn’t answer, so she forced herself to walk
as calmly as she could up the steps. She could feel her stomach
was churning and bile flooded the back of her throat, her body warning
her of danger. Her legs felt wobbly but she fought back the urge
to run. She scanned the windows of the school searching for a sign
that somebody knew what was going on before she stepped into the
shadow of the porch.
Caitlin almost leapt into her arms as she was released, but immediately
she felt a tight grip on her upper arm and the cold metal on her
neck between her hair and the top of her jacket sent a shiver down
her back.
‘Run,’ she said to Caitlin, but the child was shaking
and weeping and refused to move.
She didn’t know how long she stood there. He held her close
with one arm across her neck, protecting himself with her body.
Her skin burned where the knife touched it. She prayed her legs
wouldn’t give way and she’d fall. She kept her breathing
as shallow as possible, and tried not to make a sound. She hoped
Caitlin wouldn’t pull her suddenly but the child seemed content
just to hang on to her hand, her other fingers bunched up in her
mouth.
‘Goal!’
The cheer snaps her back into the present and she shakes her head
to clear the thoughts. There is nobody there, just the sound of
children shouting to each other and the scudding of the football
across the tarmac.
A helicopter comes into view, its blades chopping the air with a
regular beat. It banks away and flies over the trees at the far
side of the playground. Just some voyeurs, she thinks, wanting to
see where the action had been.
Distant police sirens spin her thoughts back to that day however
and the time she spent held on the steps, watching as the police
built up a cordon around the school and a different helicopter flew
backwards and forwards overhead.
She hadn’t seen the children leave, but she’d been told
later the whole school had all been led to safety though the back
and had climbed ladders over the rear fence, where buses waited
to take them away. The police had bombarded the man with messages
through a loudhailer. Susie was coaxed away and eventually a policewoman
had been allowed close enough to prize Caitlin away, gently lifting
each finger in turn and carrying her towards her mother who waited
at the police lines. She’d felt a tremor of despair then,
as if part of her had been snatched away.
Then, as the policemen shouted another message there had been a
crash and the doors behind her burst open, hitting her, and knocking
them both to the ground. The knife tore down her arm, splitting
her jacket and slicing the flesh wide and red.
The pain was excruciating. She wanted to scream but she felt numb,
as if in some horrific operation where she could feel what was happening
but could do nothing about it.
Three, four, five policemen in a flurry of black and silver bore
down on them both and hauled the man to his feet, knocking the knife
from his hand. She was led away to an ambulance, bulbs flashing
as the press snapped away.
She had been put up for awards. She’d had meetings with important
people. There were the masses and masses of cards, letters and emails
she had received from ordinary people thanking her for her act of
heroism.
Shuddering she tries to shake off the vision, but the image won’t
clear. Playground duty has become something she dreads with her
every waking minute.
That’s why she has to do something. As the drizzle ratchets
up to heavy rain she decides. She owes it to herself. She is not
doing herself any favours staying where she doesn’t want to
be. Whatever people think of her, she is going to follow her dream.
She will hand in her notice and post the application for voluntary
service. She can shake off the fears, and travel. Then she’ll
teach for a while wherever she is needed and sort out her future
from there.
She blows the whistle and signals the children inside out of the
rain, grateful that playground duty is over for another day.
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