Nine Till Three and Summers Free

by Mike Kent

  As she finished, her voice rose to an hysterical wail. I doubled our speed, muttered something about going to the lavatory, and thrust her into the arms of the first unattached male I saw.

  ‘Cor, thanks mate,’ he said gratefully. With great determination, I pushed my way back through the crowd to where Samantha was standing near the entrance of the bar.

  ‘Hello,’ she smiled. ‘Where did you get to?’

  ‘Don’t ask! Quickly, let’s have a drink. What would you like?’

  ‘Just a glass of white wine, I think.’

  I carried the drinks back to where she was standing. Every seat had been taken and we crammed ourselves into a corner. I didn’t complain. The perfume Samantha was wearing was intoxicating and the heat from the bodies packed closely together had at least made the atmosphere warmer.

  ‘It’s livened up, anyway,’ Samantha smiled.

  ‘It certainly has. What happened to Derrick?’

  ‘I told him to go and make Judith some black coffee. He’s all bluff really. He can actually be quite nice. He’s very clever artistically and he and David planned the decorations for the Halloween Dance.’

  ‘So this David… is it serious?’ Though I’d only known her for a very short time, I felt a twinge of jealously when she mentioned his name. She smiled softly.

  ‘I’m not desperately serious about anything just yet. Anyway, let’s talk about you. When do you start your teaching practice?’ After the bizarre conversations on the dance floor, it was a relief to talk sanely again.

  ‘In a few weeks time. There’s a lot to do before then, though.’

  ‘I imagine you’re looking forward to it?’

  ‘With mixed feelings.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s the first time. I’ll probably make a mess of it.’

  ‘I’m sure you won’t. Any new job is difficult at first until you get used to it. Anyway, there’s no point in worrying about it.’

  ‘It’s not worry, really. It’s just the thought of the lecturers coming in to watch that puts me off.’

  ‘You’ll be fine. Let’s have another dance.’

  Somebody burst into song a few feet away. A glass crashed to the floor and a girl gasped and jumped back, knocking into the bar which tottered on its wooden trestles. The chief bartender swiftly kicked the leg back into position, looked at it doubtfully, and slammed a crate of empty bottles against it. A cackle of laughter seemed to come from under one of the trestles, and one of the relief helpers, his white jacket stained and crumpled, peered inquisitively beneath the tablecloth. A face beamed out at him, and the helper pointed out the imminent possibility of the table collapsing if the student underneath didn’t get out immediately. A third barman took no notice and continued slamming empty lemonade bottles into a cardboard box.

  ‘Last orders!’ he shouted ineffectually, not really expecting anyone to take any notice. A girl shouted out that she could undress herself, thank you, and would Roger kindly keep his hands round his beer mug unless he wanted a stiletto heel buried in his crutch, at which there was a roar of approval. Suddenly, there was a dry cough in my ear, and I turned to find Duggan trembling with emotion and wiping his face with a grimy handkerchief.

  ‘Hide me,’ he urged. ‘Don’t say anything. Just hide me. There’s a girl from the Joan of Arc lot looking for me.’

  I couldn’t help laughing. ‘Not Denise, by any chance?’

  ‘I don’t know her name. She nearly ripped my arm out. I’m lucky to be here with my trousers intact. Give me five bob and I’ll creep to the bar and buy you both a drink.’ He took the coins I held out and disappeared into the gloom.

  ‘A friend of yours?’ smiled Samantha. We seemed to be the only couple in the bar who were sober.

  ‘I’ll introduce you when he comes back,’ I shouted, trying to make myself heard above the noise at the next table, where someone was screaming with laughter because her friend had accidently dropped a glassful of wine into her lap. ‘I don’t think you’ve met him at the best moment!’

  Duggan dodged round the bar to get back to us, holding the drinks above his head to prevent them being spilled. I introduced him to Samantha.

  ‘There you go,’ he said, handing her a very full wine glass. ‘It’s rosé. They’d only got a tiny drop of white left so I topped it up with red. I should buy you another one before they run out of red as well.’

  ‘No thanks,’ she replied. ‘I’ll end up staggering round the library with a hangover on Monday.’

  ‘You work there, then? I’ve never seen you in there.’

  ‘I’m in the children’s section at the moment.’

  ‘I still should have seen you. I get most of my books from the children’s section. My God, look out!’

  He moved us to one side as a long line of dancers, each with a hand around the waist of the person in front, danced the Conga through the bar, under the largest trestle table, and out again. The first three in the line were trying to keep in time to the music, the middle group were merely hoping to keep in step, and the last few, their eyes tightly closed, had given up and were being dragged along by the others. A student in the middle wore only a towel, and the person immediately behind him was trying to thrust a hockey stick through the legs of the people in front of him, in an effort to make the towel fall to the ground, or, better still, collapse the entire line. Duggan watched them admiringly.

  ‘Hey, things are really warming up now,’ he said joyously. ‘Fancy joining in?’

  He looked from me to Samantha, his eyes only vaguely focusing.

  ‘Oh well, perhaps not,’ he said. ‘Another jar first.’ He turned to pick up his glass, but pointed instead to what looked like an untouched scotch on the table.

  ‘Look at that,’ he said. ‘I thought it was supposed to be beer and wine only. Somebody’s smuggling the hard stuff in. Unless it’s cider.’ He picked the glass up, sniffed it cautiously, and then took a gulp. ‘It’s scotch,’ he said. ‘I wonder who it belongs to.’

  A huge student with a bandage round his head took a heavy stride forward and grabbed Duggan’s lapel.

  ‘Oi, you sod,’ he shouted, ‘Have you just swiped my drink?’

  Several people looked round casually to see if the incident had any chance of developing into a fight.

  ‘That’s bloody twice that’s happened,’ he roared. Duggan looked visibly shaken.

  ‘I haven’t touched it, mate,’ he lied. ‘I’m teetotal.’

  ‘Well somebody bloody did. I go for a pee and the bloody thing disappears. Twice.’

  ‘Here, look,’ said Duggan, thrusting a pile of loose change into his hand. ‘Have another one on me.’

  ‘I should bloody well think so. Do that again and I’ll rip your arm out. Buy your own bloody drink next time.’ Duggan nodded eagerly, Samantha giggled, and I suggested we spend the last few minutes out in the main hall.

  For its finale, the band was thumping out a Tijuana version of the Saints, and the caterpillar of Conga dancers spiralled in ever-decreasing circles to the centre of the hall until the column collapsed in an undignified heap. Around them, bodies leapt, shouted, stomped and shook to the music. Several people lay motionless on the floor, like scarred remnants on a battlefield. The balloons had been severed from their strings, and were being stamped on. Most of the lightbulbs had gone out altogether. Dudley, still standing upright but swaying dangerously, was on the stage conducting the band with a jock strap.

  ‘I think it’s time to go,’ I said to Samantha, who was looking increasingly worried. ‘It’s getting a bit uncivilised.’ She nodded quickly and fetched her coat.

  ‘You off already?’ shouted Duggan. ‘There’s a few more minutes yet.’

  ‘We’re not risking it.’

  ‘Really? They haven’t done the prize for the best ballroom dancer yet. Oh well, if you’re back
upstairs before I get there put some coffee on.’

  I edged Samantha to the door, hurrying out into the rain as quickly as possible.

  ‘I don’t think we’d have got out in one piece if we hadn’t come now,’ I said.

  ‘It wasn’t very good, was it. Never mind, they can’t all be perfect. And the rugby club seemed to be enjoying it.’ She stopped suddenly.

  ‘Oh damn,’ she groaned. ‘My bag, I’ve left it in the bar. It must have fallen out of my coat.’

  I rushed back, wondering if the social secretary had rifled it to bolster up his funds. Amazingly, it was still lying at the end of one of the bar tables.

  ‘Left your handbag, mate?’ grinned the barman, trying to clear up the clutter around him. ‘Want me to see you home?’

  A hand suddenly gripped my ankle. Dudley crawled from underneath the table like a giant insect and lunged to his feet. Recognising me, he grinned and started to speak.

  ‘Wonderful dance, eh Mike? Thoroughly enjoyed it. Wouldn’t have missed it for the world.’

  Then he turned away, and was sick into one of the waste bins.

  MARCH

  LEAPING, LEARNING AND A DATE AT THE LIBRARY

  The lecturing staff of St James’s varied enormously in competence and ability, and this became increasingly obvious as our first teaching practice drew near. In general terms, the lecturers could be divided into three broad categories.

  At the competent end of the spectrum were the enthusiastic tutors who had managed to keep in touch with rapidly changing ideas in primary education, and who paid regular visits to local schools to find out how successful these ideas actually were in the hands of the teachers who implemented them. This meant much extra work on their part, and few lecturers were prepared to commit themselves to anything like that extent. David Andrews, second in command of the geography department and one of Gerry’s tutors, was a prime example of this group. He was highly qualified, talked at incredible speed, gave additional lectures whenever he felt they were needed, and knew an enormous amount about the geography of the world and the British Isles in particular. He was also in his early thirties, exceptionally handsome, and there were rumours that many eligible female lecturers had attempted to cultivate a relationship, although because he tended to move at the same speed as he talked, they could never keep up with him. When he marked a student’s notes, he wrote at least one full page of constructive criticism, and nobody quite knew how he managed to fit everything into the twenty four hours available to him each day.

  The second group, also small, included the pure academics, the tutors who knew their own subjects thoroughly, but whose knowledge of schools and the ways in which they currently worked was shaky enough for them to ignore it altogether. Nevertheless, they were reasonably proficient at offloading their specialist knowledge to the students in their charge, and by and large were interesting enough to listen to for an hour or so. Provided notes and essays were handed in at required intervals and attendance at lectures was regular, it wasn’t difficult for their students to manage life at a comfortable pace.

  The final group, far too large, consisted of lecturers who had completely forgotten what a school was and merely regurgitated identical lectures year after year until they eventually crumbled into retirement. Dr Williams, who lectured in English Literature and was one of the country’s leading specialists in obscure medieval poetry, regularly bored his students rigid and often slid into sleep on warm Summer afternoons. His students then spent the rest of the lecture time in the college’s well stocked library, seeking out the information they needed a great deal more efficiently.

  Part of each week was set aside for a period known as ‘professional studies’, and this was intended to be an intensive session filled with hints and tips for successful classroom teaching. The success of these sessions was directly proportional to the ability of the tutors supervising them; David Andrews’ practical geography sessions were exceptionally well organised and Gerry felt that primary education had probably lost one of its greatest exponents. Dr Williams, however, occupied these periods by making his students talk to the rest of the group about their hobbies, and Barton had kicked off by explaining how to take a motorbike to pieces. He’d become so involved in his talk that he’d overshot his time, and Dr Williams hadn’t noticed because he’d fallen asleep. The rest of us sat wondering what possible relevance Barton’s motorbike might have in the classroom.

  Apart from the main and subsidiary subject each student was required to study, there were a number of essential areas to be studied by all students, the most important of these being the history, philosophy, and psychology of education. Depending on the skill of the lecturer, these sessions could develop into highly absorbing and relevant discussions, or tedious lists of dates and supposed historical milestones in philosophical thinking.

  Finally, there was at least some acknowledgement that primary and secondary teaching techniques were rapidly changing and quite different from each other, and provision had to be made for this. Those students on the primary course were required to attend ‘model’ example lessons in basic curriculum, and Dr Bradley had originally intended to employ local primary teachers to help with this. Since problems with re-arranging local teachers’ timetables and schedules proved to be insurmountable, the plan collapsed after a month, and the college lecturers once again had to fill the breach.

  With our first teaching practice imminent, these sessions were well attended, though not always very useful. For lecturers like Professor Barnsley, who had organised maths in a large Suffolk primary for six years and then co-authored a popular mathematics scheme for schools, it wasn’t difficult to organise the time extremely successfully. At the other end of the scale there was Ernest Benton, who had run a metalwork shop unsuccessfully in a failing Battersea comprehensive before escaping to a much more comfortable situation lecturing in practical workshop technique at St James’s. Since he was also now required to demonstrate potted art and craft lessons on the run-up to teaching practice, he made his views on the subject perfectly clear; small children could neither paint nor craft, and giving any child much more than paper, cardboard and glue was a senseless extravagance and a downright waste of taxpayers’ money. Even with these items, he maintained, the average child would only make a paper aeroplane to throw across the classroom, and giving children access to a pair of scissors merely constituted a license to kill.

  Physical education was the only compulsory subject for both primary and secondary students, and a source of intense debate. The academic students loathed it, others tolerated it grudgingly, Gerry obliged enthusiastically and Duggan and I simply weren’t very good at it. Nevertheless, since it was mandatory that a proportion of every primary child’s day should be spent in some form of physical activity, it was essential that students knew how to teach it. They had also been told they would be required to do it on teaching practice.

  The head of the physical education department at St. James’s was Anthony Trainer, a slim, handsome and muscular tutor who rivalled David Andrews for energy and drive. In his first lesson he had stated that the building might be old and crumbling, but he certainly wasn’t, and neither were his ideas. It was a view that Duggan and I rapidly came to endorse. The age of the building did frustrate his aims to some extent, however. On one occasion when a group of third year students specialising in PE had been warming up by playing leapfrog under Mr Trainer’s lively direction, the heaviest of them had taken a flying dive over the back bent in front of him, misjudged his landing and slammed a foot right through a floorboard.

  The other source of frustration for Mr Trainer was the group that Duggan and I were in, made up almost entirely of primary course students. Many of them hadn’t enjoyed physical education at school, and they certainly weren’t interested in it now. This saddened Mr Trainer, whose sensible and commendable belief was that a healthy body was the pathway to a healthy mind, and that th
e right and wrong ways of vaulting over a box were better practised than written about. He made quite sure that each of his groups did a great deal of running, jumping and very little standing still, the only excuse for non-participation being illness. Since he had never been ill in his life, even that was frowned upon unless Matron had endorsed it with a personally signed letter.

  Much of his abundant energy came from a daily work out on the college trampoline, performing spectacular feats which drew gasps of admiration. He had played cricket for Sussex, won several swimming awards and even gained a black belt at Judo. When students became rowdy after final examinations, Mr Trainer was usually summoned and he squashed any trouble with the speed and precision of a Samurai warrior.

  After coffee break each Monday morning, Duggan and I braced ourselves for a gruelling hour of physical stress, and crawled downstairs unhappily. Gerry was in an earlier group with secondary students, whose session was not only much shorter, but supervised by a different tutor whose approach to the subject was rather more relaxed.

  ‘I shall refuse this time,’ Duggan announced firmly.

  ‘Refuse what?’

  ‘To climb on the trampoline. I just can’t take that kind of thing on a Monday morning. I can’t take it most days, but especially not on a Monday morning.’

  ‘You don’t have to, you know. That bit’s optional. He did say that at the beginning.’

  ‘I know. But it’s difficult to refuse, isn’t it? With the rest of them all bouncing up and down like fleas on a mattress you’d feel an idiot if you told him you didn’t feel like it. Anyway, I don’t feel like it today, and I shall refuse. I shall tell him I’ve got a load of extra work on.’