by George Friel
‘He was young,’ said Mr Alfred. ‘They were both young. Perhaps they thought love was all. How can a man die better than with his loved one dead beside him? Maybe that’s what he thought.’
‘A strange kind of love,’ said Granny Lyons, ‘to want to die together. They had their whole life before them.’
‘But if they saw no future?’ said Mr Alfred.
The way he saw it, the death wish was in them. He remembered he had known it himself when he first saw he would never get his poems published. But he had drawn back from suicide. Graeme Roy hadn’t. That was the difference between them. What he didn’t know, and knew he couldn’t know, was the temptation Graeme Roy had met and what had led him into it, how great the despair imposed by age and circumstance, what defeat or resistance he had suffered from Martha, who may have chosen to die in the flesh rather than die in the Elizabethan sense. Perhaps he had lost heart because he was a university failure. Perhaps his parents had forbidden any talk of marriage till he qualified for some profession. Or even forbidden him to see Martha at all because she lived in the worst street in Tordoch. Then it was a worldly ban had made him choose eternity and take Martha with him.
He brooded over them. Over Martha too young to die and over Roy persuading her death was life’s high meed. Dying together was one kind of communion. He thought he understood them. He sorrowed for them. How could any love or beauty live in Tordoch? Only weeds could survive there, like the flat ugly dockens in the Weavers Lane.
He knew his meditation proceeded on the assumption that the local talk of a suicide pact was the truth. But he knew he couldn’t be sure about that. He longed to speak to Rose, to encourage her to live, whatever had happened. It was unthinkable that nobody should ever break the curse of Tordoch and grow up to a proper life. And who more deserving salvation than Rose?
An alcoholic whim took him back to Tordoch between two pubs one night. There was a decent interval since Martha’s death. If Rose came along the meeting would seem accidental and he could talk to her of Martha without appearing ghoulish. He slipped into the scheme through the Weavers Lane. On the wall of Donaldson’s paint works he saw real cogs rule all, on the back of McLaren’s garage was cogland, and leaving the lane he saw cogs rule here chalked on Kennedy’s soap factory.
He loitered in a closemouth. It was raining. It had been raining all day. Across the dark street the windows of a fish-and-chip shop and a general stores stared through the downpour with a flood of inane brilliance. He would see Rose silhouetted there if she passed. He would know her walk and figure at once. He waited and waited, wearing an old coat and a waterproof cap as his disguise.
A big puddle in the gutter reflected the building opposite him, making it plunge into the ground as much as it reared above it. He knew it was madness. There was no reason why she should come. He knew she lived just round the corner. That’s why he was waiting where he was. But where would she be going or coming from at that time of night with the rain lashing down? His feet were cold. He felt the damp seep into his bones. He gave it up and went back to his pubcrawl.
The papers had an epilogue to their story of the young lovers. Roy’s parents had no comment. But there was an interview with Martha’s father plus his picture. He wanted to make a statement he said. He had a grievance. People were saying his daughter was pregnant when she died. He and his wife wanted to have it publicly declared there was no truth in the rumour. After that there was nothing more in the papers, and the Weipers moved quietly from Tordoch two months later.
Mr Alfred too let it drop out of mind. He was having worries of his own. Before the session ended he was transferred to a primary school. Mr Charles Parsons, M.A. (Hons.), B.Sc., Ed.B., FEIS, saw him out with a smile and a handshake.
‘I should very much have liked to have kept you here. But you understand you were only standing in for Mr Auld till he recovered from his operation. Now he’s back I’ve no time-table for you. It’s a pity. But I’m sure you’ll enjoy teaching in Winchgate Primary. It’s a fine modern school. It was only opened a year ago.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Mr Alfred.
He knew he had lost face at Waterholm, but he had never expected to be sent to a primary school.
‘You’ve always taught post-primary, haven’t you?’ Mr Parsons asked as if he didn’t know.
‘Yes,’ said Mr Alfred. ‘I’ve been teaching secondary classes for—’
‘Then this will be a challenge to you,’ said Mr Parsons. He was smooth and quick. He didn’t want Mr Alfred talking back. ‘I always say teaching is a job that’s full of new challenges. One must accept the challenge.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Mr Alfred. ‘But I—’
‘Children are delightful to teach at that age,’ said Mr Parsons. ‘So innocent, so keen to learn. I’ve taught primary classes myself, you know. I’d love to get back into the classroom and do some solid teaching, instead of all this admin. I’m sure you as a graduate will find it most rewarding to work with primary children.’
‘Yes, I’m sure,’ said Mr Alfred.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
When he got to Winchgate Primary he was told his class was in an annexe a mile from the main building.
Mr Chambers, the headmaster, received him in a pleasant office with picture windows, central heating, a fitted carpet, a modern desk with matching chair, glass fronted book-cases, a coffee table and a jar of mixed flowers. He had two phones on his desk, a master-radio and an intercom panel behind him, and four lounge chairs for his visitors.
Mr Lauder, the deputy head, hovered respectfully. Mr Alfred recognised him as a type rather than an individual. A deferential man, useful to his superiors, discreet and stonefaced, conspiratorial if need be, and all the time taking care of his own interests. Never without a paper in his hand to make him look busy.
‘I’m sorry I’ve got to put you in the annexe,’ said Mr Chambers, smiling broadly. ‘But I can’t send an established member of staff down there to make room for you here. You’ll have to sort of thole your assizes in the outposts of empire till there’s a vacancy in the main building. It’s the curse of a primary school, an annexe.’
‘There’s hardly a primary school without one now,’ said Mr Lauder.
He raised sad eyes from a sheaf of foolscap held by a bulldog-clip.
‘Some have two,’ said Mr Chambers. ‘Sandy Logan over in Clachanwood, he has three, poor man.’
‘He must be getting on now, old Sandy,’ said Mr Lauder. ‘He’s about due to retire I should think. And did you see wee Jimmy Rae died yesterday?’
‘Yes, I saw it in the Herald,’ said Mr Chambers. ‘All that superannuation and he never lived to draw a penny of it.’
‘That means a new head wanted for his place,’ said Mr Lauder. ‘There’s bound to be a call-up soon. There’s only two left on the reserve list.’
‘You’d better get busy,’ said Mr Chambers. ‘If you want your own school.’
‘There’s nothing I can do,’ said Mr Lauder. ‘I don’t know anybody.’
He lowered his head, darted a tick at the top sheet of his clip and turned it over.
Mr Alfred waited silently.
‘Ah yes,’ said Mr Chambers. ‘Well, yes, now.’
‘Yes,’ said Mr Alfred.
The annexe he was sent to was a row of six classrooms in prefabricated huts. They were shoved up thirty years ago as temporary accommodation to take the overflow from the old school till the new one was built, and they were still needed because the new school was too small even before it was opened. They were drab lairs with hardboard walls and wooden floors. At the end of the row was a cell used as a staffroom. It had a deal table and no tablecloth, five hard chairs, a gas-ring and a two-bar electric fire, a tiny toilet round the corner and a wash-hand basin with no hot water. Mr Alfred sighed and tightened his jaws till his decadent molars ached again.
He was uneasy in his new job. He had no idea how to talk to children ten years old. They might have been ten months old for
all he knew about people so young. They seemed babies, and like Mr Briggs he thought there were already too many babies in the world. He had never had boys and girls in the same room before. He had never had forty-eight pupils in the same room before. He had never worked through the day without a change of class or a period off before.
‘You’ll be all right here,’ said Mr Lindsay, senior resident and cynic, an older man. ‘Nobody bothers us.
Up in the main building you’ve always got the boss breathing down your neck. I prefer it down here. I don’t like these new schools they’re putting up. This is what I’m used to. That’s why I volunteered to stay here. You can be independent. Nothing to worry about. Old Chamber-pot, he won’t put any class in the annexe for more than six months. So they come and they go and I stay. Suits me. Never see wee Lauder either. Can’t stand that man. That’s why I asked out of the main building. And they can’t pin a thing on you when you’ve had the class less than six months. You’ll like it here, an old hand like you.’
Mr Alfred didn’t like it. He wanted to teach. But nobody wanted to learn. He knew it was his job to make them. He tried. He failed. It was like talking into a phone with nobody at the other end. His troubled conscience found a line of defence. He took the progress cards for every pupil in his own class, in Mr Lindsay’s class, and in two other classes. He listed the intelligence quotients recorded there and worked out the average. It was ninety-two. The mean was ninety.
‘No wonder we can’t do much,’ he said. ‘They just haven’t got it. Do you think it’s possible there are more stupid children now than there were in our time?’
‘Now, now!’ said Mr Lindsay.
He raised a censorious finger and grinned. A man as earnest as Mr Alfred amused him.
‘What do you mean – now, now?’ said Mr Alfred.
‘You must never say a child is stupid,’ said Mr Lindsay. ‘There are no stupid children, just as there are no bad children.’
‘But there are,’ said Mr Alfred. ‘Whether you believe in original sin or believe in evolution, you can’t deny there’s wickedness and stupidity in the world.’
‘You know that and I know that,’ said Mr Lindsay. ‘But the top brass won’t admit it. They’ve never worked nine till four, Monday to Friday in a classroom. They talk as if there was only a shower of little Newtons and Einsteins who haven’t had a fair chance because you didn’t teach them right.’
‘I see,’ said Mr Alfred.
‘And if the boy is a thief, a liar and a coward, it’s not his fault. It’s yours for not giving him enough love.’
‘It’s a very attractive theory,’ said Mr Alfred. He turned it over and looked at it. ‘No child is bad. Then all children are not bad. Does that mean good? No child is stupid. All children are not stupid. Does that mean clever?’
‘You’re so new in primary teaching,’ said Mr Lindsay, ‘you don’t seem to know the line. All children are equal. So why should the clever ones get prizes? Either give them all prizes like in Alice in Wonderland or give nobody a prize. If everybody can’t get something it’s only fair nobody should get anything. If you deprive a child of a prize you make him feel he’s inferior. You might warp him for life. We’ve got to discourage the competitive spirit. It’s a bad thing. So no more exams. Some poor sod might fail.’
Mr Alfred said the new schemes of work, and the new methods they involved, were making life difficult.
‘I don’t know what I’m trying to do,’ he complained.
‘Does anybody?’ said Mr Lindsay.
‘Another thing,’ said Mr Alfred. ‘It doesn’t seem this school was ever meant for teaching in. It’s more like a welfare centre. I’ve never met so many cases of free dinners and free clothes and getting tokens for the clinic. We feed them and clothe them and give them medical care. Next thing is we’ll be putting them to bed.’
‘Wouldn’t be surprised,’ said Mr Lindsay. ‘Once you start with the idea all children are equal, next thing is you say some of them don’t get a fair chance because they come from a poor home. So tomorrow or the day after we’ll be having legislation for equal environments. We’ll have the mums and dads in barracks and all the weans brought up together in one bloody big comprehensive sleeping-and- feeding-centre.’
‘Back to Sparta,’ said Mr Alfred.
‘It’s bound to come,’ said Mr Lindsay. ‘You can have liberty or you can have equality. You can’t have both.’
‘What about fraternity?’ said Mr Alfred.
‘Haven’t seen it since I left the army,’ said Mr Lindsay.
‘No, I suppose not,’ said Mr Alfred.
There was a young teacher, Miss Seymour, two doors along the veranda from him, a female non-graduate, college-trained for three years. She had been teaching for a year and a bit. He thought her youth and her zest for the job might help him if he discussed the new methods with her. Inadvertently he mentioned poetry.
She boggled.
‘Poetry? Oh, I never do poetry. I encourage the children to write their own poetry.’
She was airy-mannered, brisk-moving, swift-speaking, and fully fashionable. She decorated the walls of her classroom with the drawings and paintings of her pupils and pinned up the foolscap pages of a handwritten class- magazine.
Mr Alfred inspected the display, hoping to learn something.
‘Wouldn’t it be better to let the children see some good reproductions of famous paintings?’ he asked. ‘Or even coloured posters of Scotland’s beauty spots. You can get them from British Railways.’
‘That’s no good,’ said Miss Seymour. ‘It’s the chil¬ dren’s own work that’s important.’
‘I see there’s a lot of bad spelling and bad grammar in your magazine,’ he said.
‘Spelling and grammar don’t matter,’ said Miss Sey¬ mour. ‘Just so long as they write something. Creative activity, that’s what counts.’
‘But very few folk are creative,’ said Mr Alfred. ‘Even those that are need examples when they’re young. Shouldn’t you let them see a painting by a great painter, let them learn a poem written by a poet? Instead of all this rubbish.’
She laughed at him.
‘Rubbish? I like that! You’re a right old fossil! What you see there is what the inspectors want. This is the day of the child-dominated classroom.’
‘The child is master of the man,’ he muttered.
‘Pardon?’ she said.
She used a pale pink lipstick, her nails were varnished silver, her hair was a long sheeny blonde, she wore fishnet tights and a miniskirt. She had pale-blue eyes, a small nose and a big bosom. But she didn’t attract him. Since the day he lost Rose he had become impotent and lost interest in women. He had even forgotten Stella. He never went to her pub now.
‘Don’t worry so much,’ Mr Lindsay patted him on the elbow. ‘All this will pass. In education the experts of one generation always discover the experts of the previous generation were a crowd of bloody eedjits.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ said Mr Alfred. ‘But I’m afraid the new fashion will last my time.’
At the lunch-hour break, to get away from it all, he went for a walk round the neighbourhood. There was a new park five minutes away, and he felt the better for a walk round it in spite of the fact that the urinal at the main entrance had gate ya bass daubed on the wall and yy gate chiselled on the door of the solitary water-closet. There were two pubs, but he didn’t go into either. He never touched alcohol till his day’s work was over. One of the pubs was new, but the other, the Black Bull, was an old howff surviving from the days when Winchgate like Tordoch was only a village on the edge of the insatiable city. There was an old cinema, the Dalriada, dating from the Chaplin era, and behind the park a local railway line closed by Beeching. There was a public library and reading room. And further out, he was told, there was a cemetery beside the old village church. He meant to visit it some lunchtime, but procrastinated. He saw himself trying to make out the inscriptions on the weatherworn tombstones and going
over some stanzas of Gray’s ‘Elegy’ in his head. The library too he meant to visit. It would be peaceful there and in the cemetery.
But he found no peace. He got used to the janitor accosting him every Monday morning.
‘Another break-in at the weekend, sir. Sorry it’s your room again. But you see, it’s you being at the far end. They’ve a clear getaway across the field and over the railway. Even if I spotted them I could never catch them.’
The first time it happened was the worst. He thought it was an attack on him as much as on the room. He thought he must have antagonised his boys somehow. All his windows were smashed and the classroom entered. Textbooks and exercise books were torn to bits and the scraps scattered. The desks had been pushed about and overturned. The walls were sprayed with paint, and chalk was stamped into the floorboards. The pupils were jubilant when they came in and saw chaos. Mr Alfred tried to settle them and sort things out, but it took a long time.
‘Please sir, I still haven’t got the right seat.’
‘Please sir, I’ve got books here aren’t mine.’
‘Please sir, there’s dirt in my desk.’
They were excited, curious to see what he would do. Mr Alfred rubbed his chin. He felt the bristles coarse under his fingertips. He never seemed to get a close shave in the morning now. He breathed in and breathed out, slowly.
His windows were broken three weeks running, but when other rooms were raided as well he stopped thinking it was his fault. The fourth weekend Mr Lindsay’s room was nearly set on fire. All that was left of the register and the pupils’ documents, progress cards, medical schedules and report cards, was a charred mass in a corner where the floorboards and the wall were badly scorched. The invaders put the water-closets out of use by stealing the chains that flushed the cisterns. The janitor tied cords to the lever in lieu of chains, but they soon disappeared too. The ceiling in the toilets had big holes caused by boys swinging from the lintel of the cubicle doors to see how high and hard they could kick. The damage was so recurrent repairs became desultory.