Secrets - Robert, Aloof

Lunch with Mel. Read of the newspapers.

Quarter to three.  I set off to collect Robert from school. The other kids have gone. Robert's standing by the whiteboard with his teacher Miss Lyons, who greets me with a warm smile.

'We had a good day, didn't we Robert?' she says.  
           
The boy nods and clutches his bag.

Miss Lyons tosses back her light brown hair and gets ready to leave. She's in her mid-twenties, pretty, with an open face and green eyes. 'I'm very confident about Robert,' she says. 'He's made a very promising start. I'm convinced that given time, he'll settle in and make some good friends here. He's a pleasant boy to work with.'
           
'Do your hear that, Robert?'
           
The teacher continues talking.  She has a soft accent that I can't place, but she definitely isn't from these parts. We go down a short flight of stairs, past an old bell rope that pupils would have rung manually in former days, along a narrow corridor where a cleaner is polishing the floor with a machine, and out to the playground. 'I have to be somewhere else,' Miss Lyons says by the cloakroom arch. 'I'll see you in the morning, Robert. Bye, Mr Holmes. Very nice meeting you again.'  Smiling, she heads towards a different part of the school building.
           
'Ready?' I say.
           
Robert lags behind on the way to the car. He was a late developer, Craig. On his first visit to playgroup, he sat on the floor by a dusty black out-of-tune piano, refusing eye contact, his attention fixed on a small brick lorry with yellow wheels. He picked it up and gazed at the wheels, running his fingers along them. He wouldn't let go of the lorry, but he didn't smile. These days, he talks when he wishes to and laughs if he wants to and enjoys taking pictures and writing wildlife stories on the computer, but he and I are pretty distant – as you will have seen for yourself.  
           
'So you enjoyed your first day?' I say, slowing my pace to allow Robert to catch up.

'It was all right.'
           
'What did you do?'
           
He shrugs. 'Nothing really.'
           
'You must have done something.'
           
Another shrug.
           
'What are your classmates like?'
           
'All right, I suppose,' he mumbles.
           
'You know any time you want to invite someone over, just…'

But the boy's already switching off, lagging behind again.    

We reach the car. 'What do you want to do? Do you want to stop off for a drink?'

He shakes his head, puts on the headphones.

'Or we could go for a drive and take photos.'
           
No answer. 
           
'It will be fun. You can help me load the images later.'
           
'I want to go home.' 

'It's still early. We could go to see a film. What do you think?'
           
'I want to go home.'

'We could ring your aunt and see if she'd like to join us.'
           
'I don't want to.'

'And you're sure about that?'

No answer. 
           
'Okay, but say if you change your mind,' I say.  I get into the car. 'We can go anywhere or do anything you like.'
           
I reach over to help fasten his seatbelt, but he tenses, so I back off.