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who were disgorged from the building in various states.
Some looked as if they’d been catapulted out with the sole purpose of expending excess energy,
chasing each other around between huddles of mothers, others looked beaten down by the week, bags
weighing heavily on their shoulders. Some were sporting stickers proudly on their sweatshirts, one or
two burst into tears at the sight of their parent after a long day of pent-up frustration.
I saw all this in vivid little bursts: pushchairs, mothers laden like packhorses, snacks being
distributed, tales of injustice or triumph. Children sent back into the building to get forgotten things. A
teacher with a cup of tea in hand; the headmaster wearing a novelty tie on a rare outing from his
office, a few parents flocking around him. Cut-out figures strung like bunting in the windows of the
classroom behind them.
‘Are you having second thoughts?’ asked Zhang.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I want to do this.’
I made myself focus, take a deep breath. In front of me the playground was empty, except for a
green plastic hoop, which had been discarded in the middle of the tarmac, and the remnants of
colourful chalk marks on the ground, only partially washed away by the rain. I got out of the car.
‘Be warned that the school’s hired security,’ Zhang said as we crossed the playground to the
entrance, ‘because of the press. They caught a journalist snooping in the school office.’
As we walked, my legs felt as though they weren’t working properly, there was faintness in my
head and my chest. Everything seemed to take on a cartoon-like quality. I visualised the press as an
invasive plant, its roots and tendrils growing implacably into every area of my life and Ben’s, looking
for action or information to feed off. I felt distinctly unwell, and I wondered if I should go back to the
car and let Zhang go in without me, but we’d arrived at the door by then and to articulate how I felt
was impossible.
We were admitted to the building by a burly man, who I’d never seen before. He had a shaved
head, an earpiece and a strikingly large beer belly. He checked Zhang’s ID and then let us in.
I led the way to Ben’s classroom. All I wanted was to get Ben’s PE kit from his peg, and anything
else he might have left behind. That’s what I would normally have done at half-term. I would have
washed his kit, and checked he had everything he needed for the next few weeks in the run-up to
Christmas. Not to do that would have felt wrong.
It wasn’t to be that simple though. As we neared the door to Ben’s classroom, I saw a big display
of artwork, and in the middle of that display was a picture that I recognised, because Ben had made it.
My knees buckled.
After that I have only snatches of memory and sensation: confusion, when I came round, because I
was on the floor of the corridor and Zhang was propping me up; eyes refocusing again on the display
of artwork, seeing painted leaves and branches in all the shades of brown and orange and green and
black that wrapped themselves around Ben and swallowed him up when we were in the woods;
seeing Ben’s picture amongst the others and feeling sure that I could see the imprint of his fingers in
the smears of paint; feeling an impulse to stand, and put my fingers where his had been, and then an
inability to do that.
When they’d got me upright and they were sure I wasn’t going to faint again, they moved me into
the classroom and sat me in the teacher’s chair.
Miss May was there, and also the teaching assistant. I heard Zhang’s voice, saying, ‘She wants his
things, that’s all, that’s why we’re here.’
I watched Miss May go over to a row of pegs that ran along one wall of the classroom, and take
down the only PE bag that remained there, and behind it there was a label. It was a photograph of a