Page 47

‘PLEASE CHECK THROUGH THESE ROOMS, EVERYONE! I do not want you on that coach telling me you’ve left your phones on your beds,’ Lee shouts out into the corridors, as our Sevillian trip comes to an end.

It’s been a busy day of going to the Royal Alcazar, me admiring the Moorish architecture and beautiful ceramics, the kids less so.

My nan’s got these tiles. It’s very hot, Sir.

Why didn’t they build this palace with air conditioning?

After that there was a wander around the shops and markets so the kids could practise their language skills, an exercise in crowd control and making sure they all bought items that were at least legal and avoiding, as Lee reminded us, a repeat of Paris three years ago where a group of lads bought PSG shirts from a man on the pavement and ended up being arrested.

As we are in charge of our own sets of kids, I’ve seen less of Suzie – maybe more from a distance, under an arch, laughing with her group, picking out souvenirs.

Snapshots of someone I can see a little more clearly now.

Our room door open, she packs the last of her things, zipping up her bag.

She’s changed out of her summer clothes into leggings and a hoodie tied around her waist preparing for the autumn chill that awaits us when we go home.

I look around our room, it has all the simplicity of a basic university dorm, stucco walls and the furniture all doesn’t quite match compared to that fancy villa in Mallorca.

But I’m starting to think I prefer this, maybe this is more me.

Maybe this is a better memory to hold on to.

‘Ready?’ she asks me, rising to her feet and dragging her bag along .

I nod, but I also feel nervous. We’re leaving a holiday again, leaving the sun behind to go back to school and normality.

Maybe we’ve laid a better foundation this time round, but there’s something in the pit of my stomach that’s laden with worry.

Back in England, we have the worries of my siblings, work and a thousand odd kids getting in the way of anything happening.

This is still in its infancy. For all that can go right, there’s also plenty that can go wrong. I linger by the door.

‘Can anyone tell me what the Spanish is for key?’ Lee announces to all the kids, collecting keys and trying his best to organise this chaos.

There are no replies. I see Lee with a clipboard trying to focus his eyes.

If Suzie and I are hungover, it turns out he’s in a worse state.

After we all disappeared from that rooftop, Jorge persuaded him to go to a flamenco bar in town.

If you walk past him, you can still smell the faint whiff of tequila.

‘Mr Shaw, can you just check those rooms on the end, give them a knock.’

I stand by the door, a little paper bag package in my hand. I was trying to create a memory to mark the end of the trip. It was a silly gift I picked up for Suzie in the markets today but I guess it can wait. I slip it into the pocket in her bag and make my way down the corridors.

‘Sir, I can’t fit this into my bag?’ a voice cries out.

I look into a room and see a girl holding a guitar in her hands. Never mind legal, it would have been good to buy something that could fit in your case.

‘Do you play the guitar?’ I ask her.

‘No, it’s for my dad. Isn’t it great?’

I nod. It’s super pretty but I reckon that’s going in their loft within three months. Behind her, I see someone who’s bought a whole hock of Spanish serrano ham, wielding it like a weapon. We will possibly have to hustle her through Customs.

‘Sir, what do you think of this?’ I turn around.

Lola. Lola has been a pure source of comedy this trip.

From constantly stressing about the state of her eyelashes in this heat to speaking to everyone in her Spanish with a London accent, there is something endearing about her.

She holds up a little keyring with a golden bull on the end.

‘That’s quite classy, Lola.’ …and more importantly, it fits in your bag.

‘It’s for Josh. I’m just trying to work out if it’s not enough, or too much? Maybe I should just get him some Spanish M&Ms or something. What do the Spanish call M&Ms?’

‘M&Ms…’ I tell her.

‘Oh.’

‘The keyring is cute. You realise you’d have to talk to Josh though to give it to him,’ I joke.

‘You’re hilarious, Sir. How’s things going with Miss Callaghan?’ she teases, pointing a finger down the corridor.

I try and hold in a smile. ‘Miss Callaghan is a colleague in my department. I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Smoochie, smoochie, Sir. You think we’re all looking at our phones and don’t notice you looking at her. She likes you, you know?’ she says. ‘It’s kinda obvious.’

‘Is it?’ I say, my guard dropping for a moment.

‘Well, yeah. Josh is always saying she has an eye on your room whenever she’s teaching him. This trip confirmed it. There is some chemistry there. You got it on, didn’t you?’

‘LOLA!’ I say, feeling my cheeks glow with a blush.

‘OHMYGOD! There’s going to be another staff wedding like Mr and Mrs Rogers.

You know he proposed to her in an assembly.

You want us to help you set that up? Can I be a bridesmaid?

’ There is far too much information there and her squealing is starting to attract the attention of other students who look on curiously, laughing.

‘Slow down there, senorita. Does everyone know?’ I ask her.

‘Well, yeah? Viraj also recorded audio of Mr McWhippy and his wife too,’ she says, her eyes wide and excited .

I try not to laugh. You are the adult and the professional here. Do not give anything away, Mr Shaw.

‘You think we come on these trips for the culture, Sir?’ she laughs.

‘You’re here to learn some Spanish, no?’ I tell her. ‘Didn’t you enjoy the markets, chatting to the locals?’

‘Ask Tyler that. He went and chatted up all the Spanish girls. We went to Bershka instead, Sir. Where do you think I got this hoodie from?’

‘Bershka?’

She rolls her eyes. ‘The clothes shop. It’s Spanish, Sir. Miss took us. This is another reason why you should be with her. Girl knows her priorities.’

‘Shush now, Lola,’ I say, keen to shut the conversation down but also secretly agreeing.

I work my way down the corridor. I don’t know why that lad has his belongings stuffed in two plastic bags or how that person has acquired a sizeable cuddly bear.

I go into a room and also see how a group of boys have made a tower out of Fanta Limón tins.

How have they got through so much in the space of just a couple of days?

I walk to the end of the corridor to see a door closed.

‘Senor Shaw, we’re missing Tyler from that room?

Everyone else seems to have vacated, can you hurry him on?

Coach leaves in fifteen minutes,’ Lee shouts at me from the other end of the corridor, walking away through a sea of trolley bags and excitable teens.

‘WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY WENT TO MCDONALD’S? ’

I put a hand to the air to tell Lee I have this and knock lightly on Tyler’s door.

No answer. ‘Tyler, mate? We’ve got to go.

Are you on the toilet?’ It seems to be quiet in there.

His room is near the roof so I head up there to double-check if he’s out there, only to find Suzie there, taking in the last of the rooftop sun.

‘Hola, senorita,’ I tell her.

‘Buenas tardes, senor.’ Her skin glows, her eyes are shining and the sunlight catches in her hair as she takes in this view for the last time. I can’t look away, but I shouldn’t stare at her. This will wig her out.

‘I was told to sweep the roof,’ she says.

‘I’m here looking for Tyler,’ I say.

‘He’s not here. He’s likely asleep, knowing him. I found him earlier in the Royal Alcazar, asleep on a bench. I had to persuade security that he wasn’t a tramp.’

I smile and walk up to the ledge where she stands, looking out at the Seville skyline.

There is something about the skyline of a city that is pretty breathtaking, your eyes tracing the shapes of where they meet the sky.

The idea that you literally feel like you’re on top of the world.

I put a hand out and she takes it, squeezing it tightly.

‘We’ve been found out, you know? The kids know. ’

‘They know what though?’ she asks, slowly.

‘That we’re…I don’t quite know…that we’re potentially…

a thing?’ I say tentatively, not wanting to scare her off but also wanting to admit to some feeling here.

Let’s try this out, this could work. We can’t only just work in Spain otherwise we’d have to move to Spain and I don’t think that’s quite an option.

I stand there and look out on to the view, mildly petrified.

‘A thing?’ she says, smirking.

‘That’s what the kids are calling it these days,’ I continue. ‘A thing.’

‘Look at you, with all your rizz,’ she jokes.

‘Apparently, you look down the corridor at my room all the time in your French class,’ I tell her.

‘I do not,’ she says defensively. ‘I just sometimes glance that way, like a good colleague, making sure everything’s OK. To check in.’

‘Sure. ’

We remain standing there, looking out as the sun sits low in the sky.

‘So your thing?’ she asks.

‘Oh, it’s my thing, is it?’ I say, laughing. ‘I mean, I’d like to think you were quite into my thing. Without wanting to sound presumptuous.’

She laughs. I want to make her laugh like that for a long time.

I really do. Maybe we have a bit longer to define what this is but, like the skyline, it feels infinite, interesting, full of possibility.

We start to hear Lee’s voice echoing with some anger down the hallway and we look at each other.

Maybe this can all wait. I put a hand around her shoulder and kiss the top of her head, her hair smelling sweetly, and then we turn to make our way down the stairs.

‘I AM A TEACHER! NOT A VALET! CARRY YOUR OWN BAG!’ we hear as we hit the bottom of the stairs.

Suzie looks at me, brushing my hand. ‘I’m just going to give Lee some moral support,’ she tells me, smiling.

I follow her figure as she walks away from me, snapping back into the present as I realise I was supposed to be looking for a child.

Tyler. Tyler. Tyler. I look down a now empty corridor and see his room door still shut.

I go over and bang on it a bit more loudly with my fist. ‘TYLER! TIME TO GET MOVING!’ I bet he’s one of the ones who’s gone to McDonald’s.

Lee is going to flip. Otherwise, we’ve possibly lost a child and that is also not great.

Did we account for him? Or leave him to sleep at the Royal Alcazar?

I’ll have to go back and call his mother.

I bang on the door again, no answer but I put my hand to the door handle and it turns.

I tentatively enter the room. ‘Tyler?’ I turn to see him lying in his bed, huge earphones over his ears, a phone in his hand and WHOA, something else in his other hand.

‘TYLER!’ He doesn’t move. I mean, his hand keeps going but he still can’t hear me.

I pick up a pillow from another bed and throw it at him, trying my best to avert my gaze.

As soon as it hits his head, he scrambles off the bed, trying to hide what he’s just been doing and pulling his earphones off.

‘SIR! SIR! I’M SORRY!’

I face the wall and I hear him trying to organise himself. ‘You absolute lemon. What the hell are you doing?’ I ask.

‘I was just…’

‘NO! Don’t answer that…We are leaving in literally ten minutes. Mr Jones is fuming. You’ve got to come, now.’

‘I’ve got to…?’

‘NOOOO!’ I scream, trying not to laugh. ‘Just…get your bags together and make sure you don’t forget your…things…’ I say, pulling a face. This is not funny.

‘Sí. Lo siento, senor,’ he says, trying to think a bit of Spanish might save him. ‘Are you going to tell my mum, Sir?’

‘I might need to tell Mr Jones to discuss,’ I say. ‘Possibly a detention.’

‘For wanking?’ he asks.

‘For making us miss our flight. Just get yourself sorted,’ I say in between desperate laughs.

‘Oh…’ he says. I hear him scampering about, zipping up his bag. ‘I had a good time on this trip, by the way, Sir…’

I could tell. I still face the wall. I might never be able to look this kid in the face again. ‘That is good to hear, Tyler.’

‘Did you have a good time?’ he asks me, a little too cheekily.

I pause. ‘You’re talking about Miss Callaghan, aren’t you?’ He laughs heartily. ‘Hurry up and get your stuff…gilipollas.’

‘I know what that means, Sir…’ he tells me. ‘The tour guide told us.’

‘Then this trip has been a success if you ask me. Come on, let’s go home.’