The lid is stiff and I struggle to prise it open. I fumble and scratch, smudge it with blood, until it gives.
Inside are three small, dried twigs. I pick one up and take a closer look.
I shall be returning home a whole man, I think, putting my little finger back in the box.
The Impressionist
Worst of them all are the ones who really try, only to fail: the ones desperately seeking approval. Don’t get me wrong, they are all desperate to please, perhaps we all are, but most balance this natural predisposition with the equally natural urge to rebel. In their case, rebellion manifests itself as a hearty commitment to ignorance.
Some days are a battle waged, but I don’t believe that the real war is between teachers and students, only between hope and those things that break it. Those accumulated disappointments, the inevitable realisation that gravity always wins and what was once the soaring dream of making a difference comes crashing down, broken and scorched, as just making it through the day. We, the teachers, soon come to understand that we will not change young lives, and that the sword of knowledge we brandish so proudly might as well be a cheap lightsaber from Toys-R-Us. In turn, our young students eventually realise that their lives will never change, and that their vow to idiocy will ultimately remain unchallenged.
Some of them are, in fact, just idiots. It isn’t their fault. I blame the absolute collapse of the structures, both private and public, that should provide a system for bringing up well-balanced, educated adults. These kids will not grow up well-balanced or educated; I’ve met many of their parents. Most of these kids have been handed a genetic dud by Mother Nature and my classroom is just a pit stop on the way to nowhere.
Then there are some – namely, Helen Lowie of 8a – who try to win brownie points by reading ahead of the class and handing in work I have not asked for. Helen Lowie once handed in a twelve-page poem, 308 lines, all in rhyme.
‘What did you think, Miss Lessing?’ she asked me a week later.
‘It was … very interesting, Helen,’ I lied, not having the heart to tell her that life is too short for bad poetry, and that my life in particular, the life of a teacher, is so prosaic that the very idea of 154 rhymes sets me into a cold panic.
Mr Tomaki, maths and physics teacher at Bowlinton Academy, has calculated that seventeen per cent of female students will have a baby before graduation. He also calculated that eighty-six per cent of the teachers will have experienced violence in the classroom within their first year, and that, statistically, we are safer on a Monday than on a Thursday.
I get on well with Mr Tomaki.
When Mr Tomaki was stabbed in the leg a few years back, I visited him at the hospital every afternoon. After a few shots of cheap vodka, Mr Tomaki confessed to me that the second before Marc Tyles, 6b, took the blade out of his shoe and stuck it into his teacher’s thigh, Mr Tomaki had been about to punch the boy straight in the face. Mr Tomaki concluded that, all in all, being stabbed had saved his career and spared him a life sentence in jail for bashing in a child’s head while screaming ‘per cent is out of one hundred, per cent is always out of one hundred!’
The incident got some media attention, and for a few days journalists would appear in the schoolyard asking for comments. Though most of the comments were unprintable, they did manage to get an interview with Mrs Dexter, our Head, and Helen Lowie, 8a. Mrs Dexter, coiffed and wearing the suit she usually reserves for parents’ evening, told the Standard that she was taking the incident very seriously and that such behaviour was not to be tolerated.
Helen Lowie told the reporter that everyone carried knives, and that they had stopped the after-school club, which was a shame as it had been good fun, and kids enjoyed playing table tennis and other stuff.
The Evening Standard printed an article on how cuts to funding in education have led to violent crime, along with a photo of Mrs Dexter looking as if she’s trying to sell something.
Helen Lowie was asked never to speak to a journalist again. So, instead, she wrote another poem and this time asked me to read it while she was waiting. There she stood. Tall, skinny, pale in her maroon uniform, her jacket too big and her eyes full of need behind the NHS prescription glasses.
And I did, at that moment, allow myself to feel a twinge of pity for this girl who asked for so much. I wanted to tell her to stop wanting. I wanted to tell Helen that I knew she didn’t have many friends and that her mother had unrealistic expectations, but that the approval she needed would not come from me. I wanted to take her little hand and say to her: ‘Honey, give it up. Don’t fight a losing battle. Look around you. Out of all these kids how many do you think will achieve anything real? Not even one per cent. Not even half of that. Some will end up in decent, menial jobs, most will go on the dole, or get pregnant by sixteen, fall down the rabbit hole. None will find wings to soar. All of the things you see on TV – the superstars, the platinum, the fame – that’s all a lie. It is not real, at least not for you, so stop wanting to be special and get on with being yourself. It may not be much, but at least it’s honest and real, and it will spare you disappointment.’
I wanted to tell her this because at that moment I forgot just how annoying Helen of 8a was, and I saw her as a little girl with high hopes, who probably still played with dolls and believed in happily-ever-afters.
I said none of these things but instead explained to Helen that I had a mountain of assessments to get through, which was true, and that I would read her poem later, which was not.
But Helen Lowie is the exception.
Most of them just sit at the back of the classroom and update their Facebook, message their friends. They watch music videos and read magazines and are obsessed with the unholy trinity of money, celebrity and sex. The boys talk about hitting the music scene and get into fights over what rapper is the hardest. I have seen an argument over Kanye West (is he a sellout or is he not?) escalate into a violent row between two packs of delinquents that lasted for weeks and involved three police call-outs.
The girls wear too much make-up and talk like everything they are is up for sale. They think the only way to get ahead is by being sexy and mean, and it is mostly the girls, not the boys, who use the word dyke behind my back, just loud enough for me to hear. They’ve nicknamed me Lessie the Lesbo, and their ringleader, Janeen Carlson, makes a show out of flirting with me after class. She’ll lean over my desk, her plump, overly developed breasts nearly popping out of her shirt. She’ll lick her lip gloss off her lips, and smile at me like the Big Bad Wolf.
Janeen is the kind of girl who wears size twelve though she’s a sixteen, and who’s constantly being told off by Mrs Dexter for rolling up her skirt. Janeen wears bright purple eye shadow and though she is not the prettiest girl in school, she’s managed to accrue a number of disciples who follow her around like shadows, wear her shade of purple and get into fights on her behalf.
I remember when Janeen first started at Bowlinton, three years ago. She was a sweet little kid, who was teased because her mum did her hair, and not very well. In her second year, she was taken out mid-term and spirited off to Jamaica to attend her grandfather’s funeral. Janeen returned to school with a new hairstyle and a brand new attitude; gone was the sweet little girl with the lopsided braids, her place taken up by a nubile young woman, too aware of her powers, and too eager to use them for evil.
After Janeen flaunts her cleavage, licks her lips, and smiles, she scurries off with her friends, all laughing like maniacs at how outrageous she is. If I cared enough, I would take Janeen aside and have a quiet chat with her. I would tell her that she doesn’t have to please everyone and that being popular only means being like everyone else. I would ask Janeen what she has that’s original; what could she offer the world? I’d ask her what her dream was, and no matter how stupid, I’d tell her she could make it happen.
One evening, while reading updates from a food journalist I admire, I come across a tweet from Colin Archer, 7b. A few years ago, in an momen
t of boredom and morbid curiosity, I set up a Twitter account under the name of Trojanee Orse. I followed a few of the ringleaders, including Colin. It provides good fodder for the book I’m not writing. This particular tweet read:
‘Eng Lit wit Miss Lesbo… Or iz it Mista??? Holla back Dee!!!’
To which Derick Marshal, also of 7b, had replied:
‘Id stil give it her bruv….. Make the biatch scream!!!!!’
I print this out and take it with me to my next session, where I ask the class to rewrite the two tweets into a language that might pass for something spoken by actual humans, preferably English.
After the initial shock wears off, the class sets to work and for the first time in the six months that I have had the pleasure of being ignored by 7b, the little bastards actually do what I ask them to, and though I am in fact an agnostic, I experience the urge to fall down to my knees and praise Jesus.
Derick and Colin look thoroughly concerned, worried that this will equal exclusion and that the rewriting of their abuse is just an elaborate entrapment meant to incriminate them even further. They cast suspicious glances at each other, until Charleen Travis starts giggling, which sets the rest of the class off.
‘Something amusing?’
‘No, Miss, but like …’
‘What is it, Charleen?’
‘Well, like, you know, we can’t write this …’
‘And why is that?’
‘You know …’
‘I have set you an assignment for this lesson and I expect you to complete it, unless you’d rather go to Mrs Dexter’s office?’
And they set back to work.
Immediately after my class is finished, I’m summoned to Mrs Dexter’s office myself. This is how it often goes with her. She knows things before they’ve barely had a chance to happen, and it is the belief of the general teaching staff that she’s got informants among the students.
‘What do you think you are doing, Miss Lessing?’ Dexter demands the moment I crack open her door. She fixes me with her pale blue eyes; eyes that look like they belong in another face, a younger, more beautiful face.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I lie.
‘What just took place in your lesson, Miss Lessing?’
‘Well, I thought …’
‘You should have brought the abusive emails to me. Immediately. You should not have brought them into class.’
‘Tweets. They were abusive tweets. And I thought I’d try something a little different.’
‘Must I remind you of the curriculum?’
When I first decided to qualify as a teacher, after spending eight years not writing my novel, I had a vision of changing lives. I replayed this private film in my head, starring me, Dead Poets Society meets Dangerous Minds, wisdom imparted, bonds made, young lives catapulted in new directions.
I had ideas, original ideas. Books I wanted to share, concepts to explore.
This was before I met The Curriculum.
And here I stand, face to face, with the Custodian of the National Curriculum. Mrs Laura Dexter, consummate bureaucrat, not even six months on the frontline. Not even six months. She knows nothing about standing before a pack of hungry dogs wearing your finest meat suit.
To Dexter it is all about passing OFSTED inspections and sweeping crap under the carpet. She only ever sees actual students when they are being punished. To her, teachers, students, classes, exams, are all equal figures that either add up, or do not.
And right now, I am not adding up.
Dexter doesn’t know what to make of me. She’s not comfortable with the whole alternative lifestyle thing, though she takes pride in having a real, live lesbian on her teaching staff. We don’t have anything to talk about; she can’t compliment me on my hairstyle or dress, and she’s scared to ask what I did over the weekend.
Sometimes I look at her and see a politician, sometimes a magician. Right now I’m seeing Matron: stern, and displeased with my shenanigans.
I walk out of Dexter’s office, suitably repentant, and say hello to her assistant, Marie.
‘How’s it going?’ I ask.
‘Great. And you?’ she smiles.
Marie is always great, always smiling. She has two kids who look exactly like her, round and jolly.
Seated in one of the sofas is a girl I don’t recognise. I look at Marie.
‘Oh,’ she says, ‘Lea Olvi, this is Nina Lessing, she’s our English teacher. Lea is Alice’s new assistant.’
‘Ah,’ I say.
Alice, our lovely, terrified art teacher, has been crying for another classroom assistant since her last one left to become a yoga instructor. Alice is an actual working artist who hates teaching but is determined to martyr herself. In her own words: ‘One must give back to society, however horrific it is.’ I know that on three occasions she has completed students’ final work herself, partly out of an unwillingness to officially call a kid a failure, and partly out of fear of the little failures and their mighty tempers.
Every evening Alice retreats to her studio in South Hampstead and produces evocative, modern sculptures that actually earn her a decent living. For the past five years, I have thought it only a question of time before Alice throws in the towel and gives up on the whole teaching thing, but though her career has gone from strength to strength, Alice continues her battle with apathy in Studio 2 of Bowlinton Academy.
She is the only one who ever asks about my novel, that great shining beacon on the horizon of my wasted opportunities.
I shake hands with Lea Olvi and ask when she’s joining us. Lea looks young, maybe twenty-three, and has smooth, tanned skin. Her hair is very short, almost shaved. I ask if she’s part Japanese.
‘My mum’s from Malaysia,’ she says, flashing a smile, and then asks me to show her the tweets that have caused all the fuss.
I take out a printout and hand it to her while Marie retreats back to her desk, unwilling to be part of an activity that has been condemned by her commander-in-chief.
‘Mate, what bastards. Did they rewrite it?’
‘Yep.’
‘I bet you they were pissing themselves,’ Lea laughs.
The door to Dexter’s office opens and she sticks her head out, watches us suspiciously for one moment and then decorates her face with her most winning smile.
‘If you want to come through, Miss Olvi?’ Dexter says, and Lea stands up to leave.
As she’s entering Dexter’s office she turns and smiles at me one last time, and I notice that in addition to perfect skin and great bone structure, the girl’s also got dimples.
As the door closes, I see Marie watching me.
‘She’s very cute,’ Marie says, with meaning.
‘Like a button,’ I agree and walk off, contemplating nipples.
***
I step into my classroom the following Monday to find Lea Olvi sitting on my desk, with her feet in my chair. She’s wearing all white, a good choice, and turning the pages of my Best American Short Stories. She doesn’t look up as I enter, but says:
‘Have you, like, read this?’
‘Yes, I have.’
She puts the book down and looks at me, and I experience a pleasant flutter in my tummy that is unrelated to my second tall latte.
‘Starbucks!’ Lea claps her hands, ‘Where’s the Starbucks, dude?’
‘Baker Street. Not for the likes of you. You get the cafeteria brew. Now … what are you doing here?’
‘Just thought I’d say hi on my first day,’ Lea hops down from my desk.
‘Shouldn’t you be with Alice?’
‘Yeah. She’s a character, isn’t she? Is she actually an artist?’
‘Yes, indeed, and a very talented one. She’s also terrified of her students, so you should probably get on over there.’
‘She’s posh, isn’t she?’
‘Not really. Just well educated.’
‘Same thing. Are you a writer?’
‘No.’
‘Alice says
you are.’
‘She’s just being funny.’
‘Alice is not funny. What, weren’t you good enough?’
I say nothing, but take a step closer to the lovely Lea and find that she smells of vanilla. She’s almost as tall as me, but still manages to gaze up from somewhere far below, with an inappropriate glint.
‘Well, at least you’ve got your health, right?’ And with that little gem, Lea is off.
As she leaves my classroom, she bumps into two boys from 9b, who step aside to let her pass.
‘Hi there,’ Lea says and saunters off, leaving the two to moon in her wake, mouths open.
Great. As if it’s not difficult enough to keep their attention, now there’s an attractive female on staff.
When I was a school student there was Mrs Beatrice Price. She was my homeroom and geography teacher, and all the boys jostled for her attention. All the boys, and I. I think Mrs Price was a subconscious factor to my getting into teaching. I remember her being very kind when my parents split up. I remember her telling me that it was okay if I wanted to have a little cry, and I remember making a real effort to weep in the hope that she’d hug me if I did.
After lunch, I manage to get the good seat, by the window, and am browsing through an old Metro when Alice joins me.
‘How’s your new assistant?’ I ask, sipping my instant coffee, terribly casual.
‘Lea is amazing. The kids love her.’
‘I bet they do, the little pervs.’
‘No, really. She gets through to them somehow. I feel truly comforted by her presence.’
Perhaps it is part of her artistic nature, but Alice will often say things like this, things that seem oddly intimate, and make people uncomfortable. She’ll stop and think when anyone asks her how she’s doing. Some people suspect her of also being gay, just because she’s single and we happen to get on, but Alice loves men, though she’s too flighty for monogamy. She dreams of the perfect love, but she can’t be in a relationship. Alice says that it’s the gap between what we want and what we can have that makes great art. That’s why the most brilliant artists lose their minds; because of the desperation to believe that the ideals they produce in their work can cross the void to manifest in reality.
The Whip Hand Page 5