Private Lives

Chapter 19

Seb hasn’t left his office for hours. Apart from a brief respite around lunchtime when everyone was listening to Anna on the radio, he has been in meetings with either teachers or parents all afternoon.

Some were angry, telling him they were taking their kid out of the school immediately. Some were personally writing to the governors to have him fired, giddy with their own sense of power, their belief in their rightness. Others winced, struggled to keep their smiles under control. One dad Seb has never liked didn’t bother hiding his amusement, his shoulders shivering with laughter before he leant across Seb’s desk, offering his hand: ‘Who’d have thought it, mate, honestly, the balls on you!’

He didn’t seem to notice or care that Seb didn’t call him ‘mate’ in return, that he immediately showed him – still laughing – to the door. What all these parents had in common, Seb realizes later, was that they were there for themselves, the kids just a convenient excuse to get a good, proper look at him. They wanted to see if he really was sorry or if he really was a pervert as others suspected. It was all coming out.

One mum started crying, shaking her head and patting a ragged tissue under her nose. Seb wasn’t able to look at her while he listened because her sorrow was between her and her past; it wasn’t about him, not really.

Another, Adele, had already started a WhatsApp group ‘to help the sex worker’. She told Seb in a soft voice she wanted to ensure the woman was looked after, that she could access any resources she might need. Adele had special training in working with vulnerable women; Adele was entirely on her side but she needed to know, she asked, pen raised, who it was who so badly needed her help.

Now Seb is waiting nervously in his stuffy office for his godson.

Blake had – as Seb thought he might – been one of the first to put his name down for the student appointments Mrs Greene made available to the older years. Now Seb stands as Blake knocks gently at his door. He wants to hug his godson, to feel if there might be any forgiveness softening his young, strong body, but Blake keeps himself bowed over, his eyes flicking; he doesn’t look like he wants to be touched. His hair stands up from his head, like it has been raked many times by anxious fingers. Seb offers him a seat in front of his desk. Maintaining eye contact with the carpet, Blake sits, drooping in the chair like a plant deprived of sunlight and water. Seb pulls his own chair around the desk, so there is nothing between them, and waits, trying to gauge if Blake wants to talk first. Just when Seb is about to ask him how he’s doing, Blake mumbles, ‘It’s shitty. What Mum did, I mean.’

Seb feels his stomach drop.

‘Ethan and me listened to the radio show online at lunch.’

‘Blake, you don’t have to …’

‘She’s being an idiot, Uncle … I mean, Mr Kent.’

‘How about I’m just Seb right now – never mind the head teacher bit?’

Blake nods, glances briefly at Seb, nods again, before he looks away.

‘Blake, your mum is doing what she thinks is right.’

‘Yeah, but she’s talking bullshit. She said on the radio I was, like, fully behind what she’s doing, that I was angry with you, which …’ Blake shrugs again. ‘Which is a total lie. She’s never even asked what I think. It’s like you said in assembly: we all mess up, it’s about how we deal with it – that’s the most important bit.’

‘Blake, I really don’t want to upset anything between you and …’ Seb splutters.

‘I know you don’t, but Mum and her band of witches are saying how they’re trying to protect us from you when actually the only people we think we need protection against is them and their small-minded views.’

Blake keeps his eyes on Seb as he says, ‘I want to help, if I can, and I know you’d feel the same if you were in my position.’

Seb wants to agree, wants to nod and say, ‘Yeah, course I would,’ but he can’t because he’d never have had Blake’s courage. Had Seb been in Blake’s position, he’d have done whatever he thought most people wanted him to do. Guaranteed. He wouldn’t have rocked the boat; he wouldn’t have stood up for what he thought was right. He’d have tried to be the person his dad had asked him to be. Solid. Safe. Good.

‘Listen, Blake, whatever happens between your parents and me, I want you to know that if you ever need me, I’ll be here for you, OK? I’m really proud to be your godfather and I’m so sorry you’re tangled up in all of this.’

‘What do you think I should do about Mum?’ Blake asks, his eyes narrow.

Seb thinks about the years of friendship. The holidays they’ve shared. The countless bottles of wine and long, laughter-filled evenings. The way Anna comforted him when he was so full of grief after his dad died, the way he did the same for her after Eddy’s affair. Had everything been so fragile between the four of them all along? It all seems like such a sorry waste of time. But Seb’s sorrow for their friendships won’t help Blake.

‘Your mum’s angry, which is fair enough. I think she needs to be angry and then, I hope, in time she’ll see the difference between what I did and who I really am.’

‘Yeah, but what should I do?’

‘I can’t tell you that, Blake.’

Blake groans, kicks his foot, annoyed, so Seb adds, ‘Just remember that whatever she says or does, she loves you and she’s trying her best, in her way, to protect you.’

Blake looks away for a moment, weighing things up, before turning back to Seb and asking, ‘I don’t understand why she forgave Dad, but she can’t forgive you?’

Blake was only twelve when Eddy had the affair, and spent a lot of time with Rosie and Seb in the days when Eddy was banned from going home. Seb talked to Blake about it because Eddy was in too much of a state himself. God, it would feel good to agree with his godson.

Instead, he nods and shrugs his shoulders, hoping to show that he gets it but that he’s not the person Blake should be asking.

Blake pauses again, his voice softer, before saying, ‘Do you think you and Dad will be friends again?’

Seb breathes out; his thoughts blur. They were like brothers growing up, but that’s over. They’re fully grown now. Seb doesn’t want to spend any more of his adult years trying to keep his childhood alive. They’ve been trying too hard for too long. The old jokes just aren’t funny any more and the old ways of coping no longer work. Ignoring those changes kept them ignorant. Now, there’s no turning away, no denying it. It’s time to accept they’ve grown up and grown apart.

Seb answers quietly, truthfully, ‘I don’t know.’

There’s a gentle knock at the door and Seb wants to tell Mrs Greene that he’ll talk to her later, that his godson is more important. But Blake’s already unfurling his long limbs, ready to go. Seb’s about to put his hand on Blake’s shoulder but he doesn’t get that far because suddenly Blake reaches for him and, pulling him close, they hug, chest to chest. And over his godson’s shoulder, Seb’s eyes burn again, because he thinks that whatever else they’ve fucked up, Eddy and Anna, they made this beautiful human and that counts for more than anything else.

Less than a minute after Blake leaves, Harriet walks in, stiff and upright as the rulebook she seems to have swallowed.

She tells Seb that the petition and ‘more than a few’ complaints have been officially presented to the governors. They want to avoid a tribunal, but there is pressure, immense pressure, Harriet tells him, from the parents; they want to be involved in the decision about Seb’s future. ‘You see, they feel you involved them with your assembly, and I rather take their point. It feels incorrect to sideline them now.’ She sniffs and blinks blue-veined eyelids over blue eyes.

‘What are you suggesting – some kind of parent forum?’

‘Precisely,’ she says, unable to meet his eye. ‘We’ve taken advice from the local council and we’re going to invite parents to present their views publicly, and then us governors will have a separate, closed meeting – according to the school constitution – when we will decide whether your employment here is still in the best interest of the school or not.’ She glances at him quickly before looking away. ‘As time is of the essence, Mrs Greene will send out an email informing parents as soon as possible. It’ll be held on Monday afternoon, after school. We’ll have the governors’ meeting later in the week and then present you with our final decision.’

The parent forum is unexpected, especially so soon, but everything else is as he thought it would be, even down to the way Harriet looks: tight-lipped and frowning, never once straying from her script.

By four p.m. the school is relatively quiet. Seb calls Rosie, but there’s no answer. He aches to be with her, with his own kids, but he can’t ignore it any more, he knows he has to do it eventually. He sits and picks up his work phone; he hasn’t looked at his emails since Anna’s radio performance earlier and as he opens his inbox his teeth clench together and his jaw immediately aches.

There are over a hundred emails waiting for him. Most of the subject lines are written in screaming capitals, many with exclamation marks – one is simply titled, ‘SHAME!’ He knows he should open them methodically one after the other but instead he clicks, almost greedy, trying to move quicker than the acid he can feel rising up in a wave from his stomach, heading for his throat.

Dear Sebastian Kent,

My daughter, Ada Barton, will never again attend Waverly Community while you are head teacher …

The next contains a link to testimonies from women coerced into prostitution, men paying their traffickers to rape them.

You exploit these women’s desperation so you can abuse their bodies. Let’s hope this doesn’t happen to your own daughters, you disgusting man.

The next is a porn clip, the photo of Seb from the school website grinning, stuck on top of the male actor’s face as he has sex from behind with a bored-looking woman filing her nails.

There’s one from a group called Men Stand Strong! telling him he should be proud of himself, that wives should provide sex for their husbands – isn’t ‘with my body I thee worship’ in the marriage vows after all?

There are a few from email accounts Seb doesn’t recognize, each one progressively worse than the last.

Do your kids a favour, Mr Kent, get rid of yourself. Sooner the better.

I hope you never see your own children again, you sick fuck.

Me and my mates are coming to arse rape you until you die. Ha, ha, ha!

He reads them all and when he’s done, he puts his phone screen-down on the desk and sits back in his chair. He should, he thinks, feel something. Rage, perhaps, horror or fear. But he’s strangely empty where feeling should be. It’s peculiar: these furious strangers – people in general – suddenly mean nothing to him. Like he’s unclipped himself from everyone else apart from a very few. He just wants to go home. He wants to go home very, very badly.

He looks out of the window and decides it’s just about dark enough to leave, and he hurries down the little path that leads to the car park. He studies the ground as he walks close to the wall, avoiding the lights, and as soon as he’s out of the school grounds and on to the pavement he feels something solid and too close. Out of nowhere he sees an arm reaching out for him, trying to shake his hand, and hears a voice saying, ‘Seb, Mr Kent, hi, I’m Mark! So glad I caught you. I was about to give up.’

Seb keeps walking. He doesn’t owe this man anything.

But the man keeps talking. ‘I’m a producer for The Talk Show – you know, on BBC Radio Sussex.’

Seb shakes his head. ‘No, no, I’m not interested.’

Seb starts walking away but he’s not quick enough as Mark trots like a companionable dog beside him. He should tell him to go, to leave him alone, but up ahead there’s a group of kids dressed in cheap synthetic black and lurid greens, comparing the sweets in their little pails. They could have siblings at Seb’s school; a couple might even be old enough to be at the secondary school already. Seb can’t risk someone recognizing him, especially if there’s a bit of commotion getting Mark to leave him alone; besides, with Mark gesticulating by his side, Seb thinks people are less likely to recognize him. If he keeps his eyes on the pavement, they’ll seem like a couple of commuters on their way home. Seb moves himself to the inside of the pavement, away from the road, and keeps his head down, nodding occasionally as Mark blabs away. ‘What I’m saying is that obviously our website has blown up with comments after the I Heart Sussex show about you and your … umm … situation and, well, we want to give you the chance to respond, especially as some of them mention your dad, so …’

Seb stops walking. It’s worked. Mark has his full attention now. ‘What, what do they say about my dad?’

‘Have a look yourself, mate.’ Mark’s come prepared; he hands Seb his phone with the BBC Radio Sussex page already loaded.

The screen shines in the darkness as Seb automatically scrolls through the words before him:

‘The late Prof. Benjamin Kent was a colleague of mine and I have to say he would be appalled at his son’s humiliating and shameful behaviour.’

The next reads, ‘Agreed. I’m glad he doesn’t have to live through this. Benjamin always led by example and it’s such a pity his son has failed to do the same.’

Shame, not blood, throbs through Seb. The posts are anonymous, but still, they knew Seb’s dad’s name – they’re legitimate. The thought that what he’s done and this whole spiralling mess is tainting his dad’s memory pushes Seb somewhere beyond shame, beyond feeling. Like all his emotional receptors have short-circuited and switched off. He looks up, briefly, at Mark, who is looking back at him, eyes wide, half his mouth raised, his expression a reluctant ‘told you so’.

Seb scrolls down a bit on the phone to get away from those comments about his dad. He reads, ‘Why are you so surprised? Privileged arseholes like Mr Kent have been screwing over hard-working people like this poor woman since time immemorial …’

Again, his thumb automatically scrolls down and down and down; the words, the endless, endless words, blur on the screen. He stops at random: ‘It’s time the Head Cunt is taught a lesson, time for him to know what it feels like to be desperate …’

‘See what I mean?’ Mark asks, taking his phone gently back from Seb. Mark doesn’t seem to notice that Seb hardly hears a word as he keeps talking. ‘It’s bigger than you think, this thing. Not quite viral but heading in that direction. Bacterial, maybe?’ Mark snorts at his own stupid joke before he appeals to Seb again. ‘Look, everyone has something to say about your story – everyone, that is, apart from you. Which is where I come in.’

It’s time for Mark to go.

‘I’ll think about it,’ Seb mutters.

‘The show is on tomorrow afternoon; it would literally be perfect timing in terms of—’

‘I said I need to think about it, OK, Mark?’

Mark pulls back, slightly chastened. Seb notices how young he really is, guesses Mark was probably the kind of kid at school to always try his best but never quite make it on to that podium. The kind of kid Seb adores, so he adds, more gently, ‘Look, why don’t you give me your details and I’ll be in touch.’

Mark brightens and flicks a card into Seb’s hand. They say goodbye and even though Seb is desperate to get into the safety of his childhood home, he forces himself to stay still as Mark leaves, so he can’t clock which number Seb’s mum’s house is, before walking away himself.

Only a few houses on St John’s Terrace have gone big on the decorations this year. There’s the house at the end of the terrace which projects the same video every year on to the side of the building – a group of cartoon skeletons dancing in top hats, holding canes. Last year Seb’s kids sat on the wall opposite, eating sweets and watching until Greer said she was going to be sick. Another couple of houses have jack-o’-lanterns lit, sticky-looking fake webs dangling from their doors. Eva’s stuck the spiders she cut out with the kids on to the inside windows, but other than a plastic pumpkin that’s about to run out of battery, that’s it for decorations.

As he puts his key in the lock, someone calls his name behind him. He turns towards a man in a black waterproof and beanie, who holds up his phone – snap, snap, snap – before he says, jarringly cheerful, ‘Fucking prick,’ and, chuckling, walks away.

Seb scrambles to get inside and only starts to breathe again once he’s heard the click of the door behind him. He holds on to the handle for a moment. Presses his cheek against the cool metal. He’s still sinking, falling away inside himself, knowing that now when the name Benjamin Kent is mentioned, in lecture halls or among his dad’s old students, the first thing people will say is, ‘You heard about his son?’

‘Sebastian?’ Eva calls from somewhere inside.

He stands upright slowly and finds her in the kitchen, stirring the stew that has become a Halloween tradition. For the last two years Eva has gone out with them trick-or-treating, everyone going back to her house for stew before bed. Last year, Greer – a tiny, exhausted skeleton – had fallen asleep next to her bowl on the table. It is one of Seb’s favourite photos of her. Eva turns and smiles when she sees him but keeps stirring. She looks small in the black witch’s outfit she’s worn every Halloween since Seb was a boy.

‘How was your day?’ Eva asks, moving towards him, holding his forearms as she kisses her son’s cheek.

Seb lifts his shoulders, shakes his head. How can he answer? He can’t. She knows. He clears his throat. It doesn’t work. He tries again. ‘What can I do?’

He means can he set the table or steam some vegetables, but Eva doesn’t take it like that. Instead she points to one of the armchairs – the one that used to be his dad’s – positioned in front of the wood burner.

‘You can sit down,’ she says firmly, and Seb feels himself liquefy as he does as he’s told. Picturing his dad’s head leaning back against the headrest, he has the shocking thought that he actually agrees with that post. He’s glad that quiet, dignified Benjamin isn’t here. That he’ll never know the truth.

‘Tell me, what are you thinking about?’ Eva sits opposite him. She’s never asked him that before.

He looks at her, surprised, and lies easily: ‘I was thinking about an email I need to send.’

‘Tsk. What were you really thinking, Sebastian?’

Seb looks away from her, stunned. The lies, even innocuous ones, have lost their power. He has no choice. He’ll have to try the truth.

‘I was thinking about Dad.’

Eva nods slightly, asking him silently to expand.

‘I was thinking how disappointed he’d be in me.’

The space between her eyes pleats and she looks away, towards the fire.

‘True, perhaps, in a way,’ she says sadly before adding, ‘but also true that your dad suffered from the same thing as you. He was always trying to do the right thing as well. Trying, perhaps too much.’

Seb stares at her. They’ve never talked like this, neither one of them admitting any fault or flaw in Benjamin. He’d been good in his life, true, but death had made him invincible. She looks back at him; this time she doesn’t have to ask what he’s thinking. She knows.

‘Your dad grew up thinking that his role was to sort of mute himself. His own desires, his own wants. You know he always wanted to write? He didn’t, of course, because your grandparents thought that was ridiculous. Too frivolous and unreliable. That’s why he became a professor. To appease them. His life became about responsibility, about not letting anyone down. It was only when he got cancer that he started telling me the things he’d wanted for so long. That’s when he went on that novel-writing course.’

Seb doesn’t remember the course, but he does remember the half-written novel in his dad’s spidery hand still in the drawer by his bed. He hadn’t been able to hold a pen or a thought for long enough by the end to finish it.

‘Sometimes I wanted to scream at him, but I didn’t know why, and it’s only recently, with all this with you and Rosie, that I see something similar happening between the two of you to what happened with us.’

Seb’s eyes widen and Eva suppresses a smile. ‘No, I’m not talking about sex. We were fine on that front, but I mean the deeper thing. The thing that stopped your dad and now you from being OK with yourself just as you are. It’s OK to want and need things, Sebastian, and it’s OK for some people not to like you. It’s the trying to ignore those things – I think that’s what’s tripped you up.’

Seb feels like he’s shattering, breaking into hard, sharp pieces of himself.

‘This feels like more than just tripping up.’

Eva looks at him again, not trying to stop herself from smiling now because it’s unavoidable and so absurd, and she shakes her head a little as she says, ‘OK. You’re right. It’s a monumental collapse.’ Her face becomes serious again as she leans towards him and puts her warm palm on his leg. ‘I know it’s uncomfortable acknowledging that even if we don’t like certain things about ourselves, they still exist. We must learn how to be with them.’

‘But how, Mum?’

‘Stop living for others’ approval. It doesn’t work. Start living for yourself. Trust us. We will still love you.’

Her phone rings; she whispers something in Danish about bad timing as she moves back to the kitchen to answer it. Without hearing her voice or her name, Seb knows it’s Rosie asking what time Eva’s coming out to meet them.

When she comes back, Seb’s crying into the palm of his hand and she doesn’t try to stop him; she just lets him shake and wail. Because she knows that this, this falling apart, was what he needed all along.

By the time Eva leaves, witch’s hat in the crook of her arm, to meet Rosie and the kids, Seb is staring fixedly at the flames in the wood burner. He feels solid with sadness, as if turning towards his sorrow has made it grow hard and brittle within him. If someone were to peer into his mouth they’d see it there, a great blockage of regret and fear. There’s no thinking any more and there’s no emptiness, either. There’s just feeling.

Eva has left one of her huge plastic bowls full of the Danish sweets she imports on the front doorstep so Seb won’t have to deal with the trick-or-treaters; he hears their whispers and giggles as they reach for greedy handfuls of sweets. Some of them might know this is Eva’s house but they won’t know he’s staying here, that there’s a real monster inside.

An hour or so passes before his phone starts ringing in his pocket. He feels another lurch, a strange fear as he answers, ‘Rosie?’

‘Seb, hi.’ She waits for him to say something, but he doesn’t trust himself so instead, slightly irritated, she keeps talking. ‘Listen, it’s started raining. The kids are getting edgy. We’re going to come back in about half an hour, but I stupidly left the crumble at home and we’re all the way over by Rectory Gardens. I really don’t want to have to go all the way home with everyone to get the crumble before going back to Eva’s – would you mind …?’

He coughs, forces a brightness he doesn’t feel into his voice as he says, ‘No, of course I don’t mind. I’ll go and get it now and see you all back at Mum’s, OK?’

‘Thanks,’ she mutters before calling out, ‘Heath, come on, leave your sister alone.’

‘Actually,’ she continues, ‘we’re all wet and cold. We’re going to come now; we’ll be about ten minutes.’

Seb stands. He wants nothing more than for them all to be here, with him, their cheeks pinking by the fire, their eyes smudged with Halloween make-up, smuggling extra sweets into their mouths.

‘OK. I’ll go now and be back just after you.’

There’s more squabbling before Rosie says a curt, ‘Fine,’ into the receiver and disappears.

Seb walks quickly. It’s dark and still raining, so no one recognizes him as he pulls his hood over his head and keeps his eyes on the pavement. Putting his key in the door, stepping over ballet pumps and muddy trainers, breathing in the smell of his family, he feels a great swell rise in him again. It’s something close to sadness but as he pulls his key out of the door, he realizes it’s not sadness but an aching love that fills him. He’d never felt how close the two were before. He wants to linger, to stare for hours at all the photos on the walls, to relive their wedding day, his kids’ births, their holidays on the beach. He feels greedy for the past, wants it all again and again. But it’s gone and he is alone, and he knows they can never be that family laughing so easily again. His phone buzzes with a message from Rosie:

Back at Eva’s, are you coming?