Mortal Taste

by J M Gregson

  Most of his staff were happy to seize the precious relaxation time afforded by the lunch hour to get away from their classrooms. The wide corridors of the modern school building were filled for a few minutes with the noise of newly released children. Then their teachers proceeded more soberly after them to their own recreation.

  When Peter Logan stole softly into one of the science labs, it was deserted and silent. But the storeroom behind it was not. This little cell was small, almost claustrophobic, with a single high, square window, which let in a little light and revealed a tiny patch of grey, autumnal sky. But this was a private place, and privacy was what these two needed now.

  She had taken off the white lab coat, as if discarding her working role for the lunch hour. Her face was glowing with a smile as he came into the little room. It lightened his heart to see it, and all the petty cares of the school day vanished in an instant. He was a young man again, almost as young as she was, when he saw that smile.

  ‘I knew you’d come,’ was all she said. Then they were in each other’s arms.

  Four

  Peter Logan didn’t really know everything that went on in Greenwood Comprehensive. It was a convenient fiction to put about, one which helped a headmaster to direct his staff and control his pupils more effectively. Logan knew that. And some of the people around him realized that the Headmaster could not possibly know everything. Some people, in fact, could even demonstrate that, if they chose to.

  At the beginning of the new academic year in September, the school had a sixth form of over two hundred for the first time. That fact and its implications had been well documented in the local press. It meant more people preparing to go into higher education after school, more people striving to realize their full educational potential.

  It also meant that there were more young people available as a market for those who were not interested in education at all.

  Mark Lindsay was slightly surprised to be in the sixth form at all. His GCSE results were, he grudgingly admitted, a tribute to the teaching methods in the school. He didn’t concede that at home, of course. He claimed there that his passes were entirely due to his own unremitting endeavour, and a fond mother – his father had departed with a younger model to North Yorkshire some years previously – believed him and looked forward to further triumphs of character.

  Mark had not been expecting to make the sixth form. He had hesitated over whether he should take up the opportunity when it came. There wasn’t much money at home, with his mother still working in the supermarket and his younger sister at Greenwood Comp. Still only twelve. But no congenial employment had been on offer and his mother had been anxious for him to go on for A levels. In the end he had drifted into the sixth form.

  But there were disadvantages to this new intellectual status. He had expected to have an income by now, to be swaggering home with a pay packet on Fridays. A lad of his age needed money. Other people knew that even more clearly than Mark did, and were prepared to do something about the situation.

  To be precise, they were ready to exploit it.

  Mark had taken to visiting Shakers club near the centre of Cheltenham on Friday nights. There were plenty of people he knew there: a few of his fellow sixth-formers among them, but also girls who had left the school in the summer and were now working in local factories or offices. They were now in that wide world outside school which people like Mark affected to know but in fact knew not at all. Most of the girls smoked a little, observing the dancing through small grey clouds of sophistication, affecting a slightly scornful sympathy for those still imprisoned within the world of school.

  The teachers at Greenwood always referred to Mark Lindsay and his contemporaries as ‘students’ rather than pupils. It was a slightly clumsy and self-conscious acknowledgement of their new sixth-form status. On the other hand, the young women at the club, so much more important to Mark because of their erotic potential, still talked of ‘school kids’. Moreover, they cast envious glances towards young men who were not only a year or two older than he was but had money in their pockets.

  He watched these nineteen-year-olds, chatting to each other in words he could never catch above the music, nonchalantly ordering rounds of drinks he could not contemplate. These men seemed to Mark vastly sophisticated and worldly wise. He envied them, but did not see how he could ever emulate them. Money would be a start, but he could not see how Saturday morning shelf-stacking in the supermarket was ever going to put him in their league.

  He sat for a few minutes in a cubicle in the gents, glumly contemplating the paucity of what the lads would call his ‘love life’ when they compared notes on Monday morning. It was when he emerged from his little cell of contemplation that the first glimmerings of a solution presented themselves.

  There was only one person in the small room: most of the Shakers’ clients favoured the more modern and spacious toilets near the bars at the other end of the building. Mark went and washed his hands; he hadn’t done anything in the cubicle except sit contemplating his lot in life with his hands in his lap, but he didn’t want to start explaining that.

  He hadn’t looked at the other man in the tiled room: somehow you never did that when you were in the toilets. The man came and stood beside him now. Mark realized after a moment that this man wasn’t washing his hands. Mark didn’t turn to look at him but he glanced up into the big mirror above the washbasins to see if this silent companion was combing his hair.

  He wasn’t. He was completely motionless, studying Mark’s actions; when his eyes met Mark’s in the mirror, the lips below them relaxed slowly into a smile. There didn’t seem to be much mirth in it, but Mark himself couldn’t see anything to laugh at. He suddenly had an earnest wish that someone else would come into the room.

  He forced an answering smile at the man and said, ‘Quiet in here, isn’t it?’

  The man nodded. Mark wondered if this fellow had done something to ensure that they would not be disturbed. He’d seen people in films put ‘Out of order’ notices on doors when they went into toilets. Perhaps this man had—

  ‘Quiet’s the way we want it, for what we have to discuss.’ The man’s voice was low but clear, with an accent that did not belong to these parts: London, perhaps? It added harshly, ‘It won’t take long,’ and the lips around it curled in a smile that was now openly contemptuous.

  Mark wanted to say something insulting, to dismiss the man and flounce out of the room. Could men flounce? He didn’t think they could. In any case, his tongue seemed suddenly frozen and he didn’t think his legs could even attempt a flounce. He did the best he could by turning away from the washbasins and the face of the man in the mirror and went over to the roller towel on the wall. He was aware of the man at his side, but he put off looking at him for a long time, rubbing his fingers against the cotton of the towel until he thought it must disintegrate.

  Eventually, he had to stop and turn sideways, as the man had known he must. He was lighting a spliff as Mark focused upon him again. The sweet smell of the cannabis seemed suddenly to fill the room. The man held it out for Mark, and Mark took it, put it between his lips, as if compelled by some hidden force. He wondered how the man knew that he had smoked cannabis.

  Mark took a long pull at the spliff, letting the smoke fill his head, his lungs, his whole being. All resistance to the man and whatever he wanted seemed to disappear; he felt as he inhaled that he no longer wanted to hold out. But the stuff couldn’t act as quickly as that, could it? Perhaps he just wanted to give up a struggle he knew he could not win.

  The man’s voice seemed to come not from beside him but from several yards away as he said, ‘It’s good stuff, isn’t it?’ He waited for Mark’s nod of affirmation, for another pull on the spliff, before he said, ‘There’s plenty more where that came from.’

  Mark nodded. It seemed the most natural thing in the world that there should be more of this on offer. He felt his mind relaxing in that knowledge. A small part of his brain still wondered wha
t this man wanted with him, but it seemed easier not to fight him, not to summon up resistance which would have no effect. He said slowly, ‘I expect there is. Plenty more.’ Then he grinned, for his remark seemed to him highly sophisticated.

  The man smiled again at him, more indulgently now. He had dark hair, cut very short, and a small gold earring. He took another spliff from his pocket and stuck it in the breast pocket of Mark’s shirt, tucking it carefully out of sight, patting the pocket a little when he had finished. Then he said, ‘You could have all the pot you wanted, you know, free of charge.’

  Mark smiled. ‘And what would I have to do for that?’ He felt quite clever, negotiating with this man of the world, showing him that he knew nothing came for nothing.

  The man smiled, seeming to acknowledge Mark as an equal, recognizing that he was dealing with a shrewd customer here. ‘Offer us a little help, that’s all. Become part of our distribution service.’ He rolled off the phrase as if it amused him.

  Mark wondered who the ‘us’ were. He didn’t ask: something warned him that it was better not to know. He smiled again, to show he was no fool, that he would back out of this if he wanted to. He leaned a little towards the man. ‘And who else is in your “distribution service”?’

  A frown flashed quickly across the sallow features. Then the smile returned as the man said, ‘That’s for us to know and you not to know. You’ll find it’s better that way.’ He nodded a couple of times and waited for Mark’s answering nod before he said, ‘There’s money in it. Easy money. You could do with money, couldn’t you, Mr Lindsay?’

  Mark took another draw at the spliff, wondering exactly how much this man knew about him and his circumstances. He forced a little smile as he said, ‘We can all use a little more money, can’t we?’

  The man nodded thoughtfully, as if assimilating a wise observation. Then he said, ‘You wouldn’t have to do much. There isn’t an easier way of making money, for a lad like you.’

  ‘How much money?’

  The narrow shoulders shrugged, agitating the gold earring for a moment. ‘Thirty quid, for starters. More, when you’ve got the hang of things and begun to shift more. You’d be on commission, then.’

  Commission sounded exciting to Mark, a glimpse of that bigger world outside which seemed so attractive to the girls he craved to touch. ‘And I’d have stuff for my own use?’

  ‘That’s right. An allowance. Be up to you whether you smoked it all yourself or sold it on.’

  ‘Just pot, is it?’

  ‘Yes, just pot. Initially, at any rate. Smoking it is pretty well legal now, but we like to treat our distributors well.’

  Mark finished the spliff. His head was singing and he knew he was high. But his brain seemed to be operating very sharply. He smiled at himself when he caught his image in the mirror. He felt as if he could handle this man and this situation easily enough, now. If you had the right sort of brain, pot just made you see things more clearly. He said, ‘How would I get my supplies?’

  The thin lips smiled. The man had the air of someone who had netted a small fish and was bringing it ashore, but Mark Lindsay was not able to see that. ‘Don’t you worry about that. They’ll be there for you just as you need them. If you sell more, there’ll be no difficulty about increasing the supply.’

  ‘I see. Well, that seems satisfactory enough.’ Mark could hardly believe this was him talking. He nodded a couple of times, imitating the businessmen he had seen on television, finding the gestures coming surprisingly easily to him. ‘And who exactly will my customers be?’

  ‘That’s up to you. The lads and lasses in the sixth form, I should think, for a start.’

  Mark liked the ‘for a start’. And he thought he rather liked the ‘lads and lasses’ as well. That seemed to put him on a plane above them, looking down on them, using them as the unwitting pawns in his new business enterprise. With all the gravitas he could muster, he said, ‘We’ll need to be careful, you know.’

  ‘Very careful. The pigs don’t worry much about smoking pot, but supplying it’s still illegal, you know. And if you’re successful, I expect you’ll be going on to other things. E and coke, perhaps, if you get the customers. There’s bigger money in that. But first things first.’

  ‘First things first. That’s right.’ Mark repeated the words slowly, as if the sentiment was an important discovery for him. His fume-misted brain felt it could handle anything, now. He was dominating a boardroom, not standing in the toilets of Shakers.

  The man controlled his impatience and his contempt, forcing another of his thin smiles, raising his hand for a moment to his earring, as if it helped him in complex thought. ‘You can begin to test the ground. Carefully. If you’re not sure of someone, you don’t speak. Find a couple of punters who you’re sure will want the stuff and sell to them. Other people will find out and come to you. That’s the way it works. That way you don’t take risks.’

  ‘Don’t take risks. That’s right. That’s the way we’ll go about it.’ Mark looked at himself earnestly in the mirror and nodded a few times, as if to tap home that message.

  The man looked at him for a long few seconds, wondering if there was danger in this young fool. But he knew nothing. If he was caught, he couldn’t tell the police a thing. He took the new recruit by the arm. Mark felt steely fingers pressing into his biceps, bruising him. He tried to twist away.

  The man held on, increasing the pressure until the boy groaned. ‘This isn’t a paper round, son. There’s easy money, but it doesn’t come for nothing. You go carefully. And if you’re stupid enough to get yourself caught, you say nothing. Absolutely schtum. Understood?’ He brought up his second arm to emphasize his point to the pot-hazed brain, increasing the pressure on the boy’s arm still further, his two hands like a band of iron on the puny bicep.

  ‘Understood.’ Mark Lindsay couldn’t quite keep his voice steady on the word.

  Five

  On the Monday morning after his meeting at Shakers, Mark Lindsay looked speculatively round his fellow sixth formers, wondering which of them might become his first customers. He had come up with numerous possibilities over a frenetic weekend of consideration, but it was all more frightening, now that the time for actual decisions was approaching.

  He was quite clear about one thing. He must be very careful to keep well clear of Peter Logan. That bugger seemed to know everything that went on around his school. There’d been a couple of sixth-formers last year who’d been found doing cannabis, and the Head had given them very short shrift indeed. If you were planning an enterprise like the one Mark had been offered, you’d need to be very careful indeed.

  He would have breathed a little more easily had he realized that his head teacher was not even on the premises that day. Peter Logan was addressing a conference on Secondary School Organization in Birmingham. It was one of the penalties of success that you would be called upon for such things, as he had explained to his wife at some length on the previous evening.

  The conference was on the Birmingham University campus. The weather was crisp and clear. Peter Logan enjoyed his walk from the car park to the Faculty of Education with a still blue sky above him. He was not worried about the talk he had to give, despite the fact that his audience would be composed of fellow head teachers, prospective head teachers and university professors of education. He had given the talk before; all he had done for this occasion was bring it up to date with the latest figures from his own school and a couple of references to the new guidelines from the Department of Education and Science.

  Sure enough, when the moment came, his talk went well. He had set up the purpose-built Greenwood Comprehensive School from scratch and his address was basically an account of its development. He identified the initial problems he had faced and gave the details of how they had been solved. Then he went on to the development of the school over the last eight years. He catalogued the problems of growth. But growth, as he modestly pointed out, brought new resources, and his was basica
lly a tale of success.

  You didn’t mention the ideas which you had tried and discarded when you found they did not work. You talked about the ones which had worked, and lit up the account with your own enthusiasm. That came easily enough, for Peter was genuinely excited by the task he had been set, the way he had gone about it, and the way in which he was continuing to work at it. Success in education was never absolute: you were always striving towards perfection, but never achieving it.

  He livened up his story with a few shafts of humour, was even confident enough this time to detail one or two minor failures along the way. He kept his anecdotes real enough and near enough to the classroom for his address to seem practical advice rather than a retreat into the latest educational theories. He was glad to see that his fellow professionals in the schools as well as the ivory-tower academics from universities received him well.

  There was animated conversation over a surprisingly good lunch at the end of the morning. Peter noticed that some quite senior figures in the educational world were seeking his company these days. He was human enough to be flattered by their attention.

  It was the end of the lunch break before he could get away to make a phone call. He found a small garden where he could use his mobile phone. ‘It went well, I think.’ He beamed modestly at the phone. ‘The conference won’t be finished until about six, I expect: there are discussion groups and then a reporting session. And there won’t be much point in leaving before seven – I’ll let the Birmingham rush hour clear itself. We country bumpkins aren’t used to cut-throat driving! So I should be with you somewhere between eight and half past eight . . . No, the exhausted educationist will need reviving! . . . Well, I’ll certainly look forward to that!’