Maxwell’s Flame Read Online Free PDF Page A

Sally told her.
    ‘The comprehensive from hell,’ Maxwell qualified it. ‘And you?’
    ‘St Bede’s.’
    ‘What, Bournemouth?’ Maxwell asked.
    ‘The same,’ Rachel said.
    ‘Good God. That makes us virtual neighbours. St Bede’s opted out last year, didn’t it? But … you aren’t Catholic, Rachel. Or did you take the veil after …’ And he paused. If he’d had the guts he’d have bitten his tongue off.
    ‘No.’ She managed to smile. ‘No, I’m not a Catholic. About half the staff aren’t. There’s quite a contingent from St Bede’s here. Our Head believes it’s time four hundred and fifty nice Catholic girls were brought kicking and screaming into the twentieth century.’
    ‘Oh, our Head doesn’t believe anything,’ Maxwell shrugged, ‘at least, nothing I tell him.’
    ‘I think we’re going into lunch,’ Sally said, noticing the coffee-drinkers wandering off in knots of two or three. ‘May I join you two, or will I be a gooseberry?’
    ‘Well, actually, Sally …’ Maxwell began.
    ‘Of course, Sally,’ Rachel said. ‘Max and I have all week to catch up on old times.’
    ‘Rach?’ A rather cadaverous churchman with loose spectacles was wringing his hands at Rachel’s elbow.
    ‘Yes, Jordan? People, this is Jordan. He’s our chaplain.’
    ‘Hello, Jordan,’ Sally and Maxwell chorused.
    ‘Hello,’ the chaplain beamed, his upper lip almost disappearing up his nose. ‘Rach, have you seen Liz Striker? She’s got all the photocopying stuff.’
    ‘No,’ Rachel said, ‘I skipped breakfast this morning.’
    ‘She wasn’t there,’ Jordan said, ‘at least, not while I was. I’ll have a word with Michael, shall I?’
    ‘I should,’ Rachel nodded. ‘Michael Wynn, Deputy Head,’ she explained to Sally and Maxwell, ‘our Protean Hercules.’
    ‘Your what?’ Sally asked.
    ‘Superman,’ Maxwell explained. ‘You know, the bloke who has so little time to change that he does it in telephone kiosks and then ends up with his underpants on over his trousers.’
    ‘Oh,’ Sally said.
    ‘You’ll have to forgive each other,’ Maxwell said, crossing his hands over his chest to point to the two women currently in his life. ‘Rachel went to Homerton and Sally’s in Special Needs.’
    ‘Learning Support,’ Sally hissed at him.
    ‘Poor Jordan.’ Rachel shook her head at his retreating, scurrying figure. ‘He’s an absolute darling, but couldn’t, I fear, run a bath by himself. God, I’m starving.’
    ‘I’m Valerie Marks,’ Valerie was saying, standing on the podium in the Huntingdon Suite. ‘Head of Business Studies at Richard de Clare School, Erdington.’
    ‘Strongbow,’ growled Maxwell, imitating the advert, and proceeded to make the noise of crossbow bolts thudding into the wood of a bar.
    ‘What are you talking about?’ Sally hissed, trying to keep the old idiot quiet, while the mannish lass was droning on.
    ‘Richard de Clare,’ Maxwell explained. ‘Thirteenth-century big enchilada. His nickname was Strongbow. As in the cider of the same name.’
    ‘Thank you, Valerie.’ Gary headed the desultory clapping around the room. ‘Er … Rachel. I think you’re next.’
    The dark-haired woman at Maxwell’s side stood up and took her place on the podium. He looked at her again, as he’d been looking at her over lunch. Why, he asked himself – and not for the first time – why did he ever let her go? Her eyes were deep enough for a man to drown in. They always were. And most of the poetry he’d scribbled at Cambridge, he’d scribbled for her.
    ‘I’m Rachel King,’ she said. ‘I’m Senior Mistress, for my sins, at St Bede’s School for Girls, Bournemouth. I have a daughter, Helen, who’s married to a solicitor and lives in New Zealand. I like opera, nougat, white wine – oh, and I like walking in fields near castles with strange men.’ She was looking straight at Maxwell when she said it. But he didn’t hear the laughter. All he’d heard was what