Off the Record

by Craig Sherborne

  ‘This is the school’s fault, surely,’ I said to the maths teacher. ‘Isn’t it your job to fix it?’

  I told the history teacher they’d turned a bright boy dull.

  I did not want to be arguing, making Ollie feel small, but felt a duty to defend him, his intelligence, his dignity. He himself wasn’t about to, sitting beside me, head lowered. He picked at the ends of his tie to keep his hands busy.

  Then we got to Mr Gumm’s door—the director of English. He had his own office instead of a communal room with partitions. A club lounge instead of steel chairs for the parents.

  ‘Please be seated,’ he said, his handshake more handtouch than greeting. His fingers thin kangaroo paws across his waistcoat. He was my age but taller and stooped and he shuffled to his chair. There was baize in his desk and carved swirls in the timber. He had framed degrees—arts and teaching—on his wall. The arts one was from Oxford University.

  ‘Is that Oxford, England?’ I couldn’t help but be awed. I resented the feeling.

  ‘Yes, Oxford, England,’ said Gumm, putting on spectacles. His accent like Shakespearean actors.

  ‘I went to Oxford,’ I said.

  Ollie lifted his head.

  I laughed: ‘Backpacking. Strolled about. Nice buildings.’

  Gumm gave me an unsmiling stare and scratched the dandruff from his crown. A sprinkle of it mixed with the motes of the air.

  ‘Mr Smith,’ he said. And now he did smile, a show of skewed teeth rather than pleasantry. I know that look—I’m the master at it: a patronising glower. ‘Often we report to parents on a change for the worse in a boy’s work standards. The school counsellor tries to solve the riddle. Usually it’s trouble domestically and that explains matters. This is an occasion when I’m bound to tell a parent of a change going the other way. Let me read this out. Just listen to it.’

  He crossed his forearms on his desk and pushed at a piece of paper with his elbows.

  Call it satire. Call it fantasy of how the world has become. This book has hidden meaning behind the writer’s bland prose and sly puns.

  ‘That’s very good,’ I said.

  Gumm blinked at me. ‘I beg to differ. This is an essay about Orwell’s Animal Farm.’

  ‘I’ve read the book,’ I said.

  ‘A great novel.’

  ‘Over-rated, if you ask me. Too much use of informals in Orwell. What you’ve just read out there is better. It’s got life in it. A bit of zing.’

  ‘That’s a matter of opinion. It is eccentric in style, certainly. A sort of gauche forwardness.’

  Sort of. Now he was using informals.

  ‘The main issue here, Mr Smith, is that the essay has Oliver’s name on it. But it is not his usual kind of style.’

  Another informal. And this man was a teacher. From Oxford. In England.

  ‘I’ll leave aside the issue of Ollie attempting work meant for his more progressive peers. I’ll be blunt, Mr Smith. I do not believe Oliver wrote this.’

  I let the statement drift down onto his desk like his dandruff. There is little else to do when you’ve been sprung.

  ‘What are you saying, Mr Gumm?’

  ‘I’m aware that you are a journalist.’

  ‘I’m currently acting editor.’

  ‘May I ask, did you have any input into this essay?’

  ‘I always try to give the boy a tip or two. Don’t I, Ollie?’

  Ollie sucked his top lip under his bottom teeth.

  ‘That’s perfectly sound. But it doesn’t help Oliver to have too much help with his homework. A modicum of help is fine. But in excess? That can be deleterious.’

  ‘Really? I think I’m doing the right thing and I get criticised?’

  ‘It’s not criticism.’

  ‘Are you accusing me of doing my son’s work for him?’

  ‘I’m saying there’s a point at which too much input is…’

  ‘I didn’t know parent and teacher meetings were an exercise in humiliation.’

  ‘They’re not meant to be, I assure you. But where issues arise they must be explored openly. For instance, let me read this out.’

  He elbowed another page.

  A writer who places his story in some former time may do so for the sake of purely superficial variety, without meaning to bother himself or his readers with the era’s colour more than is needed to avoid obvious absurdities. He is then not concerned with archaisms. More likely he is planning to present a living picture of the time he is writing about.

  ‘That is a piece Oliver presented yesterday. The topic I assigned his class was concerned with the reason authors might use historical settings for their stories.’

  ‘He’s made a reasonable fist of it, it seems. And I can promise you I had no hand in composing the thing.’

  ‘Now let me read this out, if I may.

  A novelist who places his story in some former age may do so for the sake of a purely superficial variety, without any intention of troubling himself or his readers with temporal colour more than is necessary to avoid glaring absurdities; he is then not concerned with archaism at all. More commonly, however, it is part of his plan to present a living picture of the time of which he writes.

  ‘That is from a book on correct English usage entitled The King’s English, by H. W. and F. G. Fowler, first published in 1906. I have an edition of it here.’

  Gumm held up a black hardback, opened it, pages loose where they’d come away from wear.

  ‘It’s from a section called “Airs and Graces”,’ he said, pointing to a passage. ‘This is my old copy from Oxford. One of those texts we tended to mock as superseded. I must say I never expected to refer to it again. Let alone in a situation such as this.’

  He wouldn’t look me in the eye at this moment. A man who had gathered evidence, yet a man unpractised at confronting men. Not as easy as boys, is it, teacher?

  Then he surprised me, stiffening in his chair. The springs it rocked and turned on cranked and squeaked. He stood. He looked down at me. My reflex was to stand to match his standing. A different place and time, yes. Instead, I sat there, scowling. Gumm put his puny hands behind his back. His waistcoat like a bag now bulging with belly.

  ‘You’re making plagiarism allegations? My son will have a perfectly good explanation.’

  I placed my hand on Ollie’s knee and gave a little squeeze that meant keep quiet.

  ‘Fact is,’ I said. ‘I gave him my books. The ones that set me on my path in life. For me they’re treasures not superseded. But then, I didn’t go to Oxford. The boy’s simply been neglectful about quoting references.’

  ‘And that would be no sin in itself. But you can see where Oliver has tried to change the lines to pretend he wrote them. There’s no attempt at all at attribution.’

  ‘I’m not enjoying this conversation. You’re not being fair. I think I’m doing the right thing and giving him my books. The next thing he’s being criticised and not congratulated.’

  ‘I’m saying, Mr Smith, that this is not allowed. Perhaps if Oliver could step out of the room. I’d like to speak more freely in your son’s interests.’

  ‘You want to step out of the room or stay, son?’

  Ollie shrugged that he didn’t know. I spoke up for him. ‘He’ll stay and be strong. When someone has a beef with you, you don’t run from them. Whatever you’ve got to say, you can say it to the both of us. Man to men.’

  ‘If you insist.’

  He sat back at his desk.

  ‘It’s no secret that Oliver is not, how should I put it, academically precocious. But here you can see he has been cunning with the punctuation. Taking the Fowlers’ formality out, the commas and semicolons. He’s made it look modern. He’s been quite clever at it.’

  ‘Finally something complimentary. How about Ollie says sorry and we leave it at that? He’ll never do it again.’

  ‘He has already done it again.’

  Gumm poked at another piece of paper.

  ‘We
like to see boys stretch their often narrow imaginations. We set them composition tasks, to get them making up stories. Oliver has struggled with this imaginative task previously but suddenly he hands in this little gem: Among clumps of dying clover and spears of browning paspalum the hare is crouched and scratching at the dirt again.

  ‘A quaint nature study that goes on like that and ends with the creature being shot by a farmer. I don’t know how much experience Ollie has had with hares and farming but I do know this story. It was written by a girl who does this for a business. You send her eighty dollars or so and she does your homework for you. It’s paying for her courses at university. She must be getting lazy. In the past eighteen months this same story has appeared at three different schools. I’m on the education task force policing it.’

  ‘Ollie would not do that.’

  ‘Oliver, is your father right? Did you write this? Or did you buy it?’

  I squeezed Ollie’s knee again. ‘I’d rather take him out of this school than have him asked questions like that. I want to speak to the headmaster.’

  ‘The head is away on annual leave. I’m acting head in his absence.’

  Ollie was crying. His grey trousers spotted with tear blots. A sight like that and I rage and seethe. I do so invisibly but my body beams it. Gumm must have noticed because he slid back in his chair. I watched him and said nothing and wished he were dead.

  ‘Ollie recently made me the proudest I have ever been as his father. I asked him what it was he wanted to do in life. You know what he said? He said, “I want to be like you.” I’ve never been so emotional. So full of joy. Therefore, I blame myself for this situation. I said to him: you have to get better marks. I’ve given him my books and tried to push him. So let’s take that into account and forget this happened and start anew. A clean slate. Accept my apologies. Accept Ollie’s apologies. And leave things at that.’

  I let go of Ollie’s knee and told him to look Mr Gumm in the eye and say sorry. Unequivocally vow there’d be no more funny business.

  Ollie had no chance to speak. Gumm said, ‘I’d be pleased to receive Oliver’s apology, of course. But we have procedures. Lower-category cheating means detentions, that sort of thing. Suspensions or expulsion are for serious cases. Oliver’s case falls into the serious category, I’m afraid. His being in this school, I’m inclined to think, may no longer be appropriate or viable. I’m concerned about the example it sets. And I worry that Oliver would only do it again. There is here a pattern of deceit.’

  ‘Wait a second. You want to kick my son out? For this? He hasn’t killed anyone.’

  ‘Standards, Mr Smith, are what we pride ourselves on at this school. If we don’t maintain standards our parents will not send their boys here.’

  I gave Ollie my handkerchief: wipe your eyes, I said. Don’t be upset. This is injustice and I won’t tolerate injustice.

  Gumm was patting Ollie’s papers into square order. He was waiting for me to accept his ruling and go. How many times can you pat away at paper unless you’re trying to get rid of someone and don’t feel comfortable because they stay.

  ‘It’s the old saying isn’t it?’ I said. ‘Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.’

  Gumm frowned and stopping patting.

  ‘You know who said that?’ I smiled—a sneer-smile.

  Gumm shook his head. ‘No, I don’t recall.’

  ‘Bernard Shaw, if I remember rightly. And you’re the one with the Oxford degree. What I’m saying is, this does not stop here. Me, I don’t teach, Mr Oxford. I do.’

  I stood up and gripped my hips with my hands. My jacket was parted behind my fingers. I wished I had a flatter stomach for challenging him. Two obvious U-shapes instead of bosom for my chest, for flexing a puff of belligerence. I told Ollie to get to his feet. Go and wait by the car. Go on, quick. Close the door behind you. Good boy.

  ‘So,’ I said to Gumm. ‘When does he have to go?’

  ‘There is no need to decide that now. I realise this matter has left you distressed.’

  ‘What happens if he doesn’t leave? You’ll call the police, have him dragged away?’

  ‘Certainly not.’

  ‘Because that would really get me going as a journalist: a teenage boy getting heavied in this way. The school he trusted to shape his life spurns him. This is really going to get me going. People are fascinated by places like this. Grown men in charge of vulnerable children. The things that happen when men get mixed with boys. I’ll do it first-person—This is the school that stole my son. I gave them a budding wordsmith and look what they did to him.’

  ‘Mr Smith, we should remain civilised instead of this bullying tone.’

  ‘You’re the bully. You’re the problem here. You reduced my son to tears. All this goes into my article.’

  I did up my jacket button. I rolled my shoulders to signal decisiveness. I shot my cuffs to demonstrate confidence.

  ‘We’d take legal action, naturally,’ the arrogant bastard said.

  ‘Bullshit,’ I scoffed. ‘I know the law better than you. Truth is a defence in defamation. By the time I’ve finished it’ll be true enough. I’ll start work on it tonight. See you later, Mr Oxford. In print.’

  I turned and didn’t look back to assess him: whether he’d whitened with grim worry or reddened with rage.

  ‘We’ll ask rival schools about advertising. We can run them beside the article. Not good for your business.’

  I said that last bit flinging open the door, leaving it open. It was an invitation: If you want to placate me, do it now. I heard no steps behind me down the corridor. No voice called meekly, ‘Come back, Mr Smith. Let’s talk.’ I began walking so fast my arms swung high as marching.

  Down past the trimmed hedges my money helped pay for. Out through the iron gates like pretend gates of a non-castle. No kings lived here, more a court of balding queens who don’t treat you respectfully when they should do. I was forming bitter imagery as I trod, of shadowy cloisters and lecherous male staff.

  I got in the car and didn’t start it. I gripped the steering wheel. Get in, I snapped at Ollie.

  ‘That was the most embarrassing moment of my fucking life,’ I said.

  I never use that word in front of him but I was using it now.

  ‘How am I going to tell your mother? What am I going to fucking say? I know what she’ll say. She’ll say: This is all your fault, Callum. This is your fault, Callum, because Ollie wants to be you. This is your fault, Callum, because you should have been a better father. This is your fault, Callum, because you should have been a better husband.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Dad.’

  Poor Ollie was bawling and I hated him in that second. Just a second, a flash of wishing he weren’t mine. He was like a stupid, sad criminal, the kind I write about as if they were scum. Morons whose names are usually Dale or Nathan or Wayne, eyebrows bulging like unevolved cavemen. Yet my son’s forehead was like mine, smoothed off not sticking out, no hint that his brain was made differently.

  ‘I’ll give you points for effort. You’ve got reporter nous. Shame you’re so…’

  …Fucking illiterate. I almost said it but clenched my knuckles to my mouth. Just proves your DNA isn’t passed on reliably. And I’ve always maintained you can’t teach the talentless.

  ‘When I was a kid my father caught me cheating when playing cards with a friend. He gave me a thrashing. Did me no harm. Did me no good. I don’t know how to punish you. So I’m not going to. Getting expelled is going to set you back enough. These things stick on your record. Bedevil your life. Therefore we have to be practical and try to stop that happening. In my view we have to fight back.’

  I told him to do something with my handkerchief, not just clench it in a ball. I made him wipe his snot and stop his tears from hanging off his chin.

  ‘Has this Mr Oxford ever made you feel…uncomfortable? Tried to touch you in some way? Now would be a good time to tell me.’

  No, said Ollie, shaking his
head.

  ‘You sure? What about with other boys?’

  No.

  ‘What about other teachers doing it?’

  Still no.

  ‘There must be something you can give me? There must be things hushed up in that school of yours.’

  Ollie sniffed elastic tear-snot into his nose.

  ‘Finn Richards reckons he got a girl pregnant, but he’s always boasting. He said he got a disease in his willy from her. But he got it from his bike seat crushing him and a cyst formed. His mum told us that ’cause she hates nasty rumours.’

  He was bawling again and I decided to hold him. I now thought of Ollie as beyond disappointment. A kid nature had blighted with a dullard’s doughy brain. It made me feel better to blame nature for disabling him. Disabled. What a word to consider in connection with my son! I wanted to push him away, revolted. But that word must bring out the best even in me: I gripped his shoulders tightly, protective and gentle. I rocked him until the dreamy motion suggested an idea.

  ‘Enough of that,’ I said. ‘You wait here. Keep your chin up. I have to make a call.’

  I walked down the street to where no one could hear. No cars or pedestrians because of building-site witch’s hats: a new school pool and six tennis courts. I’m paying for that as well, I complained to an elm tree. And that renovation of the headmaster’s house. They’re building a ‘sister school’ in China, for Christ’s sake. An ad board read ‘parent donation fund’.

  I’ll give them fucking donations. I dialled the pry office, the newsroom line that flashed up on all the desk phones.

  ‘Who’s that? Ryan the Innocent? It’s Words. How’d the brothel go? Good? You didn’t bone up, I hope? Good to hear it. Don’t file the thing without dungeon pics…Lots of chains, I hope? And walls with whips hanging? Excellent work. Listen, I have a small job for you. Go into my office and turn right and go to my vintage files. I want you very carefully to look through them. You have my permission. Just this once. You are not to get them out of order. You’re to look through the years mid-to-late nineties. I am positive there’s a school story about expulsions. How they get rid of students who don’t get good marks. They find ways to kick them out and therefore lift the school’s final-year aggregate. Have a read to familiarise yourself with the issue. Once you’ve done that I want you to ring St George’s College. They’ve got a parent–teacher evening, there’ll be someone on phone duty. Ask to be put through to a Mr Frederick Gumm. Pronounced Gorm. I have just been to see this arsehole regarding my son. My son’s marks aren’t brilliant, Ryan. He has learning difficulties that cause his mum and me great anxiety. They’re trying to expel him by saying he’s a plagiarist.’