Coffin Road by Peter May Page A

loved my dad!’ The words, shouted in defiance, were out of her mouth before she could stop them, and she was immediately embarrassed.
    But her mother just shook her head. ‘Well, you’d a funny way of showing it. He’s dead, Karen. Gone. Get over it!’
    She slammed the door shut behind her, and Karen heard her angry footsteps all the way along the hall. Then the low murmur of voices next door. But there was no resumption of hostilities.
    *
    Her desk was at the window side, about halfway up the row, and she looked out on trees, and pale grey buildings and acres of glass. Suburban hell. The greens and bunkers of the golf course simmered silently beyond a high hedge. She could hear Mrs Forrest speaking, but she wasn’t listening. Everything that made Karen different was hidden from view. Except for her hair and a few face studs. White blouse, school blazer and tie reduced her to conformity. Almost. The green lick always singled her out for attention.
    It was the third or fourth time of her name being called that finally drew her eyes towards the front of the class.
    Mrs Forrest was a formidable woman. She taught English and maths and was very much of the old school. She belonged to a generation whose own teachers would have wielded the tawse. And Karen had no doubt that, were it acceptable today, Mrs Forrest would have taken pleasure in dishing out its singular punishment herself.
    ‘Are you listening, Karen?’
    ‘Yes, Mrs Forrest.’
    ‘Then what did I say?’
    ‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’
    ‘So you weren’t listening.’
    ‘I was. You just weren’t being interesting enough to register in my consciousness.’ Karen’s IQ was probably twenty points or more higher than most of her teachers’. It never endeared her to them and almost invariably created a sense of their inferiority, which made them dangerous.
    The teacher sighed. ‘You do realise that you are the only girl in the class who has failed to hand in her assignment.’
    Karen was aware of classmates turning heads in her direction. None of them would dare to cross Mrs Forrest, with or without the tawse. She was a big personality. ‘What assignment would that be?’
    Mrs Forrest’s silence would have intimidated nearly any other girl in the room, but Karen was past caring. She didn’t even know why she had bothered coming back for a sixth year. Except that she had no idea what else to do. She could have applied for university at the end of the last school year, and would have been accepted by any one of them that she had cared to ask. But another three or four years in education was an unappetising prospect. With depression leading to apathy, leading to more depression, her downward spiral into lassitude had led her more recently to speculate upon whether suicide was genetically heritable. ‘The assignment that every other girl in this class has completed. Apparently they had no problem in understanding what was being asked of them.’
    ‘You must have spelt it out in words of one syllable, then.’
    Mrs Forrest pursed thin lips. ‘I think, young lady, it’s time we made an appointment for you to speak to the school counsellor. You can stay behind after school this afternoon and we’ll arrange a session.’
    ‘I’m busy after school.’
    ‘Oh, are you? Doing what, exactly?’
    ‘Frankly, Mrs Forrest, it’s none of your fucking business.’
    There was a collective intake of breath, and Mrs Forrest paled visibly. ‘Get out of my class,’ was all she said.
    Karen scooped up her books and jotter and slid them into her satchel. ‘My pleasure.’ And she stood up and walked out in silence, letting the door bang behind her.
    *
    Gilly found her sitting smoking behind the gym after class. She was the only girl that Karen had ever met in all her years at school with whom she felt she could talk as an equal. But their relationship was fractious and competitive, and for all their closeness there was always a certain distrust between them. Gilly