The Good Teacher

by Richard Anderson

  He could hardly control his fingers as he triumphantly texted Madison. Everything was going to plan.

  ANDY

  Sarah’s words would not leave his head. Even now, sitting in the pneumatic seat of his shiny 200 horsepower tractor, with sports car paddle clutch, surrounded by digital readouts and GPS positioning, and looking out through clear glass panels at perfect straight furrows, he couldn’t stop the words tapping away at his brain: ‘You’ve got more punching to do.’

  Of course, it was just a throwaway line from a very upset woman. It probably helped her to imagine that Madison was a hussy (that was the right word, wasn’t it? He wasn’t confusing it with a Russian cavalryman, was he?), seducing innocent husbands all round the district. He supposed he could have been more understanding: it must be pretty terrible to have your husband cheating on you with a young girl, a local girl, a friend’s daughter, when you had two little children. By now everyone would know about it. Under those circumstances, you would probably be capable of saying all sorts of things.

  But still, something about what she said and the way she said it didn’t fit properly. There was a note in her voice that he’d heard before and he couldn’t place it. Which was strange because he was hardly given to remembering nuance or emotion. It was from another time, another issue, where Sarah had been indignant, upset and unwilling to weaken her position. But it wouldn’t come to him.

  Perhaps it was some sort of complicated slight at Jennifer. Because she liked to control everything, people sometimes said unpleasant things about her. Sometimes he said unpleasant things about her for the same reason.

  At the end of the row, he spun the machine around and headed back, letting the GPS take over. He snorted at the thought of Jennifer doing something as out of control as having an affair. He couldn’t even conjure up an erotic image of her because all he could imagine was Jennifer directing her lover’s every move and then worrying about whether the bed was made properly.

  It was possible, he supposed, that Madison was sleeping with other men in the area, but it was pretty unlikely. She didn’t get that sort of freedom, unless it was with the bus driver whose looks confirmed the rumour that his mother was closely related to his father. There were some weekends in town where she might have made mischief, but they weren’t that common. Young people did create opportunities, though. Sarah probably knew of another encounter in town that Andy hadn’t heard of yet. Keeping it a secret would be a problem for Madison. Sooner or later someone would accidentally let slip a detail and the flush and the shame on their face would reveal that that detail was probably an iceberg tip.

  Then he recalled a politician from a few years back, a well-liked bloke, Steve Parkins. He’d stood for local government and then state government. People in the district felt they’d finally found someone who could represent them. But as time went on, the voters began to notice that he did a lot of talking, smiling, hand-shaking and name-remembering but not a lot else. Nothing important actually got done. Promised projects and sheeted upgrades never got any further than their announcement. It was disappointing. But people forgave him anyway, saying he was being sidelined by city politicians and back-room manoeuvrers. And then word began to trickle out about him misappropriating funds and sleeping with his secretary and long-lunching and so on. He resigned suddenly, to ‘spend more time with his family’, and disappeared. Even then some people didn’t believe the worst of him, happier to accept creative excuses like he’d been framed or cut down by leadership contenders.

  It was in reference to Steve Parkins that Andy remembered the note in Sarah’s voice. They’d been at a small party somewhere, the drinks flowing pretty well, and some of the men were telling stories about Parkins: favourable, humorous stories about him taking on bureaucrats of some kind. Then Sarah said quietly: ‘I don’t trust him.’

  Andy remembered it because it was early in Parkins’ career and a startling thing to say at the time. The response was gentle ridicule of Sarah’s insistence that Parkins could be anything but a great bloke. Eventually Sarah took offence and hot-headedly said something like: ‘I don’t trust him because he’s dishonest. You can see it … in his eyes.’ The men laughed as she stomped off, as if she’d deliberately been making a joke. Turned out it was true and Sarah was right.

  He had more punching to do? What had she meant? It was too cryptic.

  There was another remarkable thing. Jennifer had started wanting sex again. Out of the blue. She was keen for it most nights and not the functional don’t-worry-about-the-orgasm-just-get-it-over-and-done-with arrangement he had been used to, but a noisy, hot-blooded thing that took him wholly by surprise. It was great, no question, but where had it come from? So there was that to contend with too. Was there something in the water in his household?

  If he wrote it all down, Abi might be able to make some sense of it. At least she could give a perspective, perhaps make him think about it a bit less.

  JENNIFER

  When she left Brock’s house for the third time she knew it would take something drastic to put a stop to it. It was a disease that she had caught somewhere: a disease that made desire rise up in her, unstoppable and unsalvable. If she hadn’t got to Brock on the previous days she would probably have gone mad. The fact that she’d proudly held off for weeks hadn’t made it any better and probably made it a lot worse. She’d bottled it up, and now the cap was off she had no control over this boiling, unquenchable thing. This must be what alcoholics or gamblers or junkies felt like. She’d done her best to try to transfer it to Andy but it didn’t work. It just made Andy think he was a stud. Only one thing could douse the desire and that one thing was good, very good. But it left her no peace. No sooner had she done it than she wanted to do it again. Now, driving away from another frantic encounter, she felt the need to turn the car around and head right back to him. It wasn’t human. It wasn’t normal.

  When Brock said goodbye to the school, she would go cold turkey. That was the only way she could see of solving it. She would suffer, no doubt about that, but with him gone she wouldn’t be able to do anything about it, wouldn’t be able to debase herself, and she would survive. Her marriage would survive, her reputation would survive, and the school and the community would survive. That was something to cling to. Very soon the whole thing would be over. Brock would be sent packing, some aged dud would replace him, and the world would return to normal.

  Until then, there were no guarantees. Passion held her in such a grip she found herself fantasising about him at lunchtime, wondering if she could find an excuse to go to the school and then scolding herself for thinking such preposterous things.

  In the period of abstinence from Brock, she had taken to walking long distances in the early morning and submitting to cold showers at night. During the day she repeated her mantra that it was ‘an illness, an illness that had to be fought’. Willpower would solve all her problems.

  And then, on a Saturday, she found herself in the garage in a dirty old coat, standing next to the car, looking in the window at the driver’s seat. She got into the car and drove, not allowing herself to think anything except: ‘I’m driving to the school. If he’s there, we’ll see what happens. If not I’ll see the new classroom and come home.’ The chances that Brock was anywhere else and that she wouldn’t take him when she saw him were slight but she wasn’t allowing herself to concede that, she was just driving to the school.

  But she didn’t even make it to the school. She’d made it with him on the side of the road. Reckless and terrifying and in the end a bit messy. There was some cleaning up to do, but it couldn’t be helped. She just had to have him right there and then. Nothing else mattered. She hadn’t recognised him in his new car until she’d gone past and turned the corner. The sight of him, his proximity, made all the decisions.

  Now, here she was, after the third day of it, driving home and thinking of the best way to go about doing it again.

  When she got home, Andy was there, doing something to th
e mower and wondering where she’d rushed off to.

  ‘Problems with this new classroom. Brock …’ She’d been careful to paint Brock as nice enough, but hapless and disorganised, someone who could handle the teaching part of his job and not much else. A good-natured burden. ‘It’s a bit chaotic.’ She exhaled with the exasperation of it. ‘I’ll probably have to go down there again later on this afternoon.’

  He was smiling happily at her, her husband, the man she should be thinking all these things about, the man she’d done so much with: baby, business, house, garden, community.

  ‘I’ll drive you down.’

  ‘There’s no need to do that.’

  ‘I said I’d check in on Dad. I can drop you off and kill two birds with one stone.’

  ‘It’s fine. I don’t even know how long I’ll be there.’

  ‘Come on, Jen. Let me drive you. I can stay at Dad’s as long as you need.’

  She smiled back at him. Short of getting into a fight there wasn’t any real way out of it. ‘Okay. I’ll tell you when I know what time.’

  So late in the afternoon he drove her down to Brock’s house. She tried to get him to drop her off but he insisted on coming in to say hello. Brock looked a bit startled when he answered the door, but after a brief chat he relaxed. Andy left and she and Brock were in furious activity in the bedroom within minutes.

  ANDY

  He had offered to drive Jen because he wanted to visit Mack and also make her life a little easier. The P&C was taking a lot of time at the moment. People didn’t realise how much work she put in. She had started suddenly disappearing without telling anyone where she was going, and to Andy that meant things were getting stressful. Jennifer never went anywhere without saying where she was going and explaining the purpose and the length of time it would take.

  He hadn’t any thought of spying on her—his previous speculations gone from his head—until Brock appeared at the door. When Brock saw Andy, terror took hold of his face. It seemed to be caused by Andy, not Jennifer, which was surprising in itself. Brock’s hand came up, as if to shield himself, but then Jennifer got in: ‘Andy’s just dropping me off. He’ll pick me up in an hour or so. That’ll be enough time, won’t it?’

  That seemed to reduce his fear, and Brock even tentatively adjusted his hand to shake Andy’s, backing the gesture with the smile of someone meeting a dentist. So Andy didn’t hang around to chat or have a cup of tea that wasn’t offered. Jennifer and Brock had important things to do and Andy figured it wouldn’t help if Brock was uncomfortable. He heard the door pull shut hard behind him as he crossed the road.

  He sat in the car with his hand on the door handle, not sure whether he was coming or going. Why would Brock be afraid of him? He barely knew him. Had Jennifer been telling Brock scary stories about her violent husband? For what reason? And why would he want to protect his face? Had he heard about Ian?

  Just then he saw a flash of something in the window. It was sudden—not the casual movement you’d expect from two people going over paperwork together. Instead, it was if someone had fallen over. Then a hand drew the curtains together that last bit, closing the small gap that had been there. It wasn’t that odd, was it? Someone fell over and then decided to shut the curtains? Maybe the light was reflecting off a table. He wouldn’t be hurting her, would he? Andy’s confusion and unease tumbled over each other. This wasn’t the time to search for a reasonable explanation. This was the time to make sure.

  He got out of the car, pushed the door shut softly and walked across the road to the front door. He was going to knock when he heard a sound like someone in pain, just one short moan and then nothing. He walked along the brick facade of the building to where the curtains had been drawn. They’d been pulled together flush but they didn’t quite fit the window frame so near the edge of the window there was a gap he could just see through.

  He shielded his eyes, looked in and saw a woman, naked, arms outstretched, bouncing up and down on a man on the bed. Not so much bouncing as pounding, leant forward, hair hanging down, her breasts in his face. Even though his brain tried to protect him, tried to pretend that maybe it wasn’t Jennifer, his body knew that body and that action and knew it couldn’t be anyone else.

  There was a time when Andy would have burst into that house, yelling abuse and flailing his fists, maybe even reaching for a rifle. But this time he just sank to his knees, back scraping down the bricks, into the tussocky lawn.

  It wasn’t so much the act that took the marrow from his bones but the intent. The woman he saw wasn’t someone who’d been forced or cajoled into that bed. She was a study in determination. If anyone was being persuaded, it was the male body on the bed, a pinned but willing accomplice.

  He felt pain he’d forgotten existed. Betrayal, jealousy, shock and physical, intimate loss all battered away at him. Then the sound joined in on the assault and began to rise, heading towards a crescendo—just in case he hadn’t got the message that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He staggered to the car and drove, not caring whether he hit guideposts or fences or culverts. If anything or anyone was in his way he never saw them.

  He arrived at his father’s place without having been present for any of the car trip and sat staring at the windscreen, unable to see anything past it. This was a place that he’d heard about but had never been and didn’t understand. He wasn’t even sure he could get out of the car.

  Eventually he opened the door and stamped his feet onto the ground. His father was looking at him from the verandah, saying nothing. Perhaps he couldn’t see who it was.

  Andy climbed the rickety verandah steps and took a seat with Mack.

  MACK

  ‘Must have been a rough night.’ He wasn’t looking at Andy. His eyes weren’t so weak that he couldn’t see his son was in distress. He concentrated on pouring a cup of tea.

  ‘Huh?’

  Andy was on another planet. Was it one of those modern drugs?

  ‘Hungover or something?’

  Andy looked right through him and said: ‘Just found out Jennifer’s having an affair.’

  Mack wondered whether to feign surprise or even shock, but he was a long way past that sort of artifice. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Saw them.’

  ‘Saw them saw them, or just had an inkling?’

  ‘Saw them.’

  His head was down at the recollection. This was bad. Andy was old-school tough, physically and mentally, but there was nothing tough about him now. Mack resisted asking him if it was the schoolteacher. Andy would be distraught at the idea that his father might guess so easily or may have already known. He didn’t want to say to him that if you sat on this verandah every day, like he did, you didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to make the deduction that a car going past every day might mean something more than P&C business. Mack let him sit.

  ‘Saw much more than I ever wanted to see.’

  ‘You walked in on them?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘Did you hurt him badly?’

  ‘I didn’t hurt anyone.’

  ‘Did you hunt him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What?’ This was something he hadn’t expected.

  ‘I didn’t do anything. Didn’t say anything. They don’t even know I saw.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Got no idea. Can’t even take it in at the moment.’

  Mack couldn’t remember seeing his son this disoriented. Andy shut his eyes and spoke as if reading lines written for him. ‘Confront her, I guess. Find out how long it’s been going on and tell her to bloody well stop.’

  Andy stood up and walked to the supporting beam and looked out towards the road. He was looking stronger.

  ‘Ask her if she can stop, son. I don’t imagine you can easily “stop” something like that.’

  Friarbirds were gargling in the garden grevilleas, concerned with the soap operas of their own community.

  ‘I drove her down there. I
dropped her off. I wondered why she’d been so bloody horny. Thought it was something about me. It was something about him.’

  The strength was gone again. Mack guessed he hadn’t meant to tell his father these things. Andy leant against the beam for support.

  ‘What do you do if she can’t stop?’

  ‘She’ll have to go, move away. Go and live with him or whatever.’

  ‘She’d take half—’

  Andy spun round at him. ‘Jesus, Dad. That’s a bit premature, isn’t it? I only just found out.’

  It didn’t make it any less right. If they split, she’d split the property and Mack wouldn’t let that happen. ‘All I’m saying is, if you can patch it up it would be the best idea.’

  ‘I can’t even think that far down the track. I’m still dealing with the first bit.’

  ‘Can you get rid of the bloke?’ Mack knew this sounded odd, as if he were suggesting that Andy assassinate the other man. But he knew teachers could be moved on and did move on with pressure from the community. He just didn’t want Andy to know that he had guessed the teacher was involved.