Watching You: A Novel

Bess and Jenna laughed together as they tried to keep their footing on the cobbled streets in the stupid heeled boots they’d both packed for the trip. They’d bought them in Primark, the week before, especially for Seville. The itinerary had specifically stated that footwear should be ‘comfortable and practical’. They had paid no heed.

They were heading for dinner in the old town. The night was moon-bright and balmy and the group were in high spirits, loud, shouting over each other, laughing too hard, just about staying the right side of out of control. In the restaurant they were split up over four huge tables in a private room at the back. Each table was assigned a teacher. Jenna felt Bess’s boot connect with her shin when Mr Fitzwilliam came and sat down with them.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘lucky group B. Looks like you’re stuck with me.’

Huge menus with laminated pages were passed around. Mr Fitzwilliam handed one to Jenna with a smile. ‘Well, I don’t know about you lot,’ he said, ‘but I am starving.’

‘Didn’t you have something nice at lunch, sir?’ said a boy called Ollie.

‘I did, thank you, Ollie. I had some excellent albóndigas. Can anyone tell me what albóndigas are?’

‘Meatballs!’ someone shouted across the table.

‘Yes. Exactly. I had meatballs. And if I recall rightly, Thomas here,’ he patted Thomas’ shoulder, ‘had a delicious-looking bocadillo de tortilla. Anyone know what that is?’

‘A crisp sandwich!’

‘No,’ he replied. ‘Not crisps. That’s a different sort of tortilla. Anyone else?’

‘Omelette sandwich?’ suggested Jenna.

‘Yes. An omelette sandwich. Does anyone know what goes into a Spanish omelette?’

Hands went up.

‘Eggs!’ said someone.

‘Potatoes!’ said someone else.

Jenna saw Bess staring across at Mr Fitzwilliam meaningfully. Then she looked around and saw that nearly everyone was staring at Mr Fitzwilliam meaningfully, hoping to be noticed, to be singled out for praise. They were all frantically trying to impress him, boys and girls, first by getting the answers to his questions right and then, when the conversation shifted, by trying to make him laugh. Which he did, frequently and with genuine pleasure.

She looked at him, trying to see what Bess saw. She could tell that he must once have been quite handsome. And he did have a nice smile. But to her he was still just an old man. There was an area on the top of his head where his scalp glowed white. His hands were gnarly. And he had old man teeth: that nameless shade of putty.

Mr Fitzwilliam turned and caught her gaze and she inhaled sharply as she saw something pass across his face. She couldn’t pinpoint it or give it words. Words weren’t her strong point. She used an online thesaurus a lot at home to find the right words when she was doing her homework. But it was something primal and wrong.

She lowered her gaze and felt her cheeks flush. He’d seen her curiosity and it had meant something to him. He’d reacted to it. She felt trapped somehow, complicit in something strange and unsavoury.

And then the word came to her, the elusive word she’d been chasing through her thoughts. The look that Mr Fitzwilliam had given. It had been predatory.

Bedtime was 11 p.m. Lights out was eleven thirty. It was eleven twenty and the teachers would be coming round any minute to make sure everyone was tucked up in bed. But Bess was still not back from hanging out in Lottie, Ruby and Tiana’s room a floor above. Jenna had come back to their room early to do her skincare routine in peace. She sent Bess a WhatsApp message. WTF are you?? You’re gonna get a warning????

She stared at the sent message for a while, waiting and waiting for the two blue ticks to appear. But they didn’t. The time turned from eleven twenty to eleven twenty-five. She sent another message. But still it went unread. Then she went to the door of their room and peered up and down the corridor. She could see Miss Mangan with her head round the door of Kat and Mia’s room, telling them to turn off their phones. ‘I’m going to stand here until I see them going off, girls. I’ve got all night. I’m not going anywhere.’

There were two more rooms to check on this corridor before Miss Mangan got to theirs. She sent a message to Lottie. Tell Bess to GTF down here now. Miss Mangan’s like 2 minutes away!

The message immediately showed as read and a reply arrived a second later. She’s not here. She left like 20 minutes ago!

She went back to the door and glanced up and down the corridor again. Miss Mangan was one door down. And then she saw Bess coming in the other direction. She was with Mr Fitzwilliam. Something deep inside Jenna clenched up hard.

As they neared, Mr Fitzwilliam looked at Jenna, a smile buried beneath a faux-stern façade. ‘Jenna. I am returning your roommate. Found hiding underneath a bed in one of the boys’ rooms. I am not going to make a record of it because it is the first night and we’re all a bit over-excited. But seriously, the rules are there for a reason, Bess. They’re not there to stop you having fun. They’re there to protect you. What might have happened if you’d had to find your own way back to your room in the middle of the night? Along these dark corridors? Who knows who you might have bumped into? Huh?’

‘I’m really sorry, Mr Fitzwilliam,’ said Bess, her head bowed.

He looked at Jenna, fresh-faced and scrubbed, her hair tied back, teeth brushed ready for bed. ‘Keep an eye on her,’ he said gently. ‘I can tell you’re a sensible girl.’

Jenna nodded briskly.

‘I don’t want to have to be making any terrible phone calls to anyone’s parents. OK?’

Both girls nodded. And there followed a strange moment, brief but loaded. The two girls, one still in her party clothes, her hair awry and her heeled boots clutched in her hand, the other in pyjamas and ready for bed, and there, stationed between them, a tall, broad-shouldered man who was neither their father nor their friend. In the background of the vignette lurked the double bed spread with the ephemera of teenage girls: a red bra hooked over the bedpost, a crumpled, lipstick-stained tissue on the bedside table. The room held the sugary smell of the Superdrug beauty aisle, the medicinal tang of Clearasil. The scene seemed like a portrait, captured in minute detail with tiny touches of a tiny brush, before suddenly vaporising into nothing as Mr Fitzwilliam straightened and smiled and said, ‘Well, goodnight, ladies. Get straight into bed. And I’ll see you both for breakfast at eight thirty sharp.’

Bess dashed in and they closed the door behind him. But when Jenna put her eye to the spy hole in the door, she saw him there, just outside their room, his hands in his pockets, his gaze on hers.