Part 11 (1/2)

Well, you were wrong, Headmaster. I have no intention of going gently into retirement. And as for your written warning, pone ubi sol nan lucet. I'll score my Century, or die in the attempt. One for the Honours Board.

I was still in a martial frame of mind when I got home this evening, and the invisible finger was back, poking gently but persistently at my wishbone. I took two of the pills Bevans had prescribed, and washed them down with a small medicinal sherry before settling down to some fifth form marking. It was dark by the time I had finished. At seven I stood up to draw the curtains, when a movement from the garden caught my eye. I leaned closer to the window.

Mine is a long, narrow garden, a seeming throwback cb'ij the days of strip-farming, with a hedge on one side, a watts on the other and a variety of shrubs and vegetables growing; more or less at random in between. At the far end there is a big old horse-chestnut tree, overhanging Dog Lane, which is separated from the back garden by a fence. Under the tree is a patch of mossy gra.s.s on which I like to sit in summer (or did, before the process of getting up again became so c.u.mbersome) and a small and decrepit shed in which I keep a few things.

I have never actually been burgled. I don't suppose I have anything really worth stealing, unless you count books, which are generally held to be worthless by the criminal fraternity. But Dog Lane has a reputation: there is a pub at the corner, which generates noise; a fish and chip shop at the far end, which generates litter; and of course, Sunnybank Park Comprehensive close by, which generates almost anything you can think of, including noise, litter and a twice-daily stampede past my house that would put even the most unruly Ozzies to shame. I tend to be generally tolerant of this. I even turn a blind eye to the occasional intruder hopping over the fence during the conker season. A horse-chestnut tree in October belongs to everyone, Sunnybankers included.

But this was different. For a start, school was long past. It was dark and rather cold, and there was something unpleasantly furtive about the movement I had glimpsed.

Pressing my face to the window, I saw three or four shapes at the far end of the garden, not large enough to be adult. Boys, then; now I could hear their voices, very lly, through the gla.s.s.

That surprised me. Usually conker-hunters are quick and abtrusive. Most people on the lane know my profession, respect it; and the Sunnybankers to whom I have spoken about their littering habits have rarely, if ever, reoffended.

I rapped sharply on the gla.s.s. Now they would run, I thought; but instead the figures fell still, and a few seconds later I heard - unmistakably - jeering from under the horse-chestnut tree.

'That does it.' In four strides I was at the door. 'Oy!' I yelled in my best magisterial voice. 'What the h.e.l.l do you boys think you're doing!'

More laughter from the bottom of the garden. Two ran, I think - I saw their brief outline, etched in neon, as they climbed the fence. The other two remained, secure in the darkness and rea.s.sured by the length of the narrow path.

'I said ”What are you doing?'” It was the first time in years that a boy - even a Sunnybanker - had defied me. I felt a surge of adrenalin and the invisible finger poked at me again. 'Come here at once!'

'Or what?' The voice was brash and youthful. 'Think you can take me, you fat b.a.s.t.a.r.d?'

'Like f.u.c.k he can, he's too old!'

Rage gave me speed; I set off down the path like a buffalo, but it was dark, the path was greasy, my foot in its leather-soled slipper shot to the side, taking me off balance.

I did not fall, but it was close. I wrenched my knee, and when I looked back the two remaining boys were climbing over the fence, in a clap and flutter of laughter, like ugly birds taking wing.

St Oswald's Grammar School for Boys Thursday, 14th October IT WAS A SMALL INCIDENT. A MINOR IRRITANT, THAT S ALL.

No damage was done. And yet-- There was a time when I would have caught those boys, whatever it took, and dragged them back by the ears. Not now, of course. Sunny bankers know their rights. Even so, it had been a long time since my authority had been so deliberately challenged. Boys scent weakness. They all do. And it had been a mistake to run like that, in the dark, especially after what Bevans had told me. It looked rushed, undignified. A student teacher's mistake. I should have crept out into Dog Lane and caught them as they climbed over the fence. They were only boys -- thirteen or fourteen, judging by their voices. Since when did Roy Straitley allow a few boys to defy him?

I brooded on that for longer than it deserved. Perhaps that was why I slept so badly; perhaps the sherry; or perhaps I was still troubled by my conversation with Bishop. In any case I awoke unrefireshed; washed, dressed, made toast and drank a mug of tea as I waited for the postman. Sure enough, at seven thirty, the letter-box clattered, and sure enough, there was the typed sheet of St Oswald's notepaper, signed E. Gray, Headmaster, BA (Hons), and Dr B. D. Pooley, Chairman of Governors, the duplicate of which (it said) would be inserted into my personal record for a period of 12 (twelve) months, after which time it would be removed from file, on condition that no further complaint(s) had been lodged and at the discretion of the Governing Body, blah, blah, blah-dy b.l.o.o.d.y blah.

On a normal day, it would not have concerned me. Fatigue, however, made me vulnerable, and it was without enthusiasm - and a knee that still ached from the evening's misadventure - that I set off on foot to St Oswald's. Without quite knowing why, I made a short detour into Dog Lane, perhaps to check for signs of last night's intruders.

It was then that I saw it. I could hardly have missed it: a swastika, sketched on to the side of the fence in red marker pen, with the word 'HITLER' below it in exuberant letters. It was recent, then; almost certainly the work of last night's Sunnybankers -- if, indeed, they were Sunnybankers. But I had not forgotten the caricature tacked up on to the form noticeboard; the cartoon of myself as a fat little mortar boarded n.a.z.i, and my conviction at the time that Knight was behind it.

Could Knight have found out where I lived? It wouldn't I be hard; my address is in the School handbook, and dozens of boys must have seen me walking home. All the same I Couldn't believe that Knight - Knight, of all people - would dare to do something like this.

Teaching's a game of bluff, of course; but it would take a better player than Knight to check me. No, it had to be a coincidence, I thought; some marker-happy Sunnybank Parker slouching home to his fish and chips, who saw my nice clean fence and hated its unblemished surface.

At the weekend, I'll sand and repaint it with wipe-clean gloss. It needed doing anyway, and as any teacher knows, one piece of graffiti invites another. But I couldn't help feeling, as I walked to St Oswald's, that all the unpleasantness of the past few weeks -- Fallowgate, the Examiner campaign, last night's intrusion, Anderton-Pullitt's ridiculous peanut, even the Headmaster's prim little letter of this morning - were somehow - obscurely, irrationally, deliberately - related.

Schools, like s.h.i.+ps, are riddled with superst.i.tions, and St Oswald's more than most. The ghosts, perhaps; or the rituals and traditions that keep the old wheels creaking away. But this term has given us nothing but bad luck right from the beginning. There's a Jonah on board. If only I knew who it was.

When I entered the Common Room this morning, I found it suspiciously quiet. Word of my warning must have got around, because conversations fell silent throughout the day every time I entered a room, and there was a certain gleam in Sourgrape's eye that boded ill for someone.

The Nations avoided me; Grachvogel looked furtive; Sc.o.o.nes was at his most aloof; and even Pearman seemed most unlike his cheery self. Kitty, too, looked especially preoccupied - she barely acknowledged my greeting as I came in, and it bothered me rather; Kitty and I have always been chums, and I hoped nothing had happened to change that. I didn't think it had - after all, the little upsets of the past week hadn't touched her -- but there was definitely something in her face as she looked up and saw me. I sat beside her with my tea (the vanished Jubilee mug having been replaced by a plain brown one from home), but she seemed engrossed in her pile of books, and hardly said a word.

Lunch was a mournful affair of vegetables - thanks to the vindictive Bevans - followed by a sugarless cup of tea. I took the cup with me to room 59, though most of the boys were outside, except for Anderton-Pullitt, happily engrossed in his aeronautics book, and Waters, Pink and Lemon, who were quietly playing cards in one corner.

I had been marking for about ten minutes when I looked up and saw the rabbit Meek, standing beside the desk with a pink slip in his hand and a look of mingled hate and deference on his pale, bearded face.

'I got this slip this morning, sir,' he said, holding out the piece of paper. He has never forgiven me for my intervention in his lesson, or for the fact that I witnessed his humiliation in front of the boys. As a result he addresses me as 'sir', like a pupil, and his tone is flat and colourless, like Knight's.

'What is it?'

'a.s.sessment form, sir.'

'Oh, G.o.ds. I'd forgotten.' Of course, the staff appraisals are upon us; Heaven forbid that we should fail to complete all the necessary paperwork before December's official inspection. I supposed I had one too; the New Head has always been a great fan of internal appraisal - as introduced by Bob Strange, who also wants more in-service training, yearly management courses and performance-related pay. Can't see it myself -- your results are only as good as the boys you teach, after all - but it keeps Bob out of the cla.s.sroom, which is the essential thing.

The general principle of appraisal is simple: each junior member of staff is individually observed and appraised in the cla.s.sroom by a senior master; each Head of Section by a Head of Year; each Head of Year by a Deputy, that is, Pat Bishop or Bob Strange. The Second and Third Masters are a.s.sessed by the Head himself (though in Strange's case, he spends so little time in the cla.s.sroom that you wonder why he bothers). The Head, being a geographer, does hardly any teaching at all, but spends much of his time on courses, lecturing teams of PGCE students on Racial Sensitivity or Drug Awareness.

'It says you'll be observing my lesson this afternoon,' said Meek. He didn't look too pleased about it. 'Third-form computer science.'

'Thank you, Mr Meek.' I wondered which joker had decided to put me in charge of computer science. As if I didn't know. And with Meek, of all people. Oh well, I thought. Bang goes my free period.

There are some days in a teaching career where everything goes wrong. I should know; I've seen a few -- days when the only sensible thing to do is to go home and back to bed. Today was one of them; an absurd parade of mishaps and annoyances, of litter and lost books and minor scuffles and unwelcome administrative tasks and extra duties and louche comments in the corridors.

A run-in with Eric Sc.o.o.nes over some misbehaviour of Sutcliff s; my register (still missing, and causing trouble with Marlene); wind (never welcome); a leak in the boys' toilets and the subsequent flooding of part of the Middle Corridor; Knight (unaccountably smug); Dr Devine (equally so); a number of annoying room changes due to the leak and e-mailed (ye G.o.ds!) to all staff workstations, with the result that I arrived late to my morning cover period - English, for the absent Roach.

There are many advantages to being a senior master. One is that having established a reputation as a disciplinarian, it is rarely necessary to enforce it. Word gets round -- Don't mess with Straitley - and a quiet life for all ensues. Today was different. Oh, it happens occasionally; and if it had happened on any other day I might not have reacted as I did then. But it was a large group, a lower third - thirty-five boys, and not a single Latinist among them. They knew me only by reputation - and I don't suppose the recent article in our local press had helped much.

I was ten minutes late, and the cla.s.s was already noisy. No work had been set, and as I walked in, expecting the boys to stand in silence, they simply glanced in my direction and went right on doing precisely what they'd been doing before. Games of cards; conversations; a rowdy discussion at the back with chairs kicked over and a powerful stench of chewing gum in the air.

It shouldn't have angered me. A good teacher knows that there is fake anger and real anger - the fake is fair game, part of the good teacher's armoury of bluff, but the real must be hidden at all costs, lest the boys - those master manipulators -- understand that they have scored a point.

But I was tired. The day had started badly, the boys didn't know me and I was still angry over the incident in my back garden the night before. Those high young voices - Like f.u.c.k he can, he's too old! - had sounded too familiar, too plausible to be easily dismissed. One boy looked up at me and turned to his desk-mate. I thought I heard the phrase Nuts to you, sir! - amidst a clap of ugly laughter.

And so I fell - like a novice, like a student teacher - for the oldest trick in the book. I lost my temper.

'Gentlemen, silence.' It usually works. This time it didn't; I could see a group of boys at the back laughing openly at the battered gown I had omitted to remove following my mid-morning Break duty. Nuts to you, sir, I heard (or thought), and it seemed to me that if anything, the volume increased.

'I said, ”Silence!”' I roared -- an impressive sound in usual circ.u.mstances, but I'd forgotten Bevans and his advice to take it easy, and the invisible finger prodded me in the sternum mid-roar. The boys at the back sn.i.g.g.e.red, and irrationally I wondered if any of them had been there last night - Think you can take me, you fat b.a.s.t.a.r.d?

Well, in such a situation there are inevitably casualties. In this case, eight in lunch-time detention, which was perhaps a trifle excessive, but a teacher's discipline is his own, after all, and there was no reason for Strange to intervene. He did, however; walking past the room at just the wrong time, he happened to hear my voice and looked through the gla.s.s at precisely the moment that I turned one of the sn.i.g.g.e.ring boys around by the sleeve of his blazer.

'Mr Straitleyl' Of course nowadays, no one touches a pupil.

Silence fell; the boy's sleeve was torn at the armpit. 'You saw him, sir. He hit me.'

They knew he hadn't. Even Strange knew, though his face was impa.s.sive. The invisible finger gave another push. The boy - Pooley, his name was - held up his torn blazer for inspection. 'That was brand-new!'

It wasn't; anyone could see that. The fabric was s.h.i.+ny with age; the sleeve itself a little short. Last year's blazer, due for replacement. But I'd gone too far; I could see it now. 'Perhaps you can tell Mr Strange all about it,' I suggested, turning back to the now-silent cla.s.s.

The Third Master gave me a reptilian look.

'Oh, and when you've finished with Mr Pooley, do please send him back,' I said. 'I need to arrange his detention.'