Teacher's Dead

by Benjamin Zephaniah

  We headed out and when we got outside the press were standing in a semi-circle, as if waiting for her arrival.

  ‘Now, Mrs Joseph,’ said the solicitor. ‘Remember, say as little as you like, just don’t get pulled into answering their questions. Remember that all-important phrase, no comment.’

  Mrs Joseph stood on the steps in front of the court and waited awkwardly for a while as the cameras flashed. Then she began to speak.

  ‘This has been a very difficult time for me, and it has been a difficult time for everyone at Marston Hall school. I can’t speak for everyone at the school, but I can say that I am glad this is over. I have never wanted revenge, and I have never made any personal judgements about anyone involved in this case. We are all victims of something. I know it won’t be easy, but as much as I can I would like to put this episode behind me and get on with the rest of my life without my much-loved husband, who I miss every day. Thank you.’

  Someone shouted from the crowd, ‘In your opinion, how long do you think the murderers should serve?’

  ‘No comment,’ she replied.

  Someone else shouted, ‘Do you think that schools should tighten their security? Would metal detectors be useful?’

  ‘No comment.’

  Then someone else shouted, ‘Do you plan to remarry?’

  Well, she didn’t like that.

  ‘How dare you ask me such a question at a time like this? How dare you ask me that question at all? If you want to cover this story that’s one thing, but you have no right at all to ask me questions of that nature. You should be ashamed of yourself, and if you’re not you should go back to your school of journalism and learn some manner and some ethics.’

  I clapped, but I was the only one who did. The other reporters just turned and left, presumably to submit their articles.

  Chapter 17

  The Family Extension

  Mrs Joseph and I left the court and went back to the restaurant in the park for lunch. We reviewed the morning’s events, our main topic of conversation being the lifting of the restrictions to name the boys and how this could make life harder for Miss Ferrier.

  After we parted I went to the library where I went on the internet and skimmed through a few books, looking at this whole idea of being detained at Her Majesty’s Pleasure. I thought it was a strange use of the word pleasure, and a very strange sentence indeed. I found that some people who had received this sentence had been released in a year, whilst others had spent over twenty years inside. It was believed that there were some people who would never be released. I thought of it as a non-sentence. It was like saying, look, we have a bag of sentences, but we don’t know which one is for you, so we’ll just keep you locked up until we’ve worked it out. In the silence of that library I thought hard about Lionel or Ramzi, and I couldn’t decide who I thought had received the worst sentence.

  The media works quickly, that’s for sure. By the time I had arrived home my mum was sitting on the living-room floor reading the City News and some other evening newspapers. She handed me one.

  ‘Read that,’ she said.

  I began to read the article. It started by explaining the sentences that were handed out but then focused on the speech that Mrs Joseph made outside the court. The article ended by saying, ‘After making the statement Mrs Joseph left with her son.’

  The moment I’d finished reading my mum spoke her mischievous mind.

  ‘So, you’ve extended the family now. You didn’t tell me that you had another mother.’

  ‘Don’t believe everything you read in the papers,’ I replied.

  ‘So what was it like?’ she said very seriously.

  I pointed to the newspapers.

  ‘It was probably nothing like it says in those. It was spooky. Lionel’s and Ramzi’s foster parents just held their heads down as if they were at a funeral, and Lionel and Ramzi hardly said a thing again, it was as if they were in another world. They were like zombies. And then on our way out this reporter asked Mrs Joseph if she planned to re-marry, and I’m telling you Mum, she went ballistic. It’s the first time I’d ever seen her lose it like that. She was angry boy.’

  ‘I don’t mind, you know,’ my mother said as if to change the subject. I had no idea what she was on about.

  ‘You don’t mind what?’ I asked, trying to tease more out of her.

  ‘I don’t mind if you have another mother. You know me, open-minded, willing to try anything. So two mums it is, then?’

  ‘Yeah, two mums to make up for no dad.’

  My mum looked at me awkwardly, then she looked down towards the floor.

  ‘Well, two mums are a lot better than two dads, I can tell you,’ she said.

  ‘Can you?’

  ‘Yes, for you anyway. If you had two dads you would have a house of three males and you’d just be another male. A younger one maybe, but still you’d be just another male. Now if you had two mums you’d be the only male, that would make you special. Think about it.’

  It made a bit of sense, but only a bit.

  ‘Mum, that’s all well and good, but what would happen when something goes wrong?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You know, when something goes wrong and you start blaming men for everything, I’d get it all, and I’d have no back up.’

  ‘But think of it, you could just sit back and be spoilt. We would only bother you if we needed some maintenance jobs around the house.’ She stood up quickly and headed for the kitchen. ‘That’s it. I’ve got an idea.’

  ‘Yeah, food. That’s a great idea,’ I said.

  ‘No. Why don’t you invite your other mother round for dinner or something?’

  Now this was a surprise, my mother rarely invited people around for meals. I thought it was either a joke or she was up to something.

  ‘What, so you can gang up on me?

  ‘No, serious,’ she said seriously. ‘Invite her round. You keep going on about her, you spend so much time with her, and you say I shouldn’t believe what I read in the papers, so invite her round. I only spoke to her for a short time but she sounded nice on the phone.’

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘I will. But don’t blame me if it all goes wrong. And no fighting over me. Now, what’s for dinner?’

  Chapter 18

  Very Bleak House

  I liked the idea of having Mrs Joseph round for dinner, but then I also liked the idea of two mums. So for a couple of days I had mad thoughts about what two mums could mean. I also read all the newspapers my mother bought. Then it was Sunday – the day I planned to go and see Miss Ferrier.

  I left home nice and early and took a slow walk to Fentham Road. I arrived at the road at exactly nine o’clock, and Miss Ferrier was right, the road was quiet. No music playing, no dogs barking. I rang the bell at number thirty-five and stood well back, looking up, hoping for no change in the weather. Miss Ferrier opened the door and she was as nice as my mother.

  ‘Hello. Good to see a young man who’s on time. Come on in.’

  From what I could see the house looked pretty normal, but she led me straight upstairs and into the front bedroom. It turned out that although the front bedroom had a bed in it, it also had a television, and a three-piece suite, and all the things you’d expect to find in a living room. She pointed to one of the chairs.

  ‘Park yourself down there.’

  I did as I was told.

  ‘What’s your name again?’ she asked.

  ‘Jackson. Jackson Jones.’

  ‘That’s right, Jackson Jones. So, what is it that you want to talk to me so much about, young Mr Jones?’

  It was difficult to know where to start.

  ‘First I’d just like to say I’m sorry about what happened to Lionel.’

  She was quick to respond. ‘What do you mean, sorry? He did the crime, so now he’ll do the time.’

  ‘But it’s still sad, and it must be hard for you.’

  ‘Who cares about me? I’ve had people telling me that I’
m a bad mother, I’ve been investigated by welfare people, I’ve had people throw things at me in the streets, even my own son’s told me that I’m born evil, so who really cares if it’s hard for me?’

  ‘I do.’

  She paused to laugh. ‘Rubbish. What do you know about me? You’re just a boy. I have a pain in my foot that’s older than you.’

  ‘I can’t feel your pain but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t got any feelings.’

  She began to stare at me and I thought she was going to tell me to get out. She clapped her hands and rubbed them together.

  ‘Do you want a cup of tea, then?’

  Relieved I replied, ‘No thanks, I had a big breakfast. Miss Ferrier, can you tell me, was Lionel always as quiet as he was in school?’

  ‘Do you mean was he always strange? Let me tell you, Lionel was the best baby a mother could have. I mean that. I won’t go into details, that’s woman’s talk, but even his birth was a pleasure. Whatever people call normal, that’s what he was. When he was small he used to be way ahead of the rest of his class, and you couldn’t stop him talking.’ She paused for a moment. ‘His dad should have been given the sentence he got.’

  ‘It sounds like he was a great kid, you really loved him.’

  ‘I was a proud mother,’ she said, ‘proud of my son.’

  ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking,’ I continued, ‘I mean, you can tell me to shut up, but where is his dad?’

  ‘I don’t know. One day he left. No, that’s not right. One day I kicked him out. I had to. He started collecting guns and knives and playing with them as if they were toys. One day I’m sitting in here and he comes in carrying a dead cat, can you believe that, the man had found a cat that had been run over. He takes it round the back garden and begins to take the thing apart. Not only that, he gets Lionel and makes him watch it all. Can you imagine being nine years old and watching your father tearing a cat apart? And he did it more than once. He had all kinds of animals in here, and most of them he killed himself.’

  I began to see a link between Lionel’s behaviour and his dad’s but I couldn’t understand why his dad started acting like that. When I asked Miss Ferrier she didn’t know either. But then she told me that one day it just stopped.

  ‘Just like that?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, just like that. He stopped killing animals but he started beating me. Just like that. Now you must understand, this man took no drugs, he didn’t drink, well, a social drink every now and then, you know, but he was never drunk, and his parents loved him.’

  ‘So why did he start doing all this crazy stuff?’

  She headed for the door. ‘I have no idea. Are you sure you don’t want a cup of tea?

  ‘No, I’m fine, thanks.’

  She went to make herself some tea and I did some more thinking. By the time she came back I had many more questions to ask but I suspected that her goodwill wasn’t going to last much longer. She came back with a photo album that she handed to me.

  ‘Look at those,’ she said.

  She began to sip her tea; I began to look through the album. Every photo was a photo of Lionel. Lionel just after birth, Lionel in the hospital cot, Lionel on his potty, Lionel taking his first steps, Lionel on his first bike, Lionel at a theme park, Lionel with the girl next door. It was the Lionel Ferrier picture show. Some of the photos featured his parents, but most were of him alone.

  After I had a good look I handed back the album and said, ‘That wasn’t so long ago, really, was it?’

  ‘No, that’s right, it seems like yesterday, but then he lost the plot, just like his father. They both just lost the plot. Let me show you something else.’

  She held the waist of her skirt down and carefully lifted her blouse up a couple of centimetres, just enough for me to see three lines of stitched wounds.

  ‘That’s what his father did to me, and there’s more on my back and arms. I’m telling you I was so close to death that I could see my ancestors. He came in one day and told me that I was getting in the way of his spirit and messing up his vibes so I had to go, and then he started stabbing me. Lionel just sat there as if he was watching a cat being cut up.’

  I was truly shocked. ‘Gosh. I’m so sorry, Miss Ferrier.’

  ‘I don’t want to scare you but this is reality, this is what happened, and you’re only getting a bit of it. All those people out there who make judgements don’t know a thing, they just read stuff in the papers or hear rumours and they believe anything.’ As she continued she began to cry. ‘If anyone knew the pain that I’ve been through they wouldn’t be so quick to judge. I almost died in this house, I almost bled to death and all my so-called partner and son could do was stand over me and watch. If it weren’t for a neighbour who heard us struggling I wouldn’t be here now. So I kicked him out. Then Lionel took over. He didn’t stab me but he thinks that it’s his duty to run the house, so what does he do, he runs the house just like his dad did. Look at me. I live in this room, I live in a bedsit in my own house, because Lionel wants the house to himself and he doesn’t want to see me unless he wants something from me. What kind of life is this for a grown woman? What did I ever do to anyone to deserve this? I’m sorry. I’ve said too much.’

  Still clutching the photo album she went over to a bedside table and took some tissues out of a box.

  ‘I’m really sorry. I bet you weren’t expecting this. You’ll be having nightmares. And I’m sorry about drenching you the other day. You want to see the grief I get from the kids around here, it’s the only way to keep them away. They think I’m mad, but it’s my way of staying sane. I’m not an evil woman.’

  ‘I know, Miss Ferrier. I don’t believe everything I hear, and that’s why I’m here. I want to get to the bottom of this.’

  ‘But I just don’t understand why it’s so important to you. What are you after?’ she asked.

  ‘I was in the playground when Lionel stabbed the teacher. What I saw that day was horrible, and I just can’t stop thinking about it. I’m not sure if I’m really over it yet, but I just know there’s more to it than what I saw. Why would Lionel or Ramzi take a knife to school?’

  ‘I don’t know. Lionel did strange things with knives but I’ve never known him to take one to school, and if he did it wasn’t one from this house.’

  I felt it was time for me to leave but I had one more question.

  ‘How well do you know Ramzi, Lionel’s friend?’

  ‘I didn’t know him at all,’ she replied to my surprise. ‘One day Lionel came home and said he had another servant. When I asked him what he meant he just said, you’re my servant, and now he has another one. One at home, one at school. And that’s all he said. The first time I ever saw that Ramzi boy was in court.’

  ‘You mean he’d never come here?’

  ‘Oh yes, he’d come here, but any time he came Lionel made me stay in my room. He said he was ashamed of me.’

  I was shocked, but I didn’t want her to see that. I thought I should show her kindness. I stood up. ‘Miss Ferrier, thanks for talking to me, I really mean that. I have never thought you were mad or wicked or anything like that. Even when you wet me up.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I thought you were like all the others.’

  ‘I understand, Miss Ferrier. Are you going to tell Lionel that I visited you?’

  She threw the photo album down on to the chair I had been sitting on.

  ‘No. He’s told me never to write to him, never to visit him. He even told me never to speak about him. You see what my life is like. It doesn’t get any worse.’

  I said goodbye, left the house, turned right and ran for my life. The gang were much slower than before, but now I knew that they took to the street about ten-thirty on Sundays. This kind of knowledge could save my teeth.

  Chapter 19

  The Big Match

  When I arrived home that morning after visiting Miss Ferrier I knew that I could have stopped my investigations on that day. I had proved myself right to my
self, and I had nothing to prove to anyone else. There were reasons for Lionel and Ramzi’s madness. Lionel was bad all right, but I had found out why he was bad. I knew that it wouldn’t be right to blame everything on his father but his father did have a lot to do with the way that Lionel viewed the world, and the way he saw life, and death. Just like Miss Ferrier said, I tried to imagine what I would have been like if I had known my dad and he had dismembered animals in front of me, and did all the other things that he had in front of Lionel, but it was impossible to imagine. You’d never know how these kinds of things would affect you until they actually happened to you, and these are things that you would never want to happen to you. Although I only had my mother to raise me I did have a stable home, so trying to think what life was like for Ramzi was also impossible. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to not only move home, but to change parents once a year. How do you collect things, how do you keep up with hobbies and things like that? I was of the belief that Ramzi had so little control over his life that he was easy to control. Anyone could have led him, and they could have led him anywhere.

  So Lionel and Ramzi were corrupted kids, they had raw deals in life, they were loners, they were weirdoes. That pretty much explained their actions. They lived in a crazy world and so they did some crazy things. Things were falling into place and I was feeling a little better knowing that I was right; it wasn’t as simple as it seemed. My therapy was working, but the questions kept coming. Why did they bring a knife to school? As bad as they were I wouldn’t have thought they wanted to start cutting up animals in the playground. What made them turn on Mr Joseph? As bad as they were they had never launched unprovoked attacks on people before. Why Mr Joseph, what had he done? I still had more work to do.

  I told my mum what I had found out and how I was feeling about it all, and believing that it was all over she congratulated me on what she called my ‘first case’. She didn’t say much else. I had been hoping that it may get her to speak about my dad for a bit. She never really talked about him, and over the years I had gathered only random facts about him. She said he was just passing through; she didn’t hate him; she never told me what he looked like; she said she had three names for him and she really didn’t know which one was his real name. I used to think he was a gangster, or a secret agent who was only known by a code name. When I asked my mum after telling her about ‘my case’ if he would have done anything like what Lionel’s dad did, she said, ‘No, that was part of the problem, he did nothing, absolutely nothing.’