As she approached the school, Clara felt her phone buzz in her pocket, three short, sharp vibrations that sent tremors through her body. She gripped her fingers so tightly around the steering wheel of her car her knuckles blanched, and she could feel her heartbeat thrumming in her fingertips. It buzzed a second time, and then once more, persistent and angry and demanding, and she felt fear's icy hand grip her insides tightly, squeezing her so hard she couldn't breathe. She turned sharply into her regular parking spot, a few metres away from the front entrance of Coal Hill, and braked hard. Her firm grip on the steering wheel failed to loosen, and she felt a lump rising in her throat as she struggled to control her erratic breathing. She stumbled out of her car and shoved the doors of the main entrance of the school open, stumbling along the bleak corridors and blindly pushing open the first familiar door she saw - the door to the store cupboard.
Resting her head against the hard wood shelves, Clara fumbled in her pocket for her phone, closing her fingers around it and drawing it slowly up to her eye line.
It was him, of course; that fact hadn't changed since she'd felt those harsh vibrations in the pocket of her dress only minutes ago, and seeing his name flashing up on his screen sent her over the edge. Her fingers clumsily tapped out the simple passcode he'd helped her choose when he bought her the phone - she had to enter it twice, she was shaking so much - and stared at the small screen in front of her.
Sorry I missed you this morning, Clara.
Do you have everything you need to make for dinner tonight? I quite fancy a roast.
Oh - I will be back around nine. I have to work late.
His curt words stung her. She'd had to teach herself to believe in remaining honest with herself (Clara wouldn't go as far as saying she trusted herself) - she was the only person she had to confide in, now. But the one time she made an exception to this rule was at times like this; times when she had to make herself believe she was used to it, that it didn't bother her, that it didn't hurt her more than any physical encounter with him ever did. It was times like this that broke her heart, because nothing else illustrated quite so fully the extent to which she had well and truly lost him.
Once the tears started, they couldn't stop. It wasn't an easy thing to comprehend, loss. When she lost her mother, the grief was an unbearable continuum of soft tears and fierce denial, and a smothering sense of endlessness that failed to let up. When she buried her mother, she buried a part of herself under all that cold earth with her, and it was only then she slowly started to accept it all.
It was different when she lost him. It was a slow, gradual process, one during which she was blinded and desperate and then, one day, she saw that her marriage had unravelled completely, and she had tried and tried to patch it back up but all she had done was begin a new tapestry with the shreds of her old life, pretend she was apart from it all and pray that one day she would be.
Her hand stifling the weak cry escaping her lips, Clara slumped helplessly against the shelves, every inch of fight she had left sapped from her aching body.
And then she heard the door click open.
Stiffening up instantly, she rubbed angrily at her sore eyes, blinked twice, smiled briefly to herself just to make sure she could still do it, and was about to turn slowly around to greet the incomer when a gruff brogue interrupted her from a little way behind.
"Is it a man? Or a woman?"
Clara whipped her head round so quickly the muscles in her neck pulled and protested against the action, her eyes wide and her eyebrows knitted together in a deep frown as she shoved her phone violently into the pocket of her dress, scooping up a pile of gaudy yellow exercise books from the shelf in front of her to give herself a reason to be there.
"Excuse me?" Her tone was puzzled.
"You heard," he said simply. "Is it a man, or is it a woman who's doing it? I'm assuming it's your partner, but there's still more to narrow down."
She stared at him.
"Well?" He stared back at her, his gaze merely questioning, hers starting to fill with an odd, afraid clarity.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Clara managed. Her voice shook slightly and she twisted her trembling hands together behind her back. "You're not making any sense."
The expression in his dusty blue eyes changed a fraction. She recognised a curious amalgamation of emotions flickering across them: pity, exasperation, sadness, anger, and guilt, almost - and another, unreadable one, that made her heart pound hard against her chest. His eyes wandered down her body, satisfied, almost - as if he was looking for something, and had found it there - and she instinctively pulled all her hems down, wrapping her cardigan tight around her body, her sleeves tickling her fingertips, and her hand reaching round to tug her dress down further over her black tights.
There was a short, heavy silence. Clara felt unsteady, as if she were balanced precariously on the edge of a crumbling precipice and didn't know whether she could stop herself tumbling head-first over the edge.
He smiled at her then, but it was a small, sad smile, that to Clara, for a reason she didn't understand but one that made the core of her very being ache, looked a lot like giving up.
"I should let you get on, then," he said softly, this gentle tone a harsh contrast to his deep, gravelly Scottish brogue. He nodded towards the stack of crisp yellow exercise books in her arms. "You've probably got a lot to be getting on with."
Clara was finding it strangely hard to concentrate, not least begin forming a coherent thought or response in her head. Her pulse was rapid and relentless, and she was beginning to feel a little light-headed as a result of her shallow, unsettled breathing. Her eyes fluttered shut for a moment, and she took a deep breath before looking him dead in the eye and smiling widely.
"As a matter of fact," she began, "I do. I'm sorry, sir -" The corner of his mouth lifted a fraction as he interrupted her.
"Doctor."
"- I'm sorry, Doctor... wait - Doctor who?"
He was definitely smiling now.
"Just Doctor is fine, thank you, Miss Oswald."
Clara opened her mouth a fraction, her smile faltering for a moment, before shaking her head slightly and plastering it back on her face.
"Well, Doctor, I'm sorry about this... misunderstanding, but I really must be getting on - I don't wish to keep you any longer! Have an enjoyable day - and, once again, please accept my profuse apologises for this confusion - as I really have no answers to these questions, and am sure they aren't supposed to be directed to me - and my delaying you. Oh, and please - call me Clara."
And there was that smile again. That sad, sad smile, those two conflicting emotions that just looked so wrong together, so very, very wrong, like watching a wildfire creep along a wood, consuming everything in its path, and she was almost entranced by it. The beauty of the two on their own - albeit one was a dark, twisted beauty - and then them colliding was a thing so hypnotic and dazzling it could've been a wonder of the universe.
Or maybe she was thinking of his eyes.
"It's no problem, Clara," he said softly. "It's no problem at all."
Her smile still fixed determinedly on her face, she gathered the exercise books closer to her chest, hitching her brown satchel up her shoulder, and backed hurriedly out of the room, the door swinging and creaking a little in her wake.
It wasn't until they began spilling down her cheeks, spattering lightly onto the cover of an exercise book, that Clara realised she'd even been close to tears in the first place. She collapsed into the wide black chair in her classroom, shrinking into the brightly patterned cushions, and drew her trembling hands up to her face.
He knew.
Her heart was beating so hard against her chest she could hear it, and she felt sicker and sicker with every dull thud.
He knew.
But how could he possibly know? Clara's mind felt thick and foggy, her limbs felt heavy and her eyes were burning in her attempt to repress her tears.
"Is it a man? Or a woman?"
"I'm assuming it's your partner..."
"Is it a man, or is it a woman who's doing it?"
She felt dizzy, her thoughts whirling relentlessly round and round in circles as she tried desperately to make sense of the encounter. He'd seen her lose control. Logic all of a sudden meant nothing: logically, he couldn't have been talking about anything but the truth. But, logically, he couldn't have known about it in the first place.
Maybe he knew John? Her blood ran cold. If he knew John, she was not safe. Coal Hill was her sanctuary. Her job was one of the only things she had left, now - she couldn't give it up. She wouldn't. But, somehow, she was certain she was wrong on this count. The idea just didn't fit. He was too gentle, and his curiosity, as it were, seemed genuine.
But then who was she to say? Since when had she been an accurate judge of character? The position she was in now was nothing but proof of her pathetic weakness, and poor judgement. Her life was a tumbling mess of losses and poor decisions, and she was certain that wasn't about to change any time soon - if ever.
She just needed to stay away from him. She barely even knew him. Kneading her temples with her trembling fingers, Clara decided that the best thing to do now - the only thing she could do, if she was being honest with herself - was to stay well away from that man.