The Playgroup

by Janey Fraser

  Boring, boring, thought Joe.

  ‘Boring, boring,’ chorused the boys.

  Lynette laughed. ‘Thought you might say that. OK, the option is an extra half-hour on Facebook while Dad and I catch up with your godfather.’ She spoke softly again to him. ‘Not to mention a large glass of wine. I meant it when I said you look all in. What on earth has happened? It’s not Ed again, is it?’

  Joe had always been able to talk to Lynette. At times he could kick himself for not having got in there at university before Mike had made his move, but this wasn’t a thought he was proud of. Anyway, the sort of platonic friendship he had with Lynette was the type that lasted longer than many marriages, which was why he found it so easy to tell her about his conversation with Beryl as they walked down to the beach.

  ‘Joe, that’s awful.’ Lynette squeezed his arm. ‘You must be really upset.’

  He nodded, watching the boys skim pebbles into the sea as they walked along the shore. It was so peaceful here. So far removed from everything.

  ‘Do you think, however, that Beryl has a point?’ continued Lynette gently. ‘Don’t get me wrong but you have always been, well, rather politically correct, wouldn’t you say?’ She pinched his arm playfully. ‘Don’t put on your grumpy look! We admire you, Mike and I. But to try and ban two traditions that have been very important to this pre-school, well, that’s a pretty big thing, isn’t it? Especially when you’re only in the first term of your job.’

  Joe felt a stirring of unease. Now she put it that way, he didn’t feel quite so sure of himself.

  ‘I’m beginning to wonder,’ he said in a voice that came out all cracked, as though he had sand in his throat, ‘if I’m cut out for teaching after all. To be honest, I was getting itchy feet even at the other school, but I don’t know if I could go back to banking.’

  ‘Know what I’d do?’ Lynette took his arm again. ‘It might sound a bit crazy, but hear me out. In my view, there are three things you could do.’

  When she’d finished, it seemed like such a good, sensible plan that he was filled with even more affection for her, and for Mike and the boys, the latter by now specks on the beach far ahead.

  ‘Thank you.’ He bent down to give her a warm cuddle but somehow as he aimed for her cheek, their mouths touched. Hers was so soft. So warm. So comforting. Exactly as he had imagined back in their university days.

  Lynette pulled away immediately, and too late he could see from the flush on her face that he should have done the same.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He was covered in confusion. ‘I didn’t mean that.’

  ‘I know.’ Lynette’s flush had developed into a bright red spot on either cheek, and she was smoothing down her beautiful hair which was so like his ex-wife’s. ‘It’s OK. I think we ought to head back.’ She began walking briskly on ahead. ‘Mike should be home by now.’

  Chapter 31

  STUPID, STUPID, STUPID, Joe told himself as he sped home at the end of the weekend. Lynette had been courteously distant during his stay, while Mike had been his usual jolly self.

  What should he do? Lynette was bound to say something to her husband after he’d gone: they always said they didn’t keep anything from each other. Should he come clean and tell Mike that he hadn’t meant to kiss his wife in that way, and that it was merely to show gratitude?

  Or should he pretend it had never happened?

  Either way, he was in deep shit as Ed would say, both in his personal life and at work. Still, Lynette’s suggestions, all three of them, were good ones, so he might as well start with the first. After all, half-term wasn’t over yet so he had enough time, despite the amount of planning and marking that awaited him.

  It was merely academic though. Because he’d decided now. He’d hand in his notice at Christmas. And then he’d think about his future outside the classroom.

  The following day he still didn’t feel any better. What was wrong with him? he asked himself. Why was he having so many problems with people? Gemma, whom he’d succeeded in rubbing up the wrong way. Beryl, who clearly didn’t rate him any more (although inexplicably, it was Gemma whom he felt more upset about). Ed, whom he couldn’t seem to move on from. And now his best friends Lynette and Mike. He’d really screwed up there and no mistake.

  You need to talk to someone, urged a voice in his head. But who? There was only one person he thought might understand. How sad that after all these years, he had to go to an old man whom he barely knew for comfort.

  After a quick phone call, Joe found himself knocking on Brian’s door clutching the mandatory bottle of whisky and packet of Bourbon biscuits.

  ‘Come on in, lad,’ Brian said, waving away Joe’s apologies. ‘It’s good to see someone. This early-retirement stuff is getting a bit dull, I don’t mind telling you. I could do with the company.’

  Following him in, Joe sat down in the chair opposite Brian’s and found himself spilling it all out. ‘So you can see my problem,’ he said when he’d finished. He hadn’t meant to include the Lynette business, but had found it coming out along with everything else. Brian was a good listener. There was something about him which enabled one to ignore the maroon jumper with holes in the elbows and the creased cream antimacassar on the back of his chair, which actually looked as though it had been washed since his last visit. Brian had a presence which, thought Joe ashamedly, he hadn’t given the bloke credit for when they’d first met.

  ‘Mmmm.’ Brian took a draw of his pipe. Smoking had been banned from the fourteenth floor for so long that Joe had been astounded when Brian had started smoking in front of him without asking his permission first, but now he was feeling strangely drawn to it himself. The tobacco had a fragrant woody smell that reminded him of his father’s factory. He had loved to squat on the floor there during the rare occasions he was allowed in, and play banking while his father did something hot and steamy with machines.

  ‘I can see what you’re up against. Mind you, I do think Beryl needs taking down a peg or two. Always was too big for her boots. Needs to see the bigger picture, if you ask me.’ He took another draw. ‘She applied for the headship at the same time as me, but I reckon they gave it to her because they hadn’t had a woman before.’ Another draw. ‘Political correctness, eh?’

  Joe was beginning to feel dizzy from the smoke.

  ‘You know that modern idea about not sweating the small stuff? How parents should ignore minor bad behaviour and concentrate on what’s really worth making a stand for? I reckon that’s what you need to do here. If you really feel that Halloween is outmoded and irrelevant rather than a bit of silly fun, ban the dressing-up assembly. Good luck with doing the same for the nativity play, mind you. On the other hand, you have a point with the maths. Puddleducks do need a bit more help if you ask me, even though they’re meant to learn through play. Has its pros and cons in my book. And they need someone who’s good with figures.’ He winked. ‘I used to be, but not that kind.’

  Joe was clearly expected to laugh then. Brian had already suggested that before marriage to Mavis, he’d been a bit of a ‘ladies’ man’. So he obliged with a quick smile.

  ‘I also reckon,’ continued Brian, puffing happily, ‘that your friend’s ideas are good ones. Gems, in fact. Might be just the ticket to put life in perspective. As for the lady herself, know what I’d do?’

  In some ways, this was the worst dilemma of all. Joe didn’t know what he’d do without his two best friends. They meant more to him than Ed ever had. ‘Keep mum, that’s what I’d do.’ Brian was tapping the side of his blue-veined nose in a gesture that suggested they were in the secret service instead of his front room with its dusty china ornaments on the mantelpiece, and the television which had seen better days. ‘I don’t reckon she’ll say anything to her husband in case he thinks she gave you the come-on.’

  Joe couldn’t help feeling impressed. ‘You sound remarkably knowledgeable on such matters, if you don’t mind me saying!’

  ‘I am, lad, I am. What do you thi
nk I do with all my spare time?’ He indicated a women’s magazine on the dusty pile next to him. ‘Belonged to my wife, these did. She used to keep them; never was one for throwing stuff out. Now I reckon I know more about women’s minds than I ever did.’ He gave Joe another wink, but one that wasn’t quite so sparkly. ‘Only wish I’d done it when she was alive. Might have understood her better. By the way, come up with an idea for that bank competition yet?’

  Joe shook his head. ‘Puddleducks are doing some kind of mural, but I’m still trying to think of something cutting-edge for Reception.’

  Brian nodded in a satisfied way. ‘Thought as much. So happens that I had a bit of an idea the other night when I couldn’t sleep. What do you think of this?’

  No doubt about it, Joe told himself excitedly as he got out at Embankment. It was a corker. Their book, Brian had explained, would be a compendium of advice from both the old Reception head and the new one. They could write alternate chapters or maybe, as Joe had chipped in, make it more readable for certain parents by having one gem of wisdom on each page-length section.

  Then they’d both got the next idea almost at the same time. They could ask parents and children to add their pennyworth. The result would be a book called MY SKOOL! Joe himself hadn’t been so keen on the intentional misspelling or the exclamation mark, but Brian insisted it made it more contemporary. For his part, Joe knew of some websites which could print the book at a reasonable cost, and after the competition they could sell copies to raise money for school equipment.

  Joe’s spine began to tingle in the way it had when he’d first entered a classroom as a newly qualified mature teacher. He had wanted to start work on the book then and there in Brian’s front room. If nothing else, it would prove to that headmistress that he was capable of working as a team.

  On the other hand, he still couldn’t get rid of that horrible voice in his head that kept asking him if he really was cut out to be a teacher. There were, as Lynette had told him, two ways to find out, and he was standing in front of the first right now.

  Joe came to a halt outside the huge blue-glass building that housed thousands of two-legged ants, each chained to their computer and New York hours, not to mention whopping mortgages. They’d changed the doors since he had worked here. They were revolving now, rather like his head.

  ‘Name?’

  They’d also changed the receptionist, but of course they would have done. It had been four years since he’d thrown in the towel, much to everyone’s surprise, and joined the mature graduate teacher-training scheme that was being advertised in The Times.

  What a hero he’d felt at the time! It made Joe crawl with embarrassment to think of the self-congratulatory way in which he’d announced to Ed and his colleagues that he was giving up a six-figure salary to do something meaningful. The fact that this came just after he’d discovered Ed’s betrayal was something, he had told himself, that was pure coincidence.

  Now, as Joe pressed the button for the fourteenth floor, he felt a flutter of excitement. Garth, his old boss, had been surprised to hear from him, and clearly curious. Curious enough, in fact, to look up from his desk instead of talking with his eyes still on the screen.

  ‘Joe! Great to see you.’

  This was Garth? Joe nearly hadn’t recognised him. Rather as Blair had aged during his years in power, so had Garth, with hair that was almost completely grey instead of being merely peppered. His face had sagged, too, and he had huge pools of soft-looking flesh under his eyes.

  ‘I would suggest lunch, but it’s been mad here.’ He glanced at the other occupants of the sixty-odd desks around him, each one speaking loudly and urgently into their headphones or stabbing their keyboard.

  ‘You probably heard about the Footsie. Tokyo’s gone mad. Stark raving mad. Listen mate, I don’t want to be rude but I’ve got about . . .’ He checked his watch. ‘Roughly 2.78 minutes. How are you doing?’

  Fine, thanks. Better than you lot, Joe wanted to add. How could he possibly have spent ten years in this place? Why hadn’t he gone stark raving mad too? Nothing, not even the Audi convertible, the bonus, the Savile Row shirts (which he’d had to have sent in by taxi sometimes when he’d been working too hard to get home at night) could ever compensate for this hamster wheel.

  The thought of hamsters made him smile as he recalled that trip to the vet with Gemma’s arms around his waist. He’d felt a strange thrill then, not because of her arms of course, but because he had been doing something different, almost knight-like.

  ‘Don’t regret your decision then?’ said Garth, his eyes moving back to his screen. ‘Listen, if you want to hang around for a bit, I might be able to get out for ten minutes or so for a bite.’

  ‘How long might that be?’

  ‘Say three to four hours? I might have a window then, although that does depend on New York and San Francisco.’

  Clever woman, this Lynette, Brian had said admiringly when Joe had told him that a trip to the fourteenth floor had been her idea. ‘Sometimes,’ she had said, ‘we need a trip down memory lane to remind us that what we think we’ve missed isn’t worth missing at all.’

  The question was, would he feel the same way about BlackEnd Primary, his first and only school before Corrybank? Joe’s first impression, as he picked his way through the used condoms and discarded matchboxes towards the reception, was that there wasn’t a community police car outside any more.

  There were three.

  The police presence in his day had been necessary when the kids started threatening each other. On more than one occasion, this had involved knives, and not just in the classroom. There had been one Parents’ Evening when a mother had been escorted out in handcuffs.

  ‘Fuck off!’

  A boy who could be no more than eight or nine pushed past him, knocking him against the glass door that led to the reception. At first Joe thought the expletive was directed at him, but then he realised that it had been hurled at Tim, the French teacher who had also been a mature graduate.

  Tim did a double take. ‘Joe? Good to see you.’ His face was red and covered in perspiration. ‘Heard you were paying us a visit.’ He was panting, clearly with the effort of having chased the child, who had now probably legged it through the council estate next door. Joe had had several such chases himself. How could he have forgotten?

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘Jason? Nicked someone’s dinner money again. Apparently he was feeling peckish because there wasn’t any breakfast in the house, or dinner last night either. No point telling the men outside in blue uniform. I’d rather save it for something more important. Anyway, come on in, mate. You’ve come at a good time. The canteen should be open.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘We have to share it now with the kids. Cutbacks, you know.’

  Since starting at Corrybank, Joe had told Beryl on several occasions that they ought to have a canteen instead of having to eat their sandwiches in the staffroom. Now, as he picked his way through a small piece of battered, plastic-tasting fish in a room which reverberated with noise from both teachers and pupils alike, he had a sudden yearning for the quiet polite chit-chat of Corrybank staffroom.

  ‘Bloody hell.’ Tim’s language had become much more colourful since he’d last seen him. ‘Don’t say O’Riley is back? Thought he’d been packed off to the primary school equivalent of ‘Young Offenders’.

  A woman whom Joe vaguely recognised leaned towards them. ‘He was, but he’s out now. Not for long, I shouldn’t think. Oi. O’Riley. Watch what you’re doing with that fork!’

  How old was he? Nine or ten at the most? The boys of his age at Corrybank were more likely to be fishing in the canal than stabbing someone with a fork, which was why O’Riley had previously been in trouble.

  ‘I admire you,’ Joe told Tim, pushing his fish to one side. ‘You’re doing a great job.’

  Tim gave a short laugh. ‘That’s what I thought when I started. Now I know better. You know, Joe, there are some people who can take this kind
of life and others who can’t. I’ve decided I’m one of the latter. Between you and me, I’m applying for something quieter, a bit like your place. Somewhere that’s not too far from London but just far enough for us to bring up the kids in a nice calm environment.’

  But what about all their ideas of contributing to society? Fiery ideas which he and Tim had shared when they had come here?

  Tim gritted his teeth as a couple of girls went past, pushing his chair with sarcastic Sorreee Sirs. ‘I think you were right to bail out.’

  Bail out? Was that what everyone had thought when he’d taken the job at Corrybank? Had he really gone soft? That wasn’t Joe Balls. That wasn’t the man who was proud of what Ed had unkindly referred to as ‘ridiculously outdated morals’.

  Joe’s mouth tightened as he walked back past the community police cars and towards the Tube. That was it then. He’d hand in his notice at Christmas and apply to a school like this.

  Some things, like Puddleducks and all its issues, just weren’t worth the effort. Not like kids who knew no better than fighting with forks, until someone helped them see the light.

  And maybe, just maybe, that person might be him.

  THE PUDDLEDUCKS PLAYGROUP

  NEWSLETTER

  NOVEMBER ISSUE

  Thanks to everyone for making the Halloween Dressing-Up Day such a great success!

  We hope everyone will be able to join us for our sparkler tea party on November 5th, which will be held in conjunction with Reception year.

  On November 27th, there will be a combined trip with Reception to a local farm. Please provide a packed lunch for your Puddleduck.

  Please note that the Nativity Play will be going ahead, despite rumours that it might be cancelled. If anyone has any spare pillowcases that they don’t want back, please contact either Gemma or Bella.

  Thank you, everyone!

  Finally, here’s one more song to practise.

  THE PUDDLEDUCKS TIDYING-UP SONG