The School of English Murder (5 page)

By ten thirty, when he conducted a thorough scrutiny, he felt satisfied. For good measure he added a touch of the manly cologne an admirer had given him the previous Christmas. The sunlight broke through the gloom and removed his most immediate worry. There would now be no need to cover his splendour with the raincoat that had seen better days.

The door was opened by a pretty woman with a decidedly tenuous grasp of the English language. Three appeals to see Mr Nurse yielded responses of beaming incomprehension; a request for Ned did no better. ‘Rich?’ asked Amiss finally.

‘Ah, Reech. Yes, OK,’ she said obligingly and bringing Amiss into the hall, she pointed towards the doorway at the end. He looked curiously into the lounge as he passed and saw only three inhabitants, two of whom were lamenting in a Mediterranean fashion over the coffee machine.

His knock on the door of what he dimly remembered to be a minuscule office yielded no result, and it was five minutes before Ned hove into view looking breathless.

‘Terribly sorry, terribly sorry, Roger. Caught up in class.’

‘Er… actually, it’s Robert.’

‘Of course it is. How silly of me.’ And Ned repeated ‘Robert’, ‘ Robert’ to himself three or four times before taking him into the office and seating him in front of the more imposing of the two desks. He sat behind the other one and looked anxiously at Amiss.

‘Rich’ll be along in a moment, and I’m sure he’ll like you. He was just a little, just a very little bit cross this morning when I told him about you.’

‘How do you mean cross?’

‘Oh, not with you of course, dear boy. With me for being at the school during the weekend. Dear Rich worries about me. He thinks I work far too hard and he’s always telling me off for coming in on days off to sort out paperwork and so on.’

Amiss was none too surprised. He imagined that Rich’s worries were less to do with his partner’s health than that of the organisation. The condition of Ned’s desk suggested that his approach was to plunge his hands into a pile of paper, grab as much as he could pick up, close his eyes and scatter the pieces around like leaves in autumn.

‘But as I tell him, I’m really awfully healthy, especially since we had a lovely holiday in Crete last month.’ He stopped and frowned. ‘Now what did that remind me of? Oh, yes. I was going to sort out the foreign currency.’

He opened the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out first a handful of coins and then a wad of notes. He gazed at the money in utter perplexity. ‘Oh, dear, oh dear. I hadn’t remembered there was so much of it. Now where can I find the space to sort it all out? Not now. Not now. I haven’t got time. I’ve got to teach.’ He dropped the money back in the drawer and closed it.

‘Ah, here he comes.’ A firm step sounded outside and Amiss braced himself. He was so taken aback by the figure that entered that he feared for a moment that his jaw might have dropped. True, it had a deep tan and striking blue eyes, but there ended all resemblance to any creature of his imagination. Rich was ugly, in his early fifties and under average height even in his stacked heels; his hair, though still blond (dyed, wondered Amiss), was in short supply; his nose was too large and his chin too small. Disconcertingly, he was wearing a blazer which to Amiss’s untrained eye looked the twin of his own.

‘Rich Rogers,’ he said, unleashing a gummy smile that revealed a set of expensive but palpably false teeth.

‘Robert Amiss.’

They clasped hands with studied virile firmness.

‘I see you’re wearing the school uniform,’ laughed Rich, gesticulating at Amiss’s blazer.

‘What? Really?’ responded Amiss in confusion.

‘Just my joke,’ chortled Rich. ‘Can’t imagine putting dear old Ned here into one of these. He’d have spilled coffee all over it within five minutes.’ And all three of them laughed heartily.

Amiss looked at Ned out of the corner of his eye and caught him looking lovingly at his partner.

‘Thing is,’ said Rich, ‘I haven’t really got time to interview you properly. But since Ned says you’ll do, let’s give you a week’s trial. Five quid an hour, and if you suit we’ll talk about a full-time job on Friday.’

‘What would the hours be?’

‘You’d do all three shifts. Just to test your stamina.’

‘Nine hours a day of teaching?’ Amiss hoped it was another of Rich’s little jokes.

‘ ’Fraid so, old chap. I’m hideously busy this week and we’re very shorthanded. Normally it’s not as bad as that, of course.’

Amiss tried to choose the words that would save him from humiliation, while not losing him the job. He was thankful he had invented very little teaching when talking to Ned.

‘You know I haven’t much experience,’ said Amiss. ‘Only the private tuition I told Ned about. I’d need a little training before I could take on a proper class.’

‘Nonsense, old man,’ cried Rich. ‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained.’

Amiss had heard of cowboy English schools, but this seemed pretty ridiculous. Still, with a couple of days of frenzied study in the library he might be able to master enough teaching theory to see him through the first horrors.

‘When would you want me to start?’

‘No time like the present, old chap.’

‘What! You mean now?’

‘Got it in one, old bean.’

‘But I can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘I’ve got to have time to think, to make arrangements.’

‘Look, Bob. We need someone now. If you don’t take it, I’ll have to give it to the girl who’s coming to see me at twelve.’

There was a brief silence while Amiss tried and failed to summon up the nerve to call Rich’s bluff. ‘Oh, all right,’ he said faintly. ‘I’ll do my best.’

‘That’s the spirit, that’s the spirit,’ said Ned, getting his oar in. ‘There’s Rich for you. He can charm anyone into anything.’

‘That’s enough, Ned. Now take Bob to the lion’s den.’ Rich burst into great chortles of laughter. ‘They’ll be wondering where I’ve got to. ’Fraid I’ve got an urgent job to do here, Bob, or I’d introduce you myself.’

Amiss summoned up his courage. ‘Do you mind, Rich? I prefer being called Robert.’

‘That’s too bad.’ Rich sounded really sympathetic. ‘I’m afraid we’ve got a rule here that everyone has to have a monosyllabic name. It’s easier for the punters and it gives the school an engaging aura of informality.’ He stood up and bared his gums at Amiss. ‘Now look here, Bob, just because you’ve been a civil servant doesn’t mean you’ve got to be an old stick. Live, laugh and enjoy, that’s my philosophy. Now off you go and sock it to the tarts and the waiters.’

As the chuckles began, Ned got up and beckoned to Amiss to follow him. ‘A real character, isn’t he?’ he said lovingly, as he led the way to the back of the house and across the long garden. ‘Now don’t you worry. You’ve only got to get through the last half hour of this class. I’d stay with you, but I’m teaching next door. Anyway, Rich wouldn’t approve. He’s a great believer in people sinking or swimming.’

They entered the first of the prefabs. It was furnished with benches and tables, the better to squash what looked like forty people into a space suitable for twenty. Amiss’s dazed glance took in skin tones from Nordic to African; eye shapes from round to almond; costumes from mini-skirts to saris.

‘Here we are, class.’

‘Here we are, class,’ they repeated.

‘Say hello to Bob.’

‘Say hello to Bob.’

‘That’s the first thing to teach them,’ whispered Ned. ‘They’re new, so all they’ll have learned so far is to repeat everything. I’d start at page one of the manual, if I were you.’

And with a sweet and genuine smile of encouragement, he faded out of the classroom.

7

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Amiss had never taught in his life and had not the faintest idea how one went about it. As he gazed in dread at the expectant faces in front of him, his mind ranged wildly over teachers he had had at school. The good ones were those who could keep discipline — clearly not a problem here — and interest the students. Interest the students? He had no idea even how to communicate with them. His classic anxiety dream had become a reality, except that this time it was a job — not an exam paper — for which he was completely unprepared.

As instructed, he looked at the manual. Page one seemed to be pretty hung up on ‘Hello’, to which it awarded an exclamation mark every time it appeared.

‘Hello,’ he tried out experimentally.

‘Hello.’

So far, so good.

‘Hello.’

‘Hello.’

So he had got them word perfect. Now what? ‘Goodbye?’ No. Unfortunately it was too early for that.

He looked farther down the page. Ah, of course. ‘You Tarzan, me Jane’ stuff. It was comforting to think that Jane had managed to bring Tarzan from gorilla grunts to fluent English in only a few weeks, whereas all these people were presumably starting from a base of perfectly respectable and sophisticated languages of their own. But then Tarzan had had the benefit of individual tuition.

As this nonsense was floating through Amiss’s brain, he was pointing at himself and saying, ‘I’m Bob.’ Voices chanting ‘I’m Bob’ brought him back to reality. This was absurd. How could forty of them know no English at all?

‘Wait a minute. Does anyone here speak any English?’ Most of them seemed to gather from his intonation that they were not expected to repeat this. ‘If anyone speaks
any
English, please put your hand up like this,’ and he raised his.

After a moment a boy who could have been Korean or Japanese put his hand up. He was followed by four Asians, an African, five more Orientals, three Arabs and perhaps ten Europeans. As with the class in general, the majority were male.

Amiss spoke very slowly. ‘Please put your hands down. Now I am going to say something. If you understand me, please put your hands up again.’

His mind went blank. He opened the manual in the middle and saw a comprehension passage about a businessman. No good. He flicked through and saw something about a restaurant. ‘Please bring me soup,’ he said slowly.

He looked at his audience. ‘Did anyone understand that?’ He raised his hand. About eight others followed suit. Presumably the waiters. Now what about the tarts?

‘Good-evening. Would you like to come for a walk?’ was as close as he felt able to get. That was lost on everyone except four of the waiters. He lacked the inspiration to try tests for
au pairs
, art students, housewives or Shi’ite terrorists.

At least he now had helpers. He caught the eye of the least frightened-looking of the English speakers, a Greek or possibly an Italian, pointed at him and said, ‘Please come and help me.’

The man looked at him and said nothing.

Amiss repeated his request slowly, accentuating the ‘Please’.

His victim got up reluctantly and shuffled up to the front. ‘Thank you,’ said Amiss, bowing. He said to him quietly. ‘Please. When I say “I am Bob”, say “Hello, Bob.” ’

They rehearsed it in low voices and then tried it out in front of the audience twice. Trying to look confident, Amiss looked at the students and said, ‘I am Bob.’

Two schools of thought emerged. The traditionalists wished to repeat ‘I am Bob’, but they were drowned out by a radical majority who said ‘Hello, Bob.’ Amiss repeated the sequence until they had all got the hang of it and then said to the Greek, or possibly Italian, ‘Who are you?’

‘I am Pedro.’

‘Hello, Pedro,’ cried Amiss exultantly, and the class chanted it along with him. He looked at his watch, saw it was midday, pointed at the door and said, ‘Goodbye, Pedro’. Pedro, by now delighting in his role as an auxiliary teacher, stopped by his desk to pick up his belongings, strode to the door, turned and said, ‘Goodbye, Bob.’

‘Goodbye, Pedro,’ called Amiss and almost the whole of the class chimed in correctly with him.

As he was to observe much later, this was to be the zenith of his career as a teacher of English as a Foreign Language.

By nine, the end of his third shift. Amiss felt more tired than ever before in his life. Pausing only to say ‘See you tomorrow’ to Ned, he fled home to bed, from where he tried fruitlessly to phone Pooley. He then swallowed a large whisky, unplugged his phone and fell asleep immediately. When his alarm went at eight he had the satisfaction of waking up Pooley. ‘Odd,’ he said, when Pooley’s grunts had diminished, ‘I had you pegged as an early riser.’

‘Not when I get to bed at three.’

‘What kept you up? Debauchery?’

‘Villainy.’

‘Well, that’s your job, isn’t it? And right now I’d swap it for mine.’

‘Fill me in.’

‘I can’t really now, except to say that I’m on a week’s trial which involves me working so hard that I won’t have any time to do any sleuthing. If I’m offered a job on Friday, we can make plans at the weekend. I don’t even know how many colleagues I’ve got. Today I was either stuck in the bloody prefabs or was down the pub making apologetic phone calls to my various employers. The Fox and Goose man is distraught. He says.he doesn’t know where he’ll find another Brit who can sing Northern folk-songs.’

‘I didn’t know you could.’

‘Well, I know two. Now, Rich…’ He gave Pooley a pen-picture.

‘He sounds very peculiar.’

‘He is. Reminded me of a satyr.’

‘Are they a pair of old queens?’

‘I really don’t know. Superficially it seems so, but Rich doesn’t easily fit any mould.’

‘Well, good luck. You’ve done amazingly well to have got so far. Maybe you’ll learn to enjoy it.’

‘Ellis, you conned me into this. At least have the grace to admit it’s a fucking awful job.’

‘I do. I do. And I do sincerely hope you at least find an agreeable colleague in the next day or two.’

‘As soon as I do that, you’ll probably arrest him for murder,’ said Amiss. ‘What are you going to feed me with on Saturday night? It’d better be good. And make it British. I won’t be feeling like anything foreign.’

‘Does anyone test these people before their money is taken?’

‘Course not. What’s the point? Half of them’ll drop out anyway and the ones that stay’ll learn something—probably. Who cares? It’s a growth market.’ Amiss reminded himself sharply that he was supposed to be winning friends in this establishment, not alienating members of staff by asking awkward questions. He turned on what he fondly hoped to be his most winning smile and said, ‘Enough boring shop. Tell me about you, Jenn. When I’ve got you another drink.’