The Rye Man (16 page)

He was still smiling when he opened Miss Fulton's door. She was tidying away books and paper. He had grown used to how young she looked but now he noticed how tired and pale she was. She seemed down, subdued in her movements and obviously in need of her mid-term break. He asked her if she was old enough to remember Abba but it elicited only a neutral response.

Suddenly he felt a little guilty, aware that he hadn't been able to give her the degree of support which he had hoped. His own induction to a new job had required more of his concentration than he had anticipated and there hadn't been a great deal of time left for anyone else. He tried to cheer her up by telling her of the interview going on in his office and she smiled for the first time, but when he gently mentioned the phone call about homework she started to cry, slowly at first, then more openly, searching in the top drawer of her desk for tissues. She turned her head away in embarrassment.

‘I'm sorry,' she said. ‘I feel rather foolish.'

‘Don't worry about it,' he heard himself saying, ‘everything will be all right – the first term's always the worst.' But it sounded bland and ineffectual. What he wanted to do was put his arm round her until she was cried out, but as she gradually
staunched
the tears he restricted himself to patting her on the back.

‘You must think you've got a right cry-baby on your hands,' she said, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear.

He smiled gently but said nothing more until she was composed enough to talk.

It came scurrying out in a breathless rush, fuelled by a lack of self-confidence – the widening gap between her aspirations for her class and the daily reality, the inadequacy of her college training, a negative comment she had overheard between Vance and Haslett about her classroom control, a problem she was having with a boy in the class. He let it all come out, disappointed with himself that he hadn't detected any indications of her unhappiness earlier in the term. Then when she'd finished he tried to address the most important of the problems – her lack of self-belief – assuring her that she had made a good start in a very difficult job, repeating some of the favourable comments he'd heard and when he couldn't think of any more he made up some. He told her about some of the monumental mistakes he had made as a new teacher – the science experiment which set his desk on fire, the army of tadpoles which had swollen into frogs and invaded the whole school, the day he had taken a class to the Ulster Museum and left a child behind.

She looked as if she wasn't sure if he was making them up or not but it didn't matter because she had left her tears firmly behind. They spent some time discussing the problems in detail, working out a range of options and positive approaches, and he promised her that he would give her more active support than he had previously managed. He tried to make her feel the potential of her value to the school, the contribution she could make, and without mentioning names he let
her
know that he needed her support in the struggle against what he laughingly described as ‘the forces of darkness'.

She had brightened to her normal self and was grateful to him for his help but he dismissed his contribution.

‘Some day soon I'll probably need you to do the same for me,' he said, ‘everybody gets down sometimes.' As she started to pack up her things he glanced round her room. ‘You didn't manage to produce any display work for the entrance?'

‘Yes, it's over there on the back table, all ready – I just didn't want to be the first to put it up.'

‘You'd be doing me a big favour if you'd lead the way – I wake up in the middle of the night with nightmares about bare boards.'

She laughed and promised that she would.

In the morning after assembly she had her class in the foyer and in a short while her display space was covered with a mosaic of autumnal leaves, both real and paper, along with poems the children had written on leaf-shaped pages. Pictures of squirrels peeped out from the camouflage of leaves edged with crimson and the garland of hips, berries and acorns which formed a framework. By lunch-time, three other displays had appeared and by the end of the school everyone's was there, including Haslett's and Vance's. Most of the other classes had gone for firework displays and the foyer was a sudden frieze of colour where rockets made out of coloured paper and cardboard tubes from toilet rolls zoomed across black, sugar-paper skies awash with glitter. Wooden Catherine wheels whirled luminous fantails of sparks and Roman Candles erupted like Vesuvius in cascades of tinfoil and fluorescence.

He stood in the middle of the incandescence and when he was sure no one was watching, stretched out his arms like the wings of a plane and spun himself in a slow circle. It didn't matter that Mrs Haslett's display looked like someone had
thrown
a plate of pasta against the wall, it didn't matter if Vance's rockets only followed perfectly vertical and parallel trajectories. What he saw was infinitely beautiful to him and he re-lived that feeling he'd had on the first morning when he'd stood on the stage and watched the sunlight wash over the upturned faces.

‘It looks well,' Mrs Patterson said, coming out of her office.

He could have kissed her but confined himself to a smile that felt as though it stretched from ear to ear and nodded his head in silent agreement. Only Eric's appearance from his dark hole of a store splashed cold water on the moment. He stared at the displays with a look of confusion, as if assessing some abstract work of art of which he did not quite see the point.

‘The heating's going to dry out those leaves, Mr Cameron, and those berries and things, and then they'll fall off and get tramped into the floor.'

‘Look at those fireworks, Eric!' He wanted one of them to ignite his soul, even for one fleeting moment.

‘Sure isn't it a Pagan festival just like Christmas,' he replied, pushing his brush and his misery further down the corridor.

Two children appeared with a message for the office and he asked them both to point out their work and talk about how they had constructed their fireworks. It suddenly struck him that it would have been a good idea to have organised a Hallowe'en disco and firework display. Perhaps the P.T.A. might have got involved but when he reflected on it he supposed the cost would have been prohibitive. He was feeling the way he did when he was happy, fizzling away inside like one of the fireworks on display and wanting everyone to feel the same way. Three days' holiday coming up if only he could clear the hurdle of the in-service day. It would be a day bristling with danger and he knew if he didn't handle it well
it
could all end in disaster. As his euphoria started to ebb he took one last look at the displays then set off to photocopy some of the material he intended to use.

*

As a kind of softener, an attempt to set people off in the right mood he had scheduled the start of the day's programme for 9.30 a.m. He dressed casually as did most of the rest of the staff. Only Vance wore his school uniform of suit, white shirt, graduate tie. When they had gathered in the staffroom he began by thanking them for the excellence of their displays, hoping that Mrs Haslett wouldn't resurrect the matter of space, and quickly went on to outline the schedule for the day. He had tried to set precise times for the different sessions, attempting to ensure that things wouldn't either get bogged down or ramble into inconsequence. The morning would cover the new programmes of study in Maths and Science and in the afternoon he would attempt to grasp the nettle of assessment.

He tried to begin with an air of confidence. ‘When I was preparing for today, wondering exactly where to start, I came across a Chinese proverb. It says, “Chaos equals opportunity”, and the more I thought about it, the more I thought it was the key to finding a positive attitude to what's going on in education today.' He looked round the ring of faces, eager to enlist any evidence of support.

‘What we need to find is some sensible path through the welter of changes which have been legislated, keep the best of what we already have, and gradually absorb the best of the

new ideas.'

He reflected on the difficulties which change brought and the need for all organisations and individuals to constantly
engage
in self-assessment and seek to evolve. But he could tell by some of the faces that change was a word filled with fear and suspicion. For some, too, he suspected that it represented an impossibility – they had evolved to the limit of their ability and couldn't psychologically or physically cope with any more.

Mrs Douglas led off with a discussion paper on the proposals for science and she was well prepared and efficient in her delivery of the changes they would be required to introduce. When she finished there was a discussion on the implications for curriculum time and resources. Haslett made a disparaging comment about the standard of training and soon everyone was chipping in. Then Mrs Craig read out an example of a suggested experiment involving the counting of insects and there was a frenzy of criticism which he made no attempt to deflect. There were too many attainment targets, too many problems in trying to assess them. He was thankful when they ran out of time despite his awareness that while they had discussed things openly, they had made no progress whatever in developing a strategy for moving forward.

Vance's presentation of the proposals for maths was concise, logical and cynical. He used an overhead projector, but setting on and taking off the transparencies almost with distaste, as if he was handling slides of some sexually transmitted disease. At the heart of everything he said was his belief, reiterated in a variety of different ways, that maths was about numbers and the supreme goal should always be a high level of basic numeracy. In his eyes group work, projects, interactive learning were irrelevancies which only sought to distract from that basic principle. Vance's presentation turned into a statement of his personal creed and what was just as depressing were the heads nodding in agreement.

As Vance finished and gathered his materials together he
could
feel the spirit of Reynolds seeping into the room. He glanced up at the postcard which was still pinned to the noticeboard as if it was some holy object which couldn't be removed by mortal hands, and gradually he felt an urge to fight back, to take the situation by the throat and shake it. Crazy ideas raced through his mind, each more desperate than the other. He wanted to shout words at them, wanted to take their hands and swear sweetly and profusely. Wanted everyone to be shocked into something that would crack the rigid corsetry which hooped their souls and set them free for even one joyous sacred moment.

Watching them take their coffee break he felt isolated and ineffectual. Even Miss Fulton seemed slightly distant as if the day before had never happened and he wondered if perhaps she saw greater long-term security for herself in siding with Vance and Haslett. Maybe Liam Hennessy had got it right – keep your head down and let the shit fly overhead and stick somewhere else.

The morning dragged on and the sterility of much of the discussion was halted only by the approach of lunch. When the session ended there was a feeling of kids being let out from school, and as he gathered up his bits of paper he could hear some of them planning to eat out, but he was not invited. As he made his way back to his office he met George Crawford lumbering up the corridor, and a few minutes later he was sitting in his car being taken out for lunch. He sensed the purpose of his visit was neither spontaneous nor purely social. There was a flatness about his manner, an absence of his usual ebullience, but he kept whatever was in his mind until they reached a local hotel and had ordered their meal

‘We have problems, John, problems with our friend the Reverend Houston.'

‘The gaffe about the Girl Guides' display?'

‘
No, that's chicken feed compared to this one. He's gunning for you at the next governors' meeting and he won't be firing blanks. We need to get organised now.' He paused long enough to sip his drink. ‘It's this Hennessy business and your EMU scheme – what a bloody stupid name!'

‘Has he got some problem about it?'

‘He's a problem all right and he's not the only one. But first let me get some facts right. Is it true that you've agreed to have a joint carol service at Christmas with Holy Cross?'

‘Yes it is, I was going to get a formal go-ahead at the governors' meeting – I didn't think it was any big deal.'

‘John, get the real world. Of course it's a big deal. For a start, since time immemorial the school's carol service has been in Houston's church with him doing it. A lot of the parents and local bigwigs come. So do you think he's going to be overjoyed when you tell him your news? And Vance, and maybe Muriel Haslett, have already poured poison into his ear.'

‘It's nice to enjoy such loyal support.' They paused while the waiter brought their order.

‘And where is this joint carol service going to be held?'

‘I don't know George – it hasn't got to the stage of a formal arrangement or even a date.'

‘In the chapel, the parochial hall? Is Father McWilliams going to be involved?'

‘It all sounds a wee bit petty, George. It was just going to be a group of kids who've got to know each other singing a few carols. I can't see what the problem is.'

‘The problem is you've been living in a nice middle class world too long and've forgotten what the real world's like. It's nothing to do with carols, it's nothing to do with kids. It's to do with Hennessy or more precisely, the Hennessy family and McWilliams.'

‘
I'm not with you.'

‘Well then, let me spell it out. You've a girl in your school, in Vance's class, Lucy Ivors – a pretty thing with long blonde hair. Ring a bell? Three years ago her father Robert Ivors, a policeman, got up one morning, set off to work and at the end of the street a bomb stuck to the bottom of the car blew his legs off. He was dead when they got him out. The child watched the car burning from her bedroom window.'