Wrong Room, Right Guy

by Liam Livings

  I had already been reminded of one of the many reasons the Bag o'Shite was so shite, when I had bumped into some A level students at the bar, commenting was Miss trying to turn me straight, and could I get them a round if they gave me the money. No, and no were the answers in case you're wondering.

  It was an NQT's birthday, and we'd all decided to go out to celebrate this evening. By decided, I mean, we were told by Mr Farnham that wouldn't it be a lovely idea to welcome the NQT and be friendly. This enforced fun element, was one of Mr Farnham's specialities. Woe betide anyone who didn't join in the fun. Someone had not turned up to another enforced fun evening, and been put on detention duty for the following month. One night's freedom to lose a month of evenings, sitting with the reprobates and problem students - students with challenging behaviour as it was termed - all for one after work drink.

  Now, Mr Farnham announced the new teacher's name and age - about twelve I think it was. We lifted our drinks in time, and sang 'Happy Birthday' with the others. Then I told her about the Cocaine Anonymous group the night before, paying particular attention to the pinnacle of my twattery asking them to go to the pub. 'I mean, what was I thinking? It's so obvious. I'm sure someone's going to suspect. I've blown it all, I know I have.'

  'Don't be so stupid. It'll be fine. No one will remember it next week, you just wait and see. You won't walk over that particular minefield again, will you?' She sipped her drink and dipped a chip in one of the assorted bowls of dipping stuff on the table. 'Did you get some good story ideas? Was it worth it?'

  'Oh yes. Of course it was. Were you listening when I told you about the other people there? It's a rich seam to mine. I'm sure there'll be much more to their stories as I continue going each week. I feel awful saying this, but I will, 'cause it's you - but the people in that group, they really were such an unfortunate collection of individuals. All making stupid mistakes I could see miles off, but they all went on and made them. In my head I was screaming, no, please don't tell me you did that. Oh, you did. That's how it ends, this story, is it? Everyone the same. They were like a box of broken biscuits those men. All broken in different, but not very clever ways, but all broken in some way.'

  'Sounds like it's good for the old creative juices, to get them flowing eh?'

  I nodded, and helped myself to a chip.

  'What have you written?'

  'Give me a chance, it was only last night. I got home, went to bed, and came to school this morning.'

  'All right, all right, I was only asking. Sometimes you need a bit of a push it seems. You know, I don't know what you see in this creativity business. Sounds like such hard work, if you ask me. I mean, you're getting the ideas, and you've not even written anything yet. Then you take what you've written to the group and they tear it apart. Sounds awful to me.'

  'I think that's a bit of an oversimplification really.'

  'Which bit have I got wrong?'

  'The writers group, well, Clara-Bell actually, she was quite harsh, but she did say she knew I could handle it.'

  'It's not like maths. You know where you are with numbers. There's something quite inflexible about them. You're either right or you're wrong. Simple as. There's none of this interpretation, emotions, inferences, feelings, none of that with numbers. They're clean, simple. Yep, you know exactly where you are with them.'

  'Watch out, incoming.' I gently nudged her under the table to alert her to the Head's arrival as he circulated collecting orders for more food, with a glimmer in his eyes.

  Mr Farnham rested his hands on our shoulders, pushing a bit too hard for my comfort. 'What a surprise to see you two, sat together, up this end of the table. You are meant to introduce yourself to the NQT, show him how we're such a friendly helpful school to work in. Not sit up this end, huddled over a bowl of chips like the witches in Macbeth.'

  'That's a very literary simile, Mr Farnham. I'll use that with my Year Tens next time.' I smiled sweetly at him.

  'What food do you want?'

  Lucy patted her stomach in an exaggerated way. 'Nothing for me, thanks, I'm on a diet. We've got to get going soon, lots of marking left, haven't we?' She looked at me raising her eyebrows.

  I nodded quickly. 'Loads of it. Coming out of my ears, actually. In fact, I ... '

  Lucy kicked me under the table, then smiled at Mr Farnham. 'So, nothing for us, thanks. We're all fine here.'

  I felt the pressure lift from my shoulder and he was gone. I breathed normally again. 'What'd you tell him that for? I'll have to actually do some of my marking now.'

  'Either that, or stay for the rest of our evening, pretending to have a good time. Anyway, never mind that. What are you going to tell all these fit sporty guys when they find out you're not a recovering cocaine addict, but actually a teacher?'

  'They know I'm a teacher. I thought I'd keep that the same. One less thing to remember. I could hardly lift it all from the Westbrook autobiography, could I? I think they'd have got a bit suspicious if I'd have said I was an actor in a soap opera, don't you think?'

  'Okay, but the rest of it's a lie, isn't it?'

  'You know it is.'

  'So what's your plan with the fit men?'

  'About that.' I leant towards her and talked quieter.

  She leant forward and nodded.

  'There's this one guy in particular and I'm not sure if he's on my team or not.' I told her about his careful playing of the pronoun game, and the moment we'd had next to the kettle. I told her about the vintage tracksuit and blowjob lips.

  'Shall I get him round mine, get him to do a bit of plastering. I'll soon tell you if he's one of yours or mine. Easy.'

  'You'd do that, just for me?'

  She nodded.

  'You're such a great friend, you know.'

  'I know. Besides, I've got some Artex in the hallway that's been driving me mad since I moved in. Can't stand it. He can smooth all that off, and I'll try and find out if he wants to smooth anything else off. You know what I mean?' She winked.

  'Actually, I don't. That makes no sense whatsoever. It's nowhere near a double entendre, it's just nonsense.'

  'You staying, or going?' She grabbed the last chip, checked her glass was empty and stood.

  'No fear, if you're off, I am too. Back to my marking.' I shouted the last bit, adding a big eyes rolling gesture for added authenticity.

  Chapter 6

  At home, I researched the twelve step programme and re-read the more salacious parts of the Westbrook autobiography, taking detailed notes in my writing notebook I'd previously not felt able to start. It had seemed too perfect to open and sully with my little black biro thoughts. I just hadn't known where to begin, until Jay had started talking about triggers. Then I'd filled it.

  I had a bottle of wine, then wrote a couple of thousand words about a cheeky plasterer who was decorating one of the classrooms at a school late one evening, when a teacher walked in to find him, stripped to the waist, covered in bits of white plaster. They had sex on the desk and ended up in the gym, up against the climbing bars.

  The next morning, I noticed it in the printer's tray. I re-read it, half gagged, half laughed, then ripped it up and put it in the bin.

  Note to self, do not write when drunk or horny.

  Chapter 7

  At the following week's Cocaine Anonymous meeting I took the same seat as before, noticing that the others were all creatures of habit too. I sipped my coffee, waiting for the empty seat opposite me to be filled by Darren.

  Jay clapped and started the group with a continuation of his story. 'I used to nip to the loo in between meetings, to get a bit of pep. I couldn't go to work without it. A couple of times a week, I'd go out after work, party all night, and come back to work without any sleep. I used to buy myself a new shirt and tie on my way in, quick splash at the sink in the gents, another line or so, and back to my desk. My eyes were so red I thought they were going to fall out of my head some mornings. And my nose, it stung so much some mornings. I remember blowing my
nose, 'cause I had a cold, and all that came out was blood. That's when I knew I had a problem. My body was falling apart, and I knew I had to stop.'

  There followed the usual clapping and gentle back patting.

  The unemployed man - Pete, he was called - I made a note in my book - explained the more he saw of his friend to have the cocaine, the more he forgot to go to the job centre, which had been the original purpose of leaving the house. 'I used to leave to sign on, but just go straight round this friend's house, and stay there all afternoon, sniffing away. One morning I woke up in a bath in someone's house. There was another guy in the bathroom with me and he said did I want half the coke he had with him. He showed it to me, and it was there, in a little plastic bag, all white and powdery. I couldn't resist it. And that's when I did the bad thing.' He looked around the room and some people nodded.

  There was a bad thing, which was worse than what he'd already told us? Okay, I wasn't prepared for this.

  'He said I could have it if I paid him. We didn't know each other, I'd just woken up with him in the bathroom you know?'

  More nods, like this was a normal occurrence. I found myself nodding too to blend in, and hating myself at the same time.

  'I had no money on me, so he said if I gave him a blowjob he'd share it with me. Said he could do with a nice wet mouth, 'cause it had been a while since. He pulled at himself through his trousers and winked at me.' He paused, and started to cry quietly, sobbing into his hands.

  Jay stood in the middle of the circle. 'Okay, that's enough. Has anyone else got something they'd like to share with the group?'

  Pete looked up. 'I've not finished. I've got to say this, because this was what made me come here. This was when I knew I'd hit rock bottom.'

  Jay looked at the man. 'If you're sure?'

  'So I did it. And all I could think of when I was doing it, was doing the lovely white powder with him afterwards. And we did, we stayed up all that night, chatting and snorting in that bathroom together. I never did find out whose house it was. After I'd, you know, done it, I felt disgusting, I wanted to leave, but I couldn't. I couldn't leave that bathroom until I'd finished every last bit of the powder in that little plastic bag.' He took a deep breath and wiped his eyes. 'I'm not, you know, like that. It's not something I do normally, giving men blowjobs. I don't mind the gays, most of 'em have been pretty decent, the ones I've met. But that's not for me, not that sort of thing. I've always been a fanny man, see.'

  Jay started to clap and we all joined in. He then walked up to the blackboard and pointed to one of the twelve steps, reading from the board, 'We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.'

  There followed a few comments about the God Squad, and others who said they'd had enough of that sort of thing at school.

  Jay calmed everyone down and continued, 'It is not necessarily God, it can be a spirit, or just the universe. That's taken from Alcoholics Anonymous, and was originally from a religious background, but Cocaine Anonymous isn't linked to any religious group, or belief. It's just about supporting each other to stop using cocaine and other mind altering substances.' He pointed at the blackboard with Hope Faith Courage at the top. 'This is the faith bit. Faith in whatever you have faith in. Luck, destiny, the universe, science, whatever. Whatever you understand, something greater than us, which can restore us to sanity. Can you all close your eyes and think about what that power could be, please?'

  Chapter 8

  Next Tuesday, I had shaved off my beard, and wore my contact lenses, as I was going to the writers group. I wore a suit, in a deliberate attempt to further distance myself from Simon the recovering cocaine addict who wore sportswear and had a beard and glasses.

  I quickly walked past three men, smoking under the porch, which I recognised from the other group. I'd noticed Darren's weird old green car in the car park and could spot a retro tracksuit from a hundred yards. Darren was smoking with the other two. Shit, shit, shit. Buggeration. Quick avoid the twattery of the situation. I avoided eye contact as I swept past.

  I walked straight into the smaller room, filled with middle aged women, although part of me - it was very clear which part - was drawn to the larger room and back to Darren. Did he really have blowjob lips, or was I just imagining it? What other things would be shared at tonight's meeting?

  I would never know, because I took a slice of bread pudding and sat at the table opposite Clara-Bell. 'Is everyone sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin. What's everyone been up to since we last met, and I mean what have you been writing? Who wants to go first?'

  Olive said she had tried typing her story, but it didn't feel right, so she'd gone back to her notebook and pen. 'I've written down a story I used to tell at night time to my grandkids. I think it was my mum who told me it, and her mum before that. Don't know where it came from before that though. Anyway, I wrote it down. Went back and filled in some bits of the story I always thought had been missing - you know questions I used to ask me mum, and questions the grandkids ask me now. So I thought, I'll answer 'em. I wrote it out again, which took a while, and it's here.' She waved a pile of four or five pages, hand written with copperplate writing, in front of her face.

  'That's marvellous, Olive. Well done. We might not have time for you to read it tonight, because I was going to ask us all to write something tonight from a childhood memory. But bring it along next time, and we'll see what we can do.' She smiled at Olive, who put the papers down on the table next to her plate of bread pudding. 'Simon, any news from you? I must say, I was expecting to hear from you, but nothing. Been busy writing have you my dear?'

  'I've been doing some research actually. I did write something, but it was awful when I read it sober the next morning.'

  'Now, come on, we'll be the judge of that, darling. Nothing wrong with getting a bit lubricated up to write some scenes. I always do my sex scenes after a couple of G&Ts. You must bring it along next time. Continue, please do.' She waved her hand.

  I told them about the unemployed man from the Cocaine Anonymous group, toning down the bathroom blowjob part a bit. I said it was about the man's route to recovery and putting his life back together.

  'That sounds marvellous, Simon. Simply marvellous.'

  Olive leant forward. 'Where did you get the idea from? That's what I find hard, where to get the next idea to write about.'

  'I found some online forums where people share their stories and ask for support for what to do. I could have lost days on the forums, but I didn't.'

  'Forums, now that sounds clever. What's one of those then?'

  There followed a discussion about what exactly a forum was, and whether there were other sorts of forums which could be used for ideas, inspiration. Then we spent time discussing character ideas, their motivations, names - whether a name of a character was important or not, their backgrounds. Clara-Bell gave the example of a well known TV detective who had originated in a series of books and the differences between the two portrayals. It was interesting to compare the two and understand which things would translate to TV and which could only be shown on the page.

  A few claps of her hands, and Clara-Bell ordered us to get refreshments, before the writing exercise she'd planned. She asked us to write for fifteen minutes about a memory from our childhood. It could be anything, just to tell a short story about an old memory. I found it very difficult because I had no laptop to aid me when changing what I wanted to write. I struggled with the rubber and pencil and notebook. The silence was strangely addictive, and when we finished and read what we'd written, I wanted to straight away ask to do another writing exercise, because somehow Clara-Bell's clapping and timing had forced me to write something, to get something down on paper, in a disciplined way I'd not yet learned well.

  As I helped wash the mugs, I remembered packing away the chairs next door with the sexy men and felt sick at recounting another person's real life as something to pour over and comment on.

  Clara-Bell caught me as
I stood next to my car. 'Very good. Marvellous progress, young Simon. Marvellous. I very much look forward to reading something of yours containing that unfortunate character you talked about. Very much looking forward to it. See you next month.' She disappeared in a swirl of a bright patterned silk scarf and smell of old woman's lavender perfume.

  I jumped into the car, hunched at the steering wheel, and prayed none of the sexy drug-addled men would recognise me or my car. More twattery, more solid gold twattery. If anyone was going to recognise the car, it would be someone from that group of men. Because that's what men are like. I probably could have turned up without a beard and they wouldn't have realised, but the car, now that was a different thing. Twattery, of the highest order.

  I sped out of the gravelly car park as quick as the car would go, Clara-Bell waved as I passed, and a couple of men smoking out the front made eye contact with me.

  Solid gold twattery of the highest order.

  Chapter 9

  I got home after a day filled with solid gold twattery of a different kind: in my GCSE English class one of the students had asked what was the point in reading these books, because they didn't have any books at home, they preferred to just watch the film, Sir. And during my lunch break, in a resolute attempt to catch up with my ever increasing pile of marking, which at the current rate would have taken up my entire Sunday, and at least five back to back Murder She Wrote episodes on the crime/drama channel, I had despaired at some of the A-level class's writing. The essay was about the imagery in Milton's Paradise Lost, books I and II, which I had always maintained were the best books, but I digress. I remembered asking the class to read a few lines each out loud, to allow the beautiful words to fill the classroom. I knew some of them had laughed at me, but I hadn't cared. Two pupils had written that the imagery would be better if it 'was done as a film' and then went on to describe their favourite film. And another pupil had just copied huge chunks of the text out and interspersed with words like 'nice' or 'flowery' or 'bright' and handed that in. A term at most away from mock A-levels, and this is what I was faced with, and this was the group who'd chosen to study English, those who'd done GCSE and thought, I'll have some more of that, let's do another two years, and see what that leads to. I looked at the pile of unmarked essays for the rest of the A-level class, and simply couldn't bear to plough on. I felt like a little part of my soul had left my body as I read those essays. The original meaning of essay is try, but they'd done anything but try, based on what I'd read. I toyed with the idea of throwing the essays on the floor and grading them according to how far from my feet they fell - a little tip I'd picked up from a teacher when I'd first started at the school as a fresh faced NQT nearly eight years ago. That teacher had taken early retirement not long after I'd started, so I'd taken his advice sparingly.