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wound, I used to cry suddenly and copiously, when something made me think of him or someone used some stupid phrase he used to say. Missing him would hit me like a well-aimed punch, so I would cry because it hurt.
    But with Luke, it was different. I was never reminded of Luke because I never stopped thinking about him. All the time I was teaching, I would guess I was giving the kids, at best, seventy per cent of my attention. It wasn’t that I didn’t care about them. I wanted them to like me, wanted them to learn. I wanted to do the job well, or at least as well as I could. But the children never once had my undivided attention, until it all went wrong. And I do still wonder if that was – at least in part – why it all went wrong.
    At the time, I didn’t know any of this, of course. And while I know that no-one can see the future, when I look back at that time, I realise I couldn’t even see the present. I listened to them talk, but I only heard part of what they were saying, because I was so consumed with carrying the weight of Luke. My lungs felt tight with it sometimes. The world was heavier without him in it, and slower, and darker, and it took energy, actual physical energy to move through it. And I didn’t want to let go of it, either. What other way did I have to keep him real? Carrying his dead weight was better than forgetting him. Grieving was better than waking up to realise I couldn’t remember which of his eyes had the brown fleck in it.

 
    3
    I took Robert’s advice and stopped in at Blackwell’s before I next saw the fourth-years. I bought a few more books – a collected Sophocles, The Seagull – trying to think what I would have liked to read when I was fifteen. My father was the theatre fan in our family, always booking tickets to every new play or revival. His shelves bowed under the weight of glossy theatre programmes and scripts. I couldn’t now remember how I’d chosen which ones I liked the look of: the titles, probably. But that was eleven years ago, and anyway, when I was their age, I was nothing like them – never in trouble with a teacher, let alone kicked out of a school. But there had to be one thing we could all connect to. I found myself scanning the shelves, trying to guess which one might be the charm.
    One of the things I’d liked least about Edinburgh when I first moved there was how straight, ordinary roads kept changing their names, like a criminal with a roster of alibis. North Bridge became South Bridge, South Bridge became Nicolson Street, Nicolson Street became Clerk Street. I could never quite remember the points of conversion, so even a major bus route felt slippery and uncertain. I’d reached Clerk Street now, and felt my spirits drop as the empty shop fronts increased and even the charity shops thinned out. I turned left onto Rankeillor Street, and walked to the very end, gazing up at Arthur’s Seat, which sulked ahead of me, clouds shrouding its peak. The volcano was long dead, but its sullenness remained. The Unit was the last building before the end of the road, next to a tiny newsagent’s that must have made most of its money selling crisps and cigarettes to our kids.
    I was relieved and surprised when all five of the fourth-years turned up.
    ‘Hello again.’
    They mumbled and took the same seats as before.
    ‘As Annika suggested, I’ve brought you some plays,’ I said. Ricky gave a huge sigh, his tiny frame swamped today by a green football shirt which flattened onto his chest as he exhaled. He was hunched into it, clearly cold. His scabby elbows were raw and red.
    ‘I’m sorry, Ricky. I know you’d prefer to do art, but we’re going to have to do some drama. That’s what the majority of the group would prefer, and it is what I came here to teach.’
    He looked around at his classmates, trying to work out who had stitched him up.
    ‘If you want to draw or paint, you’re very welcome to do that. We’ll be discussing plays in class, but you’ll