The Teacher at Donegal Bay. Anne Doughty

the room pitch black.

      Colin’s alarm clock was still ringing its head off. And it was on his side of the bed. Desperate to stop the appalling racket, I fought my way through the tangled bedclothes, grabbed it one-handed and squashed its ‘Off’ knob against the crumpled pillow. I lay back exhausted, my heart pounding, the strident, metallic sound still vibrating in my ears.

      I stared at the cold object in my hand, a wedding present from one of Colin’s friends. ‘Extra loud’, it had said on the box. A curtain of exclamation marks had been added. I was supposed to find it funny. Five forty-five, I read on its luminous dial. Yesterday’s early start. That wasn’t funny either. I just stopped myself flinging the wretched thing at the bedroom wall.

      I switched on my bedside lamp, put my hands to my face and moaned, ‘Oh, couldn’t he have turned that bloody thing off instead of the central heating?’ Tears of anger and frustration sprang into my eyes. I’d so needed a good night’s sleep but the few hours I’d had were restless and dream-haunted.

      Colin’s promised call hadn’t come till after twelve. The phone box he’d chosen was horribly noisy and the moment he spoke it was clear he only wanted to say he’d try again tomorrow, when he had more coins. I’d asked him to reverse the charges and quickly told him about the job and having to decide by Monday. But he couldn’t have heard properly. All he said was, ‘Well, if Monday suits you for doing it, that’s fine by me.’ Then I heard a voice call out. A woman’s voice. Very bright and sharp. ‘Do hurry up, darling, the taxi’s waiting.’ And he said, ‘Sorry, Jen, no more money. It’s all going fine, just fine. We’ll have a chat tomorrow,’ and hung up.

      I sat up in bed and caught sight of my reflection in the glass-fronted wardrobes that lined the wall opposite me. I hardly recognised myself.

      ‘Stop it, Jenny,’ I said firmly. ‘That way madness lies. It’s dark and you’ve had a bad night. Don’t think. Act. Do something. Anything. Don’t dare think till you’re feeling more like yourself. Come on. Get going. You’re wide awake and you may as well make the best of it. Shower. Breakfast. One thing at a time.’

      I turned my face up to the shower’s warm rain and felt my anger drain away. I let the water play on my aching shoulders and imagined my tension washing away down the plughole like so many slivers of metal. I shut my eyes and saw a sandy beach lapped by blue sea. A coral reef shut out the crashing breakers of the ocean beyond. In the sun-warmed waters of the lagoon, I could dive down and follow the flickers of tiny fish, jewel-bright against the pale silver sand, the fine residue of the reef beyond, swept in by the pounding waves.

      Reluctantly, I emerged from my reverie and reached for a towel from the heated rail. The towel was cold, damp and smelly.

      ‘I don’t believe it,’ I said as I dripped across to the airing cupboard for a dry one. The statement was purely rhetorical. It was only too easy to believe the towel rail had finally packed up. It had been on the blink for months. I pulled open the cupboard door, put out my hand for a bath sheet and swore vigorously.

      Pushed in among the piles of towels, the bed linen and the table linen was an enormous glass bottle full of seething, yellow-green liquid. The bath sheets were squashed up against the wall behind it. As I reached past the intruding object, the airlock made a loud, hiccupping noise and released a tiny puff of foul-smelling gas. Only a few seconds later, it did it again. Even I knew it was going too fast. At this rate, it was only a matter of time before it blew out the airlock and spewed its contents all over everything. Unless, of course, as Colin had done, I turned off the central heating to keep it happy.

      I scrubbed myself dry, ran back into the bedroom and pulled on some clothes. Suddenly the penny dropped. All that racket on the stairs, on Thursday night, and the great jokes about straining your privates. Neville in his element and Colin egging him on. That’s what they’d been up to. And not a thought of ‘Do you mind?’ And now I was left to work out what in hell’s name I was going to do about it, given there was no way I could move the damn thing.