Different Class

by Joanne Harris

  Poor Poodle. Goldie says he’s been ill. Stomach ’flu, or something. But Goldie has other things on his mind. Or rather, one thing. Becky Price, the red-haired Flamingo girl from Church. Turns out she’s a goer – at least as far as third base – and Goldie’s completely obsessed, both with her and with all the nasty thoughts that generally come with the package.

  ‘Just don’t tell my dad,’ he said. ‘He’s nuts about chastity. If he finds out about me and Beck, he’ll go crazy. He’s done it before.’

  Turns out Goldie’s dad once caught him playing with himself in bed, or something, and came to the conclusion that he’d been corrupted by the other kids at his school. I can’t say I’m surprised, actually. It’s what I would have expected of him.

  Goldie grinned. ‘You would, though,’ he said. ‘Given a chance, wouldn’t you?’

  I shrugged. No, Mousey, I don’t think I would. Personally, I think I’m immune to that kind of temptation. But Goldie’s spending all his time with Becky down by the clay pits. They use the back of Poodle’s old car. They’ve got a mattress in there, and rugs, and sometimes they light a fire outside, in a metal dustbin. I don’t think Poodle knows about that. He’s more or less grounded till term starts. Now, with everything at Church, it won’t be long before he cracks. What will he do then? Who knows? And isn’t that all part of the fun?

  2

  September 19th, 2005

  I did not sleep well last night. As a result, this morning is tiled with the gritty light of insomnia. This happens more often than not nowadays, especially when I indulge. And it does not help that Dr Devine is a whirlwind of nervous energy; organizing litter patrol, reporting potential Health & Safety risks and bonding with his new protégé, Markowicz, whose term so far – at least from the number of times I have had to cover his classes – seems to have been almost entirely taken up by meetings, conferences and courses.

  In Devine’s book (and the Head’s, it seems) this makes Markowicz a Promising Young Man, destined for the greatness of a full-time administrative post, rather than actually teaching boys. A dull old business, this teaching of boys, to which such sticklers as Eric and I have devoted our whole careers, but which Markowicz will escape within three years, as one of the Heads of the future.

  As for Devine, I believe he sees himself as Dr Blakely’s potential successor, once the Crisis Team has completed the salvaging of St Oswald’s. Like Bob Strange, he still expects the new, streamlined St Oswald’s to find a special place for him in reward for his years of service. The likelier outcome, I believe, is that he will be encouraged to take premature retirement to make way for a younger, cheaper man, knocked off like the rest of the barnacles while the likes of Markowicz rise to take the helm of the ship. He may speak highly of courses, but he himself avoids them, preferring to work at the chalk-face (although he would never admit to this), and I suspect that Markowicz’s all-too-frequent absences will soon begin to gall him. Devine believes in departmental self-sufficiency, which means that when a colleague is absent, the other members will cover for him. And Devine has too much pride to ask the League of Nations to fill the shoes of his absent protégé, besides which, as Head of House and Health & Safety Officer, he has by far the most free time of anyone in the department. This means that, in effect, Devine teaches two timetables every time Markowicz goes on a course. As a result, I thought he looked tired as he came into the Common Room for his morning coffee.

  ‘Overdoing things, Devine? You’re looking a little worse for wear.’

  He sniffed. ‘Never better, thank you.’

  ‘How’s young Markowicz?’ I asked. ‘Shaping up, is he?’

  Again, that sharp, percussive sniff. I don’t think he knows he’s doing it. ‘Very nicely, thank you,’ he said. ‘Give him a term, he’ll be right at home.’

  ‘Well, he’s certainly got you where he wants you,’ I said. ‘How many days has he been in School? Is he even housetrained yet?’

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Devine. ‘I’ll have you know that Markowicz has been fast-tracked for success. We’re very lucky to have him here.’

  I sensed a note of depression, and smiled. ‘Of course we are. What is it this time? Assertiveness training? Computer skills?’

  ‘Visual aids.’

  ‘Marvellous.’

  Gerry Grachvogel, the well-meaning ass whom Markowicz has now replaced, was a firm believer in visual aids – and was even rumoured to use glove puppets with the younger classes, a tactic which had earned him the nickname Kermit from my Brodie Boys. I wonder whether Markowicz will ever earn himself a nickname, or whether he will be one of those staff members – like Thing One and Thing Two – that the boys barely recognize when they meet them in the corridor. I suspect the latter.

  ‘Come on, Devine,’ I said. ‘I can practically hear your teeth gnashing. Glove puppets and flashcards?’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Dr Devine. ‘Educational computer games to aid in language acquisition. Given the current trend for using IT in the classroom, Markowicz – and I – felt it would be useful to investigate the new software available. Now if you don’t mind—’ He gathered his papers under his arm and picked up his briefcase. ‘I have to go. Registration in five minutes.’

  First lesson was Sixth-Form Latin with my boys and the Mulberry girls, to which the Headmistress, Miss Lambert, had chosen to invite herself, ostensibly to check on the girls, but in actual fact to check on me.

  Call-me-Jo installed herself right at the back of the classroom, legs crossed almost high enough to reveal her stocking-tops under the sky-blue tweed skirt.

  I could tell that the boys found this alarming, as did the girl Benedicta, the only one of the Mulberry girls who seems to have any kind of sense. The rest of the girls clearly adore their stylish Headmistress, and there was a great deal of giggling during our translation of a passage from Aeneid IX, mostly instigated by the Headmistress herself, who believes that learning should be ‘fun’, and that ‘fun’ entails a great deal of giggling. At this rate my boys will be out of control by Christmas, and the whole curriculum will be raptus regaliter – as Allen-Jones puts it, or ‘royally screwed’.

  I’ll admit I was a little short with the woman, especially when she asked the class whether ‘romance had blossomed yet’ between any of my boys and her girls. Damn the woman to Hades and back. She’s like a Jane Austen character. Next she’ll be picking out muslin and asking the vicar for afternoon tea.

  The girl Benedicta gave me a look of sympathy as the class filed out. ‘Sorry, sir,’ she mouthed at me almost inaudibly as she left.

  I watched her go, intrigued and concerned. That girl is far too sensible. Mulberry House will spit her out like a cat with a furball. The other girls are trouble enough, with their hair-flicking antics, their eye for the boys and their interminable giggling, but if ever real trouble raises its head, I’m guessing Ben will be behind it. This feeling is exacerbated by the fact that she seems to be getting friendly with Allen-Jones, of all people. I’ve seen them together, and although fourth-year boys are not allowed into the Sixth-Form Common Room, she sometimes comes into the fourth-year room (sixth-formers can go anywhere), where she can often be seen chatting to my Brodie Boys, in defiance of the convention that states that boys and girls do not mingle, and that different year groups exist in a state of mutual antagonism. Still, my boys are unusual, and rather more fun than her peers, I suspect. Their friendship is a small ray of light in Harrington’s growing darkness.

  The rest of the day was difficult, fraught as it was with potential for war. Eric is still avoiding me, following our recent fracas. Miss Malone – aka the Foghorn – was absent, which meant that I had to cover for her. According to Kitty Teague, she suffers from depression. I sympathize, of course – but St Oswald’s is not for the sensitive, and I suspect that the Foghorn may commandeer many more of my free afternoons, now that the honeymoon is over.

  Meanwhile, Bob Strange has teamed up with Ms Buckfast on a plan to improve security. H
enceforth, all visitors to the School will have to wear a name tag, and sign a special register. There is also talk of police checks for all ancillary staff, with the likelihood that staff members, too, will be subject to the same scrutiny. Bob Strange has been dreaming of this ever since he became Third Master, and his adoration of Ms Buckfast has now reached such a level of sycophancy that he leaves a trail of slime behind him whenever he is with her.

  As if that wasn’t enough, Devine has discovered that there are mice in the Bell Tower. Contrary to my live-and-let-live approach, which has served me well over thirty-odd years, he has therefore decided – on Health & Safety grounds, of course – to purge the whole Upper Corridor of its rodent population. A sensible man would understand the limits of his authority, but Devine is not a sensible man, especially when he is competing with a promising upstart like Markowicz.

  Markowicz has a rodent-free room, so Devine must have one too, regardless of the fact that Devine’s room is in a part of the building dating back to the eighteenth century and filled with eccentric conduits, blocked-up chimneys and hollow walls, which make infestation by rats, mice, cockroaches and other assorted vermin not only probable, but downright inevitable.

  ‘You see, Roy, this is the reason we don’t eat in our form-rooms,’ he said as he delivered the news to me this lunchtime in room 59, his sensitive nose twitching with ill-concealed complacency. Of course, with impeccable timing, he’d caught me in the act of dispatching a furtive ham-and-cheese sandwich between Registration and afternoon school, and the look on his face suggested that he considered this kind of depravity to be the source of all our ills.

  ‘One sandwich,’ I said, brushing the crumbs into the inkwell on my desk.

  ‘Food attracts vermin,’ said Dr Devine. ‘We’ll have to put down poison bait.’

  There was no point in trying to argue with him that the stench of dead mice inside the walls is far worse than the presence of living ones. Dr Devine was adamant: the mice must go. I resigned myself. When Devine gets the bit between his teeth, nothing short of physical violence will wrest it from him. I furtively transferred the bag of Liquorice Allsorts from my desk to the pocket of my tweed jacket. That’s where it will have to stay, at least for the foreseeable future.

  I finished the afternoon’s classes with a renewed sense of Weltschmerz (it’s no coincidence, I feel, that Devine’s adopted language throws up so many of these melancholy concepts, unknown to the more civilized Romans). My fourth-form was listless and uninspired; even my Brodie Boys did not display much of their usual joie-de-vivre. Allen-Jones had a torn shirt and looked even more unkempt than usual; Tayler had a hacking cough. Thanks to Dr Blakely, Anderton-Pullitt’s ‘special needs’ have evolved to include a dispensation from Latin altogether, while he concentrates on what he prefers – generally Maths and Science. I do not miss him, precisely, but when a disinclination to learn becomes a reason to stop doing so, the floodgates of Chaos are opened. I’ve tried to explain this to Dr Blakely, but Dr Blakely is adamant. Anderton-Pullitt’s condition, he says, needs a specialist approach. Apparently a forty-odd-year career of dealing with boys does not meet this requirement.

  And so, during the last lesson of the day, feeling less than lustrous, I gave the boys a translation from Vergil to do in test conditions, while I rested my eyes behind a copy of the Telegraph. I was still resting them at five o’clock, when a sound of clanking buckets roused me from my somnolence, and I opened my eyes to discover that the fourth-formers were all gone, and that it was getting dark.

  Winter was at the classroom door, carrying his bucket and mop. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d gone home.’

  ‘It’s all right. I was just – resting my eyes.’ I sat up, adjusted my waistcoat and tried to look alert.

  Winter gave me a curious look. ‘Long day?’

  ‘Long? Only about thirty years.’

  I stood up too quickly. The room began to spin, and I had to steady myself by putting a hand on my desk. The air smelt of disinfectant and boys, and there was chalk on the desk-top. Which is just as it should be, I thought: how can a man call himself a schoolmaster if he doesn’t have chalk under his fingernails, fire in his belly and a pounding head at the end of the day?

  ‘Homines, dum docent, discunt.’

  ‘A man – learns – as he teaches?’ ventured Winter cautiously.

  ‘That’s right,’ I told him. ‘Seneca.’

  I have to admit, I was surprised. It’s not every day you come across a cleaner who knows Latin. But Winter is a far cry from Jimmy Watt, the Porter. For a start, he is intelligent – I can tell that from his voice and by the way he expresses himself. And he sees things – my fatigue, my anger with the management – that even my colleagues do not see.

  ‘But who teaches the teachers?’ he said.

  Certainly not men like Markowicz, I thought, or administrators like Thing One and Thing Two: stuck all day in their offices, going on courses every week, drinking their coffee from the Headmaster’s cups and having as little to do with boys as possible.

  ‘Who, indeed?’ I said.

  He smiled. His smile is curiously endearing, although there is something odd there, too. He reminds me of a boy I once taught, a quiet, self-possessed young man called Joseph Apple, who, ten years after leaving St Oswald’s, raped and stabbed a girl of sixteen, before lapsing into a fugue state from which he never recovered. I’m not sure why my cleaner should remind me of that troubled young man, but there’s something in his eyes that seems to look into the shadows. Or maybe I’m just imagining it. After all, I have shadows of my own.

  ‘I hope I’m not speaking out of turn.’ His voice was slightly hesitant, and once again I wondered whether he’d stuttered as a boy. ‘But I know how you feel about the Honours Boards being taken down, and I thought perhaps you ought to know.’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘They’re stacked up outside the Porter’s Lodge. I think they’re going to get rid of them.’ Once more, Winter looked awkward. ‘I don’t think I’m supposed to know. But a hundred and fifty Honours Boards take up a lot of storage space. And I heard the Head talking to Jimmy Watt—’

  I stood up. ‘What did you hear?’

  He shrugged. ‘I got the impression he meant to sell them to a building merchant. You know, those people who reclaim things from condemned buildings and churches? There’s quite a market for old school memorabilia. They use them for theme pubs and things like that.’

  ‘Theme pubs?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what I expected you to be able to do about it.’

  I frowned at him. ‘Why do you care? You were never a pupil here. Were you?’ I suppose I was remembering last year’s Mole, whose initial devotion to St Oswald’s had turned into an obsessive desire for revenge.

  Winter shook his head. ‘I suppose I’m just sentimental. Those boards belong to St Oswald’s. They don’t belong in a theme pub.’

  ‘I couldn’t agree more,’ I said. Then I had a brainwave. ‘Do you have a car?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then – shall we call it – fifty quid?’

  His eyes lit. ‘That sounds reasonable.’

  And that was how Roy Hubert Straitley became a felon. I, who had never even failed to bring back a library book on time, did knowingly and without remorse initiate the theft of a hundred and fifty Honours Boards, removed from the back of the Porter’s Lodge in batches of a dozen or so, and transported in Winter’s car to the basement of my house in Dog Lane, while I treated the Porter, Jimmy Watt, to a few rounds of drinks at the Scholar by means of a diversion.

  I’d thought it would be difficult. In fact, it turns out that committing a crime is surprisingly easy. My accomplice did all the heavy work of stacking and unstacking the boards; I paid for Jimmy’s drinks (and two of Bethan’s ploughman’s lunches), and then I paid off Winter in cash and returned to Dog Lane for cocoa and a slice of pie, feeling at the same time victorious and a little uncomfortab
le.

  Yes, I have crossed a line. Strangely, I feel no different. In fact, I feel better than I have felt since the first day of term, when Johnny Harrington arrived to steal our past and our peace of mind. Those Honours Boards were not his to sell. I stole them from a criminal. And if the necessity arises, I shall steal all of St Oswald’s, board by board, stone by stone, rather than let the upstart win.

  The cocoa was pleasantly warming. I drank it in front of the living-room fire, reading Harry’s journals and looking up from time to time at the object which had been his last gift to me, still sitting on my mantelpiece. Then I played his record again, and remembered the look on Devine’s face as he told me about the garden gnome that had haunted him throughout that term, popping up unexpectedly in his locker, on his desk, behind the wheel of his car, even outside his front door at midnight on a Saturday—

  That gnome. Poor, hapless Dr Devine. He had tried every means of exorcism. First he tried throwing the figure away. When that didn’t work, he threw it out of his Bell Tower window (in defiance of all Health & Safety) to smash on to the cobbles far below. But Harry Clarke had access to an unlimited number of duplicates, because the moment one gnome was purged, another emerged to take its place; an army of leering minions, their single weapon ridicule.

  Dr Devine’s annoyance grew – along with his discomfort – as gnome after gnome popped its impudent head out from stock cupboard and locker room; from briefcase, bookshelves and flower beds, sometimes wearing a House tie, sometimes bearing a label – Peripatetic Gnomad, Gnomic Utterance or simply Human G-gnome.

  I suspect that there was something about the relentlessness of the assault that made my colleague uneasy. He’d never had much of a sense of humour, and he mistrusted anything he saw as proof of irrationality. Men of Devine’s ilk pride themselves on their common sense; they do not recognize the joys of the absurd and the meaningless. Devine disliked Harry Clarke because he saw him as a bad influence, encouraging boys to waste their time discussing pop music instead of Prep; studying Edward Lear in class instead of William Wordsworth; wearing elbow patches on his tweed jackets and failing to don his academic gown for Assemblies. In Devine’s book, this made Harry Clarke a sloppy, unprofessional teacher. In mine, he was an original; refreshingly unconventional; blessed with ideas and values that were decades ahead of his time.