I am just borrowing them for a little lunch break jolly. Promise to return them in as good a condition as I found them, if Sally Wainwright and the Beeb ask nicely.

IN CAMERA, Part 1 of ?

"Thirty eight and still an idiot." Kate thought to herself. She pushed the drawer of her desk closed and drummed the tired patina of scratches and ancient ink stains of the desktop. She had tried to mark F9's haphazard conjugations of the irregular pluperfect passive, but it had been hard to concentrate on writing encouraging comments when most of the test papers were decorated with a generous smattering of errors and random guesses.

She was berating herself for being as infatuated as a year nine pupil, mooning hopelessly over some impossibly sophisticated sixth former. Kate usually felt only a nostalgic pity for the school's swooning fools. Now she was a paid up member of the tragic club. She might even have been awarded a lifetime fellowship.

She needed to escape the stifling classroom. With more purpose, she stepped lightly down the corridor, entering the school's chapel via a wooden sidedoor. Climbing up a small spiral staircase, she came to a tiny alcove, that was a little ambitiously described in the school's prospectus as the clerestory. Glancing over the balcony, Kate checked that the pews were empty. Classes had finished a couple of hours earlier, so it was unlikely that anyone would be in there. Settling on the long wooden bench, she focused on the stops before her, looking for inspiration. As an idea formed in her mind, she pulled on a few of the ivory knobs and began to play.

Despite the precarious height of her heels, Caroline always strode the hallways with purpose. She exuded the necessary invincible confidence of a competent headmistress. It was of little semblence to her inner self that was roiling with doubt and distress. Her life had unravelled in mere weeks. Keeping her busy standoffish outward appearance was a habit borne out of years of pretending self belief, until she almost believed in it herself. John's betrayal had shattered that fragile illusion and reminded her that she had somehow become a dreary middle-aged harridan. The rumours of their separation had made her even more of a social pariah, as though her divorce was a form of communicable disease. Friends, well, they were mostly John's, had avoided her. Staff members were possibly even more timid than usual.

Only her mother and Kate had tried to understand. Spotting that the tiredness etched round Caroline's mournful eyes as more than stress from the impending Independent Schools Inspectorate visit, Kate had taken her out for lunches, insisting, despite Caroline's protestations of too much work. "You can't manage on coffee, especially if you don't do the cigarettes," Kate had urged her. The lunches became a weekly occurrence. Then a regular phonecall of a Sunday morning to check in on her. At times, Caroline had a stirring of something long forgotten, but she had dismissed it as improbable, possibly impertinent. Kate was assured, friendly, generous in her kindness but not anything more. But there had been glances when Kate had thought Caroline was not looking. A certain attentiveness, she dimly recognised but had not experienced in decades.

Caroline had thought that she was the only person in the school in the fading Autumn evening. Frank, the caretaker, had locked up all but the main building where her office was situated. But she could hear music, and propelled down the corridors she followed the sound. She noted with a wry smile, that Kate was the source of the music. Lit only by a small arched window, and the dim glow of the stops she had engaged, Kate seemed to haloed in the sun's rays like a seraphim.

Caroline quietly slipped alongside her onto the organist's stool. The warm pressure of a hip pressed against her made Kate stop abruptly. Blushing, Kate began to mutter that she was doing a run through of some of the pieces for the Candlemas concert. Caroline, interrupted,

"In eight week's time? Would that all my staff were as conscientious."

She smiled slightly at Kate's discomfort.

"So, tell me, why is this anthem, so moving?"

Kate started to play again, hoping that the steady rhythm of her fingers would help her find composure, as a new ditty started up in her head in annoying counterpoint, ("Kate and Caroline sitting in a tree, K.I...") Coughing slightly to recover herself, the music teacher began to explain.

"Hmm. It's a bit of an adrenaline rush-the rising arpeggios. They ramp up the tension... ("S.S.I.N.G") "And just when you think they will reach a climax, they fall away again."

She swallowed,

"Then, although, we have all heard it a million times and everyone knows what is next, when the brass come in."

Kate placed her hands over Caroline's and guided her fingers onto the keys of the lower manual fanning them out into an outstretched chord. Her gentle pressure caused Caroline's fingers to depress the keys.

"D major-it's the ceremonial key. Proud, triumphant even. Often overwhelming."

The large pipes reverberated and Caroline felt the hair on the nape of her neck rise up involuntarily,

"It is still shocking".

The bass pipes vibrations thrummed in Caroline's throat. Dust motes danced in the late afternoon rays as though the particles were charged with the energy emanating from the organ pipes. Kate turned to look at her, framed in the same golden light, quizzical and smiling.

"It is certainly something," Caroline began.

"What is?"

"This."

Bending her head, she looked down at the younger woman. A few beats passed and when Kate did not avoid her gaze, Caroline pressed her lips against Kate's, as though trying to transmit the humming energy of the pipes to her. The last harmonics that had been reverberating through the chapel faded and shifted, evening out and dissipating as their kiss deepened.

Kate broke the kiss and held her gaze unabashed. "It's on the playlist in my head. When I look at you, I hear Zadok the Priest."