by M. J. Trow
As the door clicked finally into place and everyone could hear their own blood, pounding and susurrating in their ears, it was of course Maxwell’s voice which was the first to be raised.
‘She wasn’t very nice, now, was she, boys and girls?’
Chapter Four
I
t isn’t always easy to tell what a teacher is thinking. The stone face and the blank eyes are something they cultivate very quickly as a means to survive the whiteboard jungle. The kids can tell, ironically – their rate of evolution is quicker still and for every trick a teacher learns in their attempt at survival of the fittest, there will be a student waiting around the next bend, antennae already tuned to detect it. If they would only learn about the Corn Laws and the latent heat of fusion of ice with such alacrity, the world would be a smarter place.
So the student body of Leighford High School knew to tread warily that Monday. There was a tang in the air that told them that all was not well. As a rattler tastes the air with its tongue, so the many-headed dragon could tell that this was not a day to piss about. No slamming doors as they came in to a classroom one by one. No dropping pens in a perfect Mexican wave across the room. Just eyes front, shoulders back, all attention. Mrs Braymarr would have found it hard to fault the little dears. It was temporary, of course and by early afternoon the cracks would be showing, but for now, all was peace and the more fragile members of the teaching staff took it for what it was; not peace, but the calm before the storm.
The staff too, were on eggshells. After Mrs Braymarr’s exit they had quietly gathered up their traps and gone to their classrooms. Diamond, Ryan and Taylor had stood, stone-faced, where their Nemesis had left them and no one had the heart to speak to them as they left the room. A chill wind was blowing and it didn’t need a Sherlock Holmes to know where from; or where it might end up.
Peter Maxwell headed for his office, his bolthole, his sanctuary, his home away from home. He looked around the walls, at his posters, lovingly collected and changed each term, to keep the memories fresh. These would go, he felt it in his water. In the world of Mrs Braymarr and her ilk, there was scant regard for individuality. Nothing different. Nothing out of line. The automata that her school ... no, he corrected himself, Academy would be turning out would have no place in their endless rows for anyone who did not conform. George Orwell had got it wrong. It wasn’t 1984 they should have dreaded; it was now, over thirty years too late.
He switched on the kettle, by habit. By now, he should have had a quick update with Sylv, been told which of his Own were heading for pregnancy, measles or incipient bulimia. They would have put the world to rights. She would have brought brownies. Instead, the Sylv-shaped gap that had been so evident to him at the meeting now sat mutely at the end of his carefully positioned row of chairs. The chairs he now would always check in case of recumbent headmasters. But there was no one. Not even the usual crew of absconders from other departments who found the air on the Sixth Form Mezzanine more to their liking than the stinks of chemistry or the chill of maths. With a sigh, he made his coffee, stirred it absentmindedly although he had run out of sugar months ago and sat down, staring out of the window into the future.
And it wasn’t pretty.
James Diamond had gone to that place he visited more and more often these days. There weren’t quite bluebirds – courtesy of Disney, with little aprons and brooms – tweeting around his head, but they wouldn’t have surprised him had they arrived. He had some pills – he wasn’t sure what – and was happy, after his own fashion. He had looked into the future too and, although the window gave onto a different view from Maxwell’s, he wasn’t seeing a happy ending either. Mrs Braymarr didn’t get any more likeable with further meetings; she had struck him as scary when he met her first and she was even more scary now. Why she behaved like that he didn’t know. He was self-aware enough to know that he didn’t always come across as Little Mr Sunshine, but he was sure his staff were fond enough of him, in their fashion. As he was fond of them in his. But Mrs Braymarr? Who on earth could like her?
Mrs Braymarr straightened her skirt and checked her lipstick in her mirror. She was not an affectionate woman, she knew that, but she did like sex. She liked it a lot. And if it had to happen in a stationery cupboard from time to time, so be it. It was the power that made her this way, she told herself. Every time she wiped the floor with a roomful of stunned teachers, she had only one thing on her mind. The man adjusting the cut of his trousers beside her seemed to be under the impression he was the only one; that was fine by her. If it kept him compliant it did no harm to boost his ego from time to time. And he was good at what he did. Oh, she had no idea of how good he was at running a used car dealership, although she assumed from the amount of spare cash he had he was no slouch. No, what she was interested in was how he could push her buttons whenever she demanded it. That, and how he could control a board of school governors.
‘That was amazing, darling,’ she said, mechanically. And it had been – she didn’t lie. She just wasn’t given to mad enthusing.
He nodded, panting. He wasn’t getting any younger and Fiona was getting a little ... he hesitated to use the word insatiable, because he fancied he could sate any woman breathing, but it was getting a little hard to explain to his rather boot-faced secretary that there must be no calls, no interruptions whenever Mrs Braymarr popped in to discuss the new Academies. ‘Amazing,’ he agreed. And it had been – he just needed a lie down now.
She gave her skirt a last tug. ‘Well, I must be off. I have two more staff rooms to visit before the end of the day.’
He reached for her. He always found her sudden switches to business mode rather enticing. Fatigue forgotten, he pressed against her, but she pushed him away. ‘No, Geoff, really. I have to go. But I can see you this evening, if you like. Come round to the hotel, why don’t you?’
Yes, he thought, why don’t I? Could it be because I have a wife and two stroppy teenagers who were starting to watch him like hawks. Was it that when their hormones started raging, they were hypersensitive to everyone else’s? His wife at least was oblivious. If he wasn’t a character from Emmerdale or Coronation Street, he didn’t really exist in any meaningful way. Let’s see – Monday. Stroppy Teenager One would be at badminton, ST Two would be at oboe; that should give him an hour. ‘Lovely,’ he said, with his best car salesman’s smile firmly in place. ‘Seven?’
‘Sounds lovely. See you then.’ And without another word, she was gone.
He leaned on a stack of blank invoices and winced slightly as his back reminded him he really was too old for this kind of lark. Then he shook himself and followed her at a discreet distance. There were cars to sell, money to make, people to see. He had at least four messages from that whinger Diamond on his desk – but they could wait until another day.
At Leighford High School, all was not well. Maxwell was in the middle of explaining the Boston Tea Party to Nine Pee Oh and was getting into his stride, sneaking aboard a ship in the harbour when there was a tap, one could hardly call it a knock, at the door and Afternoon Thingee fell in, looking frantic.
Maxwell looked up mildly. ‘Thingee, old thing,’ he murmured. ‘We’re rather engrossed in stuffing the British at the moment. We can't really leave things where they are or we’ll never get on to the snowball fights and Paul Revere.’
‘Mr Maxwell.’ Thingee’s eyes were wide, showing the whites like a startled horse. ‘I think we need you downstairs. There’s an ... incident.’
‘I don’t really do incidents, do I, Thingee?’ Maxwell remarked kindly. ‘That’s Mr Diamond, Mr Ryan, Mrs Taylor, people of that nature. You know, the ones who get the big bucks.’
‘But Mr Maxwell!’ Thingee was now speaking with gritted teeth. ‘It’s an incident. In the sick room.’
Maxwell had expected trouble without Sylvia in situ; he just hadn’t expected it to come so soon. ‘I still don’t see ...’
Thingee took a deep breath. ‘It’s an angry mob, Mr
Maxwell,’ she said. ‘No one can cope with an angry mob like you, Mr Ryan said. He said to fetch you, quick.’
Maxwell turned for the first time to give her his full attention, holding out an admonitory hand to the class, who were taking the opportunity to get restive. ‘Mr Ryan said that?’
The girl nodded, lips compressed, bright spots of excitement high on each cheek.
‘Really?’ Maxwell turned back to the class. ‘Right, you horrible lot,’ he said. ‘Turn to Chapter Three in your guide to history as rewritten by the Americans. And I shall be asking questions later, make no mistake. Especially along the lines of that politically correct hot potato, why did the rebels dress up as Indians – oops – Native Americans.’ Then, shrugging his shoulders so that his jacket sat right, because you can’t be untidy when facing an angry mob, he ushered the receptionist through the door and to the top of the stairs. ‘Tell me, Thingee, how many constitutes an angry mob, in your opinion?’
‘Mr Maxwell,’ she clutched his lapel convulsively then let go, patting the tweed back into place, ‘it looks like hundreds.’
He raised an eyebrow and inclined his head towards her, smiling,
‘I would say at least twenty,’ she said, climbing down from the heights of hyperbole. ‘But they’re all the usuals, you know, the one Mrs Matthews always gets on the first day back.’
Maxwell patted her absently on the shoulder and clattered down the stairs. At the bottom, he looked up at her, only half way down as she was. ‘Thingee,’ he said. ‘Gather up your colleagues, go into an office and barricade the doors. This isn’t going to be pretty!’
Maxwell had seen many films based on hostage situations and as he quickly reprised them in his head, they rarely seemed to end with hearts and flowers. He ran them quickly through his head and try as he might, there wasn’t one where everyone went off after for a drink and a laugh. So he gave up on trying to channel Kevin Spacey and be all conciliatory. Only Clint Eastwood would really do.
The hundred that had already dwindled in Thingee’s estimation to twenty were actually fourteen. That was their number; their ages ranged from eleven to fifteen and Maxwell was pleased – and not a little proud – that none of his Own were among them. The Sixth Form knew better than to tangle with Mad Max.
Paula MacBride saw him first, coming down the stairs like Moses from the mountain. Or was it Mohammed? She never really listened in Social and Religious Studies lessons, not until it got on to something interesting, like contraception and she didn’t really listen too hard even then. Instinctively, she tugged on her big sister’s arm. ‘Don’t mix it with him,’ she whispered. ‘He’s mad.’
Dee threw her little sister a withering look. ‘I’m not scared of him,’ she muttered and pushed Alex Caulfield in front of her.
The mob were silent now and they had stopped trying to rip Sylvia Matthew’s door off its hinges.
‘Alex,’ Maxwell said quietly, reaching the stairwell and closing on the boy. It was pure Clint, but any minute he was afraid he would have to put on his dark glasses, rest his hands on his hips and turn into Lt Horatio Crane of the Miami Dade police. ‘You look like a man who ought to be in Double French.’
‘Spanish, sir.’ If Dee MacBride had hoped Caulfield would speak for England, it wasn’t working out that way.
‘Even better,’ Maxwell beamed. ‘Think what you’re missing. How can you order up that Pina Colada in Ibiza this summer if you skip Monday’s lesson?’
That hadn’t occurred to Caulfield. He didn’t know he was going to Ibiza. He wondered briefly whether his mum and dad knew. Dee knew an idiot when she saw one and had had enough.
‘Where’s Miss Matthews?’ she asked Maxwell. ‘Where’s the nurse?’
Maxwell looked at her, then beyond to the huddled masses at her elbow. Dee was the spokeswoman, the ringleader, that much was certain. Her little sister was there, from Year Nine. Caulfield he knew – Grade E GCSE top whack come the summer. There was that fat kid from Year Ten, the one all the others laughed at. Little Tommy somebody ... Tucker? No, that couldn’t be right. There was talk of abuse at home. The three girls at the back he knew by sight. He didn’t need to be a school nurse to know why they were there. It would be the usual period pain that came on at the mention of Integrated Science or the morning after pill. No one was there with the perennial problems of his own schooldays; lacerated rugger wounds; cricket-ball testicles; rope burns from the gym. Ah, how the old order changeth.
‘I said,’ Dee was getting into her stride now, ‘where’s the nurse?’
‘Why don’t you tell us?’ Maxwell challenged her.
‘Do what?’
‘Well,’ he said, still smiling, ‘with your daddy being Chair of Governors, Paula, I’m sure he knows what’s going on. Does he not let things slip over the morning muesli?’
There was a snorted laugh from somewhere behind and Dee whirled to see who it was. She was too late and thirteen angelic faces looked at her.
Maxwell sighed. ‘Look, everybody,’ he said. ‘Things are about to change here at Leighford High. I don’t know yet how or when. But I promise you, you won't be disadvantaged by it. Not if I can help it.’
Eyes swivelled to left and right. The fight had not gone out of the mob yet and Maxwell knew all about that madness of crowds. ‘Alex,’ he said. ‘Get yourself along to Mr Ryan’s office and ask for immediate cover for my Year Nine history class. I’ve just told them all about revolution and I don’t want them acting it out.’
The boy hesitated.
‘Now, Alex, please.’ There was something in Mad Max’s tone that made the boy jump and then he was gone, up the stairs two at a time. Hell did not follow him.
‘The rest of you,’ Maxwell said and he jabbed his right elbow into Sylvia Matthews’ frosted glass door and shattered a pane. He reached in and unhooked the spare key he knew hung there. He clicked it in the lock and flung the door wide. ‘The rest of you are welcome to come in. Mind the glass. I know some of you will have had pretty shitty weekends. And I know how much your usual chats with Nurse Matthews mean to you. I can't actually be her, but I’ll give it my best shot and I can listen for England. What I will not be doing is doling out any medicines or sticking on any plasters. It’s more than my job’s worth.’
They murmured, jostled each other, thought about the offer.
‘Tommy,’ Maxwell held out his hand. ‘How about we start with you?’
Tommy blinked. He hated the limelight but, although he had never been taught by Mr Maxwell, but there was something in the man’s voice; in the man’s eyes. He walked into Nursie’s office.
‘If anybody would rather not ...’ Maxwell raised his voice as the muttering started. There was a shuffling that grew to a rumbling and three Year Eleven girls made for the stairs.
‘Make sure that gum finds a bin, Elena,’ the Head of Sixth Form called after them, ‘or we’ll be meeting up again later.’
In moments only three people were still there apart from Moses who had parted the Red Sea; the MacBride sisters and little Tommy, already sitting rocking in Mrs Matthews’ spare chair.
Maxwell turned to face Paula MacBride. She was a beautiful child under the makeup and clearly overshadowed by her bolshie sister. ‘For the record,’ he said softly, ‘I miss Nurse Matthews too.’
She scowled at him.
‘Feel free,’ he smiled, ‘to tell all your friends on Facebook.’
It was fair to say that Peter Maxwell had always admired Sylvia Matthews, a calm place on a sea of storms, but after half an hour sharing the hell that was Tommy’s life, he admired her even more. He dealt with the MacBrides in short order and was about to mount the stairs, his head still full of what an adult with a heart full of hate and spite could do to a small boy and leave no mark, when he heard his name. He looked around and saw no one but a movement in the corner of his vision coalesced into Thingee, peering through the cracked door of reception.
‘Mr Maxwell?’ She gestured with an urgent finger. ‘Do
you have a minute?’
He looked both ways before padding over to the girl. ‘You do know I am a teacher, Thingee, do you? Only at the moment, I don’t seem to get the opportunity. And, despite all you hear in the news, I do rather like doing it.’
‘Yes, Mr Maxwell, I do know that,’ she said, ‘but we were wondering as you were down here, you might want to come and see us for a minute. Only a minute ...’
Her big eyes looked so stricken that Maxwell had no choice. He was a sucker for the big eye thing – he would even do almost anything for Antonio Banderas, and he wasn’t his usual type at all. ‘Well, just a minute, then ... but I don’t really know how I can help.’
He slipped round the door with yet another look both ways. He had a sudden epiphany, that the future would hold a lot of looking, lurking and whispering in corners. He shook his head to clear it of this glimpse of the impending Perfect Day and pinned on a smile with which to comfort the ladies of the office.
‘Mr Maxwell.’ Legs Diamond’s secretary and general Johanna Factotum was, as always, the first to speak her mind. ‘What’s going on with this Academy nonsense? Surely, we can do something about it, can’t we? You can do something about it. We can’t just have it foisted on us, surely?’
‘And that Mrs Braymarr? What’s with her? She isn’t the boss of us?’ This came from the general dogsbody of the office, a pale girl with curtains of paler hair through which she looked malevolently at anything she didn’t understand; in practice, everything.
Maxwell raised a hand and brought the rabble to order. Honed as he was at the whetstone of Mrs B., he took the questions in order. ‘I believe the Academy nonsense is a government initiative. I don’t believe we can, no. No, I can’t. Yes, we can. Who knows? I certainly don’t have a clue.’ And finally, although it wasn’t strictly a question, ‘I’m afraid she is.’ He looked round at them all, every one a woman with worries. Whether they lived for their jobs or simply dragged themselves in for the money like Jodie the dogsbody, they all needed Leighford High School and their jobs. Although none of them had been personally put at risk, there was always that sneaking suspicion that, when axes were wielded, they sometimes took off the wrong head. And, job security or no job security, working for Fiona Braymarr had nothing in common with working for James Diamond. He could be a funny bugger, it was true, but there was nothing funny about Mrs Braymarr. She could suck the joy out of everything and there wasn’t much joy to start with in a school office. It was rumoured in the windowless cavern behind the reception desk that some of the benighted souls out there actually enjoyed their jobs, Peter Maxwell being one. But they found it hard to believe. But, as Joni Mitchell often reiterated on Radio Two, you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. If Diamond’s rule wasn’t exactly Paradise, Mrs Braymarr’s was going to be the parking lot from Hell, to paraphrase Joni Mitchell – a singer Maxwell really had liked, back in the day.