Free Birdkill by Alexander McNabb

offer you a coffee or something?’
    ‘Coffee would be smashing, actually.’
    ‘How do you take it?’
    ‘White, no sugar.’
    He wandered over to behind a filing cabinet and she saw him clicking on a kettle perched on a side table. Her heart sank. Instant coffee was one of the reasons people killed themselves. The kettle had clearly been boiled shortly before because it clicked off quite quickly. She listened to the gush of the hot water and assorted clinking before he emerged, a сafetière and two cups in hand. He put her cup alongside her on desk, taking his own and the сafetière behind the desk with him. He pressed the plunger with concentration, his tongue sticking out between his lips. He looked up and laughed at her examination of him. ‘If you press too hard it explodes. You have to let the coffee rest a while to get the best out of it. I hope you weren’t expecting instant.’
    ‘No, no, this is totally what the doctor ordered.’
    He poured her coffee, then his. He raised his cup in a toast. ‘To new beginnings, then, Robyn.’
    ‘New beginnings,’ she smiled.
    ‘We’ll save the real toasts for tomorrow night. Heather told you about staff drinks?’
    ‘Yes, sounds great. I met David Thorpe briefly yesterday, but other than him and Heather, I don’t know anyone else.’
    ‘Well, there’s only really Emily Gray and the music teacher, Lorraine, you haven’t met.’
    She tried her luck at testing Hamilton’s assertion there was absolutely no fraternisation between the research and teaching staffs. ‘Oh. Do the research staff not join us?’
    Archer looked as if she had just enquired after the health of a dead relative. ‘We don’t really, well, talk to each other. It’s not encouraged, you see. They do their jobs, we do ours and the general consensus is we’re both better off not influencing the other.’
    ‘I see.’ Robyn made sure it was clear she didn’t. ‘It seems odd to meet for drinks on a Thursday. Most schools I’ve been to; they wait until the end of the week.’
    ‘Oh. Right. I would have thought Lawrence would have explained that to you as well. We have a four-day week here. You get to spend Friday planning your lessons. We often have an informal staff meeting in the afternoon to share any issues or ensure we’re co-ordinating properly. That’s on top of the Monday co-ordination meeting, of course.’
    ‘Of course.’
    He glanced up at her to see if she was laughing at him and smiled thinly. ‘It works well; you’re not going to be teaching a primary or even secondary curriculum. Most of the kids are at university level, some are capable of taking a decent Master’s. But their emotional development is very mixed indeed. You’ll be dealing with kids who have an adult’s learning with a child’s experience. Believe me, you’ll need the planning time.’
    She took that in. It seemed pretty incredible, given some of the kids she’d seen were no older than six or eight. She didn’t want to press the point and seem as if she were questioning his professionalism at this early stage. Robyn was settling nicely and this wasn’t a time to go upsetting apple carts. ‘So what do the kids do on Friday?’
    ‘Lawrence and the research team spend the evening with them Thursday. They often work on Friday, too, depending on the programme element they’re focusing on.’
    ‘And what programme elements are they focusing on?’
    ‘I think Lawrence explained that, didn’t he?’
    ‘Well, he explained he was working on a programme that aimed to unearth the potential of intellectually gifted kids.’
    ‘Intellectually gifted doesn’t do them justice. Most of them are true savants and none of them is an idiot. Lawrence is attempting to understand that potential properly, to try and augment it, harness it. He’s making extraordinary progress, too.’
    ‘In what way?’
    ‘Ah, that you’ll have to ask him. Now, shall we take a look at your planning goals?’
    ‘Sure. I’ve had