Wrong Room, Right Guy

by Liam Livings

  Liam Livings

  Wrong Room,

  Right Guy

  Manifold Press

  Smashwords Edition

  Published by Manifold Press

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  ISBN: 978-1-908312-33-4

  Text: © Liam Livings 2015

  Cover image: © parema | iStockphoto.com

  Ebook format: © Manifold Press 2015

  Proof-reading and line-editing: Wolfbane S. Pugh

  Editor: Fiona Pickles

  Characters and situations described in this book are fictional and not intended to portray real persons or situations whatsoever; any resemblances to living persons are purely coincidental.

  For further details of titles both in print and forthcoming see manifoldpress.co.uk

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Fiddlers Hamlet, Essex, England

  'But Sir, this Shakespeare geezer, he don't write, like normal. Why we gotta read his stuff, Sir?'

  A girl then chipped in with, 'These Brontë birds, were they sisters an' that? Did they all used to sit around writing 'cause they couldn't get a man in real life, Sir?'

  It was an ordinary GCSE English lesson on an ordinary Tuesday in September: the start of another ordinary term at Fiddlers Hamlet Secondary School.

  Another day of teaching when I didn't understand how the students spent all day texting each other, during the lessons, after lessons, before lessons, but they still didn't understand the importance of reading.

  The first student continued, 'And Sir, what's so important about the symbols and images or whatever it is, in a book that's written like thousands of years ago?'

  I started to explain how it was about the joy of reading, about the nuances in the text, but after some chuckles from around the class, ended up saying simply, 'It's in the curriculum, and that's what you have to know.'

  On automatic pilot, I continued with the business of the lesson, asking them to read the first chapter, then get into groups to discuss how the writer had set up the scene. I only had to shout five times for them to stop talking about last night's episode of Celebrity Big Brother or the latest Facebook row one of them had got into.

  As they talked in groups I wandered around the classroom, imagining my first book launch: I would be on breakfast TV clutching a copy of the magnum opus, with the happy lady with long blonde hair, and the older man with grey hair, who used to be on kids TV twenty years ago. The blonde woman would lean forwards and ask me what inspired my book, and could I read a few lines from it. The grey haired man would lean back, smile and say he understood I had been a teacher, so what led me to write books? I would then say something well rehearsed and noble about wanting to share my ideas with others, and that I had always wanted to be a writer, but that the local writers group had set it all off, and from there it had rolled on and on.

  Of course I wouldn't say that teaching English in this school for the last ten years since becoming a NQT, a newly qualified teacher to those who don't know, had sucked my love of English and writing and reading out of me, that I couldn't bear to have to explain to another GCSE year the difference between a noun and a verb, never mind tackling adjectives and adverbs.

  The writers group. Ah yes, that old chestnut. Well, that little persistent chestnut, I'd been kicking around for a while with Lucy.

  I'd noticed a little article in the local 'Forest Gazette' about a writers group which had been set up by a few local published writers. All writers of all abilities are welcome, from the Forest area; contact Clara-Bell Clements, a member of the Romantic Writers Guild for more details. Followed by an email address, phone number and this woman, Clara-Bell's website. She's been a busy woman, this Clara-Bell, I'd thought to myself, a website too. I'd had a quick look at her website, turned out she wrote huge long 900 page sagas, full of rich people who lost it all, poor people who doffed their caps at the rich, and an inordinate amount of extra-marital sex, using lots of verbs like soaring, pulsing and fizzing. After a few story samples, I was hooked. I simply had to speak to this woman.

  Now, the bell rang, everyone dropped their books where they were, threw them into their bags and left, as quickly as it's taken you to read this sentence.

  And then it was just me, in the classroom alone again.

  I saw Lucy, my friend and fellow teacher, walking past the door. She waved, holding a pile of exercise books with the other hand.

  I nodded for her to come in.

  She pushed the door and poked her head round. 'Urgent is it? Or can it wait? Haven't you got another lot to teach, or are you back to the staffroom to catch up on some marking?'

  I signed a long deep, dramatic sigh that came from the centre of my soul, recounted some of the comments I'd had from the students earlier. 'I mean, what are you meant to say to that?'

  'Absolutely no idea, Simon I've must go. First years, we're doing long division.'

  'It's all right for you, you know where you are with long division. It's either right or wrong. There's no interpretation, tone, inferences with maths. Maths just is.'

  'That's why I like it,' Lucy smiled.

  'I've got to see the Head actually. Not sure what she wants. I'm putting off the inevitable.'

  'Oh well, if that's all, I must be off.' She started to close the door.

  I shouted. 'You remember we talked about this writers group?'

  She nodded slowly, and looked at her watch.

  'I'm on the precipice of going, but I'm racked with worry. Racked, I tell you. Absolutely racked.' I must have bored her with my earlier talk about wanting to make proper use of my English, outside of teaching.

  She walked into the classroom, perching on the desk next to her pile of exercise books. 'I see you've got the tortured artist bit down pretty well.'

  'But what can I take to show them? What have I written? They're not going to want to see my essays from uni, or anything I wrote for my PGCE for teaching.'

  'That was a good year wasn't it? I've still got all my essays, in the attic I think.' She stared at the ceiling above my head. 'Do you remember the promise we made that we'd get jobs near each other when we finished?'

  'Remember it, darling, it was all my idea. And look at us, still stuck together all this time later.' A couple of students milled about by the door. I looked at the factory like clock on the wall. It was well
due time for the room's next lesson to start. And I was not teaching it.

  I smiled at Mr Harris, the geography teacher.

  He strode into the classroom, followed by the previously milling about students. 'Anything I can help with, Simon?' He looked at me, then Lucy.

  Lucy grabbed me and her books and dragged me out of the room.

  I adjusted my folder and a pile of Villettes, by one of 'the Brontë birds', and walked to a third year English class. My day at school so far had been yet another rich tapestry of twats. I looked back into the classroom, just to continue a little ongoing bet I had with myself. Mr Harris was indeed, very much wearing another jacket with elbow patches, just like all the other times I'd checked.

  The Head wanted to talk to me in case there was anything wrong, at home. He cocked his head to one side, and steepled his fingers on his dark wood, leather topped desk.

  I knew exactly what this meant, one of the bastard pupils had complained to their bastard parents about me just asking them to do silent bastard reading for the past two bastard weeks. The little bastard. I wonder which one it could have been. I started to mentally tick off my GCSE class in my head - I knew it'd be them, none of the others had any exams or anything approaching, so wouldn't have said anything to their parents.

  The Head, Mr Farnham, pushed his half moon glasses up his nose and repeated his question which I'd missed the first time as I was too busy ticking off my GCSE class in my head. 'I said, are you or are you not aware of this term's curriculum requirements for your GCSE class?'

  I was, but quite frankly I just couldn't be fucked to follow it. So much hard work, filling in forms about what I was going to teach them, the learning outputs from each lesson. Talk about restricting my creativity. I was a writer, didn't he know that? Albeit a writer who'd not written anything yet, but all the same I was a writer, I needed my creative outputs, and the curriculum didn't really support that. Yes. I nodded.

  'Then I suggest you stick to it forthwith. Or we will be back here next week, and you know I will have no choice but to go formal. And we both know what that entails.' he smiled, and smoothed his grey hair which had a habit of forming an ice-cream like shape on his head when left unchecked.

  It was unchecked at the moment and I was half-tempted to reach across the desk and smooth it myself, but I resisted. 'Understood, Mr Farnham. I just wondered, while we're here, I was just wondering, if you're not too busy … '

  'Spit it out, will you, Payne. I've got another appointment in five minutes.'

  'Are you looking for any help with come of the foundation studies activities, maybe for the Year Twelves? I have some gaps in my timetable, I thought. I'm a dab hand with a whisk if they want an extra pair of hands for the cooker course. Or the art class, maybe? Someone to hold the lights in the drama class perhaps?' If my plan came off, I would kill two birds with one stone. I'd get myself some Brownie points with the Head and inject my teaching with some creativity and outlet I was otherwise unable to direct in my English lessons.

  'I'll think about it'. He looked at the door, then waved in my face. 'Okay, as you were, thank you.'

  I closed the door behind me, smiling weakly at his unfortunate secretary, Miss Manning, who cowered this side of his door. She looked up from her computer. 'He can be a right bastard when he wants to, I'd watch your back if I were you.' She looked down at her keyboard. 'I'm not saying anything more.'

  All staff were asked to remain in school for what the Head described as a 'terminal meeting', meaning they took place once a term. By the end of it, my stomach was rumbling, my notepad filled with doodles of story ideas and a few choice phrases I'd picked up from the odd bits of the meeting I'd heard.

  1. Terminal meetings: by then I felt terminal;

  2. How can we be more? - I wasn't sure what it was about, but it had featured heavily in a PowerPoint presentation he went through;

  3. Learning units - this was what we were meant to call the pupils from now on;

  4. Key Performance Indicators - this was what had replaced the targets since the latest government had abolished them. I wasn't completely clear how they differed from the targets, except in name;

  5. Balance score card - which had an awful lot of RAG ratings (red, amber, green, Lucy later told me)

  As it had ended I made a phone sign to Lucy as we both ran to the front door of the school. Lucy jumped into her car and I started the short drive home.

  I arrived back at Loughton, my little suburban Essex town on the edge of London - spooned by Epping Forest and blessed with two Tube stations to whisk commuters into London and a proper 0208 London phone number. Bursting through my original Victorian stained glass door at gone nine, I threw my bag full of marking underneath the coat stand in the red tiled hallway and microwaved myself a meal for two from Marks and Spencer. Two glasses of red wine later, having eaten the whole meal for two, I caught my work bag out of the corner of my eye, its contents of marking winking at me.

  I walked straight past the winking bag, closing the hallway door on my way, and settled onto the sofa with a packet of walnut whips.

  Lucy picked up the phone. 'You took your time, don't be long, I'm waiting for my soap to start, and I'm not taping it and watching it later, or I'll be watching tonight's tomorrow, and tomorrow's the day after. And I've done that before, and it's no fun, as I can't talk about it with everyone else in the staffroom. So you've got ten minutes, now go.'

  Staring out the small bay window, I told her about the strips the head had torn off me, and volunteering for something else a bit more creative. I finished with the seat gripping news that I was on my third of three walnut whips, and was likely to go back for more.

  'Done your marking yet?' I heard her smile down the phone.

  'You know I haven't. I'll do it on Sunday, with all the rest of it I've not done this week. One more lot's not gonna make much difference now is it? Besides, after the day I've had, I'm not up to it.'

  'What do I have to do to make you go to this bloody writers group? I can't listen to you whingeing on about your creative outlet. You were the same at secondary school, complaining that no one understood you, and not wanting to do anything about it. I'll give you creative outlet if you're not careful.'

  'What does that even mean? It's like a line from a Carry On film, but when you actually deconstruct it, it doesn't mean anything.'

  'Deconstruct. Listen to her! Go on, you know you'll love it. At least you've got something you can do like that. Us poor bastard maths teachers, what do we have?'

  'Mathletes? It's very popular in America. I've seen it on TV. They talk about it on Big Bang Theory all the time.'

  'I rest my case.' She paused. 'When are you going to call this woman, the one in the article you showed me?'

  'She's a member of this Romantic Writers Guild thing. What if I don't write romantic novels? Where would I go then? I'd be wasting everyone's time, turning up to this group, them all talking about soaring, and pulsing heart beats, and there's me, writing a detective novel, where someone gets murdered. Where would it all end?'

  'Is that what you've written, a detective story? I like them, I'll read it if you want. Do you remember that filthy one we passed around when we were sixth formers, until it was confiscated?'

  'I'm just talking hypothetically, you understand. I might not write romantic novels. I might write these detective ones. I'm not sure, I've not found my oeuvre yet. I'm still experimenting.'

  'How much have you written so far? I'll give it a look.'

  'As of now, this moment, when we're talking to each other?'

  'Yes, or course, what other definition of now do you know of?'

  'As of now, at this moment in time, as we sit here, on our sofas, on this evening.' I allowed myself a pause. 'Nothing.'

  'All this whingeing about no creative outlet and you've not even written a word!'

  'I don't know where to start. I've got a title, so that's something isn't it?'

  'Yes, that's definitely something
. In fact I see Steven King has a new title he's written. It's for sale already. It's called Murder. People are buying this title like nobody's business. He said he could knock a few of these titles out a week. No need to actually write a book at all.'

  'Point taken. But seriously, where do I start?'

  'You must have written some things you could dust off and use as a starting point for a story? Did you do any articles for the university student magazine? What was it called, something in Latin. Latin was never my strongest subject.'

  'It meant The Written Word, but in Latin, but I never could remember the Latin for it. No aptitude for language! Hmmm, since I was going to end up as an English teacher, you'd have thought I would have done, wouldn't you.'

  'Well, dig out one of those, and see what you can use,' she said, brightly.

  'You'd have thought, but you'd have been wrong. Nothing. I didn't write anything like that at uni. And I hardly think an essay about how children learn I wrote for my PGCE's going to make for a riveting read do you?' I blew a raspberry. 'Oh dear, what's a boy to do eh?'

  'That's my timer with a sixty second warning of my programme starting. I'm going now. I'll leave you with one thought, one thought I would have expected someone with two degrees, would have worked out for himself, but as I've told you before, you men enjoy being helpless. That's what you want us women to think anyway.'

  'Surely that doesn't apply for me. I'm not attracting a female of the species am I? Not after that awful drunken night together at uni when I realised I was buttering my toast on the other side.'

  'I can't believe you said that to me. Right, I'm off now. All I'll say is, isn't the internet a wonderful thing?' She hung up.