by John Metcalf
Early Days – A Memoir was still defeating him; in numerous attempts he had never got past page five. It appeared to be the maunderings of some senile dreary who’d been an Inspector of Schools.
During recess, Follet had again said the word “thespian.”
His free period, during which he’d promised himself to hack through “The High School Literature Course” in the Handbook, had been frittered away –
In Grades VIII and IX a minimum of 200 lines of poetry will be selected for memorization, and at least 250 lines in Grades X and XI. Principals are required to keep on file a list of the poems to be memorized annually in each grade – frittered away in chat with Miss Adams and in straining to overhear a lecturer from Macdonald College instructing a studentteacher.
An inoffensive lad who’d been suffering from mononucleosis and was obliged to make up his legal number of practice-teaching days. The lecturer, a gaunt, earnest-looking gentleman with a huge, pulpy Adam’s apple, had advised the lad not to sit down or lean – such postures belied the desired dynamism; to enquire from time to time if his voice was audible; to be more relaxed; to grip the chalk, not like a pen, but like a stick. These defects had been recorded on a printed form which the gentleman carried on a clipboard.
David had been very interested.
Frittered away, frittered away.
By the end of Grade X students will know what is meant by elliptical sentences, parallelism, emphasis, unity and coherence.
Highly comical.
He had forgotten that Thursday was his duty-day in the Cafeteria; he had been reminded by Visual Aid.
“We’ve all got to pull together, you know.”
He had patrolled the cafeteria overseeing the proper disposition of wrappers, paper bags, crumbs, slices of salami, fruit rind and bread crusts; he had prevented RUNNING.
The first lesson after lunch had been blessedly disturbed by a Fire Drill.
“Come on!” said David, closing the Handbook. “Hurry it up!”
With a little less than five weeks to go before the Matrics, and as most of the kids absented themselves for the last two of those weeks anyway, he had bowed to their demands for revision, though he had no intention of giving them the kind of revision they wanted. While George and Miriam handed out the mimeographed sheets which supplied all the bowdlerized material, David glanced through the questions at the back of the Quebec Authorized Edition of Two Solitudes – an edition “Arranged for School Reading and with Introduction, Notes and Questions by Claude T. Bissell M.A. Ph.D.”
Question Four was his favourite.
Marius is a study in abnormality. In Section 5, does MacLennan adequately account for his attitudes and actions?
A judicious question. A question, David decided, which for sheer nerve, was worthy of some form of award.
As Marius was motivated by guilty lust for his stepmother and hatred of his father for screwing said stepmother the night his first wife died, and, as both facts had been bowdlerized entirely in Section 5, the question indicated an advanced lack of shame on the part of Claude T. Bissell M.A. Ph.D.
Or possibly a black sense of humour?
When the class settled, David began to work through the deletions indicating where in the Authorized Edition they began and ended. He resented the wasted time – the class time and the background labour of comparing the two editions; he resented the shameful expense of spirit in having been ineffably charming to Twatface to get the stencils typed; he resented having had to reward her with a 2 lb. box of Black Magic ($4.40). It wasn’t fit work for a grown man.
He hadn’t taught North American Literature before but had enjoyed most of the course. It was a great improvement over the Canadian History which he’d been forced to teach last year. Though looking back now, he supposed he was lucky to have escaped Office Practice.
“But Mr. Grierson! The men from the Board
assured me in England that . . .”
“Bit of variety.”
“But I don’t know any Canadian History.”
“Read the book.”
“But . . .”
“Timetable can’t be changed.”
“But how . . .”
“A Good Teacher can teach anything.”
Fresh off the boat, uncertain of the location of Vancouver, he had instructed thirty-three young Canadians in the history of their country.
“and so”
thrusting at vast masses of water with his pointer
“they followed the river route in this direction . . .”
A nerve-wracking year. Although Garry’s expert lessons had carried him through announced visits, there had always been the danger of snap inspections. To counter this, he’d been forced to wage a year-long campaign of intimidation.
Follet had married money; he was a proud member of the Royal St. Lawrence Yacht Club.
David had played Cowes.
Against “our country place” he had played “roughshooting” over “the home farm” with rabbit pie at the “Dower House.”
And so on.
His best stroke had been accidental. He’d been talking to one of his classes about typography and the next day had brought into school a book he’d bought on a market stall in England for a couple of shillings. A history of Monmouth’s Rebellion printed in 1723. He’d never read it, but the print was nice. He’d dumped it on a coffee table with some other books at recess and Follet had said,
“A lovely old volume!”
“Just something from the library at home,” he’d replied.
Follet had been reduced to nodding and turning the pages.
“Next!” said David.
“Wait a minute, sir!”
“Ready?” said David. “The next one is Page 63.”
The image of Kathleen’s lush body still brimmed in his eyes and he felt sick from shame.
He wondered who was responsible for these prurient obscenities. The Ministry of Education in its larger wisdom? Claude T. Bissell M.A. Ph.D.? The Macmillan Company of Canada Limited? A monstrous cabal of deranged Confessional Committee members, Consultants in English, and the nation’s Buncefords? Or a sickly, quivering web of the whole lot?
Garry had told him that MacLennan lived in Montreal and taught at McGill and he had formed a picture of him as an old man, lonely, walking on the McGill lawns under old trees feeding the pigeons and squirrels with breadcrumbs from a paper bag. He didn’t know exactly why he imagined MacLennan in this way. But the picture was quite clear. He filled the paper bag every night ready for the morning. He always wore an old mac. He often stood watching the football practice, a figure apart from the shouting groups of students.
He wondered if MacLennan cared, if he had acquiesced in this butchery of something he must have loved. Or had it all been done to him? Betrayed by small print.
“Mr. Appleby?”
“Yes, Carl?”
“If we use this information on the exam, will we be penalized?”
“What do you mean? Why should you be?”
“Well, we’re not supposed to be reading it and maybe the Examiner’ll take marks off.”
“And Mr. Appleby?”
“Yes, Mary?”
“What if the Examiner hasn’t read the book – the proper one, I mean?”
“Put a note on your answers that you’re referring to the complete text.”
“But if we want,” said Carl, “we can just refer to the school edition?”
David looked down at the wad of purple, mimeographed sheets.
“Yes, Carl,” he said, “you can do that if you want.”
He wiped the sweat from his face and forehead with his sleeve. The physics lab had been so designed that with the blinds down it was impossible to have windows open. The heat, the noise, the tense, excited chatter were beginning to make his head ache.
“Is that it?” said Alan.
“Yes, you’re finished,” said David.
He dropped the powder puff back into the box and wipe
d his hands on the rag. His back, too, was aching from stooping over upturned faces. He lighted another cigarette and stood looking round as Alice settled herself on the stool and tucked the towel into the neck of her blouse.
The room seemed jammed with kids again – cast, stage crew, car park boys playing with torches, friends of the cast, ushers and usherettes in their red blazers, friends of friends. Radios were playing; the blond boy who operated the tape recorder was strumming on his inevitable guitar. They’d cleared the room three times since six o’clock but there seemed no way of keeping the kids out. A crowd had gathered round Garry watching as he powdered Peter’s hair. One of the truck drivers was smoking a cigar; the two police officers were subduing the prompter. Nadja, a large butterfly barrette holding her dark hair at one side, was tarting about in her waitress costume; her skirt seemed to be getting shorter every time she passed by. Alex, the other truck driver, was up at the far end of the lab glancing at his script and then staring at the balances in their glass cases, his lips moving.
“You two!” yelled Garry. “Stop that dancing! We haven’t got time to work on you again.”
David belched silently, tasting again the Canadian Meat Pie. He dropped the cigarette end into the sink nearest him and scooping up a dollop of cold cream, started to work it into Alice’s hairline.
“Will you SIT DOWN!” yelled Garry.
Nadja pulled a face at his back.
. . . can’t even fix yourself a sandwich without suckholing round that man.
“Ears,” David said to Alice, “neck, and backs of your hands.”
“Mr. Westlake says can he have the No. 18.”
“What?”
“The No. 18 for Mr. Westlake.”
David wiped his hands and passed the box to the boy.
“O.K.?” said Alice. “Mr. Appleby?”
He turned back to her and touched her cheek with his fingertip.
“Too greasy,” he said. “Work it in some more.”
“Sir?”
Someone coughed close behind him.
“Mr. Appleby?”
David clenched his teeth. Bruce Hannam. He let out his breath and turned to look at the boy.
“I know you’re busy, sir, but we have a problem.”
He had dressed himself for the evening in heavy work boots, jeans, a leather jacket, and a leather pouched harness which was festooned with screwdrivers, pliers, wrenches, shears, steel measures and staplers.
“Thought I’d better report it, sir. Number Three’s on the blink.”
He looked like a Bell linesman called out during an earthquake.
“Well,” said David, “there’s only forty minutes to go. We’re all relying on you, Bruce.”
“Don’t worry, sir. I’ll do my best. I should be able to fix it.”
“Good lad,” said David, nodding.
He turned back to Alice as Bruce clanked away.
He stood looking down at her.
He dabbed on spots of the sallow base, working it smooth with his fingertips. The waitress’s white nylon coat whispered as her head and shoulders moved. Over the left breast in large red letters ANNA.
Twenty-five years of serving coffee and hamburgers, of greasy dishes and insufficient sleep; twenty-five years that would break this night into anguished speech.
He wiped his hands clean on the ragged towel and checked the time. He rooted around in the untidy box for the dark rouge and, placing a tiny spot low on her cheek, began to blend it into the base.
The cook positioned behind the cash register, the two truck drivers, Anna facing the motionless police.
Resting his left forearm on her head, he started to hollow her temples with a brown liner.
The lights make it different.
Well you don’t have red cheeks down there.
He stood back considering.
It makes her look like this – look.
“Do you think – you know, we’re going to be all right?”
The shorter policeman moving down the counter; Anna moving diagonally to face the truck drivers.
“You’re going to be just great,” he said, moving in to work brown shadow between the root of the nose and the eye sockets.
“Just great.”
Smearing maroon liner on a toothpick, he started to etch in the frown lines. Her breath moist against his wrist. Slowly. Delicately. The lines sharp. The two truck drivers staring at her. Holding his breath as he worked was making his head throb.
Look, lady . . .
My name is Anna. Slap my ass, why don’t you? Call me “Baby.”
A white liner. Another toothpick. Each wrinkle highlighted with a line of white on each side.
He stepped back, staring at what he had done.
Powder would bring it down.
“Smile, Alice!” said a voice behind him. “You’re on Candid Camera!”
David shouted.
Rounding on the grinning boys.
“Get out!” he shouted. “Get out of here!”
The wings were dim, a single pool of light in the centre of the stage. He stood staring; the light seemed to swim down to meet the boards.
He rubbed his finger over the end flat; rough, crystalline; Mr. Healey’s Practicals had mixed in too much size.
He sat down and leaned back on one of the metal chairs, the cold bar pressing against his neck. His head was throbbing with each beat of his heart. He gazed up the cathedral heights of curtain.
He became aware of a dim figure in the shadows at the far side of the stage, a figure which clinked and clanked as it moved. He eased the chair down. He would not, could not face the No. 3 stepped-lens gambit, the pretext of the ellipsoidal-reflectors. Quietly, quietly down the steps and out into the corridor again. He wandered along towards the staffroom.
Very good, Hannam. Give of your best. Carry on.
Thank you, sir.
Earnest, helpful, horse-faced, a hairy mole on his chin, the inevitable president of the United Nations and Current Affairs Club.
Membership: seven.
With each block of lockers, each classroom passed, Bruce Hannam’s life extended, more of the same. Always on the fringe of groups, tolerated, the man who was relied upon to collect monies, give lifts, address envelopes, count votes, staple papers, mend and fix. The man who at parties went for more ice.
David pushed open the door of the deserted staffroom. The red light glowed on the coffee urn. He looked round at the plastic palm tree in its brass-bound tub, the soiled patches on the empty chairs where heads had rested, the grey blankness of the television screen on which at lunchtimes they watched sporting events, lunar landings and Arab-Israeli wars. He sat down in his usual place on the settee near the wall-phone. Above his head the Disney-coloured trees of Eaton’s Canadian Fall.
After a while he got up and went to his Home-Room. He sat there smoking cigarettes, tapping the ash into the little boat he had fashioned from the silver paper in his cigarette packet.
Dimakopoulos had centred the blotter on the desk. Brown mock-leather frame, green blotting paper. In the centre of the blotter, three books. He moved Early Days – A Memoir and Two Solitudes aside, and taking The Teacher’s Handbook for Use in Quebec Protestant Schools, walked along the silent corridor to the physics lab. Someone had wedged both doors open; the room was empty.
He sat on the stool the kids had used. The dark brown benchtop was dusted with powder; he wiped a patch clean with a soiled Kleenex. He chucked the white, maroon and brown liners back into the make-up box. He turned to the section in the Handbook on English Language and Literature.
Not only does choral speaking stimulate interest and deepen appreciation but this approach to poetry is also an aid in developing clear enunciation and voice control.
He turned on the tap and held a toothpick in the jet. Water went up his sleeve. On the next bench, a green jacket, a copy of Night Haul, a pile of school books. He dried the toothpick with a Kleenex and used it to write his name in the powder on the
bench. He drew a face, scribbling in a tangle of curly hair. Then he rubbed the name and the face away with a piece of cotton wool.
The educational value of dramatics is everywhere recognized. Voice control, poise and self-discipline are developed. Dramatics can also lead towards social maturity and insights into the art of the dramatist.
He wandered up to the end of the lab and looked at the balances in their glass cases.
On the board a kid had written “Beatles for Ever.”
A heavy weight was hanging from a wire which was attached to a hook in the ceiling.
All he remembered of physics was being caned for reading The Golden Bough while he was supposed to have been lowering a brass weight on a string into a big glass calibrated tube. And attaching a length of rubber tubing to the tap and then inserting the other end of the tube into someone’s pocket. Or had rubber tubes been chemistry? He set the heavy weight swinging.
He wandered back to the stool and the open book.
The teacher should accept every opportunity to plan his classroom techniques in such a way as to guide the development of character and citizenship. By taking part in group activities based on the course of study, children may be led to acceptable ways of working with others and to the development of habits of self-control, honesty and obedience.
Applause.
He looked up towards the open door.
Applause sounding, sounding from the auditorium.
Chapter Eight
David lay naked and sweating on top of the sheets. The ticking of the Jock alarm clock filled the room. Not even a draught stirred through the apartment. He peered at the clock’s faint, luminous glow; the hands seemed to be pointing to one a.m.
It was the first hot night in June.
Bloody country.
A choice between being staked out in a Turkish Bath or hobbling around with frostbite and piles. In England, summer would have set in with its usual, sensible, severity. A mosquito whined near his ear. He slapped at the noise and banged his knuckles on the wall.