Alan slid out of bed in the same noiseless way that he always did, except today he did it so much earlier than he was accustomed to. He had been awake for even longer, but hadn’t moved. He had kept himself occupied, tracing the line of the cornicing, exploring the wispy silence outside their bedroom door and beyond the uncurtained windows, and then, for the last hour or so, hanging in awe onto Isobel’s regular breathing. She was a beautiful breather. A real natural. Alan couldn’t remember the last time she had had any trouble with her breathing, and he would have known: they hadn’t spent a single night apart since she had spent that week nursing her dying mother and he was standing in as head for the first time.

Her mother hadn’t made it past that week, but his career as a headteacher had burgeoned. He found himself perfectly suited to it. The additional rigours of the job didn’t seem in any way rigorous to Alan. He loved his team of brothers and sisters and, more importantly, they loved him. To teach in a school under Alan’s guidance was a pleasure for them, and teachers hardly ever left. He knew that, but refused to feel proud of it.

It wasn’t just Isobel’s breathing that was the same as ever; everything about her was unchanged from the day before. She lay on her right side, the arm sticking out behind her like a dorsal fin. Her dark hair fell across her eyes and down past her tanned shoulders. She turned a beautiful colour in summers like this one. Just a couple of hours a day tending the garden, a walk to the lido and a few of its interminable frigid lengths; she didn’t even have to try. A few weeks and it would be her 50^th birthday, but she could easily pass for a girl half her age. Easily. A light sheet covered her naked form from halfway down her back, and Alan was grateful for her modesty. He found it difficult to resist her, physically, especially in the sinless light of morning.

Nothing was strange to him in this room, yet he consciously surveyed everything with a sense of inquisitive newness. As if he were Isobel’s latest nameless lover, stepping uncertainly into the marital chamber for the first time. He tried hard, but it was impossible. Beneath the objective voice taking in the unfamiliar scene, his subconscious experience screamed the familiarity at him. How could he look at the dresser without remembering the week he had spent painting it? That thing must have five or six coats on it, he thought to himself, ruining his own internal drama, in which he was supposed to be completely ignorant of the histories of the objects on show. She had demanded increasingly darker shades, and it had taken some time to arrive at the perfect finish. She was right, though. Once it was in place, with the way the light hit it there, and the paint had dried, the earlier coats appeared clumsy and naïve.

Or the scene of a snowy Littondale that they bought accidentally at an auction. They had gone along to buy books. He had had no idea she was bidding for it, just far enough behind him to be out of his eyeline, but was thrilled when he found she had secured it, even if they couldn’t strictly afford it. They got the books they wanted, too, then celebrated long into the night at places they didn’t belong. It was one of the most magical nights of their lives.

Alan let his stillborn fantasy drain away, and took in the whole scene with rare indulgence. Yes, it was his, or, more accurately, theirs. Yes, it was a reflection of their tastes, familiar and comforting. Yes, it told a story of their marriage, of their lives. But more than that, it was great. Just fabulous. Nothing could be more fabulous. Nothing could be more fantastic. Simple things that shared their personal and most intimate space with them. Things that others might shudder at the sight of, but which defined the world for Alan and Isobel. The painting had been a bargain: the apathetic punters in the auction house had dropped away so easily that it had hardly seemed like a significant moment. They knew better, though, the two of them.

He climbed the few steps to the bathroom, halfway to the converted attic. Others might have more than he and Isobel, so it might appear, but he didn’t see things that way. It was almost unknown for him to covet. Quite the opposite, and sometimes he admonished himself if he cornered himself deep in the furthest recesses of his self-satisfaction, but really he knew he was doing no harm. Such purity and consistency of feeling was incapable of doing harm, he told himself.

The bathroom was normally used only by guests, and it only had a shower, not a tub. He used it occasionally when he didn’t want to wake his wife. And only when they had no guests staying. They rarely did. He enjoyed feeling like a guest in his own house, and the monstrous showerhead was the closest to opulence they could offer. Isobel had planned it minutely. She often read glossy magazines featuring homes of the supposedly fabulously well-to-do, people tantalisingly almost like they were. She would turn the pages earnestly, smiling, tutting and muttering, half to herself and half to Alan. He could choose whether or not to listen and join in. Then she would drop it neatly onto her bedside table, turn off her light and remind him, through the dark, how happy she was.

He thought about dogs. The headmaster of Locksash Primary School stood under his guest shower, lathered all over with scented shower product liberated from a hotel on some or other tropical island, hummed something that was just slightly less than a tune and thought about dogs. They were walkers, he and his wife Isobel. They could walk for days and weeks on end if nothing came along to stop them. But it usually did, and their regular outings were no more than day trips. When they walked they discussed their ideal dog. They would build it up from an identikit selection of characteristics: ears, tail, height, hirsuteness (always short haired, thanks to his allergy), speed, stamina, suitability as a family companion, habits, name. They had never owned a dog.

Breakfast was no surprise, either. Fruit, a slice of toast, two cups of tea. The simplest of pleasures. It was taken slightly earlier than was normal, but then everything was earlier today. Ordinarily they would breakfast together. He had mentioned, before they went to sleep, that his timetable would be shifted a little today, but evidently she had forgotten. Alan didn’t mind a bit, and he didn’t believe in curtailing her sleep artificially.

Isobel let her eyes come open at their own pace while Alan placed the hot mug of tea carefully onto her coaster. She sat up smartly when she realised he was dressed and ready to go. She could reach full consciousness very quickly.

‘I’m sorry, darling,’ she said. ‘I forgot you were having an early start today. I would have come and had breakfast with you.’

‘Nonsense,’ he smiled at her. ‘I’m quite capable of making my own tea. I’m not depriving you of any beauty sleep. Just look at the results so far,’ and he kissed her on the lips. She didn’t hurry it, but settled a little deeper into her soft feather pillow and smiled at him. She wished him a good day, just like she did every other morning when he left the house.

Alan’s car had made this journey every working day for the last six years. His brother still ribbed him about how that number of working days in a year was much lower for him than for other people, and he took it in the manner it was intended. He normally changed his car around every seven years. He had been head of Locksash for ten years, and so this was only the second car that had ever made this exact journey.

The journey never bored him. There was always company on the roads. Every now and then he would recognise a car or a van that he had seen before, but that only happened once in a blue moon, and there would have had to be something especially striking about the vehicle. Nothing caught his eye today. What Alan found most absorbing was the variety of the uninvited company he kept. His journey took him through levels of suburbia graduating up and down in small, confident steps, and every class of transport accompanied him. There wasn’t a social position unrepresented. His own car, and its modest professional comforts, reflected his position much more accurately than he had meant it to. As a born headteacher, it was more difficult than he knew to not select a car befitting his position. But he relished the differences all around him. Not a scintilla of envy passed through his organised thoughts if he came across a plusher or faster or sexier model. He already had the perfect ride. Isobel did, too, not that she used her car much. It was important to have, though, just in case.

How many things, how many millions and billions of things, had to happen, he thought to himself automatically, for this specific configuration of traffic to happen at this specific time? That was what excited him about the world. The number of plans that had to go right, or possibly wrong, for not only this line of cars to move along serenely and co-operatively between sets of traffic lights, but also for the line one mile away to be doing the same, or for the minor accident that would happen in 40 minutes’ time, or for the 6.36 from Epsom to pass through the station at speed, bang on time, rustling the newspapers of the earlybird commuters. It never ceased to amaze him how well everything in the world hung together. Surely, he thought, it would only take a minute miscalculation on the part of one of the players to throw the rest into utter confusion, a vortex of death and destruction. But that hardly ever happened. Civilisation must have been such a tight network of supporting strands that a single snap, or even a smallish number of simultaneous snaps, had next to no impact on the body as a whole. And we, humans, had built this incredible organism that hardly ever went completely wrong.

His school looked the same, too. It comprised a single building, of which he was very proud. This was no sprawling concoction of a school; it was a testament to the educational zeal which swept the country 150 or so years ago, just while these suburbs were going up and starting to feed the burgeoning capital. At this time of day the sun was climbing behind the monolith and the bold red brickwork, just for a few minutes, took on the same dreamy yellow as the grit-grey masonry. There was something mystic about the wizardry of the light at this time, and Alan made sure he witnessed it several times each summer, just to remind himself that it happened, and it happened to him. There was no other traffic behind him on the short road approaching the school and he sat for the full duration of the effect, before pulling slowly into the car park. His was the first car, which wasn’t unusual, and he settled into his favourite spot as far away from the school minibus as possible.

He switched off the engine and sat stock still. In front of him, the school building rose, solid and incorruptible. It was such a part of his life that its power and integrity brought him close to bursting on a daily basis. This was just as good as it got. Who had it better?

The end of term was fast approaching. At least, it was fast approaching by his timetable. It was far enough away for the children to not have considered it, but the staff were starting to get restless. They were all talking about what might happen, what entertainment they ought to lay on. Already, and this was Alan’s influence, the ideas were flowing thick and fast. Ideas were encouraged, they were an imaginative and self-assured bunch, and he thought that was just fine.

Before school, there was to be a meeting. Alan wanted an opportunity to air all the current plans and schemes in front of the whole staff. He didn’t like holding meetings, but was prepared to admit that he couldn’t avoid them totally. As a defence against the creeping evil, he made a point of turning the meeting room unbearable in whatever way possible. During cold winters he would open the windows so that everybody’s teeth would be chattering within a matter of minutes. Sometimes he would leave a tap dripping in the corner, or place cut durian in buckets around the seats. Whatever he needed to do to encourage concise and timely contributions, that was what he did. From this particular meeting he wanted a shortlist of ten or fifteen ideas which might work and which seemed popular with the group. He would then whittle it down himself to a more manageable list and organise a selection night, a sort of hustings, resulting in the final schedule. This was his tenth year as head, and he wanted it to be special, to reflect his love for the place.

The staff room was flooded with the morning light. When Alan first became head, this space had been mostly taken up with a sort of kitchen and some storage cupboards with blacked out windows. Now, apart from on the most unpromising of days, his staff were now greeted with the best doses of unadulterated sunlight available in the city. Four windows faced north-east and four south-east, and they sucked in the sun greedily. How could that fail to inspire them to great deeds, he asked himself. And he had been proven right. Spectacularly right.

Alan started at one end and worked his way steadily along all eight windows, taping up any tiny gaps or joins he could find. The glorious early summer was already the topic of much conversation: record temperatures and no drop of rainfall for weeks had sown a sort of holiday atmosphere all around, and made sure that the staff room, more than any other, could easily be made to resemble a sauna simply by taking fresh air out of the equation. When he had finished with the windows, he addressed the two doors, assiduously sealing all around the snug frames, leaving the one by which the staff would enter over the next few minutes. As he finished the second door, Alex pulled up in the car park. She was normally the first of his team to arrive, and today was no different. It came as no surprise.

He descended two flights of stairs, back to ground level, then another to reach the basement. The backup generator sat in the corner. He could smell petrol, so he checked the gauge. It registered full, which meant there was no leak. The smell must have lingered from the night before when he had topped up the tank. He pulled the cord to start it up. Its muffled hum could have been heard from the ground floor classrooms, but there would be nobody in those for an hour or two yet. In the staff room it would be unnoticeable. He checked the exhaust port, from which rose a thick rubber pipe. It fed a larger pipe, into which it had been crudely inserted and taped into place. That larger pipe led upwards, although it was impossible to tell exactly where to, if you didn’t already know.

By the time Alan returned to the staff room, over half of his team was assembled. The ones who were still to arrive were the predictable ones. But it was more than eight minutes until they were due to get started and nobody was ever late to one of his meetings.

A pair of teachers were fiddling with the air conditioning console on the wall. Another was gazing blankly at the taped-up windows. Alex heard Alan carefully close the door.

‘It’s like a sauna in here, Alan!’ she said. ‘What’s happened to the air con?’

‘And these windows are taped shut. I can’t get them open without ripping the tape off,’ added Morris. ‘It’s steaming, like a greenhouse!’

‘That’s the idea,’ the head grinned at them. ‘This meeting is going to be over as quickly and painlessly as possible. That’s the way I like it.’

Of course. They knew his methods well enough by now. They left the electronic console and the windows well alone, and took their places in the comfortable chairs spread across the width of the room. One by one the stragglers arrived, the identity of each one as predictable as the previous. Alan ticked them all off his list. The meeting started a minute before schedule. They always did.

Alan set the scene, as was his custom, with no more than a couple of minutes of well-rehearsed preamble. The usual stuff about allowing the creative process the sort of true freedom it needs in order to thrive, the collective responsibility they shared, to make this meaningful and life-enhancing for the children above anything else, and he even came over unusually sentimental as he reminded them all that this was a milestone: ten years into his plan for the school, and he was determined that this event would reflect the guiding principles of that ten year tenure.

Alex was invited to speak first. She had earned that privilege, and didn’t often disappoint with her insight and her instinct. Over the past few weeks, she had informally discussed a few options with various members of the staff, and had gauged the overall consensus, which she summarised beautifully, crystallising it into a handful of real ideas, properly worked out, and planned at least in outline. The others nodded in appreciation as she repeatedly hit the spot.

Kate responded first, on behalf of the upper school. She was feeling the heat, growing drowsier than she thought healthy for such an important meeting, and she got to the point as quickly as she could. Behind her, Max had actually drifted off. Two or three of the others noticed, but made sure not to interrupt. A few knowing sniggers and vague nudges was enough. Morris thought Alan had gone too far this time: it was really quite uncomfortable in the room. Worse even than the freezing winter meetings. At least he could wear gloves to those.

As a result, the general buzz of the meeting was much more subdued than usual. Speakers were allowed to say their piece, and nobody seemed keen to press for more details, or to collaborate in developing basic ideas. Joanne took over after Kate, and pretty soon noticed that her predecessor, not to mention Morris and Dave on their usual corner sofa, had succumbed to the heat and given up the fight with their eyelids. The room was growing more and more peaceful.

Alan listened to the stilted flow of discussion. Much more reserved than he had hoped for, but they had clearly understood his vision, and his plan was falling into place perfectly. He knew he could trust his team; his family, he considered them, filling the cold absence of children of his own. He loved them as much as he would have loved any genuine offspring.

When Joanne finished her piece, she slumped to one side and hung her head in a dead faint. Alan surveyed the room carefully. Not a soul remained tainted by consciousness. He smiled, closed his own eyes gently, conjured up one final image of Isobel and took a deep cleansing breath.