Teacher's Pet (19 page)

“Oh, I don’t know,
Liz.  I’m sure he’ll be back.”  She decided to change the subject to something more cheerful.  She was beginning to feel depressed.  “How’s Jeremiah?  Still trying to decide how to celebrate passing the exam?”

“He’s
a bit tired today.”

Allie continued, despite the cold note she detected in
Liz’s voice.

“You do know that if you want to go out, just you two, I can baby-sit for you.  I don’t mind.”

Liz was staring at her, unsmiling.

“Thanks, Allie.  But I rather think that Jeremiah would like you to come out with us to celebrate.”  She moved up next to Allie on the sofa.  “He would insist on it.  Really.”

Allie suddenly felt awkward.  Something wasn’t quite right.  Liz was too close to her.  She tried to move back a little, but her back hit the arm of the settee.  Liz was still talking, and Allie tried to focus on what she was saying.

“…. Aren’t you going to dr
ink your tea?  It’ll do you good.”

Allie glanced past
Liz at her cup, which was still half full.

“I think it’s gone cold now.  I’ll make us another one, shall I?”

She tried to get up, but suddenly, Liz’s arm shot out to block her movement.

“No, Allie, stay here.  We need to talk.”

“OK, Liz, but….”

“But what?” 
Liz’s face was very near hers, and she noticed a strange detachment in her eyes.  Something made her think it was best to sit back, so she did, and waited for Liz to speak.  She was beginning to feel tired again.  “I need to ask you something, Allie,” Liz said, after a few moments of uncomfortable silence.

Allie nodded:

“No problem, Liz.  You know you can ask me anything you want, don’t you?”  She tried to keep her voice calm.  “I am your friend, after all,” she added.

Liz
’s serious expression didn’t change.  She leaned back a little, as though reassured that Allie wouldn’t try to escape.  When her question came, Allie was totally unprepared for it.

“What exactly is going on between you and Jeremiah?”

Allie reeled inwardly.  She felt as though she had been struck in the face.

“I’m sorry?”

“You heard.”  Liz’s voice was harder now.  “Are you having an affair with Jeremiah?”

Allie gasped.

“Are you joking?”

Liz
smiled for a split second, but not with her eyes.

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

Allie shook her head.

“No. 
Liz, I’m sorry, I don’t know what to say.  The whole idea is preposterous.  Really, it is.  You can’t be serious.”

“But I am.”

Allie hesitated for a moment, trying to think of the best thing to say.  She was aware that there was something odd about her friend today, but didn’t know what it was.  Something in Liz’s eyes worried her.  She took a deep breath.

“I’m not,
Liz.  I’m not having an affair with your husband.”  She looked at Liz as she spoke, trying to gauge the emotion in her eyes.  To her surprise, she saw nothing.  Only darkness.  Sudden fear prompted her to add: “Honestly.  There’s nothing going on.”  Then she amazed herself by yawning.  “Oh, God, Liz, I’m sorry.  I….”

“You’re feeling tired, aren’t you?” 
Liz’s tone had softened.

“A bit.
”  Allie tried to sit forward.  Her body didn’t want to obey her.  All of a sudden, it seemed to be too much of an effort, and she sank back to one side into the welcome softness of the pillows.

“Are you more comfortable now
?” Liz asked, looking strangely relaxed, considering their previous topic of conversation.

“Yes.  But Liz..
.  I’ve spent a lot of time asleep lately, so I shouldn’t be tired, should I?  I’m sorry.  I’m not making much sense.”

Liz
shook her head slowly, leaning in to get a closer look at Allie.

“Do you want to go to sleep again?” 

Something in her words made Allie more uneasy.

“No,” she said, as firmly as she could.

Liz continued to speak, no longer looking at Allie, but now seemingly distracted by something she could see out of the window.

“You should sleep, you know.  Jeremiah’s asleep.  Or he was when I left him.”  Allie struggled to locate
Liz.  Her eyelids felt like lead.  Liz’s voice was getting faint.  “You should definitely sleep.  It’ll do you good.  Lie back.”

She felt herself being put into a prone position, and when she closed her eyes and opened them again, she saw
Liz walking over to the window, as if to check something.

“But I’ve done nothing to make me tired.”  Allie felt herself beginning to drift away and began to blink furiously.  She was exhausted with the sheer effort of keeping her eyes open.  “
Liz?” 

She was vaguely aware of
Liz’s voice floating over to her out of the dazzling sunlight:

“Go to sleep.”

“Call the doctor, Liz.  This isn’t normal.  I don’t feel well.  Please, you will call the doctor, won’t you?”

As she gave in to the all-pervading drowsiness enveloping her, she heard
Liz’s voice one last time.

“No, Allie, I won’t.” 

Paul was beginning to feel a lot better as he drove slowly down Allie’s street.  He pulled up outside her house and turned off the engine, humming softly to himself.  Picking up the roses and chocolate, he got out and locked the door.  His line of vision took in the tarmac of the pavements, the cherry trees bordering them, lined up like pink sentinels, and the tall cypress trees across the road.  As his gaze swept over all this, he noticed a dark object by the bins of the house opposite.  At first, his mind registered this as a jacket, strewn carelessly onto the drive.  Maybe it was meant to go out with the rubbish, he thought, as he turned away to go up Allie’s path.  Then, suddenly, his brain caught up with his eyes, and he fully realised what he was looking at.  He spun round abruptly, dropping the presents he was holding and ran over to the shape on the ground.

“Jeremiah?  Hey, Jeremiah!  W
ake up!”  He crouched down and carefully rolled Jeremiah over, then checked his pulse and breathing.  If he didn’t know better, he would have said he was in a deep sleep.  “Jeremiah,” he began, more softly now.  “Are you OK?”  Jeremiah’s eyes opened briefly in response to his voice.  Paul noticed that the pupils seemed huge and the whites abnormally bloodshot.  “Can you sit up?” he asked, shaking Jeremiah gently until he opened his eyes again.  The other man nodded and slowly struggled upright.  Once he was in a sitting position, Paul carefully helped him move back until he was leaning against the front wall of the house. 

Squinting against the sunlight, Jeremiah looked around slowly, as if unsure of where he was.

“Bloody Hell,” he began, in a hoarse whisper.  “What happened?”

“I was about to ask
you
that,” said Paul, relieved.  “Don’t you remember?”

Jeremiah shook h
is head slightly, then winced and stopped.

“I feel like I’ve got the mother of all hangovers,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.  “Shit, that hurts.”

“What do you remember?” asked Paul.

“That’s a good question.”  Jeremiah was sitting up straighter now and stretching.  “Not much, that’s for sure.”  He scratched his head.  “I was having a cup of tea with
Liz, and….. Oh God.  Liz.  She….”  He was struggling to get to his feet, but slumped sideways instead.

Paul caught him and placed him back against the
wall.

“I don’t think you’re ready to go anywhere just yet.”  Once he was sure Jeremiah was balanced again, he leaned back on his haunches.  “Is
Liz OK?”

Jeremiah looked at him strangely, as if trying to work out whether he could trust him.

“I don’t think so,” he said, after a short pause.  “She’s not been taking her medication.”

“Medication?”

“For bi-polar disorder,” he explained.  “She has manic depression.  They call it bi-polar now.”  Paul nodded.  “She needs medication to control it, and as far as I can work out, she hasn’t taken it for a couple of weeks.”

Paul didn’t know what to say.  He knew
that this was serious.  He had had an aunt who suffered from manic depression.  She had committed suicide.

“Where is
Liz now?” he asked.  It was beginning to dawn on him that Liz was maybe more in need of help than Jeremiah at the moment.

“I’m not sure.”  Jeremiah thought for a moment.  “She isn’t in the house.  I was…”  He hesitated.  “I was looking for something and I fou
nd some pictures.  Weird photos.”

Paul raised an eyebrow.

“What kind of weird photos?”

Jeremiah took a deep breath.

“Well, there were the usual happy snaps.  Of me, Liz, Allie and the kids in the garden.”

Paul nodded.

“Go on.” 

“But she had cut out a head in each one.”  Jeremiah began to look more worried.

“Whose head?”  Paul’s heart was beginning to beat faster now.  Jeremiah was staring at him, seemingly unable to continue.  Paul repeated his question.  “Whose head had she cut out?”

Jeremiah looked down.

“Allie’s.”

Paul jumped to his feet, pulling out his mobile phone.

“Has she got a key to Allie’s house?”

“Yes.”  Jeremiah looked up at him again.  “We both have,” he added.

Paul threw him the mobile phone and ran across the road.

“Call an ambulance,” he shouted, as he sprinted up the path a
nd began hammering on the door.  He thought he heard a crash somewhere inside the house.  Then silence.  “Allie?  Liz?  Are you there?  Is everything OK?”  The silence continued, broken only by the distant sound of Jeremiah speaking into the mobile phone.  He moved over to the front room window.  Putting his hand up to shield his eyes from the harsh sunlight, he peered in and gasped as he caught sight of Allie lying motionless on the sofa.  He began rapping on the glass. 
Surely he could wake her up.
  “Allie?  Allie!”

There was neither movement nor sound.  Her blonde hair was spread out around her head, reflecting the light that filled the room.  To his relief, he saw her chest rising and falling rhythmically.  She was, hopefully, just in a deep slumber.  He thought for a second.  The adrenaline he could now feel coursing through his veins appeared to be preventing him from reasoning.  He took a deep breath, and tried to calm himself down.  Bizarre
ly, part of a lecture from his college days flashed into his mind:

When you get angry with a child, this induces a state of panic in their mind, sending it into ‘fight or flight’ mode.  In practical terms, this means the brain diverts blood away from the higher thinking functions, such as reason and logic.  It goes to the extremities of the body, preparing them either to face up to their predator, or perceived threat (in this case – you), or to run away.  So their brains are effectively starved of oxygen, rendering them unable to ‘think’, and therefore unable to perform the task you want them to carry out in the first place.  Try as they might: when
you shout at them, they are under stress and they cannot think.

It was as if a
light had gone on in Paul’s head.  He began to will himself to breathe more deeply, to concentrate on possible solutions to the situation.  He could feel, as he did this, his heart rate slowing down and the focus pushing its way back into the rushing stream of his jumbled thoughts. 
A key.  Jeremiah had a key.  Of course
. 

He spun round to see Jeremiah lying on his side with his eyes closed
again, and raced back over to him.

“The key!”  Paul didn’t mean to shout, and the sound of his voice woke Jeremiah immediately.  “You said you both had a key.  Where’s yours?”

Jeremiah gazed at him for a moment, and then lifted his arm up with what seemed like a superhuman effort, and pointed to the hallway of his house.

“On the hall table,” he mumbled, struggling to make his voice clear.  He only just succeeded.  “Red key ring.  Got a
blue Smurf on or something.”  He blinked.  “Feel sick…”

Paul darted into the house almost before Jeremiah had finished his sentence, and grabbed the key.  As he race
d back past him, he yelled out:  “Is the ambulance coming?”

“It’s o
n its way.”  Jeremiah was closing his eyes again.

Paul ran up to Allie’s door and silently slid the key
into the lock.  Turning it carefully, he was able to open the door and slip noiselessly into the hall.  The silence overwhelmed him.  It smothered everything like a thick, woollen blanket.   He advanced slowly to the front room and pushed open the door.

“Allie?”  He moved acros
s to her and knelt down, checking her pulse as he did so.  She felt warm, and her breathing was regular.  He shook her gently.  “Allie?  Wake up,” he murmured.  “Show me you’re OK.  Wake up.”  She blinked and opened her eyes with some difficulty.  When he looked closely, he could see that her pupils were over dilated.  “Allie?  Are you OK?  What happened?”