Watching You: A Novel

The hotel in Seville was a shithole. Jenna had known not to expect much for £330 a head for the whole trip, but seriously – five of them had been squashed into a room meant for three, with two camp beds stuck in the corner so there was no room even to walk around the room and they’d had to put their suitcases on the balcony. The bathroom was minging. The bed sheets had rips in them and smelled like they’d been boil-washed in old dishwater. Bess had even found a rolled-up panty liner tucked into the U-bend behind the toilet.

‘I wanna go home,’ she said now, her small body curled around a pillow. ‘I wanna go where I have like a floor with a carpet, and a nice comfortable bed, and a lovely big bathroom with no stains and no used panty liners. You know …’ She sat up straight. ‘I bet if we showed Mr Fitzwilliam our room he’d get un upgrade for us. I bet he would.’

There was a knock at the door then and Lottie opened it up to a load of lads all peering over each other to get a look into the girls’ room. They were the alpha girls in year eleven, Jenna knew that much. She, Bess, Lottie, Tiana and Ruby. They weren’t like a clique or anything, just five girls who all got along and who were all quite good-looking.

‘God, your room sucks,’ said one of the lads.

‘I know, right!’ said Bess. ‘What’s yours like?’

‘Ours is cool. We’ve got, like, a sitting area.’

‘Yeah, it’s a suite.’

‘Oh my God!’ Bess turned to each girl in turn, her mouth hanging ajar. ‘They’ve got a fucking suite! That’s it.’ She jumped to her feet. ‘I’m going to tell Mr Fitzwilliam.’ She looked at Jenna. ‘Come with?’

Jenna nodded. She put her trainers back on and followed Bess down the dingy corridor towards the rooms at the end where the teachers were staying.

Mr Fitzwilliam opened the door to his room looking as crisp and fresh as he had at five thirty that morning. ‘Ladies,’ he said, ‘what can I do for you?’

‘It’s our room, sir,’ said Bess. ‘It’s really bad. I’m not sure we can stay in it, I’m not gonna lie.’

She had her fists at her mouth and was talking in a voice about 20 per cent higher than her usual pitch.

Mr Fitzwilliam moved his balance from one foot to the other, folded his arms across his waist and looked down at Bess. ‘What’s wrong with it?’

‘It’s got, like, two extra beds in it. Really rubbish camp beds. And there’s five of us and we’re all squashed in and there’s nowhere to put our suitcases. They’re on the balcony, sir.’

Mr Fitzwilliam nodded. To Jenna’s surprise he appeared to be taking her concerns seriously.

‘And Connor Mates just told us that they’ve got a suite. With, like, seating and stuff. And it’s not fair, sir. I mean, we all paid the same, didn’t we?’

He let his arms drop to his sides and he said, ‘OK, then, let’s have a look at this room. Lead the way.’

Bess threw Jenna a triumphant look. Jenna shrugged.

The other girls all sat up straight when they saw Mr Fitzwilliam at the door. ‘Well, ladies,’ he said, after scanning the room with his eyes for a moment, ‘I have to agree. This is clearly unacceptable. Leave it with me, I’m going to talk to reception, see what we can sort out for you. I will be right back.’ He smiled and touched his temple with his fingers, in a kind of military salute.

After he’d gone all five girls looked at each other in a kind of shocked silence before bursting into embarrassed laughter.

‘Oh my God,’ said Lottie. ‘He’s so cool.’

‘I know, right,’ agreed Tiana. ‘If that had been, like, any other teacher they’d have just told us to quit whining.’

‘Yeah, right?’ said Lottie.

‘You can all fuck off,’ said Bess. ‘He’s mine.’

‘Ew,’ said Ruby, ‘but he’s really old.’

‘He’s not old,’ Bess replied. ‘He’s mature. Like wine. Like cheese. I love him. I actually love him.’

Jenna nodded. ‘She actually does,’ she said.

Half an hour later she and Bess had a room of their own. It was a large suite with a big double bed, a sofa, a view over the park opposite and two sinks in the bathroom. The management had also sent up a bowl of fruit by way of apology. They sat now, cross-legged on the sofa, eating bloomy Spanish grapes as though they were chocolate truffles and laughing at their good fortune.

‘Cheers,’ said Bess, knocking her complimentary plastic bottle of water against Jenna’s. ‘To Mr Fitzwilliam. A god amongst men.’

They had half an hour in their rooms before they were to meet up in the lobby to head out for what Mr Phipp had described as ‘a sandwich and some culture’. The itinerary that Jenna had remembered to slip into her rucksack that morning said they were going to the Plaza de España where they would be perusing food stalls and ordering and paying for their own lunches from vendors in Spanish, before having a wander round and looking at some bridges. The weather was nice; not like Spain in the summer, when Jenna had been to Spain before, but way better than Bristol where it had been five degrees and raining yesterday.

She pulled her make-up bags out of her suitcase and arranged them on the side of her sink in the en suite. She looked tired and grey in the tile-framed mirror.

‘What do you reckon his wife’s like?’ Bess called from the bedroom.

Jenna rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, you know, she’s probably really fit and hot and young.’

‘Yeah,’ said Bess. ‘Yeah. I bet she is.’

‘With really huge breasts. And they’re probably having sex like all the time,’ she continued, applying an extra layer of mascara. ‘Like porn stars.’

‘Oh God, Jen. Stop it.’

She paused to examine her refreshed visage, before pulling a tube of plumping lip gloss from her case and applying it. ‘I’m only joking,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen his wife. She’s not all that.’

Bess appeared in the reflection in the mirror. ‘Is she young?’

‘Yeah. Youngish. Younger than him. Always wearing running gear and a baseball cap.’

‘Hm,’ Bess replied, ‘sounds like every middle-aged woman in Melville.’

Jenna’s phone popped. She glanced at it. A text message from her mum.

Did you move the recycling bin this morning? It’s facing the wrong way!!

She closed her eyes. She had not touched the recycling bin this morning. It was pitch black when she left the house, she hadn’t even seen the recycling bin.

Yes, she typed back, I did move it.

Why?

There was a cat stuck behind it.

What cat???

Christ, now even the local cats were in on it.

I don’t know. Just a black one. Stop worrying about it.

Did you see that weird mark in the butter? It looked like a swastika. Look.

Jenna’s shoulders dropped. A second later her phone popped again. There was a photo of the butter. In the top of the butter was the mark she’d left there last night with a knife when she’d buttered a crumpet. It looked nothing like a swastika.

I had a crumpet last night. That was me.

Good, her mum replied. Then: Remind me when you’re coming home again?

Friday afternoon.

And remind me where you are?

I’m in Seville.

That’s nice. I love you.

I love you too mum.

She switched off her phone and stared at its dead screen for a moment. Then there was a knock at the door and Bess went to open it and there was Mr Fitzwilliam, wolfish and fresh in a navy hoodie and chinos.

‘Are we happy, ladies?’ he said, taking in the room quickly with his eyes.

‘Oh yes,’ said Bess. ‘Thank you so much, Mr Fitzwilliam. We are, like, so so grateful. And you are totally the best.’

He smiled down at her. ‘Well, that’s very nice of you to say, Bess. But I was just doing what needed to be done. And I’m very pleased with the outcome. I will see you both in the lobby in …’ He looked at his wrist, at an old-fashioned steel-faced watch with a red and yellow striped canvas strap. ‘Six and a half minutes!’

‘See you, Mr Fitzwilliam!’ said Bess, closing the door behind him, then collapsing against it with her hands to her mouth and saying, ‘Oh my God, he knows my name. Mr Fitzwilliam knows my name.’

‘He knows everyone’s name, Bess.’

‘Yeah, I know – but he said it!’

But Jenna wasn’t really engaged with her friend because something was playing on her mind. Something to do with Mr Fitzwilliam’s watch. The watch with the yellow and red strap. Because she’d seen it before, somewhere else, when she was young.

And then it came to her: the Lake District.

When she was ten.

When Ethan was six.

When her mum was sane and her parents were together. And they’d stayed at a beautiful B & B with four-poster beds and the owner had had six basset hounds who all trundled together around the grounds. It was thirty degrees. One of the hottest days of the year. They’d been on a sightseeing coach trip and had stopped for ice creams at the side of a lake when a woman had appeared from nowhere, screaming. She’d been wearing a vest top and linen shorts, bright pink flip flops.

You, she’d been shouting. You!

Then a man had appeared from somewhere behind them, a tall, commanding man. He was part of their tour group, with a younger wife and a small son. He’d approached the screaming woman and he’d put his hands against her bare arms and she’d screamed You! You! How could you! And the man had talked to her softly and sternly and then he’d walked her firmly away from the staring hordes. And he was wearing that watch. She’d noticed it because it matched his striped shirt. And it was him. Mr Fitzwilliam was the man that her mum kept saying he was.

They’d never found out why the woman was screaming at him. They never worked out what had happened next. It had just remained as a kind of pale stain on their holiday, a tiny, unsettling sentence without a full stop. Remember that man, they would say for days and weeks afterwards. And the woman screaming at him? Hitting him? Remember? I wonder what that was all about …

And for so long Jenna had assumed that her mum’s belief that her new head teacher was the man by the lake was simply part of her mum’s madness. Her mum was always seeing people she was convinced she’d seen before. Sometimes they’d be taller and she’d say they were wearing lifts in their shoes, or blonder and she’d say they’d dyed their hair, or younger and she’d say they’d had a facelift. They didn’t have to much resemble the person she was convinced they were. There was no rhyme or reason to her delusion.

But this time her mum was right.

They had seen Tom Fitzwilliam before.

He’d been the man by the lake, the man the woman was shouting at.

Jenna felt a shiver of unease run down her spine.